sarahcc

Before - Somewhere above 241 Last week - 205'ish (pink shirt) Today - 199 (all 5'1 of me, heh) I'm SO excited!!

You CAN do it!! The one piece of advice that I will give you is just to take it easy. I am a firm believer that stress stalls weight loss. Stress, in my opinion, causes your body to fight against changes that are naturally happening to it, and then it becomes a vicious cycle (stress causes no weight loss, no weight loss causes more stress, etc...) so really just go easy on yourself and follow what feels right. I am no role model when it comes to post-op dieting because I am VERY relaxed. My calories fluctuate daily... sometimes I am low-carb, sometimes I'm not. I make healthy choices, but I DON'T diet. Dieting and the restrictions I put on myself got me to the point where I needed surgery. I chose the sleeve because I needed help with portions - if I needed help choosing the right foods I probably would have gone with a bypass instead. The sleeve has helped with what I needed - everything in moderation. So I focus on Protein and Water, and if I want something in between, I have it! The lack of "never ever" in my life has really helped me stay calm and in control. That, full circle, is why I feel like the weight has come off. But what I really wanted to emphasize here is that you WILL do it!! I can't wait to hear from you and all the great goals you've achieved. Keep me updated!

That is SO awesome, I am jealous of your will power!! I was doing really good in the beginning at not weighing myself all the time. Then at about 205lbs I started weighing daily because I wanted to see myself hit 199, and now I've formed this terrible habit!! I'm totally going to just make my husband hide it somewhere I can't reach (back to being so short, heh) I'm also a size 16 right now, started out as a tight 18 (should have been 20 but I just refused), and they are getting loose. I tried on a pair of 14 jeans and they are TIGHT, but they button and zip so I was pretty excited. I think in about 2 weeks they'll fit the way they are supposed to, LOL. I can't wait to hear what progress you've made!!

Thanks everyone!!! Yep I will be two months post op tomorrow and couldn't be happier I've said it before though and I mean it 100%... if I can do it, ANYONE can do it!!

198.8 today Down from 204.5

Thanks everyone!! I'll be two months on 6/19 and I was kind of hoping to be down 50lbs since surgery (which may seem like a lot but I had no pre-op diet) and I won't be there, but it looks like I'll only be about 5lbs off

Okay! So I want to keep this as short as it possibly can be (not very) so let's get right to it!! Basically I'm 25, a mother of two (6.5 & 3.5). My highest weight was 241 and I'm 5'1" tall. I am a text-book "healthy" person who's fat. I don't smoke, I rarely drink, I had no co-morbidity in addition to the obesity. My blood pressure and cholesterol are both fine. I'm not diabetic or pre-diabetic. The point is that I knew that this health wouldn't last for long and it was time to do something about it once and for all. I started with my initial surgical consult in November 2011. On January 30, 2012, while in Orlando with my family at Disney, I was on my laptop at my hotel and saw online that BCBSIL (my provider) had announced that they would lift their 6-month supervised diet requirement on February 1. When I got back home to Wisconsin, I called my surgeons office and they confirmed. They then put me into action with my psych eval, an upper GI and whatnot. My insurance approval through BCBSIL took 1.5 business days and was submitted in February, though I can't remember the day. I anticipated having a surgery in March however, my surgeon goes on an annual mission trip to Guatemala every year for the entire month of March so, it was April for me. I wasn't willing to compromise the surgeon although it was offered to me by his office. I worked with Froedtert Hospital & the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee where I'm from. My surgeon is the director of the bariatric program and a professor of surgery at the College. I will say that to this day I worship the ground this man walks on. He is no-nonsense and I get a lecture for sure when I mess up, but I wouldn't trade him for the world. He is amazing. Pre-op diet: It was one week of high Protein, low fat and low sugar. Salads and some fruit were ok. It was basically a week on weight watchers. It was so nice, because it gave me one less thing to worry about prior to surgery. I know a lot of other programs encourage liquid diets but mine didn't have me on one for even a day. Just nothing to eat or drink after midnight of the night before my surgery. Surgery: Anyway, so I had surgery April 19. What's kind of funny is that for as "healthy" as I am normally I gave them quite a scare in recovery. Apparently my heart started to beat very erratically and I maintained a very, very high heart rate (think 140's-150's) without a break. I also spiked a 103 degree fever for a while too. The surgery itself went fine. I went through an upper GI the next day and there were no leaks, although the Dr. in Fluoroscopy did note that my sleeve was very very tight and would probably give me difficulty for the first few days (it did.) I went through a complete panel of tests on my heart and no one is really sure to this day why my heart did what it did. I'm on medication that's got my heart rate into the 90's and that seems to be good enough for now. They suspect I've always had an erratic heart beat and no one caught it until I was hooked to a heart monitor. It may have been an after-effect of the anesthesia. I stayed in the hospital for 2 nights, 3 days total. Post op diet: Again, there is no liquid diet. My nutritionist and doctor both just feel that it's not necessary before or after surgery and causes an unnecessary distraction. I started on pureed foods starting the evening of day after surgery while I was in the hospital. I had some pureed scrambled eggs that aren't as bad as they sound, but nothing to write home about either. Just tasted like a mushy hard boiled egg yolk. As of today I've eaten yogurt, cottage cheese, hard boiled egg yolk/salad and refried Beans with sour cream. I eat Jello and chocolate pudding. I drink Water, chicken broth, 1% milk. It's been 8 days and today is really the first day I'm starting to feel semi-normal. I have no trouble getting around and stopped using any pain meds two days ago. I have 6 incisions which is funny because I had no idea until like day 5 when I was getting out of the shower. That's when you know you're too fat - when you can't even see that there's an additional part of your body that's been sliced open! I had my follow up with my surgeon today... it was supposed to be a two week follow up but he's about to be travelling again, heh. So I guess I'm glad I caught him! He said I'm doing great and he cleared me for the stage II diet starting with dinner tonight, which is basically "soft" foods that break up with a fork, and I can move away from pureed meat and into ground meat. He said to be careful and chew thoroughly. He said I could start soft fruits and cooked vegetables but I probably won't be able to fit any of it in. He said that his normal goal for patients is 60g of protein daily but because I'm younger he wants me to try for 75. I've been struggling as is so we shall see! Weight loss: I feel like I've done pretty good. I lost hardly anything on my pre-op diet and given the diet I wasn't expecting to... I lost 3 pounds. So I started at 238 and as of today I weighed in at 224. Not too bad for 8 days I really wasn't planning to share my surgery story with the world but I felt compelled to because I see a lot of people questioning why their surgeon is different than those in Mexico or whatnot and I just wanted to say - trust me, whatever your surgeon recommends will work. I'm in the early early stages but I can't say enough about my doctor and his staff. And I can only speak for the first 8 days but my surgeon's program seems to be working just as well as any. So HAVE FAITH!! Have a great day everyone!

