Search the Community

I lost 21 (which to me was a crap ton...i have never lost anywhere close to 21 lbs in one month in my life). How did you arrive at the expectation of a 25+ lb loss? Was it something your doc/team told you to expect?

20lb not a lot? It's great regardless of the start weight. Don't compare yourself to weight losses you see on shows like 600lb life etc. Some will have lost less weight than you, some will have lost more weight than you. All that is varible dependent on age, start weight, recovery, incidental activity, gender, their post op guidelines, etc etc

Hey everyone, I am almost at my one month and to date, I have lost 20lbs since surgery. I wanted to see what everyone else lost their first month as 20lbs doesn't seem to be a lot. I am getting my protein in, water in, vitamins done, and walking (not been cleared for lifting heavy weights yet). I know it depends on your starting weight but, I don't know, I thought I would be at 25+ now. At any rate, I am so happy to be where I am and the progress and inches lost that I see.

During weight loss phase, very rarely. If i did, it was like 5-10 berries (raspberries or blueberries) on a salad or with cottage cheese or yogurt. AFTER weight loss phase I eat more, but probably still not so much compared to others (maybe 0-2 times a week). Also, I expanded beyond berries: apples, grapes. And the very occasional watermelon or mango or papaya or pineapple. P.S. I'm not counting cucumbers or avocados (which I eat a TON of), nor tomatoes (which I eat sometimes). But these aren't usually considered "fruit" when people ask about "fruit" lol.

That’s a super easy answer. Scrubs. I have the best work outfit ever. Lol I work in the Operating Room in a Hospital so we wear scrubs and a surgical hat. So on top of not having to worry about an outfit, my hair goes back in a ponytail and I get to wear sneakers!

10DPO! Took some updated measurements...still on the hunt for a tiny waist! LOL!! Pre-op: 117lbs; 36-29-35.5 10DPO: 113lbs; 38-28-34.5 Hoping that my waist gets smaller as swelling goes down! Guessing the weight loss is from the skin removal, as I'm still pretty full of fluids, and would have thought my weight would be a little higher b/c of it. My hips went down an inch, which isn't a bad thing as I used to have 2 pockets of skin that sat on my hip bones and are now gone (sucked up into the TT). Once I'm cleared to lift weights, etc, I hope to build up my glutes and get that hip measurement a little bigger, but for now, I'm glad to be rid of those skin pockets!

I'm in the same situation with sleeve in 2013 and now surgeon is suggesting a revision to bypass or LINX to help with the severe GERD. However, they strongly recommend bypass so I'm here to do all the research I can on the experience others have had with similar situations. Would love to have the GERD gone and weight loss would be nice but terrified that bypass will actually be way more painful than I am expecting and have worse side effects like weight gain and dumping and maybe I should just deal with the GERD. Feeling really confused and hoping this forum helps me come to terms with a decision.

What I’ve noticed from reading posts on this board is that nutritionalists offer a lot of conflicting advice. It can be confusing. I would tell my dietician if I disagreed with her advice or if it wasn’t something I could follow in my life & I’d ask for alternatives. What is your goal weight? Does your nutritionalist know what it is? What do they say to explain your lack of loss on the higher calorie diet? Sure, as you get closer to your goal your weight loss does slow but not losing any weight over 2.5 months at your weight sounds like maintenance to me. How active are you? Keto was my recommended 2.5 week pre surgery diet. My personal view is Keto is good for kickstarting your weight loss but not as a long term diet. There’s research about the risks from the high fat component of the diet & also that it can cause issues for diabetics with erratic insulin levels because of the low carb aspect. Just something to consider. I’m all for a balanced diet. I eat about 2 serves of carbs a day (rolled oats & multi grain crackers only not including naturally occurring carbs in other foods), 4 serves of fruit/vegetables, 2-3 serves of dairy, 60g protein & am low fat. I avoid added sugar & artificial sweeteners wherever I can & have a glass of alcohol about once a month. I will have a protein bar if my protein is a little low. My portion sizes are about 3/4 of the recommended serving size or I have fewer serves in a day (like 4 serves fruit/vegetables not the recommended 5). I was told my maintenance protein level was 1.2g per kg of body weight because of being a women in her 50s. I don’t take multi vitamins. This is working for me. It took me a while to discover out how much I could eat in maintenance & I kept slowly losing for 12 months. You will need to work out what works for you in relation to the point at which you can lose & the point at which you can maintain. It will be different to other people’s diets. You may be able to eat more carbs or may choose to go down the plant based protein route. You may need more or fewer calories. You also need to work out what food choices allow you to live your life - dining out, having a glass of wine, travelling (whatever that will be like), work, etc. It may be time for some straight talking with your nutritionalist about your goals & what is achievable for you & your lifestyle. Good luck.

