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I have not gone back in and had the sleep study again, but my family complains that they can no longer tell if I'm asleep or not because I rarely snore and if I do it is light. I also no longer gasp for air 10 times a minute. Mine was SEVERE! I cannot believe I was living like that! I was so sleep deprived that I should have been dead.

I had belong to Curves for one year and for myself I had no success. I went 3 times a week and did not lose any weight even while trying to diet. I am getting ready to join planet fitness here, they have $1 sign up and $10 a month which includes unlimited time with a trainer. Hours are better for me to get to them. Good Luck, it may work for you.

Hi all, I was banded on Wed 4/23rd, everything went quickly and I was in my room recovering by 1pm. I had a bad time with the pain meds making me nauseous and after trying several different types, I said forget it and just have been on Tylenol. The stuff you have to drink so they can xray you and make sure there are no leaks was pretty horrific and almost made me puke. Came home yesterday and just took it easy. The pain from the surgery is not that bad like John says below. I get migraines and for some reason had 3 in the last 2 days so I am dealing with that too. Feeling ok at this time and I am on stage 2 diet already as of today and had some thin Cream of Wheat, oh it tasted so good. Had about 10 baby spoon fulls and was full..... I don't want to get on the scale until I go to the Dr's on May 2nd for my post op. I am glad I did this and would do it again. Take care all. Yvonne

Im 18 months out too. I can eat more than I could at one year but just barely. I dont try to eat more. I just eat till I am full and then stop. I am eating about a cup of food at a time, depending on the density of it. I still dont eat bread because it takes up my room. I can not eat very much meat or shrimp. Maybe 2 oz if I have a bite or two of veggies. If I only have meat, then I can only eat about 3 oz. I would say I can eat just a little more than I could at one year. I was eating about 6 or 8 normal bites at one year and now I can eat about 10 bites. If that makes sense. From 1/2 to 3/4 cup went up to about 1 cup and then I am uncomfortable. My husband says that in the last few weeks, I am hardly eating at all and I noticed myself getting fuller faster.. Guess my restriction is still excellent. I was maintaining at 135 or less for three months and then I had my plastics done three months ago and my restriction was very good during the iniital weeks and I lost about 5 pounds- down to 129, but I have since bounced back to 132. I have been holding 132 since December 2012. I think this is the weight my body likes so I am in a routine that is good for me. HTH.

I'm sure it was. I am 10 weeks out now and the roof of my mouth is almost back to normal. As far as the gastric bypass, I am thrilled to death I did it. However, I don't care about eating and I went through a period that protein shakes made me want to throw up. It's better now but I had to change brands and I really liked it before surgery. My taste buds have certainly changed. I have read that all of this is normal so I'm no longer concerned that I will hate certain protein foods forever (chicken,fish). I am down about 50 lbs., 2 sizes. I have noticed that I have to pay close attention to eating so I chew enough. Since I don't care that much for food, I sometimes get too hungry and get into trouble eating too fast. I try to portion out my food now to prevent eating too much too fast. That helps.

I am definitely in the same boat--sleeved on May 24th and since then have lost only 10 pounds. I have been in a stall for the last 2 weeks. Everyone says this is normal and that I should continue to stick with it. Let's all promise each other we will and report back when this blasted stall passes!!! VSG: 5/24/2017 HW: 234 Pre-op: 226 CW: 213.8 GW: 155

