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I had my first fill on 7/19 and have been on liquids since. Tomorrow I get to start soft food and was wondering if low carb tortilla wraps are considered soft? I'm not sure and don't want to mess anything up. I know people have trouble with it, but figure I won't know till I try. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

Im in AZ. Getting sleeved 10/26 at Banner Gateway. Sent from my SM-G920V using the BariatricPal App

How on earth are you getting that much Water in. I'm lucky if I get 16 oz in, and 10 grams of Protein.. Sorry I wish I could help, I have never experienced pain at all, but definately have a distended stomach and can't understand why it won't go down (larger than it was prior to surgery) I was sleeved on Sept 14th.

NYdad..... this is just my personal opinion, but, not a good idea to get all that at once. I go on the chat site and for the most part people who have had huge fills at once... normally have to get an Unfill not long after. Filling the band slowly so your stomach, body and mind have time to adjust. I'm almost two years out and i too at firs wanted to hurry up and be thin, but my dr. explained to me that if i want the best results in the long run.... it's better to go at it slow......You want to be the tortoise and NOT the hare.. banded 11/10/09..... start weight 223, height 5'2".............now 146.......14cc band with 10.9 cc in it..... but it took 7 fills to get to that. Best of luck.....

66lbs is a decent amount but when I have 171.5 total to lose, it's a drop in the bucket. I started out at 311.5 lbs. I'm 5'11" and my dr has set an unrealistic goal of 140lbs for me. At 200lbs, I'm a size 11. My 19 year old daughter is 145lbs in a size 5. I don't need to be that thin. I think his goal has put me in a bad place. Thanks for the words of advice. I am fighting hormones this week and everything is so dramatic. I've been on my period more than I've been off since surgery. Blah! Good luck everyone.

Yes! I am 10 days post op and around day 6 -7 was craving food. I think it was just that i though i was hungry. I had a couple of days where i had extra serves of soup but, then i had no weight loss. Yesterday i kept myself busy all day and stuck to my shakes and soup and it was a much better day. I also keep diet jelly (jello) in the fridge to eat when i need something. Returning to work next week will help so i wont be sitting around thinking about food. It is also hard when you have to cook for the rest of the family.

I know that it takes longer than that to get the passport, I sent in my son's application on Feb. 17th and we still haven't gotten it. The website for Passports says it takes 10 weeks, and we are on week 12!! I already have a passport as I went to Belgium a few years ago. My son and I are going to Croc, Mexico outside of Monterrey for a missions trip in June, so I hope his passport comes soon! ----- Anyone have any comments about Dr. Zapata and the Mexico banding?

Dont stress out. You are not filled enough yet. You will know it when you are. I did the same thing you did at first. Its been a year for me and I have only lost 46 lbs total. Im now back to a size 10. When you are filled about half way - stay there!!! Dont go tighter. You need to learn HOW to eat and when you do that the fat will come off. I still occasionally have the foods I like but mostly I eat clean. Research what eating clean means and follow that diet. If you are serious about losing the fat you will stay on track.

Today I felt so sick just looking at myself in the mirror. I have been wondering lately how did I get to this size and how would it be if I were to lose the weight. I have watched my mother and sister go through getting the band and it has seemed to work so wonderful for them. I guess I'm just tired of waiting and so ready to get my life back. I am ready to get back out with some of my old classmates and play ball or to go to the park and run around with my daughter without having to take mutiple 10 min breaks. I guess this year should be the year to look forward to many changes and hoping to re-gain the old sexy teddy bear I use to be.