I prepared in basically the same way as I prepared for life without surgery, as our long term post op lifestyle should be a basic healthy diet with moderate or more activity. I started when my wife was leading up to her WLS (and was intending to get mine shortly thereafter) and we had to do the semi-typical 6 month insurance diet and exercise program to qualify. Our intent was to move our diet toward what it should be five or ten years on - basically what an RD will usually direct you for a healthy life -leaner meats, more fruits and veg (preferably fresh), whole grains in preference to refined white flour products, minimize the sugars and cut down/out the junky foods (high calorie/low nutrition stuff, whether those calories come from carbohydrates or fats.) We shifted the diet over to the extent that we could - it wasn't perfect, but it was sustainable, which is a key factor - this is your forever diet (though it can, and should, evolve.) It turned out the I lost about a third of my excess weight in those six months or so, and questioned the need to go with the surgery, at least at that time (my wife went ahead with it as she was much more in need of it) so I just continued, making tweaks to the diet to get it closer to a tolerated ideal. I lost a bit more here and there but maintained that original loss over several years before deciding to go ahead with the surgery to finish the job (the VSG had become accepted and insurable in that interim time, which it wasn't at the beginning - the DS that I was considering originally would have been overkill after my life changes. Over that same time, we joined the Y to get more active (it stuck with my a lot better than with her!) and I took up swimming again, which I had done before in younger days, and started playing with some weight training which became part of my routine - you need to find something that you will continue to do long term. fifteen years later, and I am still at it (though COVID has gotten in the way this past year, so things evolved again.) When I had the VSG done, I made relatively few changes to accommodate the transition. Protein is a bigger emphasis during that phase when you can't eat much, but I always still made an homage to my fundamentally healthy, balanced diet in the non-protein side of the diet, and the exercise was cut back during the healing phase, but ramped back up again, and beyond, as the weight came off. The net result is that my diet and lifestyle is little different than it was before, and this is an important factor as on of the most difficult things for those who follow the fad diets to "help" their WLS is the same thing as those who follow fad diets without surgery- the transition to "normal" once they're done dieting, as they never learned how to eat sustainably before. Even before COVID, I did not work as hard at the gym as I had earlier on, as we had gotten back into dogs, and with two pointers that need their daily exercise (they run, I hike) that has taken over some of my prior gym time - so things have evolved, but the activity is still there. I used to average an hour or so at the gym, alternating days in the pool and in the weight room, and with the dogs, it's more like a half hour, or sometimes it's entirely dog time if we do a longer hike in the morning.

I’m with @Recidivist. My diet was pretty repetitive, still is to be honest. Some of that was because I would freeze a lot of single serves of what I cooked. Still do - have multi serves of soup, bolognese, slices of corned beef, roast lamb, chicken tenders, steak, all cooked, in my freezer at the moment. (I love zip lock bags.) I found it meant I wasn’t focussed as much on food if all I had to do was have a lucky dip out of my freezer for a meal, pop it in the microwave & prep vegetables. I also don’t exercise. I know shocking! I walked on my treadmill for the first few months but gave up because of very low energy. Then I was using resistance bands. I agree exercise has its benefits but it contributes very little to actual weight loss - only about 20% of your actual weight loss apparently. I lost plenty without it but that’s been my experience. I have stairs in my house & I literally run up & down them a few times a day doing chores so I’m not totally sedentary - lol. And I do a few minutes of stretching each day. Honestly I find exercising tedious. I’ve never felt that high people say you get from exercising which motivates them. Good luck with your surgery.

