Tomo

I had Vietnamese last night for the first time since my surgery. I had forgotten how much I like viet food - the clean, fresh flavours. I had prawn salad which I always enjoyed. I ate 5 prawns & the very small disappointing amount of cucumber, carrot & lettuce & a little of the mint. Bought home a bowl 2/3 filled with 2 leftover prawns & all the noodles.
My brother & his family eat far too much takeaway. Eating with them twice in the last two weeks is why I’ve eaten takeaway twice too which I rarely normally do.

I have too many favorites but the one that popped up in my mind reading your post is probably Hakata ramen (aka Tonkotsu Ramen) from the Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. I also like Singapore noodles which are not for Singapore but interestingly a Cantonese dish. So suffice it say, I can't have my favorite dishes too often lol.

I have too many favorites but the one that popped up in my mind reading your post is probably Hakata ramen (aka Tonkotsu Ramen) from the Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. I also like Singapore noodles which are not for Singapore but interestingly a Cantonese dish. So suffice it say, I can't have my favorite dishes too often lol.

I have too many favorites but the one that popped up in my mind reading your post is probably Hakata ramen (aka Tonkotsu Ramen) from the Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. I also like Singapore noodles which are not for Singapore but interestingly a Cantonese dish. So suffice it say, I can't have my favorite dishes too often lol.

speaking of salad...here is yet ANOTHER salad meal that me and the Mr. shared for lunch (greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, avocado, brussel sprouts, mixed nuts, roast turkey & my trusty vinaigrette.
i ate maybe a 1/4 of said salad.
i also ate one of these AMARETTI Cookies i baked this morning (see below..so YUM omg)

surprise, surprise : a salad.
i cut up one rib from yesterday's slow cook for a Protein topping.
also a pic of the leftover ribs.

Ordered a 3 tender meal and this was the leftovers. ate maybe 5 fries 😂 Did super great with it’s you can see

Chinese yum cha lunch with girl friends yesterday & a part way through my meal pxt. Half of the Moreton bay bug spring roll & one of the three prawn & scallop siu mai. Took about 45 minutes to eat it all but I was sipping a glass of Louis Roederer champagne & the bubbles were giving me a bit of trouble. Was still worth it though. Lol!


PS - Bugs are a local lobster variety. Very yummy: sweet, rich.

Today I went on a date to a tea shop and found an amazing quengzhou milk oolong. Very very happy. I decided to make lunch at home instead of dining out (I really wanted to make this tea 😂)
Penne Arrabbiata (not mine) and vegetable gyoza w/dipping sauce (mine)

Southern Indian Chole Batura (my favorite), What’s everyone’s favorite regional food?

Same on heart rate! In fact I thought it was hypersensitivity to the few carbs I was having. My bariatric team had me wear a glucose meter for two weeks because of it. I wonder why the heart does this?
At second thought I felt maybe it was due to different stomach placement with in the thoracic cavity and I was just noticing it beating "as normal" and perhaps it always beats that fast, but my heart on average beats 68bpm. When I checked when full it raised to 90bpm.
I'm glad someone else experiences this as well!

i get the pressure in my chest also. also i notice that my heart rate increases. weird.

Please don't wait to get signals a week after surgery. There's little or no feedback from our stomachs because all the nerves have been cut. Takes weeks or months to heal and tell you anything, and even then, as the others have said, the feeling of fullness can be really delayed.
I am 28 months post sleeve and I have just learned to eyeball what volume and mix of foods my stomach can manage, and usually stop a bit before that for safety's sake. If I go beyond that I get a runny nose and sneeze (Vagus nerve stimulation). By then it's too late though.
You'll learn how to manage as you go along. Just stick to small volumes at the start. At your stage you shouldn't be too hungry so you're just eating for fuel - treasure this time, it passes all too quickly. 😍
Stick strictly to the volumes you have been given. Weirdly I wasn't given any by my team so I asked for advice here and then stuck to THAT and it was very helpful.

You may not feel full or feel full accurately for a while. You have to wait for your tummy & the nerves that were cut to be healed (around 8 weeks). It’s why sticking to the portions you were given vey important at this time & also the eat slowly. It takes at least 20 minutes for the full signal to get through (this is everyone not just us) so if you eat quickly you will have eaten way too much by the time the signal gets through.
You may feel some pressure or at worst the foamies if you eat too much now. Later you may develop the runny nose, hiccup, etc. signals. It will be a little while until you feel your restriction which is really the stop, stop, too much warning.
I only feel pressure if I’m full or something is sitting too heavily in my tummy. I also ask myself if I need the next bite or just want it because we should stop before we feel full. I also discovered my full signal can be really slow, up to an hour, so I usually take 30-45 mins to eat.

I don't feel "full" in the same way I did pre-surgery. I feel sort of uncomfortable pressure in my chest. I know when I feel that that I need to stop eating or I'm going to be sorry...

