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Hi everyone, I had Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy in September 2023. my starting weight (on the day of surgery) was 102 KG and today march 27th 2024 I am 70.6 KG so I've lost a total of 31.4 KG. My height is 165 cm. so I believe I'm almost close to my weight goal. I want to lose maybe 8-10 more kilos and I think that's good enough for me. I took photos of my body on November and yesterday I took photos as well to compare both. however what I'm noticing is that although weight number has gone down, I do see difference in shape of my body (legs, arms, face, back) but I have an issue with my stomach. it has gotten better and smaller, however for someone almost going into 60's I don't think my belly should be looking this big. Do you guys recommend anything to do or try or should I see a doctor about this? please help! I don't want to struggle with reaching my goal weight and having a big stomach still.

Long rant ahead sorry ... So, I'm slightly angry (understatement). I saw my french primary care doctor yesterday. She's never been great to be honest. I've been seeing her for 6ish years. 5 years ago I gained over 80lbs pounds in a year and a half going from 118lbs (that had been my standard adult weight since my teenage years with a BMI of 19) to 200lbs ( BMI 32.3) after taking antidepressants. I stopped the antidepressants after a year because the weight gain was making me more miserable than I was being slightly depressed and thin. I have been struggling to loose the weight since... loosing and regaining the same 15-20 lbs again and again. As I've mentioned before, I have slight cérébral palsy - nothing too bad but enough to make walking pretty painful on my legs when I hit over about 130lbs and to make me generally clumbsy - I also lack gross motor coordination and don't have the best fine motor skills either... I can't really do any sports that require coordination and can only really ride a bicycle in a flat straight line and it takes a lot of mental effort for me to keep my balance, crowds freak me out because I'm scared of tripping and falling and don't even mention jumpy little dogs, my nemisis as my balance is so precarious. However I've always made do and It's never stopped me having an enjoyable fufilling life and a pretty decent career. My weight gain really really made me suffer, emotionally of course, my self esteem, my self worth etc ( I live in Paris which is the thinnist city in a thin country ... and it's not a place where people are kind to overweight people at all - I checked and the mean BMI of a Parisienne woman is 22.3 - so when you hit a BMI of 30 here you're really a fat outlier and are basically scorned in all public spaces ). It also made me physically miserable and I lost the little flexibilty I had - constant pain when walking - loss of gross motor skills, trouble showering standing up at 30 years old, not being able to put my socks on etc etc. For the last 4 years I have been to my Primary care doctor about 5 times asking for a referal to a nutritionist - she's always refused as told me "but it's simple, you just need to eat less and move more, it's not magic, No need to waste money on a nutritionist if you have no willpower "No **** sherlock! She has no idea the willpower it takes to get out of bed at 200lbs with cerebral palsy when you feel like your legs are litterally going to snap, when your feet are burning with weight stress induced neuropathic pain. In January I finally cracked after a lot of introspection and thought and booked my VSG for February in Turkey. I've now lost 35lbs since my preop diet so in just under 2 months. I already feel a lot better, the pain when I'm walking is lessening, I'm fitting back into the "second round" of fat clothes I got myself. So I walked into her office yesterday ( I had the intention of "fessing up" to having had a VSG and asking her for iron supplement ideas as I'm still being sick when I try and take iron ) She took one look at me and said "ah, you've finally found your willpower, loose another 20kg (40 pounds) and you'll be an attractive young woman again" I had a surge of red rage inside me, I kept my calm, but didn't tell her about the surgery, I just smiled and told her I needed a refferal to a dermatologist for a mole on my face and left. I'm never going back to see her again. I spoke to my physical therapist on the phone this morning and he sort of helped he said "can I be unprofessional ? Honestly, qu'elle aille se faire foutre, (she can go f*ck herself)" Lets find you another doctor." My physical therapist knew about the surgery, as did my orthopedic surgeon and booth agreed that with my CP anything is better than being even slighty overweight and that the surgury was worth the risk as they've both seen me loose my mobilité over the last few years and has seen how its affected me. They said that if I could afford to go private abroad I should because If not I'd have to jump through hoops for years in france because my BMI (32) wouldn't have been considered high enough as a stand alone. So yeah... this weekend I find myself another doctor who's not a fatphobic arsehole and has a minimum of human compassion. And for the iron I'm just going to go and ask directly at the pharmacy what the have to propose. Sorry that was long but I just had to get it out, I'm slowly realising all the **** I've put up with because of my weight these last years and I am ANNNNGRYYYY!!!! Hope everyone is having an okay hump day!

