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I am in the pre-op stage (October 10) and am wondering what kitchen equipment or tools people find most helpful in the general diet stage. Do you keep it simple (good ol pots and pans) or do you use an air fryer or instant pot, ect…?

I'm also 14 days full liquids, 5 days post-op. I can move to puree on Sept 1. I think I might try liquifying yogurt today. So far I've had strained lobster bisque, tomato basil, and squash soups. Been mainly focusing on trying to get all my water in. I've found if I pour a little 2 oz. Cup of water with my protein mixed in and time it every 10 minutes it helps remember to drink. My incisions are itchy too.

I think that's true. Plus some doctors these days seem to be more comfortable with older adults being overweight (not obese - but overweight) than they are with younger adults. My last PCP said older adults in the 23-27 BMI range tend to be the healthiest, and my current PCP said she's fine with her older patients being 10-15 lbs overweight as long as they're otherwise healthy. From what I've read, they're not alone in thinking this. I weigh the same now as I did in high school, and I think I look thinner now than I did then (I'm in my 60s)

I did a VSG (sleeve) in July 2012. weighed around 175 kgs then. reduced it to 120 kgs and then with further intensive training and diet, it came down to as low as 110 kgs. After that, it went up to 120 kgs which became my normal weight for years.. 10 years later, did a revisional MGB 3 weeks ago in July 2022, weighed 160 kgs on day of surgery. 148 kgs now. I had no choice. All attempts at weight loss failed miserably. It was a constant tug of war between me and weight. breathing in air seemed to increase my weight. Investment in health is the best that you can do, even if you have failed in the past. On the other side, you are more experienced now and know what went wrong the first time around.

So a 'normal' BMI (24.9) would be 159 pounds for me. I was 392 pounds which means I had 233 pounds of excess weight. My lowest weight was 175, but my maintenance weight was 178-182 pounds (though due to anti-convulsant medication for my Trigeminal Neuralgia I gained 18 pounds and got up to 196, but am now weaning myself off of the med that made me gain weight and hopefully the other one I'm on won't do the same thing as I've gotten myself down to 186-191 and am struggling to lose back to my maintenance weight, but I'm also two and half years out so maybe that's the couple pounds they say you gain back... IDK). So today I'm 187 which means I've lost 205 pounds of the 233 excess weight as of right now which I think is roughly 88% of excess weight loss (if I can lose that extra 10 pounds again then it'd be about 92%). My BMI right now is 29 so I'm 'overweight' rather than a normal weight, but I'm just glad that I'm not in the obese category. I cried when my weight went up to 196 because it was 1. too close to 200 hundred and 2. I was briefly obese again and I couldn't get off the med without the approval of my neurologist because I needed a different med regimen due to the flare and he was the only one who could change the meds. So yeah. 88-92% depending on how you count it. I was in the 92% weight loss for 10 months before I was put on the med that made me gain weight and I'm in thee 88% right now.

I did gain about 20 lbs in year 3 post-op, but a 10-20 lb rebound weight gain after hitting your lowest weight is very common. And to be honest, I think I look better at this higher weight, even though part of me would like to get back down there again! To maintain it, I track everything I eat and try to get some exercise most days of the week.

just spoke with my surgeon today can y'all belive, that he told me i can go back to the gym after just 6 DAYS post op? sorry, there's just no way in hell i can go back to working out this early. he brought good points, i'm alive, i'm 19, and i should be moving. but maan my new stomach hasn't even healed yet! ffs. he's a great surgeon, well known here in Brazil. but as with all good professionals, you can't be good at everything all at once. my surgeon is definitely lacking some emotional intelligence 😂

I know I was really thinking what I have is GERD, but now I'm not sure what is going on. So here's what I'm dealing with: 1) burning in my throat and occasionally my chest and stomach 2) nausea when eating anything at all, no matter what it is or how much or little of it I try to eat 3) can't tolerate anything but liquids now 4) if I try to eat, it literally won't go down. It sits at the bottom of my throat and doesn't move for AGES. Drinking liquid doesn't help. It just gets stuck there, too. 5) lots of burping and hiccups 6) dark, sticky kinda poo (sorry, tmi) 7) heaviness and pain in my upper stomach/abdominal area 8 ) occasional shortness of breath 9) feeling full after literally 2 or 3 bites of something (small bites, and before stuff wouldn't go down, I was trying to eat and I would be PAINFULLY full after 2 or 3 bites) 10) literally woke up with what felt like acid in my throat this morning (now my throat feels raw and hurts) Some of this sounds like GERD, but some of it doesn't. My husband looked it up and said it sounds like a hiatal hernia, but I don't know. Anyone have experience with that? I'm up late because I'm in so much pain and I can't sleep. Definitely looking forward to calling my surgeon's office. But still, anyone on here have any clue at all what this might be??