1. What was the best part of surgery for you? The jumpstart to weight loss was obviously amazing, but I was surprised how quickly my usual body pain & aches stopped bothering me. My knee problems have basically vanished, and the lower back pain I had gotten so used to living with has gotten so much better. I can breath easier when doing things that used to have me out of breath -- going up 2 flights of stairs, for example. 2. What was the worst part of surgery for you? The pre-OP shakes -- I'm lactose intolerant and have trouble with stevia, and there were no shakes my care team could find for me that didn't have one-or-both things, so I spent a good 8-9 days barely keeping anything down. The surgery itself went off without a problem, and the pain wasn't as bad as I thought -- other than the car ride home! If you get WLS, bring a pillow to clutch to you afterwards!! 3. Did you have any complications (minor or major) during or after your surgery? Nothing during, nor after -- but I'm only 10wks post-OP tomorrow. 4. How has adjusting to your new life been for you? I too am on SSRIs for long-time depression & anxiety. Most days have been awesome and cheery. Even during the initial aches and pains of recovery, just knowing that things were going to start changing for the better improved my mental state. I still have bad moments / days but once I started seeing all the improvements to my life it makes it easier to push through. It certainly helps to have a good support system -- people in my life, but also honestly this forum. TBH I was in a #$%& mood all day and feeling lethargic, but logging in here I know that everyone here understands and it just makes me feel more settled. 5. How long did it take you to feel comfortable eating food? I am currently having a ton of problems with chicken breast. I hate 'dark meat' poultry, but tried chicken thighs recently and it's not too bad but still leaves me with a heavy feeling in my stomach -- still better than the stuck feeling in my chest that the white meat gave. I feel like no matter what I put on it or how I cook it, it's just clearly a No for now. That said, for the most part everything else has gone down well as long as I eat slowly, and make choices consistent with my care team's plan / schedule. Going from puree to soft foods was probably the hardest for me physically, because it felt so different in my stomach. 6. Is there anything you can’t eat anymore that you used to enjoy? It's early on for me, but the changes in my body's hormones seems to have stopped most of my cravings. When I'm having a rough time emotionally, I still have momentary yearnings for old 'comfort foods' but honestly just the thought of some of them will turn me off within a few minutes. (For some reason if I think about fatty oils too long, I just get nauseated). And many of my old comfort foods have just updated into healthier things I can eat. Instead of my mum's Dutch mashed potatoes, I have a smaller bowl of healthier mashed potatoes (or cauliflower, or heart of palm) with a scoop of bone broth powder to up the protein. Instead of spaghetti and meatballs, I have homemade meatballs and extra sauce -- or a ricotta bake instead of lasagna. 7. What was your recovery like? Any vomiting or dumping syndrome? I've had one instance of dumping syndrome so far, and it was 100% my own fault. I knew what the culprit was immediately (white-flour leftover tortilla and more difficult chicken breast). I won't lie, I seriously wanted to die for probably an hour, and then slept the rest of the day away. It's horrid. I'm hoping that I've learned enough to take better care / caution and avoid any more instances. Other than that, recovery has been pretty smooth. All my incisions healed up without issue, the gas pain only lasted a few weeks and then there was just a strange tightness / mild soreness on one side of my body for the first 5-6 weeks. 8. How long did it take you to feel semi-normal after surgery? I want to say 2-3 weeks. Around the time I started eating puree (week 3), my energy levels started bouncing back much more rapidly -- which let me walk more easily. 9. Did you experience higher energy level post surgery? 100% yes. NGL, sometimes I feel like skipping even though it's not suitable for someone my age, LOL. I feel like I've been more efficient at work post-OP just because of the energy improvement, and physically I notice the increased stamina every time I go on an errand or for a walk with my dog. (I tire her out now!) 10. Did surgery affect your mental health? For the better. Some of it is because the energy and the physical improvements make me feel better about myself in general, but part of it is kind of a trickle-down effect. I spend more time making good, healthy choices for myself, spend more time being mindful whether it's while I'm eating, or making a grocery list, cooking, etc. It's so much time spent on self-improvement and self-care. So I have less time to worry about what other people's secret thoughts or judgments might be and take people more at face value. I have less time to waste on people that bring toxicity to my life or can't respect my boundaries. It's like this microcosm of self-care made by investing my energy in my current journey has expanded it's hooks into the rest of my life. I feel like for the first time in my life, I am actually one of my top priorities. 11. Do you regret it? Would you recommend it? I had moments of regret during dumping syndrome, for sure. But as soon as I recovered from that one bout, I was still happy I'd done the surgery. I think it definitely forces us to take ownership of our own health and making the best decisions we can towards that. I would recommend it to anyone who has struggled with weight loss and can honestly look at their life and see themselves living in this framework for the rest of their lives. By all accounts it seems to be incredibly important to keep it all up -- the vitamins and supplements, the healthy choices and portion sizes, etc. I would NOT recommend it for anyone looking for a magic pill. This takes work, will continue to take work.

