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Artificial sweeteners continue to feed your desire for sweet. They’ve many other negative issues too. And you’re right, they seem to be in everything these days. Monk fruit is being pushed as a better alternative but it doesn’t stop the sugar cravings either. Neither do natural sugar alternatives (honey, coconut sugar, molasses, etc.) which are still basically sugar with slightly different glucose & fructose content. The weight loss stage made it easier to cut out or greatly reduce added sugar & sweeteners. I was only eating protein, vegetables, dairy & fruit after surgery so little opportunity for added sugar & sweeteners. (I stopped shakes from day 1 purées.) I prep most of what I eat from scratch myself. It’s the only way to control the ingredients. I carefully check the ingredient list & nutrition panel on any products I do buy. I avoid sweeteners but know there’s some in the yoghurt & protein bar I eat but that’s all. I’d rather choose products with low quantities of real sugar than artificial. I don’t drink carbonated drinks like colas, etc. or juices. I only have cakes, sweet biscuits or desserts, etc. a couple of times a year. I have a glass of alcohol about once a month. Our bodies do need some glucose. I get most from naturally occurring sources: dairy & fruit. My daily intake of added sugar is harder to define as total sugars on nutrition panels include naturally occurring & added as one total. I don’t add any myself. I know there’s 2-3g in my salad dressing & 1g in my crackers & about 6g if I use a condiment like mint or teriyaki sauce (couple of times a month). My desire for sweet has changed greatly & sweet foods are crazy sweet now. This is just what I do. Others may have better suggestions, alternatives, experiences or made more changes. It just depends upon how much you’re willing to omit or reduce from your eating plan & if it’s sustainable for you.

Yes, I have a few meals out lined up over the next 3 weeks and I think I'm just going to order whatever the softest starter is, to come out with everyone else's main courses. If there's soup on the menu better still. I haven't told anyone other than my partner and children about the surgery but all my family and friends are so used to me permanently 'being on a diet' so they won't turn a hair at this latest restriction to my eating. 😏 Gmast - if you had asked me in my before life to split a meal I would definitely have looked at you as if you were mad. 😍

So again, this is a tool to use. It is not a quick fix nor is it an easy way for you to lose weight and still keep your bad eating habits. It changes your physiology to make your weight loss chances more permanent. The rest is up to you. Now this is going to sound harsh but it is on YOU to do the research about any procedure before you have it. It is on YOU to do what is required to make a procedure like this work. To proclaim it bullshit because you don't want to put in the work is not placing the responsibility where it belongs. What are you eating? Is it fried food? Carbs? Cookies? Chips? Are you getting any exercise? Because if you are still eating garbage and sitting around on the couch then, yeah, you're screwed.

The only one that I have been sharing meals with is my husband and he is happy to because he now calls me his cheap date (haha). As for going out with friends, I found that if I just order an appetizer then I have fewer leftovers and I can still get my own plate. I had the same situation with the weight loss, for some reason I went back and forth from 217 to 218 for a week. But finally this morning I was down to 216!

I am at the three week post op mark. Slowly advancing my diet. No more puréed. Now just soft foods. Thank god for grilled fish which is filling and satisfying. No weight loss in a week which I am fine with because I have reintroduced carbs and I know from the many failed Keto diets that the minute you have carbs again the weight comes back with a vengeance. I am still very full after only a few bites so I can’t eat enough protein so I am still doing a shake a day. I am down to just one of the five incisions that is still healing. The rest have closed up nicely. I am having a weird experience with friends and family. I can only eat a few bites of food and with Christmas approaching I have been going out to dinner and to parties a lot. It is such a waste of money to order a meal given restaurant portion sizes knowing that leftovers don’t qualify as soft food after they are microwaved. So instead I have been asking to split meals. I am surprised by how many people look at me like I am a monster for suggesting this. Does anyone else find that people don’t want to split a meal at a restaurant?

I am at 35 weeks weight loss from September surgery sometimes it times to change things up to see results. Focus on protein intake or exercise.

What did your medical team say at your first check up? If they weren’t concerned by your slow loss you probably don’t need to worry too much. Remember they’ve seen it all & understand the vagaries of weight loss. We all lose at our own rate. If it is really worrying you, ensure you measure/weigh & record everything you eat & drink & have a chat with your dietician & medical team. Sometimes a small tweak can make a difference. @WildWill has a point. What I weigh at my doctors & what I weigh at home is never the same. I always weigh more at my doctors. Clothing, time of day, empty/full bladder, empty/full bowel, how much you’ve eaten or drunk, all affect the number on the scale. My doctors monitor my weight based on their records & I do it based on my own records. If they’re happy I’m happy. A loss is a loss. (Or maintaining is maintaining as in my situation now.) All the best.