I had Petersens hernias 2 years out - the membrane that holds in your guts is pulled apart by the weight loss and the intestines slide in and out and loops can get trapped. It never shows on X-rays and not always on ct as it moves about. General emergency docs in uk missed diagnosis and it was finally seen by bariatric department and repaired- more than half my gut out of place when they sewed it back up! thing is because it moves around the scans don’t always catch it. I spent ages trying to figure out what foods caused it. If I got on hands and knees and rolled hips/back I could often soothe it which we realise now may well have helped move things back. it needs exploratory surgery to be entirely sure/ rule it out. Make a fuss. Make sure you see bariatric surgeon, use name Petersens xx

It looks like we're the same height and I had the goal weight of 150 too. How did you know or decide to change your goal?

Any advice helps I’ve regained 40 pounds and I want to get to my goal weight which is 66 pounds away I’ve went back to basics but struggle mindset wise and can’t afford the therapy part 😭 any advice?

Thanks again @Arabesque and @ChunkCat for your advice earlier. I haven't been checking in as much, dealing with continuing health issues. Healthcare providers are difficult to get scheduled with in my area, so I'm just now getting to follow up with them. I've been waiting to get scheduled with a Neurologist since August, but no luck. I've had to burn my days off with work due to Covid at the beginning of the year, so I'm not able to get in with a specialist since the closest one available is about a 4 hour drive from here. There's also no immunologists with availability in 2024 within 4-5 hours from here either, so I'll be waiting on that for a while. I am getting in with a cardiologist to see what is going on. My heart rate is dipping down to 28-29 bpm in my sleep, and I wake up feeling exhausted. I'm on a CPAP and also getting another sleep study scheduled in April to see if adjusting that will help. I'm still just walking about 1-2 miles a day. I walked 4 miles a couple weeks ago, and was hardly able to get out of bed for 3 days. I've never been that drained from that relatively small amount of exercise before. Luckily I was able to work from home and had my laptop in bed with me, but it was a struggle with the 12 hour shifts. I am getting frustrated since I've gained weight back, and I'm 10 lb heavier than I was at New Years, but my primary care thinks whatever issues I'm having is killing my metabolism. I'm starting back on my pre-op diet this week to try to lose a little more. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know, I am open to them. Thanks!

I supposed the OP has already worked this out since the post was 2015 but I just want to add that the surgeons do then to weight loss drugs as one of the tools in their belts post surgery now. They have quite a few in addition to phentermine nowadays too. For anyone out there experiencing weight gain please touch base with your team. I was unable to take the meds because if interactions with other meds I was on but that was definitely an option that was presented to me early on and for someone with only a fair amount of weight to lose it could help. I have taken phentermine in the past and it did reduce my appetite significantly. My problem is I wake up several times and night and eat too so once the med wore off I was hungry. For those reasons they didn’t work for me but they do work for many people.

From what I understand if you actually have low B12 then the shots make a significant difference in energy levels. I have a friend that gets them and when she doesn’t have anyone to do the injection and runs low she really notices it in her energy levels. I haven’t heard her mention any effect on weight but she is thin so I don’t know if she would notice a couple pounds one way or another (she’s not like us on the scale everyday).

I agree witb others that a call to your surgeon is in order. Until you get to the bottom of it perhaps try the 5 smaller meals or shakes to up your calories a bit if you get too low. Although keep in mind that many people do have a bit of bounce back weight a while after they get settled so some will say a little wiggle room isn’t a bad idea.

Right now I am not getting a great deal of help from his team. I am trying to decide between SADI and bypass but I honestly think I may be one of the first patients to get the SADI with him. A fact that if it is true scares me a bit but the possibility of greater weight loss has kept me interested. I do have an appointment tomorrow with his PA and in two weeks with the dietician to help in my decision. I hope I get quite a few answers between the two. I am just really trying to figure things out so I can eat that way now to see what I am possibly getting myself into. Lol

i think it all depends on how much actual fat you still have left when you get plastics. even if you reach "goal weight" you may still be carrying subcutaneous fat along with the excess skin. i've read of folks on here who have dropped 10, 20, 30 lbs after plastics, so it has been done. me, I lost a grand total of 400g (i.e., 0.88 lb), so basically nothing....BUT it made a huge difference visually, so...

