Search the Community

I was eating low glycemic fruits at that point - for example, a few berries on my yogurt. I still don't drink fruit juice at five years out. I occasionally drink those five-calorie cranberry "beverages", but they only have like 10% fruit juice in them. oh and I agree. Dumping is an individual thing. I've never dumped. I've heard/read on this forum and others that only about a third of RNY'ers dump, although I don't think I've ever seen any actual medical research on this. Although I do know a lot of people who don't dump.

I too wrestled with this decision. I was on board at 280 lbs, but after I dropped 36 lbs with diet and exercise, I considered stopping and just keep going with my 1200 cal diet. The reason I chose to move forward was that I have always been good at losing weight when I try hard, but every time I lose a bit and hit a wall, I get lazy and start falling back into old habits. Something like: diet + exercise> lose 30 or 40 lbs >get sloppy and slip back into old habits > gain it back plus 10 lbs. I'm tired of that cycle repeating over and over and I felt the sleeve was the best way to get to a place where I am happy with my weight permanently. Yes, I will have to do the work and make good decisions. Good luck with your decision and only you can make it.

You mentioned the smell. One of my issues after surgery was was a crazy super-sensitive sense of smell. I had a hard time getting anything down, and everything made me gag (or worse). It lessened pretty quickly starting at about 7-10 days and everything got much better. I can drink or eat just about anything now at 2 months post surgery. Hopefully yours will go the same. In the meantime, breath through your mouth or hold your nose, or try to distract yourself while taking in those protein shakes. And some of those clear protein waters can go down way better in the beginning.

I did it about 10-12 years ago. I lost 70 pounds and loved it. I tried it again about 5 years later doing the same dam program and didn't lose jack! I don't know why it worked so well one time then not at all the next. I guess because I was five years older. Metabolism and all.

October 19

As far as H2O I use crystal light lemonade with a shot of lemon juice or sugar free Hawaiian punch I also put 10 squirts of EnduroPacks Liquid electrolytes (on Amazon) in it. I was having some leg cramps and that took care of them. I just really like the cafe latte Premier Protein. I don't ad a thing. It's great.

Somehow in the last couple of days, I've GAINED 2lbs. Not sure how. My food log reflects that I'm getting in about 50oz - 60oz of liquids (between water, Gatorade & protein drink) and approx. 40g of protein daily for the last week-10 days. The dietician wants me to "up" my protein intake big time, but I just don't know how I can do it. She suggested different foods and adding another meal daily, but NO snacking - even on healthy, protein-rich foods. I still have very little appetite and when I do eat, I'm full almost instantly. How I'm going to get MORE food in is beyond me. She said if I don't do this, I will likely stall or even start gaining again. Ugh...this is getting frustrating!

I had my VSG in December of 2019. I had a VSG to RNY in August 2020 because of severe GERD that was so bad I was on 3 different acid reducers and a bland diet. I didn’t have reflux issues before my VSG outside of pregnancy. However a pretty bad hiatal hernia with the GERD lead me to choose revision. Two months out, I’m glad I chose the revision because my throat isn’t constantly sore and I’m not chewing 8-12 tums a day anymore.

simplest answer... Yes pretty much is what i hear. I had the band for years and you are correct. Drinking makes it move. I did my best to not drink right after and wait at 30 min. I can say that with the sleeve it's pretty much the same. Now i can only eat about 3-4 bites and then im full. As soon as i drink, hungry again. I can eat almost anything now, whereas the band i had a lot of "no go" food. i lost and maintain a 89lb loss with the band till it slipped. 232lbs down to 143lbs. Sleeved 8/28/19 at 173lbs and today i'm at 120lbs...... 5'2" and 52 y/o

