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i am pre op but have made major dietary changes this year. tbh 80% of my cravings for sugary and carbs have already disappeared with the changes i have made. once i made the choice to reduce my consumption to “sparingly” on fast food, sugary items and now carbs, (begrudgingly due to upcoming pre op diet) and went through an adjustment period, the cravings majorly reduced. now the specific cravings are few and far between. also, i worked on WHY I used those items as an emotional crutch to get me through some challenging times. that made a huge difference. another big change is when I feel a craving, i can tell if it’s emotional or physical. emotional can be soothed by working on the emotional issue causing the craving; physical can often be satisfied with a very small portion of the food desired. it has been a freeing experience that was worth the extremely hard work and tears to get to this point. (lost 40 lbs since the end of April.. 56 this year) Journaling has been my best tool. There are other tools like meditation, therapy, channeling energy into a hobby etc that can help too. Remember this process is truly changing your life!! The more you look at all of your life’s patterns and seek out the healthy path, the better off you will be.

Hi everyone! I've been a silent reader of these forums and have found a lot of answers and inspiration in here that helped me a lot along my weight loss journey. This is my first post and just wanted to first thank you for sharing your experiences and stories and to share mine as well. Hopefully this will inspire someone to take the decision. I had my surgery on 30 January 2022 and I'm glad I did. I'm going to be 40 in September and I've always been overweight. I've tried several diets, lost and gained a lot of weight. The last diet I've tried was Keto diet back in 2019. I was able to lose 25 Kg. Then Covid-19 came, the lockdowns and having to work from home. I gained all the weight back and some more 😥. Fast forward to January 2022. My sister (who is also overweight) was in Egypt on a business trip. She met one of her classmates in there who lost almost half of her weight and looked unrecognizable. My sister's friend recommended that she consult the same surgeon that did her mini gastric bypass surgery. After visiting that surgeon, my sister decided to have the surgery by mid January 2022. We talked about it and I discussed with the surgeon over Skype and made the arrangements to have mine by end of January 22. I had my surgery on 30 January 22 and stayed in the hospital for two days. I then flew back to Malaysia a week after. My starting weight was 149 Kg and my current is 103 Kg. I'm super happy with my decision and consider that to be my 40th birthday gift to myself. I feel and look amazing and I'm able to do a lot of the things that I've always wanted to do but couldn't because of my weight. I even got myself a mountain bike that I ride every night around my house. I hope I will be down to two-digits weight just in time for my 40th birthday! I'm planning to join a gym next month which will hopefully help with loose skin and speed up the weight loss. I've started a list of all of the things that I've always wanted to do but couldn't and I'm really excited to tick as items much as I can.

I weigh daily, morning and night and have for 15+ years (though I didn't while I gained all this weight in a years time). If that's what you prefer, eventually you will learn to understand the fluctuations and accept them for what they are. Experience is the teacher. Just stick with your plan and you'll succeed.

A fluctuation that small could be anything. It could be water, full bowels, it could just be that scales are not 100% accurate. I suggest that you weigh yourself less often if it’s going to get to you. I weighed myself daily but I only recorded it once a MONTH. That way I could see the downward trend for certain. That worked for me but it sounds like it’s upsetting you more than it got to me so maybe you should try once a week or so.

Literally the only thing that I wish they would have told me is that there is a 3% chance that you can develop a wheat allergy or celiac disease with any surgery that has malabsorption. I developed a wheat allergy and it completely blindsided me. I have crappy luck so had I known I would have expected it. Still would have done the surgery, but I would have expected it (not joking about the crappy luck. I had an MVD in 2017 and there is only a 1% chance of getting meningitis and guess what? I got meningitis. Yeah, my luck is crap). Also the hilarity of me having to call the bariatric surgeon because I was having chronic constipation and their confusion because they'd never had a patient with my surgery have that issue as it's generally the opposite (diarrhea) made my day. I laughed so much when the doctor had trouble processing that (I absorb iron really, really, really well so the fact that I was taking 3 iron multi's is what caused that issue. I now take 1 iron multi and 2 non-iron multi's and my iron level is the high side of normal... yeah). Also, keep in mind that everyone loses at their own pace and try not to compare yourself to others. You'll get there. It may be slower than someone else that started at the same time, but you could actually lose more than them in the end. You could also be a chronic staller (that was me. I've never met anyone who stalled as much as me) and that is incredibly frustrating (oh, the stress and frustration!), but it happens. And yes, even if you're not a chronic staller, stalls DO happen and are 100% normal (generally can last up to 3 weeks. Though some can last longer as I had a few that lasted in the 40 day range. No joke.).

It gets easier the longer you go without them, but once you re-introduce them you have to learn moderation even when you crave them. That has been a learning experience. I'm a stress baker and so when I bake I will call my sister up and give her more than half of what I bake so that I don't eat them all because I don't trust myself not to. I've even had my mom take some of my baked goods to work to share with her co-worker to get them out of the house. I have worked on the stress baking lately and I've cut it down to once a week when before I was baking 3-4x a week and sometimes sending all but one serving to my sisters house or my moms work lol. I made peanut butter cookies last week (because my niece and nephew were coming over and they love my cookies) and am planning banana muffins this week (because my mom loves when I make banana bread or banana muffins and since they eat the majority I tend to make what they like).

yea, the no sugar part is why I assume most people eat the sugar free. Wise decision, Diabetes is nothing to play with.

Ask if you have any choice in what size your stomach will be post surgery. I am not even sure if that’s a thing they could have done differently but given a choice I would have preferred mine to be smaller. I was able to eat more than expected at every given phase post op. I just measured my food and stopped when my plate was empty and I still lost weight though so don’t let me freak you out. According to my team at over a year out now my normal meals of about one serving of most things are typical but that’s me eating till I’m satisfied. I never really feel full. I see people on here who eat a lot less and if that is something they control I would have preferred to be on the smaller side.

It takes a while for some of us to see it. In the mirror especially. Even some people lose like 100 pounds and everyone else can of course see lt but they can’t see it themselves. Sometimes planting two photos next to one another helps. You will get there though. Of course it’s not all water weight. You are on the right track. It just takes time.

Love watching Dr Alverez's videos and he just put out a new one regarding stalls. Has good information. Passing it along