Catracks

"After Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass surgery patients are left with a tiny new stomach - often called a "pouch." Although the pouch starts out very small immediately after surgery, it changes over time. The remaining small intestines also change..."

http://voices.yahoo.com/understanding-roux-en-y-gastric-pouch-3161015.html?cat=5

We have a sleeve. We have our original stomachs with the stretchy greater curvature cut out.

Sleeves don't stretch. If you can handle 4 oz at a few months, you might be just over a cup in 1-2 years. The stretchy part has been cut out.

I drink a soda every day and I still have massive restriction. We have the capability to burp. Any excess gas from the carbonation is expelled. Yes, the nutritionist will tell you not to drink diet soda, but sometimes I swallow more air with my Crystal Light.

You can stretch a pouch, but not a sleeve. A pouch is made from different tissue.

P.S. I am a year and two months out.

What makes you gain weight is eating slider foods like chips, milkshakes, ice cream and junk food. Also cake, pastries, white rice, white bread and other nutritionally devoid foods. What makes you gain weight is returning to the habits that got us here in the first place.

Protein first, then a little veggie and fruit and if room a bite of two of healthy carbs.

I certainly

You are angry because you live in a free country?

That's pretty absurd to come to that conclusion. Not so free if you turn over all of your freedoms to the government in the name of security.

I'd certainly rather live here, but I want to keep it free of socialism and any form of totalitarianism.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"--Benjamin Franklin.

Yep, I agree. We all have to take responsibility for ourselves at some point.

The only way in which I differ is that I think advertising to children is unethical, and in many countries targeting children with advertisement is not legal for that reason. Children have no ability to discern when they are being advertised too, and I believe it was stated that children under the age of 6 or 7 cannot always discern between commercial advertisements and regular children's programming. So thats my only exception, as for adults.... we are going to have to learn to suck it up. It bothers me too, so I do other things with my time besides watch TV.

Ah, but see, that's why children have parents. WE are responsible for them; not the government. We can limit their TV time, teach them to not watch smut and encourage them to eat healthy.

Eventually they get out into the world and we can only hope that lessons stick.

Why are you so angry? It was just a suggestion to help with Americans to become unobeise. If Im correct American population is what 35% obeist. What do you think made them this way? Maybe you dont give a hoot about others healthcare but I do, especially the children. I think alot of crap on here smells, you dont see me complaining about it.

It's called personal responsibility. Handing life decisions over to the government creates a tyrannical government and that impacts my liberty and that of my children. Yes, it's enough to get angry about. Of course I care about the health of my brothers and sisters, but it is up to THEM. Let's keep it that way.

Companies advertise to sell food period. It is their right. Frankly, cigarettes are legal and there is no good Constitutional reason why they cannot advertise. If a picture forces you to eat to obesity, I suggest that you work on your impulses.

Ban this, ban that, censor this, censor that, save THE CHILDREN!!!!!

Imagine! - the government telling people what they can or cannot say -- what they can and cannot eat.

Turn off the TV.

P.S. Ban smells.

3 weeks post opp. and I am soo done with soft foods. I just want tacos, tortillias! bread, salad,noodles, chips, meet, popcorn, ect anyone know when I can have some or one of these things? thanx

I still don't eat white flour tortillas. I have one corn or whole wheat tortillas once in a while. Noodles are mostly out except for whole wheat and carb control once in a while. chips? Pretty much never - maybe a few on a special occasion. White rice and white bread are out. I will occasionally have a slice of oat or whole grain bread.

I do eat a lot of popcorn, but I think I waited 4 or 5 months.

Do not rely on restriction alone. You need to take this time to modify old easting habits that got you to obesity in the first place.

This post and the majority of self righteous responses are the exact reason this forum has become a joke. If I wanted catty behavior and snark, I'd go to church.

You are overly defensive. I was just saying that based on my own experience and that of other sleeved people I know, there is no limit to the weight you can lose. Many are still losing over a year out. What needs to happen in the first six montsh is a complete overhaul and change from old bad habits so you can be fit for the rest of your life.

Think about someone at the six month and one year time frame. People have just told them basically "game over" and it's not true at all.

I think you are projecting the catty and snarky. The church comment is in incredibly bad taste.