Hi Repeating! Popping in today hello to all my Bypassers. How's everyone hangin'? I don't have a lot that's new to share. I'm in a bit of a stall having teetered with the points of the same pound for about 10 days now. 186.6 one day 186.2 the next. Back and forth. As long as I don't see the full number above I try and not give it much thought. I ate at my first restaurant in 6 months a couple weeks ago. Patio seating of course. But it was the first time I was eating outside of my home since surgery and it was scary for sure. I ordered pork-shank wings and a yogurt parfait. Ate two wings and 2 bites of the parfait. The meat was delicious but 2 of them was about 3 oz and I rarely eat that much in one sitting. Towards the end of the meal with extended family (who do not know I had surgery) I was sweating and breathing deeply and praying I would not be sick. Luckily the weather was lovely and I needed to pick up some masks from a store down the street so we strolled to it after paying the bill and I was able to walk ahead with my daughter, chew a papaya enzyme and breath and burp. I made it to our car about 25 minutes later feeling much better. And by the time we got home I was fine. This "feeling" happens often actually where I've eating protein too quickly and I feel nauseous and as if the food won't go down. But it always passes without incident. This time was the worst but I managed and I now feel much braver about eating out. I do get very hungry. Which is why I eat too quickly. I'm having about 4 very small "meals" a day, a daily coffee with fairlife and sometimes a small treat at night like 10 m&ms. And I'm ravenous for each one. I wish I was like the others who aren't hungry. Proteins are harder to digest but there really isn't anything I can't eat. And I've tried everything except rice, real bread and pasta. When I eat a sweet my stomach bubbles a lot. But then settles. My hot flashes continue even with the new vitamin with Black Cohosh. I figure it's just a forever thing since I've been dealing with them for a couple years now. But they are worse since surgery. The steady routine Covid provides allows me a great deal of consistency over my food schedule. So this is the time to be successful. IIt will only get harder when "real life" returns like work and travel and more outings. I've added push ups to my daily walking work out. I get in about 5 miles in a day. Nothing spectacular cardio-wise but it's steady movement. Feeling pretty good. 31.5 pounds down. Hoping for 1.5 more before Oct 9th which will be my 4 month post date and my "halfway to goal mark". That's about it. I'd love to hear how everyone else is doing in their day-to-day. Onward Bypassers!

I felt like you and did everything in my power to NOT have a bypass, but in the end the GERD was just too awful to go on with. I was at goal and didn't want to lose more weight. I lost 10 lbs the first postop week on liquids but haven't lost any more. Look in the Revision forum for lots of people's stories about sleeve to RNY revisions for GERD.

I'll be at two months tomorrow (Jul 22 -> Sep 22) and am down around 42 since surgery. Things have been slower the last couple of weeks, but I think that's largely because I've been working out really hard. I got a membership to Future (future.fit), which is basically a remote personal trainer – you facetime with them occasionally, they set you up with a workout at the frequency you want, you wear an apple watch to track your workouts, and correspond with them via text to adjust/praise/lament/etc. It's not cheap ($150/mo), but the accountability is huge for me, and I really do feel that accountability to get up early and get it done. At this point, I'm working out every day, for 40-60 minutes, and in the last 4 weeks, I've logged a workout on 21 of the 28 days (signed up for Future two weeks ago). Three days a week are strength-focused, and the others are cardio/outdoors. So I figure I'm slowing down on the raw weight loss because I'm adding muscle. At least, that's what I tell myself. According to my fitbit scale, my body fat percentage is down by around 10 percentage points (40.9 -> 31.2). I guess the biggest impact is that my kid's baseball league started yesterday – last year, I coached and felt totally self-conscious the whole time. Yesterday, I was a lot more confident, a lot more active on the field, and consequently a lot more "present" and engaged. If you'd have asked me about my specific goals before surgery, this kinda thing would have been one of them. In all, things are going well. Glad to see others making great progress too!

I had gastric bypass Nov 2019. Since its been uncomplicated except for an ulcer found 2 months ago, and the inability to eat enough protein or drink enough liquids. Anyway I'm now having lower left abdominal pain . Any idea of what could be going on?

I am scheduled for 10/12/20 🙋🏻‍♀️

Yes! The last thing on my list of things to do was meet my surgeon. At that appointment I asked how far out he was scheduling in an attempt to make tentative plans for time off & his PA scheduled it that day for 10/12/20. She indicated insurance pre-cert required a date to make the determination. I was also prepared to wait up to 30 days for insurance approval but was told by the same PA that 2 weeks max is what they see. Good luck!

