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I am 7 weeks out and 40 lbs down. In Nov 2015, we are renewing our vows on a beach in Galveston, a place where I spent much of my childhood and is very special. So I took a chance and on a whim bought a dress that I have no idea will fit. But it is a vintage 1940s dress, and in today's sizing, a large. I could not pass it up. I have all the faith that I can make it as I have gone from size 22 pants to size 16. It was crazy and impulsive. But I can't contain my excitement so I went for it. Spread your wings and fly, everyone! Love to all of you from Texas!

Sorry, no I don't know. He offers bariatric care program, so I would call and ask. He's got a website so maybe check that out too. Good luck.

So I was going to get surgery in mexico last year but had to bail on the idea because of some things that happened within my family. I contacted the Bariatric Hospital MX and had approval for the surgery but I'm not sure if im jumping the gun in the process. Can anyone share with me there experience and how they handled it start to finish as far as what if anything they involved there PCP doc in the process, Work leave, Short term disability. I am an Automotive Shop Foreman for a living and I have this irrational fear of being away from my job for a month +. Trying to figure out how to handle all of this is what is stopping me from moving forward at this point and I need all the help I can get. Thanks.

If anyone has hesitated on trying the BP Protein bars ... DONT WAIT any longer ! I just recently bought the variety 7 pack ... and they are better than Quest to me .. Quest was hard and flavorless ... BP bars are soft and chewy and they have great flavor ... a taste you don't mind tasting again ! I was so happy with my purchase ... I just thought I'd share ... in case anyone was wondering and thinking about buying them ... WORTH IT !!

@@mrs kaje Thank you! Yes all Bariatric Pal has their own bars and other items .... Just click the little purple box at the top of the page that says "STORE" ...

I am over a year out and have never crushed anything. Although since my surgery I am on no meds and don't have to take any pills. I use Bariatric Advantage chewable vitmamins.

I do not own a scale because I know that I can get a bit obsessive about weighing myself and I like being surprised about my weight loss or gain. This time though it will be too long to go until I see the bariatric team again (6mos). I make sure I always get protein in and I need to get better about having veggies instead of potatoes. But over all I eat pretty healthy Sent from my SM-G935P using the BariatricPal App

First, get all the bad food out of your house if possible. Second, check Pinterest. There are lots of Bariatric friendly recipes on there. Third, are you using fresh veggies, frozen, canned? Fourth, play with your food. Try squeezing lemon on steamed broccoli. Making mashed cauliflower with cheese. Add 1/4 to1/2 of a mashed banana and a little honey to a mashed sweet potato. If it doesn't work for you never make it again, if it does work add it to your recipe file. Finally, and this is big for me personally, plan your menu for the week. That way you can shop for everything at one time, prepare what you can ahead of time, and you can vary things so you're not eating the same things over and over.

My advice would be to read as many posts as you can. You will learn that many people are doing things differently because every surgeon requires something different. It is mind boggling sometimes. Be prepared for probable hair loss. You can research stalls, hair loss, and anything else here that you read about, since there are thousands of previous posts. Welcome here, you will learn that Bariatric Pal will be your new best friend! Best wishes!

It is somewhat common for individuals that have gastric bypass bariatric surgery to experience hypoglycemia even if they were not diabetic prior to surgery. Most people can detect when an episode is coming on and take something to snap them out of it before their blood sugar gets too low. This condition can be treated by consuming: 1/2 of fruit juice 1 cup of skim milk 1 tablespoon honey (put it under your tongue so it gets absorbed into your bloodstream faster) 2 tablespoons of raisens, or glucose tablets

Looking for fellow Bandsters that are in OC looking for workout tips, hints, buddy or a trainer! I was 380 five years ago, now im at 185 and doing personal training...specializing in lapband, and bariatric patients. Let me know if you need anything!

I have completed 3 months of the 6 month supervised diet. I didnt do the best and managed to gain 15lbs but I have 3 months to lose the 15lbs and hopefully plus some. I checked in for my second doctors visit weight check and only have one more Doctor visit weight check which will be October 17th. I started the Medifast Diet to try and lose the 15lbs plus some. You eat 5 of their meals plus one lean (protein) and green (Veggies) meal. This is my second day and will jump on the scale next week. I chose this diet because they also have a bariatric diet plan for banded patients (Liquid Pre-Surgery diet and soft foods post surgery). I have attached my Pre-Surgery Pictures......No judgement...Right

Thank you! And thanks to everyone else for their welcome:) My insurance coordinator is wonderful and has been doing this for a long time, so hopefully that works in my favor. I'm just above BMI 35 but I do have sleep apnea, which is hopefully my green ticket in. My biggest concern right now is the physician evaluation. My PCP of 10 years retired last month and closed his office doors. I have to start seeing a new PCP and for one of my first questions to be, "Hey can you write me a letter clearing me for bariatric surgery?" I'm just nervous as to how this is going to go.

