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I don't have kids, but I do have a husband, and an adult brother who lives with us, neither of which are bariatric patients. I usually just eat the part of the meal that agrees with my diet, maybe with some small alterations (i.e. I eat the broccoli and chicken that the fellas are enjoying over pasta, or just the stir-fried meat and veggies with no rice).

Every surgeon has different recommendations. When I was in pureed phase my options were much more limited than a lot of others on here. Even bariatric pureed recipe books I couldn’t follow. It’s important to follow your surgeons recommendations. You can reach out to your dietitian who should be able to give you some ideas.

Great for you! That’s wonderful, I love the bariatric store, it had wonderful cookies that are all protein and fiber. They are pricey though, but worth it! I’m exactly one year out and still losing, though it had slowed considerably. I have 11 pounds to go, then will be within normal weight range. Will be at the top, but at my age, I’m not necessarily trying to get back to 120-130. If I get there, great. If not, I’m a lot healthier than I was before.

I haven’t had the surgery yet. I’m scheduled for March 6th. They have told me that I’ll be sent home with anti-nausea and pain meds as well as medication for avoiding blood clots. They’ll also give me the battery operated leg compression devices to wear. My surgery is in the morning, I’ll be observed the remainder of the day and sent home later same day with on-call info if anything comes up. I’m having it done at a bariatric surgical center and they seem pretty proactive. I had to go through an approval process to determine if I qualified health wise to have it done there or if I would be required to have it at the hospital. I am self pay and it is much more affordable to do it through the surgical center. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping all goes well. Still nervous about what my pain level will be like.

Had my gastric sleeve surgery Feb 7th! I also have a hiatal hernia, but we aren’t messing with it at this time. Bariatric surgery took precedence for my general health! Hope your recovery has been going smoothly! :)

Hello. I am new here. I have my first initial consult with the bariatric surgeon next week. I know I have to tell my wife and frankly I do not know how she will react. Knowing her she will say I don't need surgery, I just need to stop snacking particularly at night. I really want her support if I decide to have WLS, probably the original gastric bypass. I have struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. I am now 67. I was on the original Atkins in 1971. I have yo-yo dieted many times. I don't think I am morbidly obese and I hide my weight well but my BMI is 37%. I have enjoyed bicycling and at one point about 20 years ago I was riding a lot 2-3 hour 4-5 times a week. Even then I was not able to lose much and always struggled up every hill. I take medication for high blood pressure, cholesterol, GERD and type II diabetes. My other main motivation is to get off my medications. I understand this will be a transformative procedure if I choose to have it and will radically need to alter the way I eat. I think I am prepared for that. Any suggestions on "selling" the idea to my wife would be appreciated. I know I would enjoy bicycling much more and probably ride more. I do still work some, about 20 hours a week. I work at home. Thank you.

Every insurance company is different but it’s usually a medically supervised weight loss program (someone correct me if I’m wrong please). To know for sure you need to ask the insurance company directly. Also there may or may not be a separate requirement from the Bariactric practice so check that as well. If the owner of the spa is a licensed medical professional or there was a nutritionist on staff that may work. Even so you can ask your referring doctor to add your previous weightloss attempts with the spa to your records as a back up. Here is Cigna’s info on Bariatric surgery (it’s long but page 2 describes what you are looking for) https://static.cigna.com/assets/chcp/pdf/coveragePolicies/medical/mm_0051_coveragepositioncriteria_bariatric_surgery.pdf