Does anyone know how many carbs we should be shooting for after gastric bypass? I’m 10 months out, down about 96 pounds from highest weight

Submitted to insurance with a surgery date of 10/12/20!!

Hello I just finished my required 6 months of meeting with a nutritionist. During the 6 months I lost about 5 pounds. She just mentioned that I was expected to lose more, about 10-15 and that the doc would NOT clear me for surgery without losing 10-15 pounds. Now I am 10 days out from meeting the surgeon for my final appointment and to get approval. I need to lose 5+ pounds in the next 10 days and I am feeling overwhelmed. Any tips? Current stat 5’3 and 245lbs

I had my surgery 9/10 and I am having such a hard time with the desire to eat something other than liquid consistency. I am trying to fet in my protein and drink my water. I am not physically hubgry, its all in my head and it is making it so hard. Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using BariatricPal mobile app

My surgery date was 9/10! I hope everyone who’s had their surgery already is doing well.

I am 10 days post-op (VSG) and I have lost 13lbs to date.

This is a very rude statement. According to the rules of this site: Posts that are forbidden include, but are not limited to, the following: Rude posts. This is a first time poster and I find the content of the OP to be rather questionable. There is an artifact left in the account that makes me believe it was lifted off the Internet. The artifact is < /span>. The <span> tag is an inline container used to mark up a part of a text, or a part of a document. In reviewing the post, I asked the questions WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN. The where an the when appears to be the Seattle, Washington area around 9 February 2019, that is the date of the SNOWMAGEDDON in 2019 that struck the Seattle Area dumping 4-8 inches of snow. To support this observation, in the article it mentions the West Side, which is part of Seattle. It mentions Richmond Hospital. There is Richmond Internal Medicine hospital located in Shoreline, WA. It mentions St. Paul's Hospital, but from my perspective this is not really a hospital but rather it is a small clinic called St. Paul's Medical Clinic in Seattle. One of the things that attracted my attention was SNOWMAGEDDON 2019. The OP said it dropped 20 cm. of snow. Who in the U.S. would say 20 cm instead of 8 inches? The whole article is overly melodramatic. The OP identifies Dr. Kantner as an Obesity Specialist. There is a Dr. Jenny Kanter who received her PhD from the University of Washington in Pathology in 2010, with a specific focus on myeloid cells inflammation in the development of diabetes-accelerated atherosclerosis. Her specialty includes diabetic kidney disease. So this may be the WHO. But another thing that attracted my attention was the article opened with her diagnosis of advanced liver fibrosis. Liver fibrosis can be a very serious condition. Liver fibrosis is the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins including collagen that occurs in most types of chronic liver diseases. Advanced liver fibrosis results in cirrhosis, liver failure, and portal hypertension and often requires a liver transplant. It can be a life ender. This is a serious medical condition. Some research seems to indicate that gastric bypass surgery can help with this condition but only sometimes. So although the OP seems focused on the bariatric surgery component, the liver fibrosis disorder is very serious complication. Another thing that bothered me was the OP description of the surgery. Gastric bypass is a complex surgery. When I had it done several years ago, I was in the hospital for 2 days after surgery. This was routine. A few years have passed since then but bringing someone home the same day of surgery seems rather unwise. Yet that is what the OP expected. The OP mentioned that the sleeve had come loose. What does that mean exactly? There can be several complications associated with sleeve surgery. So revisions may be needed sometimes, I haven't heard of a sleeve coming loose. There is a form of weight loss surgery called Lap-Band surgery. In this procedure, a bariatric surgeon places a a silicone ring with an expandable balloon around the upper part of the stomach. This creates a new, smaller stomach pouch. These bands have been known to come loose and slip and need adjustments. During the gastric sleeve operation, around 80% of the stomach is removed. The remaining section of the stomach is formed into a tube-like shape about the size and shape of a banana.