@gmanbat how have things been going these past 10 days?? keep your spirits UP while your weight goes DOWN! good luck kathy

My doc's orders: 1-2 days clear liquids 1-2 days full liquids 2-3 weeks mushies 1-2 weeks soft food slowly encorporate regular food from that point on. I have struggled with hunger a little bit. The 2nd day was the worst for me. I had a complete emotional breakdown and cried. I think I didn't get enough calories for the day though because I only got like 350 calories that whole day. Ideas for protein are those protein 'bullets' you get from he health food store. They have helped me a lot. I drink 1/2 of one of them in the morning and the other 1/2 at night for a total of 42 grams of protein. That is on top of what I am getting from my diet. Every day is a little better, but it is tough. Anyone who thinks this is the 'easy' way out is nuts, that is for sure! Banded: 07/01/08

I was told by Dr Fox, 10 day pre-op clear liquids, 5 weeks after surgery clear liquids, then in weeks 5-9 it will be the puree foods with solid food after week 9. Part is due to how he puts the band in. Clear Liquids also include SF Jello, and SF Popsicle.

I had bypass on 10/4/17 and after about day 4 the gas pain was gone. Things are going to move quick. Sent from my Pixel using BariatricPal mobile app

I seen a lot of people on this forum not receiving family Support and getting called weak well i have a confession to make i didnt get any support i was laughed at and made fun of called weak called will less was told its all in my mind and was told several time I will fail most of the people were so called friends and family who themselves are not in perfect shape but have a lot to say . I feel it is your strength that you are taking this step also all you are getting is a tool to help you win this battle. I went to hospital with one of of my friends cause family wouldn't support me and thought i am wasting time.Guess what Surgery weight height 6 ft wt 287.5 in 5 days ( my surgery was on 8th of this month) today weight 264.... With ought this tool it's a very hard battle something I read at New York Times..... Shows Why It’s Hard to Keep Weight Off For years, studies of obesity have found that soon after fat people lost weight, their metabolism slowed and they experienced hormonal changes that increased their appetites. Scientists hypothesized that these biological changes could explain why most obese dieters quickly gained back much of what they had so painfully lost. GETTY IMAGES But now a group of Australian researchers have taken those investigations a step further to see if the changes persist over a longer time frame. They recruited healthy people who were either overweight or obese and put them on a highly restricted diet that led them to lose at least 10 percent of their body weight. They then kept them on a diet to maintain that weight loss. A year later, the researchers found that the participants’ metabolism and hormone levels had not returned to the levels before the study started. The study, being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, is small and far from perfect, but confirms their convictions about why it is so hard to lose weight and keep it off, say obesity researchers who were not involved the study. They cautioned that the study had only 50 subjects, and 16 of them quit or did not lose the required 10 percent of body weight. And while the hormones studied have a logical connection with weight gain, the researchers did not show that the hormones were causing the subjects to gain back their weight. Nonetheless, said Dr. Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia, while it is no surprise that hormone levels changed shortly after the participants lost weight, “what is impressive is that these changes don’t go away.” Dr. Stephen Bloom, an obesity researcher at Hammersmith Hospital in London, said the study needed to be repeated under more rigorous conditions, but added, “It is showing something I believe in deeply — it is very hard to lose weight.” And the reason, he said, is that “your hormones work against you.” In the study, Joseph Proietto and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne recruited people who weighed an average of 209 pounds. At the start of the study, his team measured the participants’ hormone levels and assessed their hunger and appetites after they ate a boiled egg, toast, margarine, orange juice and crackers for Breakfast. The dieters then spent 10 weeks on a very low calorie regimen of 500 to 550 calories a day intended to makes them lose 10 percent of their body weight. In fact, their weight loss averaged 14 percent, or 29 pounds. As expected, their hormone levels changed in a way that increased their appetites, and indeed they were hungrier than when they started the study. They were then given diets intended to maintain their weight loss. A year after the subjects had lost the weight, the researchers repeated their measurements. The subjects were gaining the weight back despite the maintenance diet — on average, gaining back half of what they had lost — and the hormone levels offered a possible explanation. One hormone, leptin, which tells the brain how much body fat is present, fell by two-thirds immediately after the subjects lost weight. When leptin falls, appetite increases and metabolism slows. A year after the weight loss diet, leptin levels were still one-third lower than they were at the start of the study, and leptin levels increased as subjects regained their weight. Other hormones that stimulate hunger, in particular ghrelin, whose levels increased, and peptide YY, whose levels decreased, were also changed a year later in a way that made the subjects’ appetites stronger than at the start of the study. The results show, once again, Dr. Leibel said, that losing weight “is not a neutral event,” and that it is no accident that more than 90 percent of people who lose a lot of weight gain it back. “You are putting your body into a circumstance it will resist,” he said. “You are, in a sense, more metabolically normal when you are at a higher body weight.” A solution might be to restore hormones to normal levels by giving drugs after dieters lose weight. But it is also possible, said Dr. Jules Hirsch of Rockefeller University, that researchers just do not know enough about obesity to prescribe solutions. One thing is clear, he said: “A vast effort to persuade the public to change its habits just hasn’t prevented or cured obesity.” “We need more knowledge,” Dr. Hirsch said. “Condemning the public for their uncontrollable hedonism and the food industry for its inequities just doesn’t seem to be turning the tide.”

