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My stall came at about the 91/2 to 10 month mark after surgery. I just started eating less carbs and doing intermittent fasting and the scale is moving down nicely again. keep up your good work! Di

Sorry! Surgery was on 8/10. Typo!

Help!!! Bypass surgery was 8/10. scale has stayed the same for 5 days. Consuming 300-350 calories per day, 64+ ounces of Water, walking on treadmill 3 days per week for 30 minutes and taking all Vitamins. 15 lbs down, but frustrated! What am I doing wrong!

Help!!! Bypass on August 10. scale has stayed the same for 5 days. Drinking 64+ ounces of Water, 300-350 calories per day, and walking for 30 minutes 3 days per week on treadmill. General walking the other days too, taking all vitamins! What am I doing wrong???

My surgery date is 10/29/18. I am so happy to be at this point in my journey.

My date is 10/15/18. I am getting more excited/nervous every day. I've been working on getting approval for a little over a year. I am an (traveling) operating room nurse and I know exactly how/what goes on pre-op and during surgery. It's more of what happens post op that has me nervous. I don't want to wake up thinking "WTF did I just do to myself?" I want to heal properly, with no complications, and be able to follow all the rules/recommendations. I want it to be an uneventful recovery. I know I'm letting my nerves get to me. I'm not generally an anxious person. (Except when flying.) However, this is the biggest life changing experience that I've ever faced. How do you deal with all the emotions/nerves?

1. My surgeon doesn’t do the lap band and he said I wasn’t big enough to need the duodenal switch, which left me with the sleeve or gastric bypass. Reasons for not doing RNY: Didn’t want to have to give up any foods entirely. Didn’t like the idea of having my insides rearranged. My mom has Crohn’s disease and the surgeon said the sleeve is better if that ever presents itself in me. 2. No 3. Rice. My favorite meal before surgery was 10 boneless wings and 3 or 4 breadsticks from a local pizzeria - I can eat 5 boneless wings and 0 breadsticks now. Everything else is fine. 4. When my son was being born and I could sleep in the room with my wife and, later, my son, on the couch in the room, comfortably. To a lesser extent, the first time I flew on an airplane, in coach, without encroaching on my neighbor. And, next spring, when we all go to visit my wife’s family in England and I fit everywhere we go (it is not a country that is meant for big-boned people). 5. Measuring obsessively, eating protein first, drinking water.

I hit my plateau at 2 weeks post-op, too. I lost 19 pounds in the first two weeks post-op and then it was another 3 weeks before I lost anything and it was only 3 pounds. It was very infuriating. But I've been losing steadily and averaging 18-19 pounds a month since my pre-op diet. Try not to get on the scale everyday, it hurts your brain and spirit.

14 weeks out from surgery and I'm 75 pounds down from the first day of the liquid diet, which I started about 4 months ago. I've gone from 358 to 283 and, if I include the pre-op diet, I'm losing about 18-19 pounds per month on average which I'm very happy with. July was sort of meh for weight loss, not exactly sure of the stats but I know I stalled for awhile in the low 300's. August has been better, I've lost the last 10-15 pounds pretty rapidly here in the last two to three weeks. I saw my surgeon last Friday for my three month follow-up and she was really happy with my weight loss. We discussed "goal weight" sort of, I said I'd like to be normal BMI but would settle for 29.9 BMI. She said it might be more realistic to be around 30-31 BMI. So that puts my "goal" range from 164 (24.9 BMI) to 210 (31.9 BMI). I think I will set my goal as 29.9 BMI which is 196 pounds... so basically anything under 200 will be good for me. Although I doubt I will keep losing 20 lbs a month, it's crazy to think that I could, hypothetically, be to that 196 pound goal in 4-5 months! I discussed my issues with getting sick with both the surgeon and the dietitian and they suggested avoiding any foods that I know for sure are irritating me - the dietitian assured me again that my tendency/desire to eat more carbs than most bariatric patients is totally fine and that she encourages the whole wheat toast, cereals, fruit, brown rice, etc. for health reasons (and especially if that's what I'm able to tolerate vs. beef and chicken). She also recommended that I refocus on chewing really well and honestly since trying to take that advice I think that was the problem all along - going too fast because I wasn't chewing enough. In the last week since seeing her I've only felt ill a couple times and they were mild, not as bad as the intense nausea and sometimes heaving/vomiting I had been getting. Yay for eating with proper bariatric etiquette!

Today is day 10 and the only thing i want is a slice of cheese pizza!

