Jolanda

I'm about a year and a half out and eat at McDonald's maybe one every two or three months. I either have the grilled chicken salad or four chicken nuggets (no fries, I can just about manage the four nuggets over a half an hour period). I tried a hamburger for the second time after surgely perhaps three months ago and it made me feel ill.

Another thing is that you should not diet while pregnant as it could possibly cause your baby to be predisposed to diabetes later in life. So until you're pretty much at goal and you need less calories to maintain your weight you'd effectively be dieting (simply because at least for me it would have been hard to get in 1800 calories a day the first five months or so after the sleeve). I'm about 20 months out and 7 weeks pregnant at the moment. The best way to combat queasiness is to eat a little food regularly, and I've been doing that since the sleeve anyway, so that's fine. Lately I've had these absurd cravings for cheese... I'm resigned to probably gaining some weight during the pregnancy but I'm confident I'll manage to lose it afterwards, as the sleeve really does make it easy.

I'm about 19.5 months out now and I still get hiccups occasionally, if I eat a bit too much. For some reason chicken = easy hiccups for me... But I get hiccups perhaps twice a month for less than five minutes at a time, so it's not a problem. Good luck: it's VERY early days for you yet!

I think this is very much individual. I reached goal weight in just about ten months and though the weight loss was slower at the end it was still good enough for me - and most importantly, it was easy to do! Now ten months after that I've purposely regained about 6 pounds a few motnhs ago as I was trying to get pregnant and my goal weight just left me a bit too skinny for my own taste: jutting collar and hip bones. Anyway, it worked fine (and until I decided to gain those few pounds, maintaining was easy, too).

I'm a medium, too. Cannot get used to that.

Pain threshold is an individual thing, as is response to pain meds, but at least for me there was very little pain. More discomfort, and the skin sutures were a little sore at some point - but all in all, it was negilible. Fear of pain is no reason not to have this surgery (and I'm the world's biggest wuss when it comes to pain!)

So far for me, maintaining has been as easy as losing weight was with the sleeve. I've been maintaining for about five months now and find it funny that it's such a delicate balance: two pounds below my ideal weight and my face looks like a skeleton and my boobs completely disappear, two pounds above my ideal weight and I start to feel tight: the way I would feel if I'd had a lot of salty food. Two pounds this way or that: it's ridiculous! But so far it's been easy. I eat less healthy than I did while losing, but I still eat a little of it. I've added nuts, some carbs, and the only things I don't eat at all (I do occasionally in restaurants or when eating at friends' houses, but I never do at home) are potatoes, Pasta, rice and bread. I eat meat, fish, vegetables, salad, chocolate, nuts, müsli, yoghurt, the occasional cookie and sometimes an ice cream cone. Yes, I can eat a lot more than I could in the months after the operation. I still don't feel hunger, though, so it's not a problem. Did I mention getting the sleeve was the best decision I ever made? (I think I have in just about every post...)

Not me - I'm always cold now! Except if I drink a big mug of hot coffee or tea - then I'm immediately hot. I've turned into a lizard or something...

Funny you should mention it: I have milk with my coffee but I used to drink a glass or two a day before the operation. Haven't wanted to drink it since - sure, at the beginning it was a calorie issue, but now I'm just out of the habit. Nice. I do take a calcium supplement daily.

I've had it too, recently twice (trip abroad, restaurant Desserts...) Once I ate a really rich, semi-cooked chocolate cake for dessert (a big piece, too) after eating duck and mashed potatoes. Then a couple of days later I got it again after eating a lot of sweet cake at a birthday party. Nausea, sometimes sweating, not throwing up but certainly feeling like it would be a good idea... I have to say, I love it. I hate hate hate it while it's on but I love the fact that it tells me in no uncertain terms not to eat a lot of junk. I never have problems when eating dark chocolate, for instance, nor a small piece of something sweet.

Sure, I was nervous before the surgery, but not too much. I totally understand that you're scared, though. If it helps any, after surgery I was weak and in a sort of vague discomfort for a few days, but there was never any active pain involved, the pain medication is that good. It's not to say that the rest will be a picnic, and of course there are risks attached to any surgery, but if I had to make the decision all over again I wouldn't hesitate for one moment. Best decision I ever made, yes.

For me using an online calorie calculator really helped. Don't think I could have done it without that, I'm not mathematically inclined... Anyway, I started at BMI 36 and am now down to about BMI 22.5. I never ate just 600 calories after the mushy food stage but started around 850 and while losing I gradually increased it to about 1100. It suited me fine and I lost all the weight in about nine months, which was certainly quick enough. Now that I'm maintaining I don't count calories anymore, I simply step on the scales once a week and adjust accordingly.

I had no problems with that once I was on the "mushy food" stage: you can pureé almost anything in a blender, like chicken. I had a lot of cottage cheese, too, which is good in protein. I never had protein shakes but did use a vanilla flavoured Protein powder in my yoghurts. I used an online calculator to count the protein and calorie intake: basically I just entered everything I ate and drank (other than water) and it kept track for me. Easy. Sure, if you don't drink enough I didn't and had a kidney stone episode: very very painful and I learned to drink enough after that! You cannot drink with meals so it takes a while to learn to drink at all other times. But if you keep at it, you shouldn't get dehydrated. This depends on the kind of eater you are. At least here I had to do an assessment to find out if I had any kind of eating disorder other than eating too much and too unhealthily: the only complications they have had at the hospital I was was with someone eating a huge meal too soon after surgery. If you have a true bulimia type problem then there might be problems. I "only" had carb cravings (which have 99% disappeared after my sleeve) and ate far too big portions so for me there was never any problems. The sleeve also makes it easy: you get nauseous if you eat too much or too fast so you learn quickly. And once you've learned, you can eat everything, but just a little of it. I love it. I wouldn't trust it, simply because you eat so much less after WLS. I take a multi Vitamin, also salmon oil, folic acid, extra Vitamin D (no sun here for 6 months of the year, almost) and extra Calcium. Yes, I have definitely done that. I do Pilates twice a week and it's made a huge difference. For me, they did. Not for everyone. I still have hormonal carb cravings about 3-4 days a month, but they've been no trouble. I give into them and eat some more carbs those days, and that's it. It hasn't interfered with my weight loss at all.

It's well meant concern - try searching for an old post of Tiffany's called "Do I look sick" or something like that - I tried but couldn't find it. I've had a lot of that and once I started to get close to maintaining my weight I had people say "Please don't get anorexia" a lot. I just ended up telling them that no, I won't, I don't enjoy dieting that much... I never put much effort into telling people I hadn't become anorexic: if I had, that's what I would have told them, anyway. And needless to say, I didn't get anorexia. I found it helped to explain to people that losing weight fast is so much more rewarding than losing it slowly so I'm going for that as it's easier to do. Mind you, I haven't told people I had the sleeve. Some may have guessed, most people I think not. Only one person has asked and I said no - none of her business, I think.

Good luck - I've been there, lost a lot of weight myself with a sort of low carb diet but still needed the sleeve to get those last 80+ pounds off. Best decision I ever made. The reason? Sure, losing the weight was super easy after the sleeve, but I've proved to myself I can diet without it, too. But keeping the weight off has been so easy it's ridiculous. I just weigh myself once a week and if my weight is up by a pound or two it takes me less than a week to lose it again. No suffering. I love it!