I'm 2.5 years post-op from gastric bypass. I think weight loss surgery can help make major changes to your relationship with food and eating, but it takes a lot of time and work to undo the habits and mindset you've developed throughout your life up to this point. I had read that a lot of people experience changes in their tastes after surgery, and I hoped that would be the case for me but was not optimistic. I mentioned this hope to the psychiatrist during my psych eval for the surgery, and he kind of laughed at this idea and told me not to count on it. I've always been a picky eater with a long list of vegetables and cuisines that I wouldn't eat. Some people say that after surgery, food tastes different (e.g., anything sweet tastes too sweet), but that was not my experience, so I figured I wasn't one of the lucky ones whose tastes would change. Well, fast-forward to now and my tastes have changed... sort of. It's hard to explain because foods taste the same now as they did before surgery, but my likes and dislikes have changed a lot. I used to hate seafood and now I love it. I eat all kinds of vegetables that I used to hate. I'm not sure if my tastes have changed or I just have more of an open mind, or maybe having to go through the pre-op liquid diet and post-op stages made me appreciate real food more when I reintroduced it. Either way, I'm eating healthy foods every day and loving them. Before surgery, I loved watching cooking shows like Top Chef and Great British Baking Show. For the first several months after surgery, I couldn't bear to watch cooking shows. I hated even seeing food commercials on TV. It just made me sad and angry to see foods that I could no longer eat. But eventually, I got to a point where I could see food and cooking without the emotional attachment. I can watch Great British Baking Show and appreciate the cakes and cookies they make without being sad that I can't eat them. Once I got to the point of reintroducing solid food, I put a lot of effort into recreating "bariatric-friendly" versions of foods I used to eat -- especially pizza. Pizza was my kryptonite, and before surgery, I could not get enough pizza. I could have eaten pizza every day and never gotten tired of it. After surgery, I tried chicken crust pizza, and making pizza with low-carb tortilla for the crust, topped with sugar-free marinara, low fat mozzarella, and turkey pepperoni. But I also started trying healthy recipes that I found on Pinterest, and eventually, I stopped craving pizza. I haven't had anything resembling pizza (even a healthy version) in well over a year and I don't care. If you put two plates in front of me, one with a slice of pizza and one with grilled salmon and roasted vegetables, I would go straight for the salmon and not even be tempted by the pizza. This is just wild to me because three years ago, I wouldn't have eaten salmon if it were the only food available, and I never could have passed up a slice of pizza. Sometimes I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience because before surgery, I couldn't imagine being the health nut with a refrigerator full of fresh produce and no junk food in the house, eating grilled fish and cauliflower rice and salad with fat-free dressing, but here I am. I am constantly finding new, healthy, delicious recipes. Every single day, I eat healthy food and think, "Holy crap, this is delicious!" I honestly enjoy food more now than I did when I was eating whatever I wanted with wild abandon. It took me a long time to get here, and I can't promise that you or anyone else will have the same experiences after weight loss surgery, but my relationship with food has changed more than I could have imagined.

There are therapists that specialize in bariatric therapy. They help the patient manage expectations, emotions, dealing with head hunger, etc... It's actually a really good idea. Many of us on here have used them at one time or another. I have to have a revision and while I'm concerned about the rate of loss, I'll be honest, I mostly just want to feel better. I had my sleeve in May 2022 and I've lost 108 pounds. I still have 80 pounds to go to get to goal. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing with my diet and working out, and it may take longer than it did now, but I know I'll get there. You will, too. Just keep in mind that stalls happen a lot, 25 pounds lost in 6 weeks in excellent, and just stick religiously to your surgeon's plan and you'll get there in the end. The main goal is better health, anyway.

I'm with Bariatric Legend on this. They make good wigs out there that look very natural. Adding more stress to your scalp won't help. Hang in there!

I mean perhaps some of you, yourself included, need to understand that words have multiple meanings and not just your very basic and negative understanding, there is a difference between things being "ick" (which is a very immature word to use...grow up and use our adult words) and the whole lot of you just being miserable. The bariatric community, which again, you are a part of, has a reputation for being mean, cliquey and unwelcoming. This is why I stayed off this site for six months. Just saying. Grow up. Any of you who posted things about terminology, like the number of you who cannot understand what a tool is, really need to go back to grade school for comprehension. I'm over people being mean, and miserable behind a keyboard because they can. Some of you really need to start facing consequences for your negativity. Step on a lego and have the day you deserve. xoxo.

There's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with why we're told to eat slowly: First of all, recognize that you had a bunch of nerves cut. There are multiple ways your digestive system signals your brain that your are full, but these nerves are the immediate feedback mechanism. Unfortunately, that immediate feedback mechanism is basically broken for a while after surgery. The other signals that you should stop eating are mostly hormonal, but these take a lot longer to activate. (20 minutes is often thrown around, but this is dependent on lots of factors like what and how much you ate.) Bottom line, if you eat faster, it's easy to eat enough to make yourself really sick before you ever get the signal to stop. Obviously this is problematic partly because your stomach is smaller and will fill up faster than it used to, but you also need to remember that early on after surgery, your stomach is also really swollen and inflamed. An inflamed stomach can't stretch like it's supposed to, so there's not a lot of difference between empty and over-full. Taken together, the eat slow recommendation is primarily to keep you from making yourself sick. A secondary consideration is that your team wants you to learn "mindful eating" where you're much more aware of everything that you consume. Being mindful of your consumption is correlated with better outcomes for bariatric patients. Hopefully that answers your original question. I want to touch on something else that's a bit of a personal pet peeve: you mentioned, and I hear a lot of others worrying about "stretching their new stomach". There's more myth than fact here and this idea really needs to die out. The truth is that stomachs are designed to work like a balloon. They stretch out as needed, but when empty, they return back to their original size. Can you make it stretch it out to the point it allows you to eat more over time? Yes, and that's exactly what should happen! This is one of the reasons every bariatric plan I've ever seen allows you to slowly increase how much you eat the further away you get from surgery. You need this to happen so that as you get to maintenance, you'll be able to eat enough calories to maintain your new healthy weight. What you're not going to do is somehow "ruin" your new smaller stomach just because you overate once or twice. It would take overeating a lot over time for excessive stretching to happen. I think what sometimes happens is the inflammation starts going down and people find that they can eat more than expected. Remember, the stomach stretches as needed (up to a point), so they start to panic. That does not mean there's a problem. It actually means that things are progressing like they should. If this is you, just stick to plan and you'll be fine.