I am just reposting this because I don't have enough time to write it again but I want to help. My surgery was 10/10/16, I've had more stalls than active weight loss weeks. Yet here I am in a size 14 about to move to a size 12 (edit, update, this post is originally from about 5-6 weeks ago. I'm now moving from a size 12 to a size 10 but I'm only 6 lbs lighter than when I posted this...to give you an indication of the scale is not the full story). They aren't stalls, I call them Pauses. Nothing's stopped, your body is still working, you have done so much to it, it needs a little time. The first 6-12 weeks are about recovery and healing. You will lose weight but your body is also in shock, it will retain Water, be swollen, sore and need time. But then it will happen again and you won't have a good reason. You will be following all the protocols and you will be walking and drinking your water and hitting your Protein goals and yet you will hit another Pause. You need to be mentally prepared for that. It's not all a down slope. So to prepare you need to do a few things: Measure yourself, your head (yes, you lose weight there) your neck - super satisfying to watch it shrink, your biceps, your forearms, your writs, hell - measure your fingers too and your palm, your breast, under your breasts, your waist, your hips, your thighs, etc. All the way to your toes. Then do that about once every few weeks or so. And then when you hit another plateau you pull out that sheet and measure yourself again and see that your body is still changing and evolving. The scale does not tell the whole story. When I get discouraged I like to take a few moments and feel the changes in my body. I run my hands along my feet and ankles, my calves and knees. I feel the bones and muscle revealing themselves. I wrap my fingers around my wrist and feel how much smaller they are now. I run my hands along my forearms on the outside and feel my bones up to my elbow. I run my hands along my collar bones, revel in the fact I have them now! I continue on up my neck, circling it with my hands to feel how small it is now and then along my jaw bone, a bone I haven't seen in decades. I take these moments and remind myself how great this is and how great I'm doing even if I don't believe it in that moment. I move. When I'm discouraged I now move. I used to eat. Now I want to remind myself how much easier it is to move. So I go for a very vigorous walk, I put on the happiest, bounciest, fasted rhythmed music I have and get to steppin! Blast that brain with some oxygen, sun, music and endorphins. There are going to be MANY pauses and stalls and plateaus. It's our job to prepare your coping tools and mechanisms so that you can self-sooth and re-motivate without need for food or a serious mental adjustment. Before I let myself get that far I use these methods. They work for me, you will find what works for you hopefully. Good luck and congratulations!!!

Tren, If you are logged into this site then go to my ticker and double click on it. That will bring you into the ticker site. Put in a private pin # for you and all the information you want, then at the bottom click on the done or submit, not sure which the site has right now. The hardest part was going through the 10 or more pages of tickers and little things to decide which I wanted. I was lucky to find things that reminded me on my best bud, Mickey. Hope that helps, I clicked on it from someone else to get mine.

You are both doing great! Just remember that the pre-op diet depletes the carbohydrate stores in your body almost completely. Carbohydrate stores are stored w/a lot of Water. So, a lot of what you lost in the pre-op diet is water weight (maybe 10 pounds). This is why people on Atkins and low carb diets can 'gain' back so quickly... because as soon as they eat some carbs again, their body replenishes the carb stores in their body which means they will start holding onto some water weight as well. In any case, this is what causes an inevitable yoyo effect w/low carb diets. And, the reason why you can't keep losing at the super fast initial rate. Anyway, just don't let it get you down. Remember 1-2 pounds per week is a healthy rate of weightloss and definitely not considered 'slow' although it may seem that way just because we'd all like to lose weight faster. When I was doing Weight Watchers as best I could, I would lose 0.0 - 0.5 most weeks. Now that is slooooooowwwww!!! So, please feel good about your big losses so far! Congratulations!!!

So I am now 4 weeks post-op (surgery was 02/05). I am a low-BMI bandster; paid for the surgery myself because my insurance would not. Most of my pain from the surgery is gone. It really took me about two weeks to be able to "do" for myself (getting out of bed, driving to work, etc.) I can do most things now; just still sore around my port incision. I go for my first fill on 03/12! I can tell I already have some restriction; not everything goes down easy. I had a piece of sausage two days ago that I thought was going to be the end of me! Ha! It got "stuck"- - it hurt so bad! All I could do was to wait for it to pass, which took about 10-15 min. OMG! I'm learning what I can and cannot eat!

Set a timer/stop watch to go off every 10/15 minutes, then have a drink

This was very helpful..my sleeve is scheduled for feb 4th..a little nervous so far. My surgeon is Dr.Gandsas in Annapolis. I have heard of your doctor tho because i lived in Red Lion for 10 years. Someone told me to take gas-x melting strips for after surgery and i was wondering if you were allowed to do this because i dont think my doctor will allow this?