What I wish they had told me prior to surgery I honestly had no idea how much pain I would be in right after waking up. And due to COVID-19, I wasn’t allowed anyone in the hospital to help me tell the nurses to seriously give me more morphine. I had about half an hour when I seriously wanted to kill myself due to being inflated from surgery and nowhere near covered by pain meds. Yep. It won’t feel like it, but you should get up as soon as you can. I mean that seriously. It lowered my pain from 10 to high 8 immediately. I’ve done rough contact sports, I’ve had my knee cap dislocated, torn my ACL, had a ruptured appendix, broken more bones than I care to count. And nothing compared to this. Other people have barely any pain. And you know what? I do it all again in a heartbeat. The results are that great. Otherwise, I felt pretty well-informed. I called the bariatric team when 1400 cals clearly weren’t enough, and once they heard my loss at that point, they were like ‘yeah you should’ve been on 1800 a month ago, then’. So reach out, they’re there for you. I had some stalls but expected them, talked to my close people about it, and reminded myself not to stress about it. I had a month or so of low blood sugar, but it fixed itself. I get constipated from iron supplements, so I’m actually managing without now that I can eat more (my iron increased from surgery to month 9, which is pretty neat).

My weight journey pre-op + for a year after the mini gastric bypass I reached my highest weight – 364 lbs – fairly close to surgery. I then lost from 364 to 344 at day of surgery. In the first month, I lost 34 lbs, and at the 60 day mark, I had lost 61 lbs. So 2 months after surgery, I was down to 283 lbs. At the 6 month mark, I was down to 234 lbs (total loss 130 lbs), and at the 12 month mark I’m at 201 lbs (total loss 163 lbs). My EWL is 88.8%, and I’m of a pretty muscular build, so for all intents and purposes, I’m done losing. More importantly, I think I look fantastic! I went from a 54” waist to wearing 32” jeans, and from a 6XL to a medium or large in men’s tops. I can see the individual parts of the shoulder muscles, there’s tricep definition, my legs look like pro soccer player legs … in a way, my fat decade was a massive bulk for the fellow weight lifters out there As for excess skin, it looks like I gave birth to quintuplets a few weeks ago, and there’s loose skin everywhere. I’m only wanting surgery on the stomach area, though. I think the rest will gradually be okay, and I don’t really need to be perfect. I’m great as I am. I’ve debated whether to include photos, but what the hell. I have nothing to be ashamed of, and if this motivates just one person to go do this for themselves, I’ll be happy. DAY BEFORE SURGERY (this is 20 lbs lower than my heaviest) ... aaand: FROM THE PAST WEEK (163 lbs lighter than my heaviest, BMI around 27.5)

My journey to weight loss surgery We all have our journeys, and I love to talk about mine. I’m not ashamed in the slightest over having a hard-to-work-with metabolism in a world that isn’t made for us. It messed me up, but here I am taking back my life. I’ll keep it fairly brief here, though: I was a chubby kid, had some years in a normal weight range, dieted all the time, yo-yo weight, started working a stressful job and eventually fell into a full-on eating disorder (BED). After receiving treatment for this, I was ready for bariatric surgery, and studied my options intensively. I initially ruled out the sleeve due to the regain rates + GERD. I then wanted RNY because of its ‘tested and verified’ legacy but landed on the MGB for the superior possibility for weight loss, higher chance of keeping the weight off, and for how easy it is to revise or reverse if the need arises later. I have not regretted my choice for a second ever since.