Has anyone had surgery with Dr. Wilhelmy, and if so how was your experience?

Today I would like to talk about exercise. First, I would like to say that if your doctor or bariatric team has set an activity plan for you, you should do your best to follow their plan. This blog entry is more about those who are out there who have not started exercising and have no plan. Maybe you have never had an exercise regimen in your life, maybe you have tried exercise before but hated it and couldn't stick with it. This is just one girl's opinion and it probably goes against anything a personal trainer would want you to do. The thing is, I'm talking about starting from ZERO. So many times, the people who are telling us where, how, and how long to exercise are probably not people who have started from zero. They may have never been overweight. They may not know what it's like to be obese and have very little activiity and very little muscle. Now, you may look at my profile and say, where does this girl get off, just four weeks after surgery, weighing 270 pounds, acting like she knows something about exercise? Well, O.K., I'm not a personal trainer. I did, however, lose about 70 pounds 12 years ago. I got up to the point where I could jog 3 miles! I had never even jogged a mile in my entire life. This blog entry is to let you know how I did it back then. How I found what worked for me. And how I am pretty much approaching exercise the same way this time too. About 12 years ago, I found myself at what was then my heaviest weight ever (250). I decided that I had to do something. Being a young single woman, I just wasn't ready to go on a food diet because I had done those before. I decided I would try exercise. (Watching what I ate came later after I was seeing the success of exercise.) Don't try that with WLS. Please, watch what you eat! I thought about what had kept me from being a successful exerciser over the years. A few things came to mind: being the fattest, slowest, person at the gym; starting out gung ho and having sore muscles that made me not want to exercise the next few days and therefore falling of the wagon; doing things I didn't enjoy. I decided that I was just going to get out and walk. I didn't have a length of time. I didn't have a set distance. I wasn't going to be concerned with how fast I was walking. I wasn't going to be concerned if I got my heart rate up. I didn't need to have exercise outfits. I was just going to walk around the neighborhood. I was going to take a stroll. Look at the houses. Check out the neighbors. Get away by myself and give myself time to think. Time to work out my issues. It was wonderful. I didn't go home exhausted. I went home happy. I was happy that I did SOMETHING. I kept doing this for a few weeks. Eventually, when I was ready, I decided to walk a little faster. If I got tired, I slowed down. I didn't push myself. I was new to exercise. I wasn't gonna be Florence Griffith Joyner. I reeaaallllly eased myself into exercise. And every now and then, I upped the pace. After a few months, I measured out a mile around the neighborhood and I walked the full mile. And so on. Until miraculously, about 9 months later, I could jog 3 miles! Why do we feel impelled to push ourselves so hard, only to fail? I'm sorry, but C25K (Couch to Five Kilometers) is not for people who were really laying around on the couch. Unless those people were not overweight and had underlying muscle tone. Find something you enjoy. Don't feel like you have to spend money on a gym membership that you might not use. Walking is free. Hiking is free. Riding a bike is free (if you have one). Spend just a little bit to join the Y. They have a pool. Do a little swimming. Dancing to music in your house is free. Some cable companies have cardio and yoga sessions on demand. Hell, youtube has everything you could ever possibly want. Start in the privacy of your own home if you're worried about being embarassed about coordination. And if you can only do that video for 10 minutes....that's fine! Only do that video for 10 minutes for the next two weeks. Then up it a bit. Another thing I did, early on, was focus on my breathing. A lot of people who don't exercise are very shallow breathers. While you are walking or even lying in bed at night, practice filling your lungs to capacity when you breathe in. Feel not just your chest inflate, but your abdomen too. Increasing your lung capacity will help you get that vital oxygen to your muscles when you decide to up the activity. I also focused on breathing with a rythm. Sounds funny, but it really helped me keep from getting out of breath. I would inhale with so many steps and exhale with so many steps. It really made a difference to me. You'll have good days and bad days. But it will start to get easier and maybe, hopefully start to be enjoyable. That satisfaction from having done SOMETHING. You feel good about yourself. It shifts your mindset. You don't have to push yourself so hard. You're already worried enough about WLS and changing your eating habits. Just find SOMETHING that works for you. Do it at least three days a week. Plan it and do it. Your self esteem will love you for it.

