Matt Z

Thanks... I have 34 days to meet / break 200. To meet my all time dream goal of being the same weight I was when I was married almost 20 years ago (Friday, Nov 13th, 1998) and to be the same weight I was when I turned 20, when I turn 40 (Nov 15th). So... fingers crossed!

Just internally (or externally if no one is around or you don't care if people think you are crazy) tell that voice that it's wrong, that you know you aren't hungry or need any nutrition and that you won't listen to it. It takes some time but reconditioning does work, just gotta keep reinforcing the changes mentally. It does get easier.

Liquids, melts/dissolves etc are helpful, they told us for the first few weeks, no pills larger than an m+m. Water also starts to just empty through not long after surgery, so if you get lucky you shouldn't have any issues with water intake. I had no problems taking any of my numerous pills. Think of it like this, you've got a tube connected to a sphere connected to another tube. If you pour the water in as the same rate it flows out... you can pour as much as you want until the lower tube fills up. If you pour too quickly, you get the back up since the water input is faster than the water exiting. If the pills are small, they will flow though the pouch pretty quickly as well. Just take them 1 at a time and sip the water. Swelling with cause some restriction, but if you start drinking super slowly, see how much you can get in when taking tiny, constant sips, then slowly increase the input until you notice it starting to back up, then slow down a bit and it should go away. This way you'll figure out what your throughput is and you'll know the speed at which you can consume liquids without back up.

Stalls happen when you body is working through the new diet changes. Are you consuming upwards of 128 oz of water a day at this point? Lack of water *WILL* cause a stall, this is because your body needs water to process fat, it also needs it for it's day to day hydration and other processing, like cleaning your blood. So if we short change our daily minimums fat loss suffers. Also, if you are consuming very low amounts of calories, this can also cause stagnation in weight loss as your body tries to hold onto the tiny amount it's getting. So, there are a lot of things happening on a cellular and hormonal level because of the weight loss that cause the body to take a pause and reassess itself. Just for understanding, doing a reset procedure is totally fine to do, I was just curious as the reasons and wanted to make sure you had more options. IF is working very well and it's free and doesn't require any intake amount changes, just intake timeline changes. I'm doing an 8am to 6pm IF, so I only eat between 8am and 6pm. I do have my coffee every morning around 5-515, but that's really it, the bulk of my caloric intake happens between 8 and 6. I've broken 2 major stalls with IF and since starting it up consistently, I've been on a really great downward trend in my weight, even taking 3 days off to go camping and eating more than I normally would do and gaining 2 lbs in doing so, I'm back to my pre-weekend weight in only 2 days of IF.

I advise not buying things before hand, but in the case where you are on your own, only buy things that are very bland/mild and don't over do it, your intake is going to be greatly reduced, you can plan out meals in advance based on what you are supposed to consume size wise, post op for me, I could eat chili, 1 can equaled out to like 9 or 10 servings. The other side is, with the limited amount you'll be consuming, things get old quick. That 1 can of chili didn't even get finished because I was so done with chili after 6 meals of it....

Going to second the Melatonin quick dissolves. Haven't tried the new Zquil naturals, but those appear to be a good choice as well.

If it's been more than 2 days, contact your surgeon/surgical team and let them know. But pain is going to happen after forcefully stretching a part of your digestive system.

not everyone is on liquids only pre-op. This is per surgeon/site. I was allowed SF jello, watermelon and celery. So, the "reasons" might have some merit... but since this isn't an "across the board" situation, there is a *LOT* of personal preference based on what the surgeon likes to see when they start the surgery.

Check into Intermittent Fasting (IF), seems a little soon after surgery to need a pouch reset, unless you've been eating really badly. a few of us have been doing IF with some great results!

I use isopure, gold standard and sometimes muscle milk powders, I stay away from genepro... lawsuits and all. Have you looked into any of the protein liquids that are more like water? Protein2o, or Isopure RTD? might help you out, if you can drink liquids with no issue, then these thin protein drinks might be what you need right now.

And the Magic of IF.... I'm back down to 214.7.... I'm sure it'll be 213 tomorrow given I've got an upper endo, so it's mainly fluids only for me today. So glad I found this...

LOL That'll be the next life. I don't have the time, money or skill to scale that beast! But thanks for the vote of confidence! Would really like to scale Katahdin during my 40th year... fingers crossed it all works out!

Sigh... this weekend was supposed to be 3 days, 2 nights of camping and hiking. It ended up raining or being SUPER foggy because we were no lie, chilling out in a cloud. Our camp was about 2200 feet above sea level. Great views typically... lots of good hiking, but with how wet and just totally soaked everything was, my buddy and I only got in 1, 2 mile with only like 300 - 500 feet of elevation change. The good thing though, as this was a trial run for when we go to Maine for when we climb Katahdin, I was able to pack for my new diet and didn't have much issue at all... I tried not to poo for a bit... the burger we had sunday night did NOT want to hang around... so I was forced to use the pit toilet... but other than that little issue... and the rain, things went well. Except I gained like 2 lbs. womp womp

Short and to the point. Just do it. You know the diet you should be following... start following it. Longer, you can start over. Start your pre-op diet over and follow it to the letter, pretend you never had the surgery. Fast the day of "surgery" and then start your post-op diet the way you would if you just had surgery. This gets you squarely back on track, has the added benefit of allowing your sleeve/pouch to "reset" a bit AND boost your weight loss. Or, you can look into Intermittent Fasting. There are a few of us doing it on here and it's working very well. The science behind it is pretty sound too, might be worth looking into.