Hey all, how's everybody doing? I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Mine was nice and relaxed - and I ate quite a few Christmas cookies! So I had my six-month checkup with my new bariatrician, along with a bunch of labs. Good news: almost all of my labs were normal, so even though I'm not as diligent about my calcium, iron, etc. as I should be, apparently I'm doing OK. I'm not pre-diabetic anymore! So that's a big win. I only had two abnormal labs. Elevated B12: bariatrician said not to worry about this one, since B12 is water soluble and I'll pee out any excess. I attribute this to all the vitamins I'm taking, including a Prenatal & DHA gummy that I decided to try to see if it helped with my thin, weak nails. It has quite a bit of B12 in it on top of my multi. Elevated Serum Ferritin: this is a little more worrisome. It can be due to a bunch of things, including inflammation, and I am still recovering from a frozen shoulder. So maybe that's it? In any case, she suggested talking to my PCP about it (I have an appointment next week) and repeating the test in a few weeks. I'm trying not to worry too much. In general I feel really good, in fact, more energetic than I have in a long time. I don't need a daily nap anymore! My food tolerance has improved, though my stomach is still tiny as hell, so I can't eat very much. My weight loss has slowed a bit but that's fine, it was super fast for the first few months. I'm really close to my initial goal, way before the one year mark, so I'm not really very worried about slowing a bit, hitting plateaus, etc. I'm doing much better on my fluid intake by focusing less on water and more on drinking other things: unsweetened iced tea, coffee, milk, no-sugar-added juice (sometimes watered down), and lattes that I make myself with my new milk foamer (totally worth it). Protein is still low, but I eat as much as I can and do have the occasional protein shake. Also buying other high-protein foods now that I've figured out a little bit of sugar doesn't bother me, like Kodiak Cakes pancake-in-a-cup things. They are delicious. And drinking milk helps too. Anyway, just checking in. Anyone else had lab results that were unexpected?

Now I remember, my Mom knows someone in Naples - I bet you have some beautiful nature preserves by you. The one and only thing I love about Florida is the wildlife. Especially the birds. Love at first sight! I just had a little 15X zoom panasonic Lumix but I tried. I remember seeing the Roseate Spoonbill the first time just a splotch of pink in a tree at night. But I do love alligators, lizards, butterflies, dragonflies ... I can live without invasive insects though now thats a story I wont get into. We came in 2012 for a visit and basically never left 🤣 we were staying in my mother's brother's condo for a while. circumstances had it that my Mom had opportunity to move here and I did not want her to let it go, but in order to afford living here we had to move in together. Long story. I had to pack and put in a single small moving unit (I forget what its called) our two apartments. well at least we were already neighbors ... anything we couldnt bring I had to give up to family or donate. like my brand new IKEA couch (thats how unplanned it was) I go off on Tangents too much 😂 I hope you are keeping comfortable and your incisions are healing well. Try taking turmeric gummies for the swelling. If you can find Garden of Life brand I liked that one best. Its my favorite multi vitamin as well. Not always in my budget though but its the best. since its whole food based. I also took a lot of collagen (still do) along with a hair, skin, nails gummy vitamin. there is a Biocell chew that has collagen and turmeric too.

Well... For me the preparation was mostly mental, in the sense that I had to wrap my head around the idea that I would be eating differently for the rest of my life. I learned to just take it one day at a time and not get overwhelmed by what "might" happen a month--or even a week--down the road. That helped me get through the liquid, puree and soft food phases. I'm not much of a cook, so my meals in the first few months were simple and very repetitive. To be honest, I wasn't really hungry and was just looking for ways to get the necessary protein as easily as possible. As for exercise: I did essentially none (except walking) during the weight loss phase, and I still don't. I followed my doctor's food plan as closely as possible, and my weight came off fairly easily. I do acknowledge that exercise is beneficial for strength and overall fitness, but I don't think it's a critical component of weight loss.

