Matt Z

Those are MY JAM! Seriously, I buy them in bulk. Also got a great "hack" meal with those. Drop those into a bowl, drop down some low fat taco meat and toppings... boom, healthier taco salad bowl!

Moon cheese is awesome! Check out "Just the Cheese" and "Wisps" also.

Pretty much "ANY" Kay's Natural's Protein Snacks.

Acai Bowls are really damn good.

NEVER! LOL I weigh in daily, or as close to daily as possible. Always try to keep it consistent as well, same time, same routine, same outfit... sadly my go to outfit is getting a bit wrinkly and lose. LOL

Down to 224.1 today. I was 310 on my pre-op official check in, I was 294.4 the day of surgery. So... that'll put me at 85.9lbs from pre-op official. 70.3 from the date of surgery and 145.9 from my max.

Today is my 6 month Post-Op anniversary as well.

Hello everyone. Today marks my 6 month Post-op Band to RNY Revision. It's been an interesting ride. March 21st, I arrived for my surgery at 0600. Was taken back to prep at 0630 and was in surgery before 0730. My surgery was a tough one, the band was fully encapsulated in scar tissue and took almost 4 times longer to remove than it should have, the surgery itself lasted much longer than expected. But, thankfully my super awesome surgeon Dr. Beth Ryder stuck with it and completed the full revision rather than only removing the band. I remember it being after 3pm when I made it to the recovery room. Recovery, for me, was super easy. I was a little weak/woozy for my first walk around recovery. But once I got to my room for the rest of my 3 day 2 night stay, things were just super easy. I would disconnect and reconnect myself from pretty much everything to do my walks. I didn't need any extra nausea meds or pain meds. I did have an on demand morphine drip if needed. I'd hit that before I had to do any big moves, or to help me sleep. But that's really it. They took that away early on my last day, it was no longer needed. At home, things continued to be easy, I was already familiar with the log roll method of getting in and out of bed from my lapband surgery, so I had zero issues with that. I took my time with things, followed my instructions and made sure to hit all my requirements. The weight loss has been both amazing, and frustrating. I weigh myself every day. I know it's not advised, but I like to track it daily if possible. I have a scale that does body fat % as well and this has helped quell some of the frustration, those stalls, I'd see my body fat % dropping, so I knew that even if my weight wasn't moving, that I was still on track. It helped a bit, but still, it was / is, frustrating. I feel fantastic. I've had issues with not recognizing myself in mirrors which is a trip. I've almost broke down in tears because I could shop at normal stores, I bought things right off the rack without trying them on and they fit exactly as I expected. I'm much more active, have less issues with lots of things. I'm very happy overall. There have been some odd "side effects". I have thoracic spinal arthritis. Guess I've had it for a while, but because I was fat, the visceral fat that covers our bones, tendons, joints, muscles, etc, was insulating the nerves from the arthritis. So, I drop a ton of weight... and now I can feel it. Also, with the visceral fat loss, tendons and other connective areas had gotten a little, slack/loose/painful. But that wasn't anything some time in the gym couldn't fix. Working out really REALLY helped tighten up areas that were excessively loose, internally. Excess skin isn't super bad either. Which is awesome seeing as I'm coming from a max of 370. Yes I've got a bunch of odd "crinkly" skin, but it's not near as bad as I had expected. I got lucky and didn't have to deal with hair loss either. Thankful for that. I'm hairier now it seems. I guess with reducing the "stretch" my skin had to do in order to accommodate me being overweight caused the follicles to become spaced out more. So I'm not "hairier" exactly, but my follicles are closer together making for the appearance of being hairier. I've had some CRAZY emotional swings. Fat stores estrogen, So as you lose weight, expect there to be hormonal imbalances. Make sure whomever your support is, knows this as well, so when things get heated or super emotional, they'll understand that you are dealing with weight loss related hormonal changes. I'm able to eat pretty much anything I want now. Which is a double edged sword. I can eat cake and cookies and cupcakes without any real issue. But, I can eat cake, cookies, cupcakes without any issue... so, will power is still needed. I got lucky and my hunger sensation is still very low. I don't get a "full" feeling exactly, but I get to a point where I just don't want to eat anything else. I still take my time and I don't drink within 30 mins of eating. I'm currently doing a light Intermittent Fasting (IF), I'm eating between the hours of 8am and 6pm and that's pretty much it. The science behind this process is pretty sound and makes TONS of logical sense. March 21st, I weighed in at 294.4. Today, I weighed in at 224.1, 70.3 lbs dropped since surgery, 145.9 lbs since my heaviest. Thank you to all for your help and support. I hope to continue hanging around providing any help I can to those walking the same path. To all: Learn to love yourself. Learn to forgive yourself. Stay strong, everything is only temporary.

And there's the love for the IF again. Within .2 lbs of my lowest again just like that.

I suggest NOT buying food things in advance, and then, only in small amounts post-op. Your taste buds might change (sometimes permanently sometimes only for a little while), you more than likely will change your tolerences for certain things, so buying too much in advance can lead to a bunch of stuff not getting used. My wife wanted to buy things in advance and I had to keep telling her not to, she did some anyway and most of what she bought, never got used.