That’s awesome girl! Mine is 9/10! I created a group on fb for September sleevers if you’d care to join 😊 https://m.facebook.com/groups/2157638997846802

I’m two weeks out after plication revision to bypass. I feel great! I’m walking 3-4 miles a day and can eat anything. Obviously keeping it protein first and drinking plenty of water. No dumping, lots of energy! surgery date: 8/10 Heaviest weight: 298 surgery weight: 271 Cw: 258

I'm in IT' as well. I scheduled 4 weeks off. I want to be done with pain and getting into a normal eating routine before I go back. The walk from the parking lot would take me prob 10 min instead of the 5 it used to

I researched and verified all the requirements for my Cigna insurance before getting started. I started my process on May 29, 2018. This was my first of the 90 days worth of appointments for medically supervised diet. I attended seminar on June 10, and saw surgeon for initial on June 26. I attended my nutrition class, for my psych eval. Then on July 15,2018, Cigna put out a NEW policy on Bariatric surgery coverage and requirements. Really?? Who does that in the middle of the year?? Anyway.. the new policy does not require the 90 days anymore. It requires a letter stating you have failed medical weight loss in the past and that it is medically necessary and that you are cleared for surgery. No mention of records to back that letter up. So, I called CIGNA to find out how long the letter needs to state that has been a problem, and if records are needed to go along with it. All they can tell me is that records are not listed as a requirement. In a way this put me ahead of the game, because my last weight-loss appointment isn’t scheduled until the last day of August. My paperwork was submitted to Cigna yesterday. Has anyone had to deal with this since July of this year with the changes to the Cigna policy?

I am just wondering who out there has had breast reduction surgery after losing some weight. I was originally referred a couple of years ago but the surgeon wouldn't touch me with a 10-foot pole since my BMI was 55 at the time. She wanted me to get my BMI down to around 40 before she would consider me for surgery. Well, fast forward 2 years and my BMI is now 44 and dropping and I would really like to pursue this before the end of the year (as my insurance deductible has already been met for the year). Has anyone else had the surgery before hitting goal? Any before and after pictures to share (with clothing on)? I am really excited to possibly be able to get this done soon...my boobs have been deflated balloons since I was in high school!

PRAISE THE LORD I'm 47 got sleeved on 1/19/18. I was 244 now I'm at 172 and counting down...goal weight 165....No regrets except for the major hair loss. Doing great, had a few stalls and I miss eating certain bad foods. Sometimes I cheat but I stick to under 1000 calories total food intake daily. Trying to get the protein and water in...still a challenge but otherwise....all glory to God I'm coming along

My people! Hello! It is so nice to see this thread! (I am not exactly a gal; I'm non-binary, but I was assigned female at birth and pass as female in spaces where I don't feel comfortable being "out." I hope it's OK if I hang out here. I have about had it with dudes, right now.) I don't put my weight in my profile, because, I'm not sure why. I feel like my writing style is pretty distinctive, and I worry that someone will identify me based on what I say here and then will know what I weighed? ... Look, anxiety isn't rational. Anyway, I started just under 350. I set a goal weight for myself based on the BMI chart (even though it is ridiculous and unscientific), but honestly? If I get under 220, I don't think there's anything I will want that I can't have. I'm not even really having this surgery explicitly for the weight loss; I'm doing it to get my arthritis under control. (The weight loss is part of that, and believe me, I'm excited about it. But I wouldn't have signed up for it if not for the arthritis.) I'm self-pay (which will completely clean out my savings--probably with some debt to boot), so I don't have a mandatory insurance waiting period, and I just wrote a really long message to my bariatric team, begging them to reconsider their "you must lose 10% of your starting weight before we'll operate on you" policy. It isn't science-based (I didn't tell them that; I wanted to convince them, not make them mad), and it is making other parts of my life significantly more difficult. I get bronchitis every single winter, and if they push my surgery off until mid-winter and I get bronchitis before then, 1) I can't have surgery until probably at least April, and 2) my deductible will reset. (The surgery isn't covered, but it'll still count toward what's left of my very, very high deductible.) Also, my clearances will start to expire, which is expensive and time-consuming. Also, I've gone back to school, and my easy classes are this semester; I can't miss 2-3 weeks of class, next semester. Anyway, if they hold fast on their arbitrary numbers, I think I will start investigating other surgical teams in town. So, hi, that's my life story. Nice to meet you all!