You have a lot to lose. Good luck! Some people get it, some people don't. The people that don't remind me of the girl on the biggest loser right now. The one with the excuses who never breaks a sweat and thinks they are doing something. When you get to 1.5 years out with 30 left to lose honey the only way you are getting that last 30 off is by working out for 4 hours a day and eating maybe at that point 800 Calories which is going to be impossible because if you could have done that you would have not had the surgery. You go back to normal. I was eating pretty normal and every month I could see that i could eat just a bit more. But for me I ate nothing the first six months whereas people on here are eating way too many calories. I am over this subject. I lost 130 pounds and got down to 160. I am up now from baby weight, but when I pop that baby out I will be working out for 4 hours and eating 800 calories (I HOPE!) to get to 150. 160 was ok, but i could be 150. I hope the sleeve works for me, but if not I am actually going to have to try to work for myself. I ate a whole sandwich today. Like a big one! I have never been able to eat a whole sandwich.

I don't agree at all. I have about the same restriction I did at 4 months. I measure, weigh and log everything. I suppose if you went back to grazing and eating the wrong foods then it would become impossible to lose without getting back on track. I don't ever plan to eat like a "normal" person. White rice and flour, fast food and junk food will always be off my menu. I don't miss it at all.

Just saying, Its been a year and a month since my surgery and I'm still losing. It's very slow because I am close to goal. I don't believe in any time frame.

Wow, 2000 calories? My weight and height of 5'1" would never take that much. I'm still at 750-800.

I want to either do back to Disney just because it was fun or go to Hawaii...I'll let you know when I get there!!!

I've got Disneyland right here. It might be cheaper to go to Hawaii.

True. I did lose a couple more. It's really slow going though.

Well, she doesn't know how much I paid for it...that's for sure.

Tsk tsk tsk. You really do need to take a cool trip though. Route 66?

What I really want to do is go to Maui. What I really need to do is to fix the roof.

Sshhhh....the wife doesn't know about the Harley. You think she ever goes into the garage?

I don't believe it for a second :-)

I wish I had your draconian sleeve. I seem to eat 3 oz of dense Protein with no problems in 10 min or so, sometimes less depending on my ability to slow down.

If I eat it all at once, too fast I am guaranteed to get sick. I can eat anything, just slowly.

As for the emotional side, the biggest thing I had to do was confront my baggage.

I thought that losing the weight would make me insta-happy. Surely my lack of confidence, my anger, my unhappiness were all tied up in the obesity I'd been battling since fourteen.

Once I got close to goal I really had to reevaluate that idea. Because I still wasn't happy. I wasn't overeating or using food as a crutch - I'd shaken most of those habits. But I still felt angry. I still wasn't happy. I couldn't figure out what was going on.

And then I started to really think about why I was obese in the first place. And it all led back to hurts from my upbringing and bad relationships with family members. For the first time I confronted my parents on the truly miserable and rotten job they did. I'm not exaggerating here or being melodramatic. Plenty of kids grow up thinking they could do things better or differently than their parents. But mine were truly awful. No kid should know the names of the state DCFS investigators and social workers by name and sight, but they visited our house more often than my grandparents.

I was able to really get through to my mom and it was huge. We're never going to be the absolute best of friends but we've come a really long way and are pretty close now. I had to eliminate the toxic relationships. I had not realized how much having certain people in my life was damaging me. But it was! And I was angry and resentful without really even realizing that I was the one in control - I could very easily choose to simply walk away from those relationships.

So I did. I don't speak to entire branches of my messed up family tree anymore. And that's fine. It's actually really, really liberating.

For me, a lot of what I had to shake was the anger - I had to either forgive people or forget them entirely. And I had to forgive myself and accept that I deserved to be happy despite mistakes in my own past and despite the fact that people had been tearing me down my entire life.

I am not perfect. We all carry around things from our past. I still struggle sometimes but I really feel like the bigger part of the journey (and I say this all the time) is finding out what makes us obese in the first place. Because in my case, I had a lot of issues that I was burying under food.

I'm very different now. I like the changes in myself. I'm happy and can't really remember a time in my life before this when I ever just accepted myself for who I am, faults and all.

I'm also more friendly (though it took a while to learn this) and affectionate. I don't feel shame - not of my body, not of my past - and I think that really helps me.