Thank you!! Its been about 7 weeks and I'm down to 202 from 241. All is going well but I am definitely still learning what goes down best and what not so well, heh. But I will say this for sure... if I can do it, anyone can do it!

Hooray!!! I am 3 stinking pounds away and I can't wait!!!

204.2 this morning!!

Hi all, so this is a blessing and a curse heh... ever since surgery I don't want and gag over basically everything that's sweet. Even things like iced tea/lemonade (arnold palmer) which was my FAVORITE DRINK and now the lemonade tastes sickly sweet to me. I can only tolerate plain black tea. I want bitter, savory and spicy and nothing else!! Makes protein shakes unbearable though :-/ Did anyone else completely lose a taste for sugar?

Not sure it's related but my nose now runs really badly if I eat too much or too fast. The drip in my throat makes me gag if I dont blow my nose immediately.

So my husband did the same thing and got a very similar response from me as you and yours. Now that I've lost so much weight he is singing a different tune. I think this has put some stuff into perspective for him. I hope the same thing for your husband

I just wanted to add I think my problem skin areas will be the same areas where I have the worst stretch marks from gaining. Arms and tummy fit the bill, but luckily I don't carry that much extra weight in my tummy ("that much" being a relative term lol)

241 highest weight no pre-op diet and no real loss pre-op. I have a goal of 120-140 depending on how I feel at that time. I was sleeved 4/19 and weighed 204 this a.m. going well so far. I think age and genetics have a lot to do with it to :-/

It's funny because two other people I know IRL have recommended a smoothie with spinach... it doesn't gross me out but I wouldn't have thought about it!! Great advice thank you!

I couldn't care less about counting carbs or whatever but the bread kills me unless it's pretty dry toasted and no soft center. I keep trying and it just makes me gull after like 3 bites so I skip it because of that. All that said, this a.m. I had an egg, ham, and pepperjack flat bread sandwich from subway for breakfast. They had a 3" one that I couldn't quite finish and I pulled the top section of the flat bread off. Mine had spinach, tomatoes and a bit of mayo. That was about the right amount for me!

25 here with two kids. I've only lost about 40lbs but I kind of see that I am going to have some extra skin under my arms and probably a bit in my tummy. Those are the two areas where I have stretch marks from gaining weight so I'm guessing my elasticity is shot. Like others though... I'll take it in a heartbeat it's a lot easier to hide extra skin than all that fat!

My step dad passed a kidney stone when I was about 16 and it was traumatizing for ME just watching him go through that. No doubt worse than birth! They can help with birthing pain!!

Regular fat... Low fat and fat free foods rarely are just the removal of fat/sugar without the additive of something else. My diet approach post-op is balanced and as natural as possible.

Girl I had a 16 hour labor with a baby whos head was well over the 100th percentile, and my epidural ran out at 9cm, HAHA.