You certainly don't have to do keto if you don't want to (I never did) as people have been successfully negotiating their WLS for years, decades, before keto was ever dreamed of, and will continue to do so once that fad has faded, lol. What type of test(s) did they do for your body composition and BMR? Some work better than others, and they all have some flakiness when it comes to measuring obese, or formerly obese, people, but they can give a ballpark estimate of things. I am a bit skeptical of the 1200 calorie minimum for a woman of your size (height mostly) as there can be quite a variation in metabolic rates (which the test may or may not pick up) and it's not unusual to see women of your height maintaining in the 1200 range (and some may do so at 1600 or so.) I do understand that there are differing hypotheses and philosophies regarding metabolic set points and going too low means you stay low, etc., but there is also not a real strong consensus on this issue, either. My inclination would be to keep the calories on the lower side of their range, if not a bit lower, and see how that goes. I did fine at a consistent 1100 per day, but I have a decent guy's metabolism, and was losing at a consistent 10 lb per month after the initial quicker loss of the first three months. I am also maintaining in the 2000-2200 calorie range, so I had a fairly large caloric deficit to work from, which I doubt that you have given your height and gender. There is a general tendency for our loss to decline as we lose weight over the months, simply because we aren't moving alll of that excess weight around 24/7, so a slowdown should be expected, but it also means that there is a danger of going into maintenance early if our calories are too high, or worse, increase them over time as some programs suggest. Good luck!

Thank you, ChubRub! Your progress is amazing! How have you found maintaining your loss so far? Easier than before surgery, I hope?

Hi Y'all, I had sleeve surgery 7 months ago on the 17th. I've been stuck for about 2 months now at 226lbs from 318lbs. I can't seem to find where I should be macro wise to get me out of this stall. Its been very emotionally draining as I have no restrictions in regards to what I can eat just portion and well I'm an emotional eater. I'm truly just at a loss and I'm dying to get to wonderland. I do an hour of CrossFit 3 times a week and my CrossFit trainer keeps telling me I'm not eating enough. I don't think she fully understands and I'm not getting much from my doctor. I get anywhere from 1,000-1,300 on non gym days and 1,300-1,500 calories on gym days, 30-90 carbs and 70 -130 in protein. The only thing as of lately I've noticed is I'm very hungry so I eat about every hour or so and getting water in has been hard but I try to hit 70 oz. at min. I've done measures and even that has only been a small difference. Thanks for any help! :)

@serenity786 YAAAY!! I know the exact feeling when Dr. Hong took it out last year. It feel a heavy burden to relieve out and your mindset is now healing through trauma of symptoms we went through the bad. I remember after woking up from surgery asking the nurse if the band was out. LOL .. I am so happy to tell you i lost 40 lbs and i am still working on it. i will never ever take my weight loss for granted. I am on keto/ low carb diet and it had been working for me. Right now the post surgery will be painful for aleast a two week. My tip is to keep walking and then take couple hour to sit and lay in bed and keep rotating your body otherwise your back is gonna be hella sore. Speedy Recovery and now it time for you to enjoy and breathe in this healing journey ❤️

I just had my 7 month post op with my nutritionist and was told pretty much that exact same thing as you. She said at this point I should work at slowing my weight loss to just 1 pound a week. She recommended increasing calories by eating "good" carbs such as whole grains, beans, fresh fruit, etc. She also said there is no need to be afraid of good carbs but to avoid refined sugar and processed grains. And to limit my good carbs to 1 serving size at a setting. She gave the example of 1/4 bagel is 1 serving - not the entire bagel! She also stressed that by incorporating more carbs into my diet I will have greater variety and my diet will be easier to maintain over time.

