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So 4-1/2 years ago, I had the sleeve. Within 3 months, I dropped 60 of the 100 pounds I wanted to lose. I was off all blood pressure meds (and still am). Within the year following my sleeve, I developed abdominal hernias that my bariatric surgeon repaired. At that point, my weight loss stopped and I never reached "goal". Also at the time, I was working a 12 hour, physically demanding (not with heavy lifting but with a lot of walking), night shift 7p-730a which was one of my first saboteurs to my weight loss success -- I wasn't getting enough sleep. I also didn't exercise at all because of my physically demanding job. I decided to leave my night shift job, which I loved very much, for a "day job" but there was a 1 hour commute each way to this job. Exercising was now an even bigger challenge, but I got a gym membership near my home and I would drive my hour commute to the gym, work out and by the time I got home it was 8 p.m. 3 nights a week. Then I was eating dinner late. Enter REFLUX. I started with 20 mg of omeprazole, which didn't quite do the trick with my symptoms. Moving on to 40 mg was better but as time went on even the 40 mg of omeprazole wasn't cutting it so I supplemented with OTC omeprazole 20 mg for a total of 60 mg a day. That's where I am now. A recent EGD revealed I have yet another hernia. Lessons Learned: 1) Lifestyle matters. Prepare a lifestyle to accommodate your surgery so that you can take care of you. I didn't do this. I tried to be superwoman. I am humbled. 2) Follow up with your doctor's office more frequently than your program requires. Accountability is everything. Don't wander off and think you don't need follow up because you most certainly do. 3) Bloodwork. I can't emphasize this enough. I always keep my bloodwork in check -- I didn't want to lose my hair -- and I didn't. 4) Get plenty of sleep. Sleep needs to be as necessary as water to your well being. With these lessons learned, I will be getting the Roux-en-Y revision surgery to end my GERD and hopefully put me back on track with the 70 pounds I want to lose. I have created a lifestyle now that allows me to take care of me. I have a gym membership that includes a pool. I work a day job that allows me to work at home one day a week. I finally realized that being good to me is not a selfish thing, but a necessary thing.

Oh thank you SO much for saying this!!! I meant to bring up this point in my preaching above!!! That there are SOOOO many in the IF thread who have walked the walk for months now!!! Any one of us will be happy to help. And that the best thing is to jump into the thread, and start posting and asking questions!!! We'll all be thrilled to help! Not singling anyone out, but especially peeps like @GreenTealael, @sillykitty, @matt, @sheribear68, @AZHiker (don't know why these aren't highlighting) and so many others!!

For the past few weeks the scale has been going back and forth between 198-200lbs. I refused to count it until I was under 197-today is that day😄😁 1st goal get under 200lbs met!

Hey! I’ve done my six nutrition sessions and am meeting with my surgeon in a week. I was wondering what everyone’s timeline looked like after you finished your nutrition visits. (ex: 2 weeks for insurance approval, 4 weeks until surgery date). I’m trying to plan my time off and don’t know when I should start requesting time off. Thanks in advance! ❤️

Ok, great response. So you should try to follow your doc. But you need to make notes for yourself. How does a "meal x" make you feel. Do you get hungry quicker? Do you feel tempted to eat off plan afterward. Does it interfere with your weight loss goals? How quickly are you losing per week? In general post meno women will lose much slower than others. How many calories are you eating per day and what macros are they suggesting? You need to switch over to My Fitness Pal (free). You will just eat your carbs then mentally subtract out your fiber. It allows you to track up to 5 macros. I will post a day of food below for you to see. I just mentally know if I eat around 40 total carbs with most of the carbs coming from veggies/dairy/eggs/nuts-seeds/a bit of fruit, then I will be between 15-30g of net carbs roughly each day. I don't stress about anything in my diet (except getting in enough calories with higher fat foods--cuz I don't do well with them). Ditch the powdered sweeteners and replace with liquid stevia drops. I use some flavored and the original. I like Vitacost, SweetLeaf, and Better Stevia brands and our HEB brand is also pretty decent. But I keep the use of these pretty low cuz of the cephalic insulin response. You MUST do something EVERY DAY to move!!! This isn't negotiable in my estimation--especially if you are in a hormonal deficit/challenge and have PCOS. It's hotter than hell here. I walk in my house. Seriously. I walk laps around the interior of my house. I walk/run for 1+ hours a day everyday. (if at all possible). I do miss some days, but it's a big deal if I do. I only lost on average 1-2lbs per week. In the early days I lost 3lbs per week but that didn't last long. There WILL be stalls. The are inevitable. I had to be between 650-850 (towards the lower end of that range) to lose those amounts each week. I had very few treats or cheats during the super active losing phase. And I didn't believe in everything in moderation when I never had moderation before. So you will have to decide how many carbs and how many cals you're gonna follow from your doc and how it actually nets results for you.

Gosh no idea, but how miserably scary!!! Be sure to go back a stage for the next couple of days to allow your body to heal. No more pulled pork or salad for a couple of weeks. Ok? ((hugs))

Sounds like things are moving along for you. The big day will be here before you know it. Keep it up! Wishing all good things for you!

Great to hear that you've got your date and lost some weight by eating healthy. Keep doing it. Wish you success with upcoming surgery.

So the original "keto" as developed in the 60s and 70s by Dr. Atkins was much lower than todays' present iteration of the diet. For a normie Keto Diet based on Atkins 72, most fat % were in the 60-75% range. When I followed it as a normie, I had to be between 55-65% fat in order to lose the best. Most of the LCHF/keto docs agree that the amount of fat in your diet entirely depends on the amount of adiposity on your body. That means, that even with a keto diet, you still must operate in a caloric deficit so that you burn the fat stores in your body rather than the fat in your diet for energy. And for the most part, you must expend the energy from your diet before you tap into your fat stores. As @AZhiker and @KarenLR75 say, there is no need to inflate our fat to "today's keto" range. For most of us PO, it would be difficult due to surgical malabsorption. Even VSGers can have difficulty with higher fat. By simply reducing carbs to 20g net or below per day and putting your personal prescription for protein into the equation (given to you by your surgeon), then you can back into your target calorie goal and figure out your fat grams/percentage based on that. Any additional fatty acids you need (and the ketones produced through lipolysis) will then be able to come from the fat strapped to your booty and middle (and total body) rather than the fat bomb or MCT oil, or butter coffee -- or whatever ridiculous bolus of exogenous and unnecessary "keto bs" you consume. I knew that in order to lose I needed to maintain a range between 650-850 calories/day. I know, because when I got to 850 calories or above, I would stall out and not lose anything. I also knew from my surgeon and RD that I had a broad protein range (in the early days) of between 60-80g protein daily--with an optimal amount at 74g for my LBM and are based upon height, sex, age, physical status. Males and females of a different size will have different macros. Here are the macros I've used to lose 157lbs:

I think it depends on which way the band slips. Best thing to do is to go and get it checked ASAP