I saw my surgeon, Dr Schneider, in Boston, MA yesterday and was cleared for surgery. Surgery date is 2/24. I need to lose 10 lbs before then, and pre op diet starts two weeks prior. I am excited and nervous! 2 months and counting!

I'm 10 days post op today and I'm having trouble getting in all of my protein and water for the day. My doctor didn't give me a minimum caloric intake at this point but said i should have about 3 oz per meal. According to my doctor I can start soft solids today. I'm getting in roughly 200 calories/day and around 30 grams of protein and about 24-30 ounces of water. I'm afraid that I won't be losing weight well, if I don't up my protein/ calorie/ water but I'm very very afraid not to stretch my pouch. So here's my question how many calories should I eat at this point? And should I keep eating to get in enough protein even if I'm not hungry? I would appreciate any input, thanks!

Hi there, I am only three days out, but I am not hungry at all. I get pains in my belly that i am associating more with gas than anything else. I wasn't released until 3pm yesterday so my first attempt at Protein was last night, I got about 10 grams in. Today I have already gotten 48 grams with my unjury chicken soup and a Chilke strawberry Protein powder shake. I pour each ounce in one of the ounce size plastic cups I got in the hospital and sip, slooowwly LOL. I start getting a bit of a burpy feeling and know that I need to slow down or take a break. My body told me pretty quickly what it would be ok with. Hope taht this helps!

I am having surgery on April 2nd at the Florence/Oasis of Hope, with Dr. Fernando Garcia. I am 44 and have battled with my weight all my adult life, I swear I can hear my moms voice saying you better not eat chocolate cake and chocolate milk for Breakfast it will catch up with you... all the while being a size 6.... fast forward 10 years and it caught up with me and then started multiplying. I now am battling degenerative arthritis and a torn meniscus, 7 years I have been told nothing is wrong with me all the while it getting worse and my ability to keep active dimensioning. I am now so out of shape and in so much pain that I have been taking anti depressants just because the pain finally got to my normal up beat attitude. After 8 months with this orthopedic doctor he was able to do an MRI and he was able to diagnose me!! I thought yeah now they will fix it and I can get moving and lose some weight, the next thing he said is if you want replacement surgery you will need to lose weight.... I lost MY MIND!! WHY would you not have discussed this during all the shots the draining and the pain I am enduring to now tell me that I will have to continue to fight a fight that I already struggle with when healthy and who knows how long it will take me to lose enough weight... That was last month... I have now made the decision to go forward with the weight loss surgery, I had been pre approved before but switched jobs and states before I was able to jump through all the hoops to get it done, I have had psych test and nutrition classes so I do believe that I am prepared that way. Mentally I can't WAIT!! I am getting married Sept 16, 2016 and I WILL dance at my wedding!! I have a wonderful supportive man that loves me how I am and only wants me healthy and happy. Please let me know your experience and if you have any regrets. I will be returning to work ASAP but it is an office job so from what I have read I think I will be ok...