I made a post about GERD here: https://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/441776-is-this-gerd/ But now I'm not sure what is going on. So here's what I'm dealing with: 1) burning in my throat and occasionally my chest and stomach 2) nausea when eating anything at all, no matter what it is or how much or little of it I try to eat 3) can't tolerate anything but liquids now 4) if I try to eat, it literally won't go down. It sits at the bottom of my throat and doesn't move for AGES. Drinking liquid doesn't help. It just gets stuck there, too. 5) lots of burping and hiccups 6) dark, sticky kinda poo (sorry, tmi) 7) heaviness and pain in my upper stomach/abdominal area 8 ) occasional shortness of breath 9) feeling full after literally 2 or 3 bites of something (small bites, and before stuff wouldn't go down, I was trying to eat and I would be PAINFULLY full after 2 or 3 bites) 10) literally woke up with what felt like acid in my throat this morning (now my throat feels raw and hurts) Some of this sounds like GERD, but some of it doesn't. My husband looked it up and said it sounds like a hiatal hernia, but I don't know. Anyone have experience with that? I'm up late because I'm in so much pain and I can't sleep. Definitely looking forward to calling my surgeon's office. But still, anyone on here have any clue at all what this might be??

I completely understand the issue with artificial sweetners, they are a migraine trigger for me. I had a 10 day migraine that was hard to break and finally talked to the nutritionist about how this was a problem. She gave me alternatives to use for sweetening smoothies, tea, etc. if I want to.

Feeling discouraged. Sleeve surgery 7/20 and lost 30lbs by 8/3. Started having chest pains and neck pains- turns out to be pancreatitis. Admitted to the hospital 8/7 and got out on 8/13. While in the hospital, I gained 24lbs back in fluid weight because I was NPO for a week so that’s all I could have. I lost 4lbs the first day I came home then about 10 more in the last couple of days and now I’ve gained 6lbs. I haven’t changed anything except added more protein and eating more soft foods instead of liquids, so why am I gaining weight now? I was so excited to see the weight loss but now I’m discouraged because I saw a BIG gain in a weeks time. I spoke with my PA and Dr and both agreed to let me start taking Lasix again but a smaller dose to see if it helps get more weight off because I’m swelling something terrible in my feet and legs. I try to keep my sugar below 10g a day because I think sugar is the culprit but I haven’t had much and the only other thing I can think of is my sodium intake. Any suggestions? Any pieces of advice to keep my head up? It’s so hard because I saw such a quick drop in weight and now I’ve gained 6lbs quickly 🙁

I had my surgery yesterday and got discharged to. Liquid diet for 10 days. I feel pretty sleepy and my incisions hurt a bit, and getting up and down from sitting position os pretty painful, but otherwise going well.

Yep. Had to do them twice a day for 10 days when I got home. They did them for me when I was in the hospital. They SUCKED. My arms were all kinds of sore and bruised. Hated it.

Five-week Post-Op update. W1 - 7/22: -12.6 lbs W2 - 7/29: -5.6 lbs W3 - 8/05: -2.6 lbs W4 - 8/12: -3.8 lbs W5 - 8/19: -4.4 lbs That's 29 lbs since surgery to go with the 28 lbs I lost prior to surgery. It's great to see the numbers go down because when I see myself in a picture or in the mirror, all I see is my (still) big belly. I was weighing myself daily for the first 4 weeks, and not seeing big results each morning was driving me crazy. So, I am only recording my weight on Fridays now. After the first week, it looks like I'm losing about 4 pounds a week now. I think that's good, right? NSVs: My face is definitely thinner. My pants fit much looser and I am now fitting into some clothes that I had outgrown. I had to dig out an old belt since the one I have been using no longer had enough holes. I'm about to fully transition from my 3XL shirts to 2XL. Right now, it's a mix in my dresser drawer. Physically, I feel great. I still get hungry, but I fill up fast. I have a bit of a problem knowing when I'm full and it's hard to get out of the habit of eating everything on my plate. If I eat too much, it's a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn't hurt. I guess this concerns me a bit. I want to get better listening to my stomach. The diet plan completely sucks, and I try not to cheat. But it sucks, so what do they expect? I just got back from a family visit and had two 1,000 mile drives. For the trip, I made a low-fat chicken salad and had string cheese and Quest Protein chips for snacks.