You will not fail if you follow your plan. Any surgery is scary, with anesthesia. But this procedure for us, was 10 times easier than expected! You will be so happy! It is lifechanging with new rules. Thank God I will never pay Weight Watchers any more monty. Your tears will be wiped away when you start losing pounds! Smile at a new beginning.

I just had a fill this morning (my second one) and i still barely feel any restriction at all. I have a 12cc band and 7.5 ccs in there now. Is it possible to max these bands out? I feel i may need that just because i havent had any weight loss at all. I have lost only 10 lbs total since my preop diet. I see most of the people on here have 10cc bands. Does anyone else have a 12cc band and if so, what is your sweet spot?

What is "anaerobic?" I've been using the elliprical for a year now. I complete 60 minutes plus a 5 minute cooldown. I set the settings according to my weight. I then set it on "random," and the level to 10. At the 5, 10, 15 minute intervals, I go in "reverse",and then back forward, and up the level. By the time I'm at 50 minutes, I am at level 20. I'm burning appoximately 770 calories. When I check my heart rate, I am anywhere between 160 - 168. I am 54 years old. Just wanted to know if I should try any other settings or routines.

My husband and I finally received the information on his insurance options for next year today. His options are staying the same - which means we can switch to his plan and still have something deductible and out-of-pocket-max free. Add to that it will save us $8 a payperiod of my own plan that's going away. So we will be switching to Aetna. From things I read around here, seems Aetna is good about this. But I don't know what my specific case will be. Right now I am on Cigna. Cigna required a six month supervised weight loss program which I am one month into. Cigna required a pysch consult which I have done the testing for. I go back on Monday to get the results. Yes, I'm nuts. Not sure why anyone has to pay for that info. :smile: Cigna required letters of medical necessity from any practictioners with ongoing care. In my case that's my PCP and my OB/GYN. I got one from my PCP. I see my OB/GYN next Thurs but don't expect an issue here as he has mentioned this in the past. The good news about Aetna is all of my doc's - the pcp, the ob/gyn, even the surgeon, are still in-network. So there will be no change of care. Cigna required a nutritionist consult. I will have that on Thurs when I go in for my weigh in. When I go in for that weigh in, I'll see what they might be able to say about this switch. Seems that some with Aetna only have to do three months of supervised weightloss. So maybe this is happening sooner? But in perusing Aetna's website, I found a document that says I have to have documented severe obesity issues for two years or more. I have not been over a BMI of 40 for a year, let alone two. I've been at 40 (and counting) since the start of this year. Last year I hovered around 37-38. Got off BC at the beginning of the year and that threw everything out of whack. Problem is that while I have history of a BMI over 35, I do not have any comorbidities.... I feel so much better about the insurance. There may have to be a delay in getting the insurance requirements sorted out after that insurance plan goes into effect (Jan 1 2010) but in the meantime I can keep plugging away on all this other stuff. I do know that I will still have to have the psych consult and a nutritionist consult. I do know there is a supervised weightloss time period - may be 6 months may be 3. But I can keep all this going. And the motivation is back. I no longer feel like there's a potential hurdle to overcome. YAY!:crying::thumbup::thumbup:

Hi there, I was wondering if any women out there were on their monthly cycle during the procedure? My surgery is scheduled for May 19, and at that time, I will be on my cycle. My surgeon said it was fine, but I was just wondering what anyone who went through this thought? I'm kind of nervous about it. Thank you!

Just had some yummy sugar free jello. Must say that being able to have popsicles, jello and broth kinda makes this easier. I am still not liking the taste of optifast, but I am pushing through that because I only have to put up with it for 10 more days! I like the ready made optifast shakes(vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry). They come packaged in what looks like a juice box, so its good for on the go. The optifast creamy soup is good as well and I add a little extra chicken bouillon to make it a little more palatable. The shakes that come like a powder and you have to mix is not that bad, although not my favorite. I have a little hand mixer(like the bullet), and that helps. I mix it with a little ice and ice cold water. I find it hard to make them taste as good as the alrady mixed ones. I also bought three different boxes of the optifast meal replacement bars. Chocolate (which is my favorite), Berry yogurt bar(yuck) and Chocolate peanut butter bar(double yuck). I It was pretty expensive so I kinda have to eat the disgusting ones at some point. I am going to save those for the last couple of days!! So, I have gone from 272 to 265.2 in these last four days. I feel a bit more energetic than I thought I would be. Have been cleaning my house like a mad women so everything is in its place and ready to go for post surgery. Every morning I get up, it is getting easier to get in the mind set that is needed for this diet. :thumbup:

I have been on my 10 day liquid diet now with no complaints. I'm almost to the end. I am having one small issue though, bad leg cramps. I'm certainly getting enough fluids. I'm more regular to the bathroom then Old Faithful Is to the sky. There is literally no color to my urine at this point. Any ideas what I could do to relieve these leg cramps?

Actually I am a believer in the mainly vegetarian lifestyle. There is a book (The China Study)- and an ongoing study- that is a result of 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. They have 20 years of empirical data showing a huge cross-section of lifestyles in Taiwan and many rural areas. Dr. Colin Campbell headed it up from the Cornell side. They have documented clinical data that shows that a diet consisting of less than 10% of Protein coming from animal sources (most notably casein) can actually arrest development in cancer in lab rats. The people with the lowest incidences of cancer are the rural farmers who A) cannot afford huge amounts of animal protein and B ) move their bodies rather than drive their cars everyday. Even rural places impacted by China's terrible pollution problem have shown a notable avoidance from cancer. Joel Fuhrman is another guy crusading for a more 'nutrative' vegetarian lifestyle. He is more toward the vegan side and is definitely worth checking out, but his program is very strict. His eating method has allowed diabetics to come off of insulin within the first three weeks. IMHO I believe that the days of eating rich foods all of the time is over for me. I am OK with that, I had a good run . I think it's OK to have meat and cheese, as long as it is on a weekly or biweekly basis rather than a daily basis. I am post-op now, and still relying daily upon yogurt and cheese and eggs and whey powders, and I suspect I will continue to be as I lose over the next 18 months, but the long term plan is to steer towards plant-based protein sources and integrate them to get myself to that <=10% protein animal intake level.

Sugar free jello is my friend right now. My program allows me as much of it as I want. I have started mixing flavors to keep it interesting. I am on day 4 of all liquids day 10 of preop.

Well this may be TMI but that barium is moving thru me! I have another on line journal on another message board and I put it all out there so you have been forewarned lol Also forgve the many typos I type with 3 fingers but I am quick and therefore that equally a lot of typos! :thumbup: A/w I will try my best to proof-read! A/w I bought some K20 protien Water the mixed berry flavor its not bad at all. It has 5 gms of protien and only 50 calories in the whole bottle. I tried the ensure it was ok but it has a lot of carbs. There is a pre-mixed protien shake I started taking last year b/c of all the working out I was doing its from Worldwide it has 21 g of protien and 2 net carbs it isn't bad tasting at all. I am trying to get my system ready for post-op. I am really just playing the waiting game at this point, now I am wondering if I should have had the Dr. squeeze me in before the New Year. My boyfriend has a nice New year's eve planned for us though and I didnt want to miss that plsu I have some work stuff I need to wrap up. I want to use this time to lose the 10-15 pounds the Dr. told me to so I will focus on that. She did not put me on a liquid diet thank God! Just a Atkins like plan I can do that I may do more of a South beach and have 2 fruits a day though. I can do 10-15 in a month like that. I had the nerve to break the knob on my treadmill already! So I didn't even get to use it yesterday! :youcandothis: My boyfriend said he will take a look at it this weekend. I told himt o bring gym clothes we are gonna work it outttttttt all weekend! I am excited for Christmas the plan at first was to go down south to his family but he found out he has to work on Friday :sad: so I said let's do a nice hotel and we are going tonight to a very upscale hotel downtown Baltimore it is usually $400 a night its less than half of that for Christmas eve! :tt2: Happy Holidays ladies!!!