Congrats! I have my date 10/20. I got approved immediately with bcbs but they sure made me go through hoops after approval. Please keep us posted on new updates. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Same here. I can hardly believe it but the scale has become a good friend and I actually obsess about my weight loss *less* because I weigh every day. When I never weighed myself, I could gain five or ten pounds, without realizing it, so that option is definitely not for me. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, I am never ever EVER going let my weight creep up on me again without being fully aware of it. One of the most horrifying moments of my life was when I stepped on a scale last year, thinking I'd gained 10 pounds, only to discover it was actually 50 pounds. NEVER AGAIN. When I weighed myself once a week or once a month, there was such a tremendous buildup that unless I lost a good amount of weight, I'd feel rotten, give up, and open a box of twinkies. I'd try all month to be good, only to discover I'd lost two measly pounds! On the flip side, I often find myself eating crap the first half of the week/month, and promising myself I'd diet to make up for it before it was time to get on the scale. Not healthy. Now I weigh myself every day and helps keep me sane. I don't expect to see a major loss, so I'm not disappointed when I'm down 0.02 pounds. And when I gain, it's not so horrible because I can get right back on track. And sometimes that gain is just my body doing its thing. If I get on the scale this morning and I've gained a pound, it's okay. (Well, not *okay*) I can deal with it because I know I'm not eating enough to gain weight so it's probably bloat or TOM or something. Once I was able to stop obsessing about my weight (and I have NO idea how that happened) I was able to use the scale as a tool and nothing more.

Futuresleeved.....I am also in the beginning stages of getting the clearances but I am already working on quitting smoking. I am going cold turkey. It's the easiest thing for me to just go cold turkey. I have tried quitting so many times in the past without success, but this time I have something to look forward to and it really is helping me and keeping me motivated to stay "clean". Karenb4729....I will definitely check out that site. Thanks for the tip. I have started a little jar in my house that everytime I think about buying a pack of ciggarettes I put the $10 in there instead of buying the ciggarettes and am going to put that money towards my new clothes

For years I have said "i'm not too fat for my height, I'm just too short for my weight". I'm 5 feet tall, used to be 5 feet and a 1/2 inch, but I guess I shrunk in the wrong direction! Clothes.... don;t even get me started. Why would a manufacturer think short people only need shorter pants? Don't they think we need shorter dresses, sweaters etc, too? If the average woman is 5 feet 4 and under and american women are heavier than ever, than doesn't it stand to reason that a good portion of the overweight women will be short? I have tried things on that make me look like a five year old playing dress up with mom's clothes. Shoulder area hanging loose, length that supposed to be knee length but on me hanging on the floor and the long sleeves that make me look like I am a wizard. The new 3/4 sleeves and capris and ankle length pants have made life somewhat easier, but until I can get into regular petite clothes shopping is tough. I have found that right now, Talbots Women's Petites size 16 fit me almost perfectly... of course they are expensive.. and when you lose a size in a month... that really gets expensive. And petite clothes mostly go up to a size 14 or 16 and they are cut smaller ( just check the size charts) so we really need to weigh much less than taller people to start getting into clothes that fit us. An average height person can shop in Misses, which will go up to 18 or 20. I don't count on ever being a "normal" weight. I figure I will always be in the overweight category. I'm 56 and let's face it, metabolism slows down as we age and the lowest weight I was as a young Adult was 128 pounds, and that is the upper limit of normal. But I would be delighted to get to and MAINTAIN 140 pounds. I could easily go into a store and find something to wear and look good. Overweight people know that thin people don't understand how hard it is to shop but overweight tall people have no idea how many fewer clothes choices overweight short people have. I'm probably about 10 to 12 pounds away from the regular petite department and I just got a fill I finally think will work!!!!! Life is good today! Funny thing is before I got banded, all my husband heard from me was "I have nothing to wear" and now thirty pounds later I am saying the same thing. I have outgrown all my clothes in the closet and buy the very minimum to get by. Nice to meet you all, fellow shorties! BTW, my husband is 6 feet 3 in tall! Isn't that a sight? LOL

