Search the Community

So true! At first I thought it was all in my head, but then I noticed people at work who hadn’t ever talked with me (for years) would look my way, smile, strike up a conversation, etc. It’s like they were afraid obesity was contagious, or I was so low that I wasn’t worthy of their attention, or maybe I had finally redeemed myself and deserved to be acknowledged. And others are even more friendly than in the past, saying “You look great!” I know everyone sees I lost weight, but some people keep their mouths shut and remain professional. *Please don’t comment on my appearance* I am the same person on the inside. Others’ behavior is abundantly clear. And also I remember who treated me well before the weight loss, no matter how I looked. 😀

Hey Sarah, I'm Liz (but call me Rusty). I've had WLS before but I'm starting over with the VSG. I, too, am in the learning process. I had a friend get one about ten years ago and she's met her goal and maintained very well with no issues. I've also been following a lot of bariatric forums and Facebook groups to see what other people are saying and experiencing. I've drawn a few conclusions for myself, but I don't know how well they might extrapolate to others, because I also have experience with WLS, losing a substantial amount of weight, and then having "life get in the way" and having it return. My first journey was because I wanted to have children. My second journey has begun because I have a severe health condition that cannot be remedied without surgery and cannot be corrected at all whilst I am obese (and I'm way past morbidly obese at the moment, so I have a long way to go).

Aug 4 2021 had a mini gastric bypass. Down 75 pounds. Hoping to stay around this weight and not lose much more. Health wise doing great. How’s everyone else doing?

Zero regrets! Had VSG 2/5/2021. Highest weight was 363. Current weight 185. No more blood pressure meds, no more sleep apnea. I feel in control of my life and have a process to help manage my food behaviors for life. I still log my food every day and follow the guidance of my surgeon and nutritionist. Surgery allowed me to make long term behavior changes.

No regrets at all. I had VSG in December 2021, and I have lost 72 pounds from my highest weight of 253 pounds. I feel like my life is very much back on track, and I want to lose another 50 pounds by the end of this year.

You can add more calorie dense foods like butter, cream, oils, cheese, nut butters etc. to your cooking if you need to immediately halt your weight loss. Then longer term maybe you can think about your protein/good fat balance? I cannot wait to eat avocados without having to balance the entire rest of my day around that. My stats are very similar to yours although I had my surgery a month earlier. I for one am riding this train as far as it will take me but I know we all have our personal goals!

Hi everyone, My name is Sarah and I live in Connecticut. I am no different than all of you. Been On Diets whole life lose and gain back. I have been doing a lot of research on Bariatric surgery and would like to get advice. How did others begin their own journey to surgery? What was the best help for you guys in making this decision? I want to wish each and everyone here great luck no matter where you are on this hard journey.

A little over 2 weeks till surgery (6/16). Starting my preop diet Thursday. My program includes no caffeine :(, Sugar, Dairy, or carbs with the final two days being liquid only. As it gets closer the more anxious I get, I have been on a weight loss journey for 10 years and I'm really hoping this will finally be it.

It's all one step at a time. I hope you gain strength and each new step on your journey gets easier.

Hello gang, I had WLS in 2004. I was one of the early lap band recipients in Australia under Prof. Paul O'Brien. I did great and lost 46kg (101lbs), but then life set in and I had two kids and a suicidal husband so I let the weight creep back up. I had a revision in 2013 due to a hiatus hernia so large I was having esophageal spasms. So now, I'm at the heaviest I've ever been, and I've got a ventral hernia that goes from my navel to my sternum. My surgeon said he won't even try to fix it if my BMI is over 30 because it will just come right back. He then talked to me about how the lap band has fallen out of favor because it was not as effective as the original studies promised. He suggested a revision to a VSG, and set me up in my insurance's approval program for WLS. The first step is the removal of the band and port and recovery from that. Surgery is scheduled for July 7th. After that I'll progress through the "hoop-jumping" to qualify for the VSG, which providing everything goes smoothly, I'll qualify for in October. So far no one has stated any pre-surgery weight loss requirements, but I have been studying the various plans and doctor's programs I've found online, as well as reading personal stories from support forums like this one, so I can get an aggregate view of the entire procedure both pre and post-op. I must admit that the pendulum swings widely across what I've seen, both in program execution and in individual responses. Of course, I realize that there are outliers on every scale, and I'm averaging what I see. I got this little binder from the program introduction meeting (Dignity Health), and I've been adding my own research to it, things like print out of appropriate bariatric (or equivalent) vitamins based on their recommendations, worksheets for tracking eating and drinking, pre and post-op protein shakes, mixes, and recipes, motivational type posters, and text documents on things like how digestion works, how protein is used by the body, etc. Note, all the research is stuff from actual university or journal studies, I'm not taking answers from Reddit or Quora as facts! I've decided the biggest issue I've seen is the grief process that hits people after the surgery when they suddenly realize they can't eat what they want. I've read a lot of threads (not just here) of people rebelling and hating themselves and hurting themselves because of this. I do not want to deal with this. I'm already working on changing my eating habits, albeit slowly. I want to be more in control of this transition than I've seen, So, if you've read this far, my questions to you are: Did you make any effort pre-op to really change your eating habits? Did you experience grief or regret post-op if you didn't? Did you regret your surgery for any reason OTHER than the food restriction/complications? Thanks for discussing!

You don’t have to eat more to slowly increase your calories until you find your maintenance amount, just add in some healthy fats such as avocado, nuts, nut butter or a small amount of olive oil. And as catwoman said you will most likely gain a little weight back so keep that in mind when you decide if you really do want to stop losing.

my loss eventually stopped on its own. Don't forget that most of us have a 10-20 lb rebound from our lowest weight, so I wouldn't panic too much if you go a few lbs below goal.