Those are 3 very different topics and wouldn't be all in 1 place on any site. I'm a band to bypass revision myself, if you've got any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them if I can.

Don't wade... just use the search function.

Welcome to the site! There is a lot of information that's not up front with all the repeat questions and stuff that gets asked, make sure to use the search feature to find stuff, there really is a lot of information floating around this site that gets buried. Good luck with your surgery.

Nothing you do at this point is going to stop or help the hair that's falling out. That's because your body decided months ago that it was going to stop feeding that hair that's falling out now. The reason it's falling out now, is because new hair is pushing the old hair out. Google Telogen Effluvium. It's when something shocks your system (stress, surgery, stressful surgery, etc) and your body has hair growth cycles, the surgery causes a much higher percentage of hair to go dormant than normal. So, when the "Grow" cycle starts up again, all of that "Rest" cycle hair, gets dumped. It's just a temporary change to your normal shedding cycle. Nothing you can do about it now except deal with it until everything grows back in properly.

Nope. Pain is 100% subjective to the person experiencing it. My levels of pain are not going to translate to anyone else. It's invasive surgery. You'll be given medication to dull the pain. Other than that... anything anyone tells you is only their experience. I've got a super high pain tolerance, the surgery was super easy and not really painful at all, I've had pulled muscles that have hurt more. I didn't need any help when I got to my room after surgery. I connected and disconnected all things when I needed to walk or fill the collection container. Your mileage will vary.

Hit that search function... there are HUNDREDS of these posts telling folks to helped them and what didn't. I only used: Dry mouth spray (life saver really! for when you can't drink anything after surgery and your mouth is super dry) Lip balm Pillow Cellphone / charger / long ass cable Sweatpants Slipers That's it. I wore the clothes I wore in, out. Didn't need ANYTHING else.

Cut the caffeine for at LEAST 3 months post op. Caffeine increases acid production and you DO NOT want increased acid production with a sleeve, ESP when you are still trying to heal that long staple line! Afterwards, you are going to want to "cut" your caffeine with calcium, Calcium binds to caffeine and lessens it's negative effects on your system. But I would very much stay away from it for a while.

I can understand this, but it happens so smoothly that you don't even realize it.. it just poof... happens. Sometimes there is a mild ringing for a moment or 2 before you fade. But it's a dreamless sleep typically, you just wake up in another location as if no time had past.

The idea is that pretty much*NO ONE* losses all 100% of excess weight. The majority of folks lose 60% of their total excess. Your excess weight is calculated by taking your "Ideal weight" and subtracting that from your actual weight. Then taking that number and taking 60% of that. That's how much you can expect to lose. At 5 foot 4 with a BMI of 36, that would put you at about 210 lbs. The "ideal" weight for a female that's 5 foot 4 would be between 108 and 132 lbs. So lets split that for the sake of math. Lets call the ideal weight 120. That means your excess is 90 lbs. 60% of 90 is 54 lbs. So you can expect to hit 256 lbs without too much trouble. If you don't follow your guidelines you might not hit that, if you really work with it, you should be able to go lower, but the "average" is 60%, so for you, about 54lbs going off of the limited information I was able to locate from your profile. For me, Ideal for 5 foot 9 is 144-176. I'm going to assume 175, I don't ever expect to hit that though. But lets just call my ideal weight 175. I started the bypass revision at 310. That's 135 lbs of excess weight. Bypass reports a 65% excess loss. I could expect to lose only 87.75 lbs. So I should bottom out at 222.25. I'm at 225 today and I can tell you, it's been VERY hard to get lower.

The band was over hyped, and under performed. I went into the band with all the praise and amazing reports of weight loss, etc. Sadly that information was skewed and reality was much different. I did lose 60-70 lbs with the band... but then it and I no longer saw eye to eye. The items I should have been eating, hurt or were problematic. I didn't have any slippage or erosion. But when my surgeon removed it, it took them almost 4x longer to remove it than they should have, because it was 100% encapsulated in scar tissue. I don't even want to think what would have happened if I left it in! The bypass has been everything the band was reported to be when I had it installed. My hunger sensations are greatly reduced, I don't have ANY issues getting stuck now, all the healthy foods the band fought me on, are not a problem at all now. I couldn't be happier with my revision, I'm losing weight like I wanted, I feel fantastic, I don't really have any issues now.

That they do!

And there it is... Awesome, Thank you very much!

Can we please get the function restored so that when a user clicks on a post (like/confused/thanks/congrats/etc) that it shows us who did that? The case for when someone posts a confused face, it would be nice to see who that was so that the ability to address the confusion could be made. Thanks!

I'm a band to bypass revision myself. Banded in 2011... revised this past March. BEST.CHOICE.EVER. The information on the operation is skewed by old data from older "versions" of the surgery. As medical technology has advanced... this procedure has become exponentially more safe.

Check out this calculator to get the very basic generic average. https://www.obesitycoverage.com/weight-loss-surgeries/gastric-sleeve/gastric-sleeves-how-much-weight-will-i-lose Just understand, every single surgery is different. Yes they all follow the same general guidelines, but every, single, surgery is different from the next. So every single WLS patient loses as a much different rate.