The surgery: what is it, how does it work, what does science say about weight loss and complications with MGB? What is it? There’s nothing ‘mini’ about the MGB. The name was given by Dr. Rutledge who invented it in 1997 to describe its simpler configuration compared to Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. Basically, the stomach is divided and a long, narrow pouch is created (a little like the sleeve), but the rest of the stomach is left in place (like with RNY). A loop of the small intestine is then connected to the pouch, and that’s it. There’s one connection point – one anastomosis – and unlike the sleeve, the food travels directly down into the intestine, as the pyloric valve is bypassed. The bypass is anywhere from 150cm – 350cm (3 to 9 feet), though recently most surgeons do 150cm to avoid malnutrition later on. Here’s a diagram: How does it work? As with all bariatric surgery, there are things we know and things we don’t know. We obviously feel full faster due to the smaller stomach, but because it’s ‘open’ in the bottom to the intestine, and this anastomosis is not especially narrow, we can usually eat pretty large amounts fairly soon after surgery. My personal experience is that I’ve only felt I ‘had no more room’ a few times, and always with minced meat, weirdly enough. The big trick is that you feel satisfied very quickly, because the food lands undigested pretty far down the intestine. It’s like the feeling after a huge Christmas dinner. Technically, I could eat more, but I feel stuffed (and satisfied). So I don’t. We have at least 3-4x the malabsorption of RNY, so there’s some calories being flushed right out. Personally, I can see when I eat a higher-fat meal that some of it goes through undigested (sorry for theTMI). How much do you lose? Unlike what people think, there are tons of studies out there documenting that weight loss is generally greater after MGB than after sleeve and RNY. Not a single study out there shows less weight loss with MGB when comparing MGB and RNY. Excess Weight Loss (EWL) ranges from mid-60s % EWL to the 80s after one year (a few studies show even higher WL, but those are generally from cohorts of fairly low-BMI study populations). All-in-all, weight loss is excellent and looks like it’s long-term durable in the studies. Especially when compared to the sleeve. Complications? For some reason, there’s a ‘feeling’ among American bariatric surgeons that MGB carries a higher risk of stomach cancer. This is not true, and it has been studied. A few patients experience bile reflux, but this is a lesser concern with the Spanish ‘anti-reflux stitch’ most MGB surgeons now use. Mine did as well, and while I suffered heavily from GERD prior to surgery, this is no longer a problem. Long-term, malnutrition is an issue, so take your vitamins. Think of vitamins as being generally a good idea for sleevers, mandatory in the beginning for RNY’ers and then see how your labs develop as the years pass, to very important for MGB, also long-term, and life-or-death for our duodenal switch friends. This reflects the malabsorption – none in sleeve, a little in RNY, a moderate-to-significant amount in MGB, and a lot in DS.

[MINI GASTRIC BYPASS THREAD – PLEASE CONSIDER YOUR SURGERY AND EXPERIENCES MAY NOT APPLY TO MINI GASTRIC BYPASS PATIENTS] Hi all BP’ers and lurkers out there; especially hi to everyone who had the mini gastric bypass (AKA the one-anastomosis gastric bypass/single-anastomosis gastric bypass/omega loop gastric bypass) It’s my surgiversary! I can’t believe it’s already been a year. But what a year it has been. Man. I wanted to share a lot of thoughts about my journey – there’s not a ton of MGB patients out there yet, and especially not in the US. I’ll admit I’ve been working on this for a while, because I want to share the good word about the MGB and contribute some of the things I simply cannot find out there. Well, now I know, at least how it’s been the first year for myself. So that’s my small contribution. Below, I’ll post the following posts individually so it’s easy to browse for anyone new: The surgery: what is it, how does it work, what does science say about weight loss and complications with MGB? My journey to weight loss surgery My weight journey for a year after the mini gastric bypass My diet and calories – stages + what does a typical day look like after a year? Exercise – what and when and how much? Alcohol and MGB What I wish they had told me prior to surgery Setting a goal Why I think you should consider the MGB What it’s like being a mini gastric bypass patient on BariatricPal – what I found useful, and why I needed a pause from participating on the forum What now? I hope you’ll find some of this enjoyable.

I have a PPO with Humana through my employer and they have nothing to do with weight loss surgery or programs. 🤷🏾‍♀️😏

After surgery my periods were normal for a couple of months then I went on the Depo-provera shot BC and that was the worst decision I have ever made. I have pretty much been bleeding non-stop since March 2021. There have been about two months recently when it would stop for 3-4 weeks which I assume means it's going back to normal but then when the period comes it lasts for 3 weeks minimum. It was at least like spotting level but this last one has been full out heavy the whole time. Doctor has checked everything, hormone levels, everything and it's all fine. Everything healthy just obviously a low iron level. I started taking a different iron supplement and it seemed to help for a while but I am at a loss. I've heard it can take a year for your body to recover from the Depo shot and that on top of the weightless I imagine my body is panicking. I would just sincerely love for it to go back to normal. This one I'm on right now has been brutal, full on symptoms and just no respite.

Don't give up FMO. I put ON a pound today so that leaves me a total loss of 3lbs 19 days post surgery. Something has got to give soon. You control what goes in - hope you managed to stick to the program. Even if you didn't, back on it today and I bet all the stickers here see a big loss soon 🤞🤞🤞

A lot of employer offered insurance plans can have specific exclusions for weight loss surgery. I've had three different insurances through employers in the past two years (old job switched carriers and then came to a new job) and all of them had WLS exclusions even if medically necessary. All of my plans have been pretty good, high quality plans otherwise, but they still have the exclusion. There could be other reasons for the OP, but just wanted to note that many still don't.

