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Hiya!

My name is Karen and I was sleeved on May 10th, by Dr. Nick Nicholson here in Dallas, TX. My recovery has been fairly uncomplicated and I have amazing support from my husband and family. I am a nurse and I went back to 12-hour shifts after two weeks. I still am not hungry and I have lost about 35lbs since pre-op. My husband jacked my scale and hid it from me because I was weighing myself everyday and I had a stall for about four days early on. I now weigh once a week (wednesdays) and I concentrate on the NSV's that seem to happen daily.

The decision to have this surgery has totally changed my life and I am so thankful that it actually happened! I was a cash pay and there were many times when I doubted that my sleeve would ever happen.

For anyone whose on the fence about this..get off on the right side and change your life for the better...forever. I am happier now than I have been in literally years!

Here's a pic of me four days into my pre-op diet and one that I took this past Friday! ( I hope these pics load!!)

Have a truly blessed day, my friends

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Wow, congrats on the great NSV. I think sometimes those are what are really what makes the surgery worth while.

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Yayyyyyyyyyyy! Congrats!

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Congratulations Karen - you look wonderful!!! I celebrated one year yesterday! I've lost 94 lbs give or take a lb or two. I reached goal in just under five months. I too was a cash pay patient - and feel just like you do, it's the best thing I've ever done!

Someone suggested I take a picture every month on my anniversary for the first year....so I have. We bought a disposable camera and took the first picture the morning of surgery and have taken a pic the 11th of every month since then. We took the last picture yesterday and ran the camera up to Wal Greens. What a difference a year makes!!!! It's fun looking at my transformation!!!

My life has changed so much, I'm 51 yrs old and for the first time in my life, I LOVE TO GO SHOPPING. I use to buy clothes because I needed something, now it's fun. I am just now getting to the point that I feel comfortable tucking a shirt into jeans! Never in my life, even when I was 'small' back in HS did I tuck a shirt in...I wore a 9 then. Now I'm wearing size 4 and 6's in jeans!!!

Good luck to you.....I hope you have as easy a time. I love my sleeve...and highly recommend this surgery. It's been disgustingly easy for me!! BTW - I weigh every single day, I have since I got home from the hospital....I knew the scale would go up and down and would stall. I knew that I was following the 'plan' and it would move again....I just had to keep an eye on it, now I do because I don't want to lose any more and if I start to gain, I want to nip it in the bud! I know how you feel about your cheekbones, one of the most exciting things that happened initially was when I could see my collarbone!!!!!!!!!!! Cheekbones, collarbone....my legs feel boney some times and I have hip bones and I can actually feel my ribs. It's soooo weird, in a good way!!

Enjoy the journey.....it's a blast!

Hiya!

My name is Karen and I was sleeved on May 10th, by Dr. Nick Nicholson here in Dallas, TX. My recovery has been fairly uncomplicated and I have amazing support from my husband and family. I am a nurse and I went back to 12-hour shifts after two weeks. I still am not hungry and I have lost about 35lbs since pre-op. My husband jacked my scale and hid it from me because I was weighing myself everyday and I had a stall for about four days early on. I now weigh once a week (wednesdays) and I concentrate on the NSV's that seem to happen daily.

The decision to have this surgery has totally changed my life and I am so thankful that it actually happened! I was a cash pay and there were many times when I doubted that my sleeve would ever happen.

For anyone whose on the fence about this..get off on the right side and change your life for the better...forever. I am happier now than I have been in literally years!

Here's a pic of me four days into my pre-op diet and one that I took this past Friday! ( I hope these pics load!!)

Have a truly blessed day, my friends

post-4976-13813656771006_thumb.jpg post-4976-13813656771404_thumb.jpg

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You look great!!! :) Congrats! I'm a patient of Dr. Nicks as well :)

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    • OhMyGawdItzKla

      I joined yesterday when I was struggling with this preop diet... 
      It typically comes and goes, the hard times and easier times. I'm on day 6 of 14  shakes, water, sf Popsicles and jello. And I might actually be losing my mind. But, oh dear lord has the fear set in. Not about the surgery itself, but life afterwards. If I feel this crappy on the preop diet, am I going to feel like this forever after? 
      I know most of the answers are no, not forever. It might be worse after for a while, then get better. I know it's a more of a mental challenge than physical after the first couple weeks of healing. I get all of that. But I'm starting to feel scared about losing myself afterwards. 
      It might be my hormones or desire to chew something salty talking.. It may go away soon or tomorrow.. I can hope, anyway. But right now.. The fear is real. 
       
      And this liquid diet can bite me. 
      · 1 reply
      1. NickelChip

        Fear is normal, but if it makes you feel any better, I'm 4.5 months post-op and the pre-op diet was by far the hardest part of the whole process. There will be challenges and a lot of new things to learn, but I can honestly say at this point I feel so much more "back to normal" and was even able to go on a week-long vacation with my kids without stressing over it. It's so worthwhile.