Anyway. I think this is the real thing people should focus on. For some people, this is just a way to shed fifty pounds. But for so many more I think it's a way to shed years and years of bad feelings, bad habits and bad experiences. I think that without overcoming these obstacles, I might not have been able to maintain. Being unhappy all the time probably would have made it easier to fall into those old emotional eating patterns.

~Cheri

Wow Cheri! In the 1970s and earlier, kids like us just used to either run away or endure it. Even when family members found out about the scale of the abuse, they pulled back even further - expect for my grandfather and his wife who saved my life. My mother had two, yes two personality disorders.

What I am now if a person without a whole lot of self confidence. It trips me up a lot. It had also taken me years to hug without flinching. It's still there on the edges.

I don't really know what caused the obesity other than the fact that to me food = love and safety. I guess it still does and I still love food. I can just get by with a whole lot less of it and make better choices.

On a lighter note - I want to get a size 20 pair of pants and put them on. Just yesterday I put on a pullover hoodie that I haven't worn for a year. It hung on my ridiculously. I kept looking down at myself in disbelief.

A year out I still can't handle more that 2-3 oz of dense Protein. I have to eat it VERY slowly. Meals for me take an hour if there is very dense protein. I weigh and measure my food and eat it slowly over the course of the day. It's 2;09 PM and I still haven't finished my lunch or part of my Breakfast. That's just the way I do it.

I plan to:

1. Get a small tattoo - a Chi Rho.

2. Go hiking down Havisupai creek in the Supai Reservation and to the Grand Canyon down and up the Bright Angel Trail.

3. Go to the Glen Ivy spa for a massage, and pedicure.

You deserve to treat yourself, that's for sure. I don't know what I'm going to do. I already bought myself a Harley for hitting the 150 lb lost mark....not sure what I should do to top that.

Take your wife and the Harley to Sturgis.

I am a current smoker, but I certainly stopped a month before and then waited until healed. If they say they will do the test, I suspect that they will keep that promise. Tell the surgeon or you will otherwise be wasting everyone's time. Either he will start the clock from your last cigarette or warn you not to do it again. Just don't do it again.

Sleevers do not have pouches. We still have our stomachs, albeit smaller. They do not stretch per se. As you heal the sleeve will give a little bit, but not much. The stretchy part was removed during surgery.

I m 164cm,26 yrs female my goal weight is 58 kgs and I m 6 kgs far from that

What should I eat and how much?

It all depends on how far out from surgery you are.

Just curious, didn't any of your surgeons give you post-op eating directions?

I m a vegetarian ,can u plz help me on protien...what can I have in protiens

It depends what type of vegetarian you are. If dairy and eggs are okay then:

Nonfat or lowfat Greek yogurt (best), eggs, skim, 1% or 2% milk, almond milk, cottage cheese (1% or 2%), cheese, nuts, seeds and legumes/beans. If you can eat fish and shell-fish then no problem. They are a great source of Protein. Ahi tuna (real stuff, not canned tuna) is best followed by salmon and then on down.

Quinoa is the grain highest in Protein, but carbs and calories are dense.

I really wouldn't think vegan will do for us. There are vegan sleevers, but being vegetarian is hard enough to get the protein in without taking out all animal products.

Make sure you use whey isolate Protein powder for your shakes. If you don't want it based on milk or eggs there are rice based ones available.

Thanks Catracks, I'm just freaking out a little... I'm pulling clumps of it out in the shower!

Knowing that most people who have had vls experience some kind of hair loss is comforting.

Can't wait for it to start growing back!

Oh I know! Just wear it as another badge of honor. It's just part of the whole process.

I was sleeved in September 2012, my hair loss started slowly in December, and now in January I can say that I have lost about half of my hair.< /p>

I'm afraid to wash or comb it out, it breaks my heart.

My question is "when will it stop?" has anyone gone through the same thing and then had their hair grow back?

I'm really worried.

It certainly grows back. It happens to everyone and it is your body's response to healing after the surgery. Your body turns off all non essestioal systems to speed healing and unfortunately hair is not essential to our survival. Better than losing your nails huh?

Just take care of yourself and get your Protein in. Take your Vitamins. It will start back in a couple months. I didn't really start loosing mine until 5 months. everyone is different. The reaction is delayed depending on when the hair is formed in the follicles.