Today was a very gratifying visit with my surgeon today. At 6 weeks, I got my 10# weight restriction removed, got cleared to consume my gall-bladder and prilosec meds in the capsule, and officially progressed to real foods. I was worried because it feels like my weight loss stalled, but the doctor told me I had lost 15 pounds since I saw him last. He also said that at 6 weeks out, people typically lose between 16-25% excess weight. He said I was ahead of that, almost 27%. But now onto the good stuff. What can I eat? For example, I was thinking about making taco meat with ground turkey and then mixing the meat with salsa. I was also thinking of making the meat (using ground turkey) sauce for lasagna, maybe with some low/no-fat mozzarella cheese in it. I know to stay away from the taco shells and the pasta in the lasagna. I guess my question is, I've heard that many people cannot tolerate ground beef. What about ground turkey? I buy 93% or leaner ground turkey (I think I usually get 97%) so I don't think there will be an appreciable amount of fat. I've been eating canned chicken (in water) with salsa, hot sauce and liquid smoke. It tastes good to me, and digests completely fine. Thank you for your thoughts...I'm taking this very slow, I don't want to throw up or dump, or stretch the pouch.

@TropicalBeachDoll I can't believe they felt an "intervention" was necessary to stop you from doing something that you really benefit fit you and allow to live a longer, healthier life with better quality of living. You must have had the patience of a saint to be able to sit there for 3 hours and listen to them (well intended or not). For the most part, I am keeping my decision to myself (aside from discussing it with my wife, parents and the HR department at my job--since I am going to need an accommodation so I can have the time off for the surgery and recovery, tests etc.) As far as family reactions go, my dad and wife had the same type of negative reaction at first that your family is having (mom is 100% behind my decision). My dad asked me a few questions about the procedures, but never gave me his opinion on whether I should go forward with this decision and, according to mom he is really uncomfortable with the idea of me having this surgery and won't discuss it with me (probably because my mother would kill him if he tried to dissuade me). My wife is really worried about the procedure (understandable) and whether it would be worth it in the end (it will be), but she read the information I gave her and is on board (sort of, but not really). In the end, it's my body, my choice. While I value my wife and parents' opinions, this is my call to make and I made it. I know that having this surgery is going to make a huge positive difference on my life and health. I am not going to be one of those people that gives in to fear and/or family pressure, only to find myself in a terrible state of health 10 years from now wondering how my life would have been different had I had the surgery.

I have had my band for 10 years and I’ll be revising to a sleeve next year. I had to have all fluid removed. My story is not the horror show some have. I don’t have a slip or a port flip that I know of (confirmed via swallow test) and my pouch isn’t stretched that I have been told but for whatever reason, it simply becomes too tight (even now with no fluid ) on occasion and I’m unable to eat solid foods. So I turn to “sliders” because I’m hungry. But sometimes even those come back. The Dr recommended revision and frankly, I’m tired of the “stuck” thing on a regular basis. If I am asked if I recommend it I have to say maybe but leaning to no. There is a lot of upkeep and so many drs are leaving this technology behind that I simply don’t feel it will continue to be properly supported. But I would also never discourage someone who wanted it - with one caveat. I think the best thing to do is GET A HANDLE ON YOUR EMOTIONAL EATING because the band *will not* help you with it. In many ways, it’s worse because the “bad foods” like cookies, ice cream, mashed potatoes, sugar cereals etc all slide right in thru the band. So basically all the crap you turn to when you eat emotionally, yep, that’s going to really go thru. And the stuff you should be eating is what you get stuck on. So if you are really honest with yourself and are a big time emotional eater, you need to deal with that first. That’s actually homework for ANY surgery. I’ll Also tell you what I told a friend. Start eating the “post op diet” now. Your portions may be larger but see what that post op diet is and eat that way now. You need to know if you can live with it before you have surgery. Lap band means NO carbonated drinks so get sodas, beer and fizzy drinks out of your diet now. All surgeries want you eating protein first, veggies and then any carbs last. Do it now. Can you be happy eating this way? If you’re a Diet Coke addict you may as well work that out of your life now and not in recovery when you’re dealing with everything else. Can you have the occasional champagne toast or piece of cake? Of course. But notice the word “occasional” meaning a wedding or birthday is an “occasion”. Tuesday or “I had a bad day” is not. If you eat that post op diet and feel like “oh, this is nice. I feel good” it will help bolster your decision. Maybe you will like eating your protein and then a veggie and feel like “nah, I don’t need mashed potatoes”. I know I did and it felt great!! But if the thought of not having soft drinks, or bread or drinking anything with your meal (lapband guidelines state don’t drink with your meal or for 30 min afterwards) makes you want to cry, then this isn’t the surgery for you. Can you be successful with the band? Sure! I did well for quite a while although I only lost 40 lbs. But the success cases I’ve seen have been from folks who really did their homework and got their heads right remember, they band your stomach, not your mouth. If you eat a whole bag of m&ms because you’re upset, the band can’t stop that.