Tentatively, I will be joining the March group. I have a final hurdle of a 2/13/23 ECG to get cardiac clearance as required by the surgeon. In preparation, I have already had my "food funerals" and have started cutting carbs. I have also been psyching myself up to mentally prepare for the pre-op diet. Fingers crossed that I will be joining you in "Marching" toward a renewed focus on health!

That explains so much. Most of my IRL friends who are bariatric patients had bypass and they seem so confused why I can't drink soda.

I was just approved by AETNA for the SADI-S procedure. I wanted to post this because AETNA has just recognized the SADI as an approved procedure. Before Dec 5, 2022, it was considered experimental and I was concerned it would not get covered. AETNA uses a "Clinical Policy Bulletin" to explain the requirements for surgery if your plan has bariatric surgery included. It really helped clarify what I needed to do with my team. Here is the link to the most current bulletin: https://www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/100_199/0157.html I hope this helps.

I had my surgery in Monterrey almost five years ago with Dr. Francisco Barrera Rodriguez. He is with the Monterrey Gastro & Bariatric Group. My experience with them was awesome. They provide all instructions ahead of time such as itinerary, preop and postop info. I had surgery on Thursday afternoon and was discharged on Saturday at noon. They answered all my questions even the stupid ones. They don't rush you through anything and they run all the preliminary testing in house (EKG, blood tests, nutritional eval). I am not sure if any of their process has changed, but that was my experience at that time. Oh and they assign a nutritionist and office personnel who are available throughout the process. One thing I did do was stay in Monterrey for a few days just in case I had any complications. The drive from Texas was about 6 hours so not too bad. If you have any specific questions I'll be happy to answer them.

I have to agree most are short lived, the only ones I tuned into once in a while is No Guts No Glory and Our Sleeved Life, though I do wish they will focus more on the actual bariatric journey etc.

I had a lower body lift, arm lift and breast revision on January 25, 2023. My Surgeon implants a pain pump (a medical device he invented) in the abdominal area that lasts about 3 days after surgery so I really had much less pain than anticipated. I feel pretty good so I constantly have to remind myself not to do too much and jeopardize my recovery. My main area of soreness are my arms. The itching is the most difficult issue I'm having. My Plastic Surgeon, Dr. John LoMonaco in Houston, TX, co-wrote a book on plastic surgery specifically for bariatric patients. "Bariatric Plastic Surgery: A Guide to Cosmetic Surgery after Weight Loss". I found it on Amazon/Thrift Books and it's a great resource! If you're researching Surgeons, I highly suggest you check him out. He is a truly gifted Surgeon who specializes in Bariatric Patients, and in addition is an excellent human being! Best of Luck!

I had a long 8 months to wait for this surgery and thought I was very prepared. I read this forum from back to front. 20 years worth of problems and advice. I didn't know it all though, I didn't know that hormones live in fat cells and when we loose a lot of weight quickly we had all these hormones rushing around our bodies like puberty on steroids. I was having a tough time of it with nausea and vomiting too. I cried for a week and did not know why. I asked for help on here and got it. The answer, too many hormones at a time when I was overwhelmed with trying to do everything right. I think you need anti nausea medication. So, You are not alone. Its normal to feel like you are. As you have realised its big surgery and now you have to get to grips with it, there is no going back. IT WILL GET BETTER. You wont have to chew food like this forever, it just helps your tiny stomach digest your food so that you get the nutrients from it. Your headaches could be from dehydration, its tough to get all the liquids and food in early on, it feels like it will never get better but it does. Just do your very best everyday to get your liquid and protein onboard. That way you will improve every day and doing that will improve your mental health a little Please seek counselling for your eating disorders, hopefully you can find one who understands bariatrics too. OR talk to us on here, you can rage, cry and get these feeling off your chest and it may help a little bit. We don't mind, the ones before us did the same for us. You are not alone

Hi all! My Bariatric surgery was denied by my insurance so I’m looking to have the sleeve done out of state to save on cost. I’ve been leaning towards Las Vegas Bariatrics, but curious if anyone has gone through their practice? Would love to hear anyone’s experience!