Taste buds can change... in odd ways. Mine were wonky for a bit, but have since returned to normal. The potato flake thing really did save me so much gagging!

I understand, when I was talking with my surgeon about getting my band out and revising, I was leaning towards the sleeve as well. But, I ended up going with the Bypass. My surgeon won't do band to sleeve revisions due to increased rate of staple line failure due to the scar tissue created by the band. She would have sent me to another surgeon in her practice if I *really* wanted it, but she wouldn't do it. She installed my band, and I was really looking forward to having her do my removal and revision because of how skilled she is, so this really set me back. I originally turned my nose up at the bypass, for all the wrong reasons, because I was provided with incorrect or incomplete information when I asked around this site. It wasn't until I started doing my own deep dive into the reality of the surgery that I realized there was more myth and false information spinning around. I can say, that I'm absolutely tickled I decided to go with the bypass. The Ghrelin thing, is another topic that's not fully researched, not everyone loses the hunger sensation, and then, MOST folks regain it down the road. I'm over 6 months post op from the bypass, and my hunger sensation is TOTALLY different than before hand. Will that change? Maybe, but at this point, I've been able to really isolate the "head hunger" vs "real hunger" thing. Not everyone gets GERD issues post sleeve. But, that's one thing that is pretty much NOT going to happen with the bypass, due simply to the new layout. Does each have their pros and cons... clearly. I can only provide you with facts as they are, my experience, my knowledge from my own research and let you take the reigns from there. Sleeve to RNY revision happens a decent amount (I've got a friend of mine, like a IRL friend that had to get his sleeve revised to rny just a few months ago), there are RNY to Sleeve revisions, but those are *VERY* far and few between, you'll see Band over Bypass revisions more than you'll see RNY to Sleeve revision. Either way, research EVERYTHING and make the most informed decision you can based on your situation. Good luck! If you have any questions or follow up or just want to chat, shoot me a PM.

2 weeks seems to be the "average" in my experience. Don't be afraid to call the insurance company to confirm receipt, confirm processing, ask the status, ETC ETC ETC. You pay them for their service, don't let them have all the control!

More than likely the tissue healing, I had a bump or 2 on the internal portion of the incisions for a tick, they've gone away at this point. When they stitch inside, the tissue can "Bind" a bit, they are called Suture Granuloma's https://www.sanovadermatology.com/skin-lesions/suture-granuloma-new-bump-on-an-incision-line/

Add some potato flakes to help thicken it up just a bit if need be. I did that with quite a few of my purees due to disgusting texture!

This is where I feel that this site falls down, at least with any of the tracker based/linked sites, the site has access to the users recorded data... here, it would all be on the honor system.

SOOOO Weird! I won't tell you to no follow your doctors orders... but pretty much EVERYONE ELSE was cleared for full exercise, zero restrictions, at or around the 2 month Post Op point. If you chose to ignore your doctors advice, just take things slow and stop if it starts to hurt.

I wasn't defending the lawsuit... nor was I supporting it or anything other than providing the information from the lawsuit itself. This post seems a little pointed and directed at me... for no reason.

Congrats all around!

To be fair Matt, it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Neither is reversible. They become variations of each other when you make the switch to/from. I'm sorry, but the Bypass **IS** reversible. It doesn't happen often, but it certainly does happen. There has been, at least 1 member here in the last, month or so that was approved for RNY reversal. And to be clear, I am fully aware of the process for revisions. I'm specifically stating, that the bypass *CAN* be reversed, under special circumstances, that *HAVE* happened to at least 1 member of this site within the last month or so, whereas the sleeve *CANNOT* be reversed, under any circumstances. And a quick google for "RNY Reversal" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4196428/ https://www.soard.org/article/S1550-7289(14)00472-9/abstract Conclusions Reversal of RYGB to normal anatomy is reasonable in patients with severe or refractory complications.

I'm going to back @GreenTealael on this one, if you've got even the slightest GERD now... the sleeve will more than likely make it worse. Side note that people seem to get wrong (not that you stated this either way, just some information that most folks don't have correct) is that the sleeve is non-reversible under ANY circumstances, You can be revised from Sleeve to RNY, but you cannot be reversed from the sleeve. The bypass... is reversible, it is risky, and it doesn't happen too often, but it DOES happen. Something to think about. Sleeve, 90% of your stomach ends up in the medical waste bin... Bypass, everything is still in there, the stomach is split but just the connections have been adjusted, nothing is actually removed.