You are at a challenging stage with adding new foods and trying to figure out how much you can eat and what you can tolerate. I cannot count the times early on that I ate something that was just one bite too much, and the AGONY was just awful. It seemed impossible to find the "sweet spot." I would eat slowly and stop when I was just starting to feel full, and then 10 minutes later, POW! I thought I'd have to go to the ER a couple of times. And the real puzzle was that it was never consistent from day to day. One day 1/4 cup of food would be just fine and the next day, 1/4 would make me throw up or think I was dying. You WILL get through this. Your weight loss is good, which should be encouraging. I lost 35 pounds by the end of month 2 - similar to you. I went on to reach my goal just 5 months later. Hang in there! This, too, shall pass, and it will all be worth it. Don't let this normal phase of things make you think you made a mistake with the surgery. Nearly everyone goes through this very uncomfortable adjustment stage. Your body is actually still in the final healing stage from the surgery, and is trying to adjust to all the plumbing fixtures! It will start getting better and better. I remember that I feel like I "turned a corner" around the end of month 3. Things got a lot easier. Stick with the plan and work on your exercise.

I really have been meaning to write more blogs during my journey and well...I'm kind of lazy and was always motivated right at bedtime. Moving on. So June was my sleep study, have super mild sleep apnea but enough to warrant a cpap machine. I hate it. I hate that I have to pay like $900 for the stupid thing(insurance would not have kicked in until over a thousand dollar deductible had been met so I went with an online provider that I emailed my prescription to and had them set my machine to). So true story, I used it sometimes and for the most part ignored it. Until after talking to one of the nurses about requirements for surgery they require a 75% use of the machine for 4 or more hours a night in the last 30 days (so that is around 22-23 days for anyone wondering). I was in maybe the 25-30% range at that point. I kept taking off the mask at night, or I wouldn't sleep for 4 hours(I skew to a late night person and my job normally has me getting up to get ready to go in at 5am so that clashes most weekday nights). I asked this wonderful community for help and got lots of recommendations and really finally sat down with myself and made sure each night keeping the stupid mask on was at the forefront of my mind every night AND I had to make sure I was in the most comfortable position as possible--9 times out of 10 it worked and I was able to hit my goal. So come to this morning I hit 76%!! Immediately downloaded my sleep report from my app(I have a ResMed machine and their app is pretty great), screenshotted it(can't screen shot it in the app) and messaged it over to Baylor Scott and White (my surgery should be happening in the Temple hospital). That was the last requirement besides the last 2 visits to my super awesome PCP-visit #6 is next Monday and visit #7 is October 27th-two days before my birthday. As soon as the October visit is done my job will be to call the bariatric department to let them know so they can submit all my paperwork(fingers crossed no appeal will be needed)!! When I've tried this process the last few times it has never felt like this, so much more real, something that is SUPPOSED to happen vs doing it because it felt like what everyone wanted me to do. I guess that was something I had to come to the conclusion was the best choice for me, it took me a few years (the first ever wls seminar I went to I was 18-I'm 30 now). I always say that unless someone wants to help themselves it doesn't matter what others offer in support or help(mostly from my experience with people I love and drug habits) and it was so true for me. I always thought I'd lose the weight on my own, day after day, year after year until my weight was 17 pounds higher than my highest ever in the surgeon's office...that was a blow and moment of clarity. is the longest 'supervised diet' I had to do in the past and I have used my time thus far to prepare mentally and emotionally, taking up new hobbies, and changing my habits one at a time. I have thus far: upped my protein and water intake, almost entirely quit sugar(desserts/junk food), quit energy drinks and started working out(this has been a struggle y'all but I plan on taking up Krav Maga and probably kayaking once I'm healed along with my winter hikes to keep it fun). I want to be where I need to be when I wake up from surgery, not grappling with quitting horrible habits and trying to juggle the emotions and physical healing of the surgery. I won't lie, I am an instant gratification person, I would love to be able to just go and self pay with none of the hoops to jump through but now at this point I am so thankful I am not because for me, that would have probably been a disaster. I have lost some weight along the way and I try to keep the fact that weight lost now will make recovery so much easier to keep me on the straight and narrow. I love this community and hope that as I progress from hopeful patient to joining a lot of you on the loser's bench I can contribute valuable insight and motivation. Until next time, Amanda