+ 1 I'd add: vacation someplace hot where you can wear a bikini with your smaller bod (pending pandemic restrictions) new wedding ring/engagement ring (to fit your smaller fingers)...and if you don't have one to replace, just get one anyway! Or any other piece of sparkly thing tattoo (i've already decided that I'm going to get one once the parlours open up! mid-life crisis, anyone??? lol) hair extensions (to add fullness to your weight-loss related hair thinning) fancy new underwear/lingerie that you have no intention of actually wearing for very long LOLOLOLzzzz

After reading threads on stalls, I'm questioning my nutrionists advice at my 6.5 month post surgery appointment on 1/12/21. Background info = surgery July 9, SW 205, CW 163 5'5" on a good day. I've been in a maintenance phase (not deliberately) for 2 months. According to my surgeon's PA and nutritionist, I wasn't getting enough protein at 60-65g per day. I've since corrected that. But after a body composition test (reads lean body fat, resting BMR, water weight, muscle mass) the nutritionist he told me 1300 calories a day to continue losing. 25 to 30% protein (81g-98), 40% carbs (130g) and 30% fat (43g). He said no less than 1200 a day. Thid seems like a lot compared to what others have said here about their daily intake. I realize that what he told me will result in slow weight loss which isn't bad but... My surgeon's PA was happy with my weight loss so far since this is for life, not a race. But no loss in 2.5 months is disappointing to me. Maybe my surgeon (best in my city and I paid more for him specifically) has a different philosophy than most? How would you take this recommendation from your nutritionist?

I would make sure your protein intake is where it should be. That was my doctor's main recommendation. My surgeon's PA did say my body was probably getting comfy at my current weight. I just didn't realize I needed to up my protein after post surgery by 20 grams. I do try to look at the bright side of my mistake. Fast fat loss means sagging skin and my face has already aged from the loss I've had so far. And I'm not that old.

Do you have any emotional support from family or friends? I have an awesome friend who I walk with 5 days a week. Being able to verbalize what I'm going through, the pluses and minuses of different foods, the needs to "cheat" every once in awhile and have that chocolate candy bar etc. really helps me to keep grounded. Plus as my weight loss gets more noticeable, I find that the positive comments I get from people (even complete strangers in the grocery store), can give me an emotional high. Once your through the recovery phase, and eating normal foods, you'll find that a lot of those favorite foods can become part of your everyday meals, just in smaller quantifies. I'm amazed how eating 5 Tator Tots with my chicken breast at dinner helps me overcome that feeling of being deprived! Congratulations on your weight loss and if you don't have an emotional support system, use this forum. I find that just sitting down and reading posts on here takes my mind off of eating and lets me know I'm not the only one who is dealing with these issues!

Welcome, and congrats on getting your surgery! 20 pounds in two weeks is awesome. The first few weeks are the hardest because you are very limited in what you can eat but you're not seeing all the rewards from the weight loss yet. The good news is that it gets easier! At two weeks out, you're probably either on purees or soft foods, right? It won't be too long before you can start eating real food (it may feel like an eternity, though). I've discovered some great new bariatric-friendly recipes on Pinterest that I really like. There are times when I miss being able to eat like I did before surgery, but at 6 months out, I'm getting used to my new eating habits and I'm loving my results. I, too, have had to work on slowing down my eating. I bought a set of tiny forks and spoons (they are listed as cocktail forks/spoons if you want metal rather than plastic baby forks/spoons), which helps for taking smaller bites. I set a timer to go off every 30 seconds, and I try to chew for the first 30 seconds and then wait another 30 seconds to take the next bite (so 1 minute between bites).

not getting your protein in is going to make hair loss worse. Do whatever you can to keep on top of your protein requirements. P.S. Not enjoying food is common the first few months post-op. That actually helps A LOT - it's way easier to lose weight when you're rarely (or never) hungry and don't give a flip about food. For the vast majority of us, all that returns sometime during the first year.

I understand what you're going through and honestly, hang on there! I stalled from Thanksgiving day (only lost a pound between Halloween and Thanksgiving) until yesterday. I had surgery July 9 and have only lost 45 pounds. I am thankful for that loss but read on here how others near my starting weight (5'5 on a good day and 205 pounds) have reached goal and gotten to 124 in 6 or 7 months. I started a pouch reset (I'm on day 4) and the scale moved down 2.4 pounds as of day 3. Also saw my surgeon for 6 month check in and he recommended the Baritastic app and I've been tracking. I had only been getting in 60g protein a day and upped it to 81 to 95. Upped my exercise intensity as well. But the thing that did it was the reset. Maybe sub a protein shake for a meal on a daily basis? Changing it up is always good for a stall.