Congrats to you and your husband! Wow, losing 6 stone and actually keeping it off with surgery alone is really a major accomplishment!!! He should be proud of himself. I have lost lots of weight in the past, but then I hit a wall and can't lose any more--get frustrated--and then after a while start to slip up. Once that happens, it seems like 2 or 3 months later all the weight is back and then some. I can't do this yo yo dieting any more---it's literally killing me. I really feel for you guys suffering through NHS process in the UK. Despite all of the current scientific data, the UK (and in other countries with socialized medical systems) huge demand for these procedures and not enough doctors available to perform them (nor the hospital capacity). So it all gets rationed out and they make the process hard that only a handful of people make it to the surgeon's table. It takes the average person that qualifies for bariatric surgery in the UK an average of over 2.7 years to get from the initial referral from the patient's GP to the surgery theater (as of 2016) and that's assuming you get through those arbitrary barriers to treatment once you get the referral to secondary care. Just to get your GP to give you a referral for secondary care requires you to jump through tons of hoops so you can document your weight loss attempts and lifestyle changes for the referral. In reality, you're talking a 5+ year process for most people in the UK, depending on whether you have a GP that is willing to spend the 10 minutes to write you a referral and not shame you for being fat (Imagine if they did that to someone that suffered from anorexia or some other eating disorder, much less someone with cancer or drug addiction). One study was completed in 2016 that tracked 22 people through the NHS process for bariatric starting in 2012 (all of whom qualified for surgery based on NICE and their regional guidelines). Of the 22 people that started the process, 12 ended up getting referred back to their GP (to start over) and only 6 received their surgery by the time the study was completed in 2016. Here's the study: https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/39/1/163/3065701 You really need to fight to get this life saving and life changing surgery. Fortunately, in May 2018, NICE updated its guidelines so that people that are recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and have a BMI over 35 should be fast tracked to surgery (which makes sense since the surgery could stop the progress of the disease before it causes any real harm). Unfortunately, getting expedited processing still could take a couple years before a patient can get on the list for surgery.

If you go full Keto by the book, you should lose 10 lbs by September 20.

I’ve had such a great recovery and I thank god for that. Drinking was hard week one but now I can drink no problem. I still don’t remember to take my vitamins everyday but I plan on getting the patches so it’s easier. I drink water when I can. I found these chobani low fat yogurt drinks they are amazing and 10 grams protein. The protein shakes gave me the runs so instead I try and drink 3 cups for 1% milk. Sf pops and jello. Oh and chicken broth is heavenly when your struggling to swallow. It gets better trust me.

I'm going for the sleeve (and I am over 300 pounds and shorter than you and also not male), because I need to be able to take NSAIDs and probably methotrexate for my arthritis. (Sometimes WLS clears up arthritis. That's why I'm seeking it, not the weight itself.) With the bypass, NSAIDs are off the table for, as I understand it, forever. And Tylenol does almost nothing for arthritis. (Also, I'm self-pay in the US, and the sleeve is less expensive; I have enough money in savings for the sleeve, but I do not have enough money for the bypass, I suspect--I didn't ask for a price, already having made up my mind. Also, the sleeve has a lower rate of complications. Not enough lower that that alone should be the deciding factor, but it certainly factored into my decision. The long-term difference in weight loss is only about 10% of excess weight, on average--50-60% for sleeve and 60-70% for bypass. I can live with that difference; it'll still be life-changing.) They'll know after they do the upper endoscopy whether you have GERD or not. I had a little damage on my esophagus, and they couldn't tell if it was esophagitis or GERD. (It may also have been due to the massive amount of NSAIDs I took for several years.) Since it was a small enough amount of damage, I'm still cleared for surgery and still planning on the sleeve; I'm just starting the PPI sooner than expected. I know they'll keep me on them for 3 months after surgery, but I'm OK with the fact that that could turn into a year or (I hope not) forever. Ultimately, everyone in this forum is going to be invested in their own choice, the same way that newly married people try to push all their friends to get married. (I can say that without getting in trouble. I'm married. ) We all had good reasons for what we picked, or maybe we didn't but now that we've picked it we need to believe it was the best possible choice. You probably knew that coming in. But just a reminder: this is up to you, and you've gotta do what seems right for your body, in consultation with your surgical team. 👍

honeymoon period is considered the first 6 months, I believe. I will be 4 months in a week and I am noticing a little bit of a slow down. I lost 28 pounds my first month, than 15 pounds a month for two and three. Looks like it will only be 10 pounds for month four.