So, we’re jumping forward to May 2021. Picture this: I’m about to talk to my cardiologist at my 1 year surgery follow-up and am getting nervous. Mentally I’m going through all the things I’m going to say to convince him I’m fine, and that he should definitely approve me for WLS. Turns out, I was worried about nothing. He went through the standard checkup stuff and at just about the point that I was ready to go into my well rehearsed sales pitch, he actually asked me if I was still considering bariatric surgery. Imagine my surprise at that one! When I said yes, he didn’t hesitate to say he was fine with it and didn’t see the heart surgery as an issue at all. He just became my new favorite doctor. I walked out of his office ecstatic and ready to call the bariatric center to get the weight loss surgery scheduled right then. I mean if they would have taken me in tomorrow, I was READY. It was late in the day though, so I decided to wait. Turns out waiting was a bad choice. I woke up the next day with horrible back pain. I’d had back issues for many years, but it had been mostly stable for a while. Now I was experiencing a bout of sciatica that was so bad, I had little to no muscle control in my legs. Great, more health issues to deal width and once again bariatric surgery would have to wait. Let me jump forward a bit here. It took a few months, some new meds, some injections, and some aquatic therapy, but the back was feeling tolerable, at least. I was finally ready to call the bariatric surgeon’s office. Remember me saying I should have called sooner? It turns out they had a 2 month backlog for “new” patients. You see, because I had been out of the program for almost 18 months at that point, I basically had to start over. Fast forward to September 2021 and I finally get to meet with a PA and start the “intake” process. I then did the standard psych evaluation and 6 months of dietitian visits required by my insurance company. The surgeon also decided that I needed to do an abdominal CT scan with contrast. Not sure if this was typical, or something “special” just for me. Unfortunately, once again something wasn’t right. This meant the surgeon wanted a closer look, which meant more testing. Pro tip, if you ever get told you need to do a fluoroscopic swallowing exam, see if you can get out of it. Seriously. This was probably one of the top 5 worst exams I've done. I went in thinking it would be no big deal and was much more worried about the endoscopy they also were planning. Turns out, I had it completely backward. I slept through the endoscopy, but the swallow study just was miserable. After a few tense days of waiting for results, my surgeon’s office said they found a couple of issues, including a hiatal hernia, but I was okay to proceed to surgery! Now it became a waiting game for insurance approval and surgical scheduling. (Apparently they are still way behind and not able to accommodate a full surgical schedule due to a COVID-19 induced backlog.) After an eternity waiting, I finally, finally got scheduled for September 20th. I just thought I was anxious before. Now the waiting really begins!

You will do great! This bypass is the best thing I've done for myself and I am already at a lower weight (by over 10 lbs) than I achieved with the band many years before over a much longer period of time. One thing I learned is you have to get the right multi-vitamin. I originally bought a MVM from this site and though it was touted to be the bomb, my labs came back veeeeerrrrry low on iron. The MVM I bought originally did not have near what my dietician said we need. She recommended Celebrate One 45 multi and I started taking and my followup blood labs are stop on! My body is transforming into a body I haven't had most of my adult life and thanks to light workouts each day (15 -20 minutes) I am not getting the "melted wax" look that so many of us significantly overweight women get after bypass and weight loss. My doctor said it's due to sticking with good hydration in addition to working out so my skin stays healthy by being hydrated and can suck in as I slowly lose the weight. I am very excited for you. Please check in from time to time. Blessings, Mary

update: the day after cardiac testing. It went well as far as I can tell. the first thing they did was do an ultrasound on both of my legs from the top of my thigh/groin area down to my ankles. the u/s tech scanned and put pressure down my legs. then she moved me on my side and placed a couple of electrodes on my chest and did an ultrasound of my heart. i could see some profusion scans but didn’t have a good angle of the screen most of the time. then i got dressed and went into a second room. the first thing i did there was a series of pulmonary profusion tests. i blew into a plastic tube in various ways with my nose blocked. after that i lifted my shirt (still fully dressed) and they put more electrodes on. then i very ungracefully got onto the exercise bike. i pedaled and pedaled for 10 minutes or so with my blood pressure being taken every minute or so. they needed my heart to get to 85% of max. after the bike i sat back in the chair and did another pulmonary profusion test. then i went home! legs felt very tired from the exertion- but i was glad i was able to do it.