They have vitamin patches. However, the drawback is they aren't as good from what I understand. I'm certain your doctor will find something to help you. My insurance does cover rehab for my knee. I did it for two months, but I can do the samething at home. It was just stretches and certain movements to strengthen other parts of the knee to help stabilize it. The doctor did a couple injections but that only helps for a couple weeks. I'm at 100 lbs weight loss since October when I weighed in at my first visit to the bariatric center. I dropped nearly 70 lbs before I had the surgery. Thanks for the comment. I'm not a very photogenic, but I will post some pictures at some point.

The pouch reset diet is an old wives tale. You can’t ‘reset’ your pouch. You can only reset your head & thinking. If you think you are eating more than you should, watch your portion sizes carefully & your frequency of meals. Portion control will always be something we have to take care with because as the months pass we are physically able to eat more. Our restriction eases. Our tummy, while still small softens & is more pliable. And our hunger returns. We can also learn how to eat around our smaller tummy. I was told to eat about a cup at 6 months but as your surgeon said everyone’s journey is different and you may have different needs in regard to how much, what & when you eat. Check with your dietician for the best portion size of proteins, vegetables, etc. & frequency of meals for you. Then you just have to keep to those recommendations. As I always say, all because you can (in this case eat more) doesn’t mean you should. I’m glad your surgeon is so supportive & is willing to look at other ways of helping you to lose more weight & get closer to where you want to be.

I have logged my weight like that but never thought to add the big life stressors or events in between. I bet that would be helpful for a bariatric therapist if you see one. I am working on getting in to see one. I had gastric sleeve three years ago and gained all my weight back. I am contemplating a conversion surgery and I want to pull out all the stops this time around. Best of kick to you.

I've seen people here have plastic surgery who only lose weight in the single digits of pounds. Think any more than that might be the exception - maybe for people who started out biggest?

Bodyfat to muscle ratio? My concern as the weight comes off is losing too much muscle weight as opposed to fat %. A low number on a scale doesn't reflect that. But it will show in clothing sizes. Or could it be excess skin???? This discussion does pose a question for me. Everyone here who has hit goal weight and lost a ton of weight to get there. I see these people who have skin removal surgery, and they weigh it and turns out to be 30+ pounds. How does that figure in to goal weight if never removed??? Say if goal is 150 and you are left with excess skin weight, would 180 be more realistic or if you reach 150 would you be underweight if you are carrying around 30 pounds of excess skin???? Such a conundrum. 🤔

Hi- I had my ESG done around the same date as you and hoping to hear an update. I live in San Diego so opted to have it done in Mexico. But I’m wondering if that was the wrong choice. I feel very little restriction 6 weeks out. I can eat a significant amount of food before a sudden full feeling comes on. I have no issues meeting protein or water goals. I can comfortably drink a protein shake in a minute.. I’ve had 10lbs weight loss and no weight loss since starting solid foods.

I've done the same thing, not chewing enough or I've simply just took one bite too many. Chicken seems to be the only thing I can't eat much of. Two maybe 3 ounces at most. But, then I'm too full to eat any kind of veggies with it. This will be my 7th week post op. Overall I've lost 22 lbs. since the surgery, for nearly two weeks my weight didn't move. It's discouraging for sure. But it doesn't last. Even when you don't lose weight, you're probably losing inches.

Congratulations to you, on your upcoming weight loss surgery.