OB/GYNs, internal medicine people, and pediatricians are all considered PCPs. So yes - a letter from an OB/GYN should work. Although if you want to be absolutely sure, check with your insurance company or the bariatric clinic (whichever one keeps bringing it up in their literature)

It does get better. It's normal to have regrets at your current stage. I am one of the very rare bariatric surgery patients to have serious complications. However, after a challenging year, I've lost a total of 115 lbs and my life is totally normal. I eat regular food and have resumed all of my prior activities. A year ago I was in hospital due to peritonitis and sepsis arising out of bariatric revision surgery. I rued my decision to have RNY>RNY revision surgery. I spent 7 weeks in hospital with 3 endoscopy procedures and two open surgeries, followed by 3 weeks in a rehab facility before returning home. I had an open surgical wound for another 3 months, requiring daily dressing changes. I'm lucky to have survived at all, with organs and limbs intact. Because of the endoscopy procedures my pouch and anastomosis were stretched so I now have minimal physical restriction and will have to watch my diet and record my intake for the rest of my life. I accept that and hope to lose more, but will be content if I don't continue to lose. If you read the many stories on this site you will see that regrets pass and the vast majority of us are ultimately happy with our decisions to have surgery. Life does return to normal. You will be able to eat normal food. If you follow an appropriate food plan and learn how to eat differently during this period of restriction you will lose weight and keep it off. Since you have had such meager support, it's up to you to read and learn more about how to make a successful return to normal life minus the excess poundage. There are many excellent books available. You may be able to get some on Amazon.de or have them sent to you by someone in the US (or on Kindle in English). Here are a few of the books I recommend. There are many other excellent books and cookbooks to support you. You may ultimately still need breast reduction surgery, but you will be in better shape before you proceed with it. In the meantime, make the most of the tool you have been provided. Hang in there. Day by day, it will get better.

I'm sorry about your experience. I'm surprised Ramstein Air Base didn't have a bariatric team. I'm working with a team at an Army base here in Colorado and wasn't even given the option for an off-base provider for this procedure despite all my medical being done by civilian medical offices. I don't want to give a bunch of unsolicited advice, but just validate how you feel. You have an absolute right to be angry and upset (which I'm sure is an understatement). Life as you know it is forever changed and it's not fair that you weren't properly prepared. I will say though, are there medical lesions are your base that you can speak to about the process and treatment you had? I know they cannot change what happened to you, but maybe something good will come from it. Lastly, know you have support from others in this forum who maybe feel frustrated about different aspects of the surgery and experiences they had.

I understand that you are feeling overwhelmed and regretful after your weight loss surgery. It sounds like you went through a difficult and confusing time both before and after the surgery, and it's understandable that you are feeling frustrated and sad about the experience. You mentioned several points in your message, and I'd like to address each one: Pre-surgery preparation: It sounds like you did not feel fully prepared for the surgery, both in terms of understanding the prerequisites and the potential physical and emotional effects of the surgery. This can be a common experience for people who undergo bariatric surgery, as the process can be complex and confusing. Hospital experience: The experience you had in the hospital sounds particularly challenging, with language barriers, physical discomfort, and a lack of support from the medical staff. This can be difficult to manage and can impact one's recovery and overall feelings about the surgery. Eating habits and diet: The changes in your eating habits and diet can be a significant adjustment, especially when combined with the physical side effects of the surgery. It's understandable that you are feeling frustrated with having to eat smaller portions and chew food thoroughly, as well as the headaches and nausea that come with eating. Mental and emotional impact: Your mention of having a history of eating disorders is important, as bariatric surgery can bring up old thoughts and feelings related to self-harm and negative self-talk. It's important to have a support system in place and to reach out for help if you need it. Overall, it's clear that you are going through a difficult time and that your experience with bariatric surgery has not been what you expected or hoped for. I would encourage you to reach out to your bariatric surgeon or a mental health professional for support and guidance. They can help you understand the physical and emotional changes you are experiencing and provide you with tools to manage them.

dizziness can also be related to low blood pressure. It's not uncommon after bariatric surgery, and it's usually temporary. Just transition slowly when you're going from sitting or lying to standing up.