Hello All, I’m scheduled for surgery on December 10th. My surgery will be in Mexico because my insurance will not cover weight loss surgery. Today, I got a call from my pastors wife and she expressed her concerns about me going to Mexico. I’ve done my research and my weight is emotionally and physically taking a toll on me and I’ve been so excited but since talking to her, I no longer feel confident and I feel like negative thoughts have been projected on me. I was happy but now I’m feeling like this was too good to be true and maybe I shouldn’t go. This is why I should’ve kept tho to myself. I tried to be open about it and I’m getting negative feedback and it’s got my anxiety way up which is something I do not need right now. Any thoughts? I could use some encouragement. Thanks 😏

Omg someone else like me! I was only 2wk post RNY (revision from Sleeve due to gerd even though I had a Fundoplication 10yrs before my sleeve) when I stopped eating or drinking anything & vomitted nonstop. After 3wks of that I finally went to the GI who did an EGD and found an ulcer at the staple site the biggest he'd ever seen. I was literally on deaths door due to loss of magnesium, nutrition, dehydration, potassium, etc & was admitted to the hospital straight from the EGD and put on a feeding tube for 2 weeks. I'm now 2 weeks off the tube and nothing I eat works. It seems the ulcer friendly foods and the bypass friendly foods are not compatible. Please tell me when things got better for you & what you ate? I hate eggs & yogurt & love cheese and protein shakes even make me sick now. [emoji31] Sent from my SM-G986U using BariatricPal mobile app

Your food sounds delicious too OG! Full of protein too. Fingers crossed for a good loss for both of us this week. 🤞

Hi all! I'm looking for some UK-based friends, but other bases are fine too! A little about me: I am pre-surgery, 23 years old, and based in the East of England. I love music, gaming and animals. My favourite bands are Muse, Radiohead, Placebo and My Chemical Romance. As for gaming I'm a PC gamer and it is my main hobby. I have plenty of pets, and I love them all dearly. I have chronic pain from a variety of conditions but my PCOS, IBS, Fibro and Hypermobility are the main ones. I'm studying to be a midwife but I'm currently on a gap year due to mental health and the pandemic. I don't mind having friends younger or older than me, pre-surgery, post-surgery or just losing/maintaining weight. Anything is fine by me! Just people to related with, discuss weight loss and recipies and all the other nice things. I have no friends who understand what I'm going through, and I know friends and connections are important for support during these difficult times. Let's make some friends! 😛

That's a very good point, I never thought about a stall! It could well be that indeed. I will see my loss next week and if it isn't anything brilliant I will inform my bariatric team that I successfully did the 2 week period but didn't have a big loss. I suspect the actual pre-surgery one will be more liquids than solid meals, so that might have more of a success. I have downloaded a UK-based calorie counter to make my life a bit easier so I can track things better too. Fingers crossed! Honestly thank you so much, I find it hard to lose weight because of my PCOS so I should give myself more credit than I do. Congrats on your 36 pounds! I hope you hit that target weight! X

I should be cooking for my husband, who is not on any weight loss plan (but should be!)), but I'm rarely able to figure that out. It is a lot of hard decisions about what to eat. I have some good ideas from this post. I have an added problem of not enjoying many foods people suggest, not sure how to change that. Thank you so much for your reply.

Just checking in again today my sweets. Still stuck at a 4lb loss 18 days post op and really needing my whoosh now! Am taking in about 600 calories a day and around 60g protein. Pain is getting better every day - the only time I notice it now is when I straighten up too quickly after bending over, or when I try to sleep on my side at night. Hunger was less noticeable yesterday - it has been hard, so nice to see it subsiding at last. All in all, everything going the right way, kind of apart from the weight, which has to come soon, right?? Just about to start a big Sunday roast here, which I will puree for myself. Also boiling ham for lunches (everyone else) during the week so I will use the stock to make some 'ham', lentil and veg soup for my own lunches! How has everyone's weekend been so far?

Kirsten I suspect you just hit a stall at the wrong time! You've already lost 25lbs so if they need evidence that you can stick to a diet there it is! At 800 calories a day you will definitely start losing again, I really hope you see a good loss this week, sounds like you're doing amazingly.

I've continued seeing my normal therapist throughout the process and she does not specialize in anything food/body related, and still found a lot of value in it. I'm trying to put my finger on what the takeaways were, but I think the things I'm processing the most that are helpful are a) body shame and b) dealing with people's reactions to my weight loss. If you can, I would probably recommend a therapist even if you can't find one that directly specializes in this area. It helps just to have someone to talk to! Something I did on my own that was really helpful: in the couple of weeks leading up to the liver reduction diet, and I had my moment where I was just eating "whatever I wanted" "for the last time," I wrote down what favorite comfort food I ate, and then briefly journaled about how I felt physically after eating it. That helped me process losing access these foods, because I realized that they would often make my stomach hurt/make me feel physically terrible right after eating all of that. It took away from the emotional power those foods had for me.