Thank you so much for this. I KNOW I'm losing weight, but at the same time, I guess I don't believe it. I always thought body dysmorphia was for people who are transgender, or people addicted to plastic surgery. I never thought about it for those of us who have been fat at least half our lives (or in my case, 24 out of the last 44 years). I so badly wanted to look in the mirror and love what I see as I drop sizes, but instead I still see "fat" me, "morbidly obese" me, "nothing is ever gonna change no matter what I do so why bother" me. I think I'll start with the old, ratty size 28 clothes. I can just get rid of them. They were my cleaning and working out clothes. Then I'll separate the size 26 and 28 clothes into donate and give away piles and bag em up. I think that'll be good enough for a while. Same with my size 10 rings. I'm hoping once I hit size 18/20 I'll be ready to get rid of the size 26/28 stuff because it'll be time to start the process over with my size 22/24 stuff lol

I can see the numbers on the scale are way down. I can see that I went down a clothing size and a ring size and now those are starting to be too big. I can see my double and a half chin is now more like a chin and a half. I can see it, and I know it, but I can't get rid of my size 26/28 clothing. It falls off me now (heck, my size 22/24 clothes are getting too loose now) but something keeps stopping me from getting rid of them. My old rings are a size 10. They literally fall off. I can't bring myself to get rid of them. I look in the mirror and I can see my stomach is a lot smaller. If I take stock of each thing, I can see it. But when I look at myself as a whole, I still see big. I still see fat. I still see size 26/28 clothes and size 10 rings. It's like I can see the changes, I know they're there, but I can't make myself believe it enough to take the steps to get rid of the stuff that in NO WAY fits me. Does this sound crazy? Anyone else deal with this?

That's exactly when I stalled out for a week. I had lost about 10 pre-op & 9 post op so I was trying not to kick myself too hard. it's been almost a week since I hopped back on the scale. It's currently shark week for me so I was waiting till it ended to hop on again since I tend to be heavier. My doctor told me not to watch the scale too hard in the first month anyways.

Oh and I am getting a sleeve.. I know too many people with issues with bypass that sent them to the hospital over and over again It isn’t for me! (But everyone should do what’s good for them) my surgeon fixed hiatal hernia with sleeve which brings the gerd rate down to about 10% of patients .. I am a bit freaked about the endoscopy (and surgery!) but know it’s the right thing

Much happiness and good thoughts to everyone who is having surgery this week! I'm officially 1 week post-op RNY (with hernia repair)! Here is what I've learned this week from my surgeon, my partner (who is a nurse) and myself: 1) If you are in pain, take your meds. There is no shame in taking pain meds for a major surgery. Everyone's pain tolerance is different and I have been in a fair to high amount of pain since surgery. I'm not sure if it's the RNY plus the hernia repair that is causing this level of pain, but I took whatever pain meds the nurses gave during my hospital stay (there was a combination) and then every 6 hours after I was discharged for the first 3 days and now I'm only taking them when I feel pain, but I still feel pain, so I'm still taking them. 2) Rest. I'm a person who is always on the go and it's been difficult for me to just REST. It's driving my partner (the nurse) crazy. He keeps reminding me "It's only been ____ days! You just had two major surgeries! Rest please!! Sit down! Take a nap!" Don't feel guilty about resting your first week (or weeks) home. 2) PLAN PLAN PLAN. Once I was on full liquids I was shocked at how low the protein value is per BARIATRIC SERVING and quickly realized if I didn't plan what I was going to eat and when I was going to eat it, this will get out of control really fast. Yes, a container of protein greek yogurt has 20 grams of protein in it (a 5.3 oz container), but if you are only eating 2 oz servings at a time, you have cut your protein down to 7.5 g per serving. I've added Isopure to almost everything I eat and I do 5g Isopure per 2 oz food which adds another 4g protein. 3) It's extremely difficult to get your 64 oz of water in. Pre-surgery I was like "that will be easy." Nope. Not at all. First, your new pouch will only hold a sip or two at a time. Too much and it will hurt. And once you are eating full liquids or purees, you have to stop drinking 30 min before, 30 minutes after (and another 10/15/20 to actually eat your food) and if you are eating 3-5x a day...this becomes a full time job. I know it will get easier, but it has been overwhelming right now.

Yea i bought the powder unflavored isopure before and it was just gross in soups and didnt really like the shakes i made out of it in the blender. So this one is pretty nice. every other clear drink i found has around 10 grams of protein. Its a nice change from the shakes.

Hey everyone having vsg September 19!! So excited!