Sad part about Alli marketing...it only 'encapsulates' part of the fat you eat...so, if you're a carb addict like me, Alli would do very little for you. Just like every diet aid out there, including bariatric surgery, its more about changing your approach to food than the diet aid.

He's one that wouldn't see me because he wasn't my surgeon. They're all so afraid of the liability they won't touch you! My pcp did refer me to Angela Cain, a new bariatric that just joined their group. She's seeing me next month. She's not a surgeon, but I hope she's up to par on fills. That will be wonderful!

I can't imagine having Bariatric surgery "forced" upon me. That would make me scared too! I actually had a Bariatric surgeon tell me over four years ago that the only way I would ever lose and keep weight off is to have WLS. I was so irritated I went and lost 70 pounds on my own. Then I gained 60 back over a few years and realized he was right. So I made the decision myself to have it. But this is a huge, life changing decision. Please do a lot of reading and research on these forums. You will find many many people who have had this surgery and what to expect. Your life will not be the same after this surgery and you need to be mentally prepared for that.

Hey this is my first time posting on anything like this.. Just trying to find out as much as I can about this process to stop my mind wondering. Currently I have seen bariatric nurse and dietician. I had a sleep study in December and due to some miscommunication I missed the follow up appt which I now have on Wednesday. They have told me that I need to be under a cpap for at least 6 weeks before the anaesthesiologist will do anything. My dietician gave me the pre op diet and told me how much they want me to lose before surgery ; not to follow the pre op diet till they tell me to though. Have to go for an endoscopy and providing all is well I should be getting an idea when I can have surgery reasonably soon Currently weigh 178kg. Not proud of it but am here to change for the rest of my life and be able to actually live it Sorry if I've rambled on a bit. Dan

Hang in there ! I am pre op but one thing my doctors at the Bariatric Clinic stressed is only weighing 1x per week (hard I know) our bodies can fluctuate 1-5 pounds a day according to their reading material due to water retention. Your body is still healing as surgery is major trauma even though you may feel fine it is recovering. You are doing great just keep it going:)

http://www.bariatricchoice.com/bari-wise-bariatric-health-fruit-drinks.html I am drinking lemonade right now and it is good. I didn't like the grapefruit that much, but the lemonade is really good. 15 grams of protien. I am having one in the AM and one in PM. The lemonade is really good. Add ICE and it really is so good!!!!!

Hello fellow bariatric surgery patients! I own a company that assists patients in appealing for denied surgical procedures and medications under health insurance benefits. Currently my company is competing in a competition sponsored by Chase bank. We are hoping to gain enough votes to move forward in hiring more nurses to expand more services to patients in all areas. If you could click on the link below or vote for Benefit Defender on the Chase Mission Main Street Grant website, I would appreciate the votes. If you have questions involving insurance denials you could message me here as well and I can attempt to provide you some insight that might be helpful in gaining help with bariatric coverage under your insurance coverage. https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/25689 Benefit Defender - Chase Mission Main Street Grants Vote for Benefit Defender at https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/25689 - Chase's Mission Main Street Grants program for Small Business is in full swing! Apply or vote today! Learn more here: www.missionmainstreetgrants.com missionmainstreetgrants.com

When I started my weight loss odyssey, I was doing so blind so to speak. The surgeons office I was seeing at the time, the scale didn't go past 550. So I was looking around and came across the site below. I purchased their XL-700 scale and have been using it since to get my weekly weigh in results. It's a great scale and has been a great help to me. I was able to see my weekly losses and gain a confidence boost each week seeing the weight go down. So if you're in the market for a scale this is a good company to look at. They have quite the variety of bariatric scales, and they're affordable. http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/obesity-bariatric-scales.html **I am NOT affiliated with the website.**

I am not sure if this is the correct forum to ask this question, but I recently went to my surgeon to schedule my surgery and mentioned that I have gallstones. I was told by one of the nurses during the pre-surgery classes I took that if the surgeon felt it necessary, he could do the laparoscopic cholecystectomy during the lapband surgery. However, my surgeon told me to have this procedure before the lapband surgery and after about 3 weeks to have the lapband surgery. He said that they could do both procedures, if necessary, if the patient was having the bariatric bypass surgery. Now, i have to wait until May to have my lapband surgery. This is due to schedule issues on both of our parts. Has anyone heard of this need to have 2 separate surgeries?