I am so glad that you are still reaching out to your team and posting here. I won’t get too far into my story but because of “confusion,” about my mental health, interactions with meds and embarrassment the help I got from my team was not working for me and I gave up. I continued to gain and now I am back here facing revision weighing a little more than when I started this journey. People here are very helpful and understanding but your team should be giving you answers too. Sounds like they have a plan for the next step if need be and that’s great. if all else fails, The phentermine is the one medication that I could try which did work amazing during the day for me but I suffer from insomnia and when I can’t sleep I eat. So, the meds worked wonderfully during the day but at night, with my larger sleeve and being awake so many times, I was able to consume too much for the whole day and I still gained. But I can see how if you sleep throughout the night it really could work. I didn’t get to try mountjourno or any of the other brands it’s sold under because of financial reasons but if you can swing it, I have heard AMAZING things about that medicine too (there are some side effects for some people to consider). People claim they think they must know how skinny brains feel after taking it. They just don’t ever have to think or worry about food. One lady has to set alarms if she is busy to remind herself to eat something. Another drawback is how long you have to take it. Some say when you go off it you start to gain. They are doing studies now where they are trying to work out a maintenance dose that may be less than the regular dosage though. There are also places that are starting to “compound” it at compounding pharmacies. I wouldn’t necessarily trust the stuff from random sites online but my PCP was telling me they were working on getting it in their office and it is less than half the normal cost that way. I don’t know much about the other weight loss drug options because I couldn’t take them with my bipolar meds Interestingly, i just seen an ABC special Oprah did on weight loss injections the other night. (Ironically it was the day I went back to see my surgeon so I thought maybe it was meant to be which is why I inquired about them with my PCP). I’m really hoping that reached someone that has the power to change how accessible these meds are. I asked my pcp and she said it’s probably going to take a little while like everything else and she thinks at this point I shouldn’t wait on surgery for that but if your interested keep asking questions because these things tend to just change in the middle of the night and the word takes a while to reach you if you not the one asking. Anywahs, kudos to you for not giving up. Let your team do all they can to help you and keep posting here!!. I think when I stopped that I lost all hope. I was so isolated. Surrounded by skinny family and having only one heavyset friend who is perfectly content being that way I don’t have a lot of real life people who understand me the way that this community does. I felt so ashamed and I didn’t want to drag down the vibe here with my failures. Since I have returned I have been welcomed with open arms and honestly don’t know why I ever doubted that I would be. Keep doing what your doing and you will work this out. I know it. 🤗

I get low blood sugar too when I drink enough water it’s frustrating it’s not something) I’ve had to deal with too much and it feels like I’ve just flopped from one end of the problems to the other without getting to reap the weight loss reward. Hopefully your stall breaks and that’s all it is, a stall. I recommend getting a tape measure and doing measurements of yourself at least bc I’ve been losing inches even if the scale is refusing to budge.

Kind of yes and no. I met with my surgeon team and was told try to stay around 1000-1200 calories, 130g or less of carbs, and to be at least 80g of protein. They said they don’t know why for some people the metabolism reacts differently and changes greatly with surgery while with others the metabolic response is very minimal. They said obesity is a chronic disease that the body settles into. They said that the journey though is my own and that I shouldn’t be comparing myself to the substantial weight loss others have. I think it’s really hard to not compare sometimes though because many here get the surgery and become very healthy very fast. They are planning to meet with me again in about a month and will discuss various weight loss medicine additions such as ozempic, wegovy, metformin, topiramate, phentermine, mounjaro. It could take one or a pair of these medications together to get the metabolic rate to be where it needs to be for weight loss for me.

Have you had any answers about why you’re not losing weight? I have a similar start weight and haven’t lost since two weeks post op as well. I’m nearly two months in so not as far along but I feel like I can eat more than I should be able to so I make sure to count calories but still not losing any weight

Yes! Happy to share! It's this one: https://www.wholesomeyum.com/keto-banana-muffins-recipe/ I doubled the banana flavoring emulsion (I got mine from Amazon) and I added vanilla. None of the box mixes were low carb enough for me and I used to be a chef so I have a bias towards homemade things. 😂 I can empathize with the carb cravings. When I eat carbs I crave them intensely for days afterwards. There are a lot of people who make judgments about those of us who use artificial sweeteners, and though I prefer the real thing, I simply cannot have it. My body HATES carbs, it just doesn't know what to do with them and whether it's a piece of cake or a bagel, it will bloat me and I'll want 3 times as much the next meal. It is just not worth it. And now with the surgery and my designer insides, it isn't worth the gas and such either... The only exception I seem to be able to make is a small amount of very dark chocolate. I think the reason it doesn't cause the carb cravings is because my craving for the minerals in it is stronger. LOL And even with that I can't have it two days in a row without cravings kicking in stronger... I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask those close to you to support you with limitations around what they offer you. I asked the same thing of those close to me and they were happy to do so because it gave them a tangible way to help me with my goal. We don't gain weight in isolation. Food is a social thing. We ask our social circle for support around other goals like going to school or raising our children, we should be able to ask for support with this too. It increases our chances of success!! The head game will do you in every time. Having people close to you wise to that helps tremendously in my experience... As long as they don't turn into food police. 😂