Well ladies I am going to start an online journal of sorts maybe I'll convert to a blog but right now I like the idea of keeping it here. Yesterday I went to my pre-op appointment. The scale said 299.5 :eek: At my highest Weight watchers weight I was 291.6 and I lost 45.6 pounds and as you can see I gained that back plus some. I had a good appointment. I like the Dr. she is funny and matter of fact. I am looking towards mid-January. I have a hernia that she will repair at the same time. She asked me to do an Atkins like diet and lose 10-15 pounds. She wants me to up my exercise to 3-4 times a week for 45 minutes again. I can do that and lose the weight I am sure. Just cuttng out the fast food alone should do the trick! My boyfriend went with me I am hoping somewhere along my journey he will consider this option. Even if he doesn't he has alrwady lost 130 pounds on his own wth just exercise and cutting back on food so he has said he will work on the food part with me and the exercise. We are going to get a personal trainer and work on having active dates vs. going out to eat and to the movies. :crying: As I mentioned in the intro thread this really is my last option. But that is a good thing I am comfortable with my decision knowing I have tried everything else. I am still a bit hung up on the fact that I was able to reach every single other goal I ever set for myself from graduating college, to getting into law school, to passing the bar on the first shot, to landing a good job and 4 years later an even better job to buying my first home when I was 30 and the list goes on and on but the one thing that should be 110% in my control escapes me. :crying::crying::blushing::blushing:As you can see by the faces I have mixed emotions about that. :frown: But this is it and its just another avenue to reach my health goals so I have to just move on. I know it is not the easy way out, I know I will have to 'work the band' and stay on top of things with my Dr. but if I can even lose and keep off even 50 pounds I will be in such better shape. I am ready to move on to the next phase of my life and I am thankful for a group like this for the information, first hand knowledge, and most of all the support! I had all my blood work done yesterday, I got my EKG whicc was abnormal :frown:my blood pressue was higher than normal so my PCP said give it a month and she may have to switch me back to the other pill :mad2: I am doing the sleep study Saturday night and the Nutrition class, CT scan, Xray, and barium on Monday. I am hoping for a Jan. 19th-ish date and I'll have 2 weeks off of work and return Feb 1st. We spoke about rushing it at the end of the year b/c my insurance is making some changes but in the end it was a minor change so at least everything will be set for Jan. besides I am going with my boyfriend to meet his family for Christmas and my Mom and sister and I have a trip planned in Janaury so that works out well. I'll keep you updated!

Well I am finally back from Pre-op. It went well I lost the 10 pounds!!!:cursing::thumbup: Right on the nosethank God! I had to give more blood, reviewed my cat scan its not a hiatal hernia its another kind I told her to leave it she said there is a great posibility that beacuse it is big nothing will get caught in there its the small ones doctors worry about. So she claimssss the pain will be very slight I till made her give me an Rx for pain meds. All my labs look good and my blood pressure was actually very low:thumbup: Still not nervous or scared so I guess thats good!:tongue:

Hello, been a roller coaster of a ride this week re: gastric sleeve journey. Good news: my husband has come around, and said he will fully support my decision to have the sleeve. So relieved! Bad news: After I've accepted the changes, mentally, and invested a lot of time w/lab work, Upper GI, psych eval, and meeting w/the dietician....there may be a snag with insurance! So, apparently, Aetna has a requirement that you have had a BMI of 40 for at least 2 years. Currently, I have a BMI of 40. However, my BMI for the last couple years has been between 33-35, well, actually as I'm thinking about it...probably 37-38. I asked the gal at the Dr's office who schedules the surgery if we could go back to 2002. She said we could try, but most likely, Aetna will want the weights from more recent times. Awaiting Dr's records from OB/gyn after having a baby in 2010---but I think it will fall just shy--like I'd have a BMI of 39. Now, am I backwards in this logic? Wouldn't showing a BMI of 40 from 2002 give more credibility to the fact I've been struggling with weight this long, have been able to lose it, but I gain it back, which is why I need something this drastic??? So, my question is...have any of you with Aetna had luck submitting BMI/weights from 10-11 years ago? Or, anyone with Aetna have luck submitting a current BMI of 40 but in last couple years, records showed a BMI of 38 or 39 (no comorbid conditions---just asthma and immune deficiency which I don't think they consider)? Thanks!