    • mamabear30106

      I started my 10 day pre op diet yesterday I need flavor!! I'm not big on the chocolate protein shakes so I just got to use up what I have was thinking about freezing it to make it like a ice cream so its something I can chew a little. Idk this is hard but I know I can do it just need to find new things to try 
      · 1 reply
      1. JennyBeez

        You can try. I've read other people have had good results with protein-shake popsicles, etc. My personal experience with it? Sucked.

        I tried making 'fudgesicles' with a couple different flavors of a premade shake, as well as a protein powder I blended myself and all of them came out revolting? The powder ones, all the protein sunk to the middle; the premade shakes, the popsicle had a disgusting texture and the protein seemed to leave a weird fluffy film on the outside? I couldn't stomach it.

        Maybe look into flavoring additives? I was able to have sugar-free coffee /soda syrup flavorings, sugar-free drink flavorings and baking additives like almond, rum or pepperment extract. The extracts helped me the most as they added no extra sweetener.

        On the other hand, if you can get your hands on an unflavored/unsweetened protein powder, the syrup flavorings are perfect. I love to use Boost "Just Protein" (which is unflavored) with milk and a Chai-flavored sugarfree syrup.

        Good luck!

    • BabySpoons

      Sometimes reading the posts here make me wonder if some people just weren't mentally ready for WLS and needed more time with the bariatric team psychiatrist. Complaining about the limited drink/food choices early on... blah..blah...blah. The living to eat mentality really needs to go and be replaced with eating to live. JS
      · 3 replies
      1. Bypass2Freedom

        We have to remember that everyone moves at their own pace. For some it may be harder to adjust, people may have other factors at play that feed into the unhealthy relationship with food e.g. eating disorders, trauma. I'd hope those who you are referring to address this outside of this forum, with a professional.


        This is a place to feel safe to vent, seek advice, hopefully without judgement.


        Compassion goes a long way :)

      2. BabySpoons

        Seems it would be more compassionate not to perform a WLS on someone until they are mentally ready for it. Unless of course they are on death's door...

      3. JennyBeez

        I'm really grateful for the pre-op clinic team I had, tbh. They had wonderful suggestions starting with a year prior to surgery -- one asked me if I thought I could give up carbonation for a month in prep, for example. A month of food journalling well before the surgery was scheduled, so we could go over places where improvements could be made after surgery, etc.

        It really makes me wonder about the pre-op education and support that some clinics have. I can see coming on to vent about having trouble with these things, but some people do seem legitimately surprised by some of the answers they get. My aunt, for one, was looking at a clinic in Mexico (cause she doesn't qualify for the ones here in Ontario/Canada) and they basically made it sound like the surgery would do all the work for her and she could carry on eating as normal, just with smaller portion sizes. :S

    • Theweightisover2024🙌💪

      Question for anyone, how did you get your mind right before surgery? Like as far as eating better foods and just doing better in general? I'm having a really hard time with this. Any help is appreciated 🙏❤️
      · 2 replies
      1. NickelChip

        I had about 6 months between deciding to do surgery and getting scheduled. I came across the book The Pound of Cure by Dr. Matthew Weiner, a bariatric surgeon in Arizona, and started to implement some of the changes he recommended (and lost 13 lbs in the process without ever feeling deprived). The book is very simple, and the focus is on whole, plant based foods, but within reason. It's not an all or nothing approach, or going vegan or something, but focuses on improvement and aiming for getting it right 80-90% of the time. His suggestions are divided into 12 sections that you can tackle over time, perhaps one per month for a year if a person is just trying to improve nutrition and build good habits. They range from things like cutting out artificial sweetener or eating more beans to eating a pound of vegetables per day. I found it really effective pre-surgery and it's an eating style I will be working to get back to as I am further out from surgery and have more capacity. Small changes you can sustain will do the most for building good habits for life.

      2. Theweightisover2024🙌💪

        That sounds awesome. I'll have to check that out thanks!

    • BeanitoDiego

      I've hit a stall 9 months out. I'm not worried, though. My fitness levels continue to improve and I have nearly accomplished my pre-surgery goal of learning to scuba dive! One dive left to complete to get my PADI card 🐠
      I was able to go for a 10K/6mile hike in the mountains two days ago just for the fun of it. In the before days, I might have attempted this, but it would have taken me 7 or 8 hours to complete and I would have been exhausted and in pain for the next two days. Taking my time with breaks for snacks and water, I was finished with my wee jaunt in only 4 hours 😎 and really got to enjoy photographing some insects, fungi, and turtles.
      Just for fun last week, I ran two 5Ks in two days, something I would have never done in the past! Next goal is a 10K before the end of this month.
      · 0 replies
      1. This update has no replies.
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