Hello, I am new here and don't know where or how to post things to ask the Dietician - but here is my story and I need help please. I had Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy August 6th, 2019. My surgeon and nutritionist said being almost 2 years out of surgery, my stomach should be able to hold 8 ounces in volume or 1 cup of food at a time (but obviously if I get full, don’t eat the whole thing) When I first started this journey, I had the Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy on August 6th, 2019, they said only eat 4 ounces of food for a meal three times a day. I did that and weighed my food at 4 ounces on my kitchen scale. Then a year and a half out they tell me no, I need to go by VOLUME and not by weight or else I will stretch my stomach! I feel like I am limited in what I can eat now because how do I make a sandwich fit in a measuring cup or a piece of pizza (which I no isn’t nutritious..) but just using those as an example for size. In addition to the whole volume thing, what about foods that expand like breads and crackers and pasta? How do I measure their volume? If I figure out the volume of something like that should I take away some of the food item that will expand, so I do not go over the volume? For example: If I make a sandwich that is a perfect half cup in volume, should I remove some of the bread because if it expands it will be more that that half of cup? I hope that makes sense. I have lost 230lbs since August 2019. Now I have to learn how to reeat again, because I don’t know how to measure volume without putting it into a measuring cup. I find conversion calculators online, but they give me different answers. I thought, well if my kitchen scale says 4oz in weight am I able to find the fl oz of that without smushing it? I don’t know what is accurate? Weighing was so much easier, but now I am told volume and that it has to fit into a measuring cup, but how do you put a meal in a measuring cup? Right now, I eat 3 meals a day at 1/3 cup volume measuring cup per meal and with 1 – 2 protein shakes for the day in between my meals. I eat a meal at around 6am, 12 – 1pm, and around 6 – 6:30pm. I get full on only a few bites of my 1/3 cup food or what I think fullness is so I don’t always finish even that. My hunger signals and fullness signals are all screwed up. And I don't know if it is all in my head? Thank you so much for your time. I truly appreciate it. I try asking my nutritionist and surgeon these things and they say they don’t know how to answer them – just make sure you don’t stretch your sleeve and go over the volume! I try to stay at 1/3cup volume per meal, because I am afraid of stretching my stomach out now. Maybe one day I can go up to 8 ounces in volume I hope because my meal choices have become really restricted because I can’t mush them into a measuring cup and what I can doesn’t seem worth it because If I wanted to enjoy a little something sweet, it barely fits in the 1/3cup – so why bother. Then that makes me sad. I originally weighed 352lbs and now I am 119lbs. I also spoke to someone who said that after I lose all of my weight that it doesn’t matter if I overeat and stretch my stomach back out any more just as long as I stay within 1,200 calories, 120 carbs, and 90g of protein? Is that true? My hunger and fullness signals are really difficult for me to tell apart and I have a severe anxiety over stretching my stomach (that I am trying to seek help for). But if the whole “It doesn’t matter if your stomach stretches back to normal” is fine and I watch my nutrition, is that ok? I feel like that would be giving up and taking the easy way out because I “like food more than blah, blah, blah, and just want to eat..” I am afraid of going back to old habits because I love bread and sweets. It scares me to gain any of my weight back because I don’t want to be one of those where people say, look at her – you can’t even tell she had weight loss surgery because she gained it all back! I made this big decision, this massive life change and accomplished a great weight loss, but now am I giving it all up? All because I miss food and want to eat in between meals. Right now I am so hungry or head hungry, but not physically hungry, but head hungry enough I think I want to eat something. I need help tp get on track and figure some things out please? I don’t know what else to do and I am so utterly lost. My surgeon tells me to ask my dietician these questions because he doesn’t know how to answer them – he just preforms the surgery. My dietician told me to go by weight, then volume and now she’s telling me not to weigh or measure at all just to go by how I am feeling? Well sometimes I feel I can eat a lot. I am not getting the support from them I need and I just need someone to have patience and understanding and who is kind to work with me please. I am sorry if this is a lot of information to take in. I don’t mean to go on a rant. I am just so confused. I am going to see a therapist, but the whole stretching my stomach thing is a real fear. I also had complications after surgery with bleeding that I am told may have given me PTDS..