Hello. I was sleeved Dec 28, 2021. I have reached my personal weight goal. I had been eating about 800 calories per day. I talked to my nutritionist on Wednesday and she said go to 1200 calories per day. I will say this is really hard. I didn’t realize how hard it would be. It seems all I do is eat and then I’m trying to get fluids in. It is so uncomfortable. I have never been able to get 64oz. Of fluids. Probably 40oz. My nutritionist is ok with it at this point as it has been such a struggle and hard to get to that point. I weighed myself and down 2 more lbs since Wednesday. I honestly don’t want to lose anymore. Any suggestions and meal plan ideas would be greatly appreciated. Also, any idea how long it should take before the loss will stop? I don’t have another appointment until 2 weeks. I am 5’9 and 190 lbs. this is comfortable too me. I was previously banded and it malfunctioned and had to have it removed and then sleeved. I looked healthy and was good here. Thank you in advance for any suggestions

Well its Sunday and I have just one mote fay before surgery Tomorrow will be hard. I am going with my niece and her husband and daughter to a friends house for a cookout. They get to eat hamburgers and hot dogs and baked beans, while I will be sipping my clear broth and drinking water and apple juice. Juice to keep my sugar up. Have to be up btight and early Tuesday foray surgery. Have to be at the hospital by 8:00 am.for surgery at 10:00 am . My journey has been a real tough one. I started out at 410 lbs and am down to 367 lbs with just dieting. I haven't thought of a goal weight yet Any weight loss is a victory to me.After all my health issues, I have to do better and get healthier. I need to focus on just getting through this surgery and then I can begin the real weight loss journey. GOOD LUCK TO ALL( ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH SURGERY'S COMING UP) THANKS FOR ALL THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK AND COMMENTS. Sent from my LM-Q730 using BariatricPal mobile app

I was allowed ( and encouraged) to walk right away. At four weeks out, I was cleared to do everything except for weights. At eight weeks out, I was cleared to do weights (as in cleared by my clinic)

Thank you! The weight loss has definitely slowed significantly in the last 3 months, but I don't think that I'm done! I think I can and will get down to 200ish which is my goal. The surgeon said this is why exercise becomes so critical once you are like 6 months out and I need to start doing that. lol

I was working out before surgery. For the first 2 months post surgery, I just walked. I did not have the energy to work out more significant until I was eating more calories (and my program did not encourage it until we were able to eat 800-1000 cals/day consistently. I didn't start back with my trainer until 7 or 8 weeks out from surgery, and then we adjusted my weights down since I hadn't been lifting in a while. We were also really careful with the ab work for the first few weeks back since again, I hadn't been doing anything for a while and I'd had surgery!

Literally never--even now, more than three years after surgery. I just walked as necessary for my daily routine. And it didn't impact my weight loss at all--I was quite successful.

almost 2 months out. No not really. Yea it sucks that i really cant go to mcdonalds and grab 2 double cheeseburgers and a large fries or a large meat lovers pizza anymore lol. But other than that i find it was worth it as long as i continue to loose weight.

Beat way to see if a low carb diet works for you is to try it out for several weeks and see? If you see/experience what you like, then yay! If not try something else. Everyone will respond to different types of carbs differently. I went ultra low carb during weight loss phase, and lost the weight I wanted. BUT…I discovered later in maintenance that my carb intake made little to no difference in weight loss/gain/maintenance for ME. All that mattered was total calorie intake, whether these cals came from bread or steak or cookies. What carb intake DID make a difference for ME, was physical appearance. When i am low-carbing i look more lean and defined. When I’m not, I look more puffy and full. So while low-carbing makes my body (in my opinion) look nicer, my face gets gaunt-er…so its a win-lose lol. (AND i am basically still the same weight either way, eating basically the same amount of calories). But again, try it yourself and see (and also speak to your NUT of course ) Good Luck! ❤️

Lol!! I’m going to up it a little and see if that assists in my weight loss. It is scary though! I see you mentioned that upping your calories during your last stall was helpful. I believe that it may work for me too. I’ll report back!

Hi yes it's normal for some of us, at this stage eating was like having to do a chore I didn't want to do. It does get better this is the phase we're you loose the most weight (the first 6 months) so take full advantage of it. I ate foods that were easy and tasted good to get me interested in eating. If eating is causing you discomfort go back to your previous stage but really you should be able to eat without to much discomfort.

TBH you are doing so well. 40lbs is a lot of weight to loose and you are on the right track. You should not change anything that your team has set for you. My dietician explained bariatric weight loss like a staircase. For every down step there is a flat step. If you track your food, { I use My Fat Secret UK} you know that you are in a calorie deficit. You can not fail. I am lucky if I manage 850 a day but I have had a difficult time since surgery. So am a little behind my peers. I once had a 5 week stall that had me worrying but the good people here put me right. Onwards and downwards.

1200 calories is pretty low. Have you considered increasing your caloric intake? It's not intuitively obvious, but sometimes eating more calories can increase your weight loss - your body may be in starvation mode and conserving due to low calories. Increasing the calories, even to 1400 or so, might kickstart your body into burning fat again.

I don't really live anywhere that I can go walking outside (I live right in downtown, and if you know anything about downtown Denver right now, you know you can't go walking there) so I use my apartment complex's gym. I want to add inclines to the treadmill but my surgeon said no until I hit 6 weeks post op. I can't lift any weights (I only do 3 and 5 pound weights) until then, too. And no running or jogging until then. So I'm kinda stuck at just speed walking on the treadmill and riding the exercise bike. If that means I'm gonna be in this stall another 2 weeks, I might very well lose my mind lol But I'm happy you finally broke the stall!!! How much did you lose when you saw the stall broke?