Best advice is to get back into contact with your therapist (if you saw one as part of your pre surgical process) or ask your team for a referral to one. They will help you work through the why behind your bad eating habits & help you develop strategies to manage when those situations (stress, anxiety, boredom, past issues, life in general, etc.) arise.
Then go back to how you were eating when you lost that 50lbs. You don’t need to go back to the very beginning. Meet those Protein & fluid goals. Eat your protein first, then vegetables & only if you can any carbs you are allowed (look for whole or multi grain low prices see versions). Keep your fat & sugar (real, artificial or alternatives) low. Check your portions. Return to tracking if you did it before to check your getting your nutrients in. Maybe catch up with your dietician too to help you get back on track.
You can do this.

Woohoo..... after a crappy 8 months post surgery I have finally gone from being in the obese class 3 category to the overweight category according to the BMI charts.
I am delighted as I wasn't sure I would get here given all my post op complications. I still have a way to go to get into what they call the healthy range but I am already much healthier and fitter than I was before the surgery so it is already a win.

Okay this is long and boring at parts but here it goes. I am 3 years post sleeve and I have gained all my weight back . First of all I was on the smaller side to have the sleeve but I do still have all the same struggles and if I had waited until I was older it was just a matter of time until I was a higher bmi having the surgery. The fact that I have lost and then gained it all plus some within less than years is probably proof of that.
Anyways, with the sleeve I did lose a big chunk of weight. I went from 235 to 168 which I could not have done with regular diet. But, i was always able to eat a little more than I should at every given stage and everything was easy for me. From day one I had no gas pain and Water was easy to get down, then fluids and Protein which were easy to keep down, I had no food intolerances and advancing through each stage. I was living my best life watching the pounds fall off but I was alway able to eat just a little more than everyone else at the same stage. Well, while the hunger hormone was gone and I was focused I was able to eat exactly what I SHOULD be eating and I measured my portions to the Amount I should be eating and I was satisfied. So lost most of the weight the dr suggested I would.

i held that weight for a few months but then the hunger started creeping back and between the hunger and the extra room in the pouch I started gaining in spite of still making healthy food choices (my food was fine but my portions were too large and too frequent). Well, even though I knew I was losing control my friends and family continued to look at me as doing great..I was still on the road to getting to where I needed ti be in their eyes. I was ashamed. I was failing yet They kept complimenting me and offering me food. They were saying things like your doing so good, you can have one slice or pizza or one brownie. It won’t kill you. It’s okay that you’ve gained a couple pounds I’ve gained a couple it’s Christmas. You can lose that. Well I have since learned that no I cannot just have one of anything to do with carbs or I crave them for a week but I didn’t know that back then

Anyways, was still going to my surgeon asking for help but I have bipolar disorder and the meds I take for it limit what other meds I can take so I cannot take many of the weight loss meds they had to offer. And the one I can take worked wonderfully during the day but when it wore off I ate all night Fast forward a few months and I stepped on the scale and I was back over 200. That sucked but I wasn’t giving up.

went back to my surgeon asking about revision to bypass. I have heartburn gerd whatever you call it and clearly the sleeve wasn’t working so I wanted to know my options. Well let’s go back. I knew I didn’t want to have surgery if I was going to just repeat the yo-yo that had just happened so I decided I wanted two opinions this time. Well the second opinion dr had a cancellation so I seen him first. He was on board. He was going to bypass a shorter amount of bowel so i had less absorption issues and my meds Would work fine he said which seemed to be his concern even though it wasn’t really my question. I just needed my dr to say that it shouldn't be a repeat of last time and I was going forward.

Well even though the bypass was an option he presented to me to start he said he wouldn’t do a bypass for me. He thought it would be a bad call with my mental health issues. This was confusing to say the least because I have one dr saying it’s fine and another dr I really respect saying it’s not and I started this thinking bypass was always an okay option in terms of mental health but worried the surgery just wouldn’t work for me. I am of course concerned about my mental health so took some time to think about it.

I tried for a while to find a bariatric therapiest but none near me are taking any new patients. I even asked the surgeon and he said he would look into it but be never did. Anyways I called around for the better part of two days. They all just do the evaluations now for surgery. I have had every hormone test and lab they have that could possibly be the problem. I changed all my meds in case they were the issue. I tried everything myself and my doctors could think of but I kept gaining.

When I revisited the idea of surgery I was scared. Anything that was going to upset my mental health again just isn’t an option I decided. I already know what life without my medication is like and I do not want to go back there. I continued to gain. I got back up to 245 and I am miserable. I am so depressed when I look at what I have let happen to myself. I had a chance and I blew it. I am disgusted when I look in the mirror. I decided that the weight is causing me to be more depressed so I needed to get some real answers.

I went back to my surgeon. Not to ask him to do the surgery but exactly why he thought it was a bad idea. The plan was to take that info and talk to the other surgeon to make sure he had considered that and see why he wasn’t worried about it. Well, surprise…my surgeon is on board now with doing a revision for me. When I asked why he said no before he said something about a nite in my chart that said I wasn’t complaint with my meds back them and he didn’t know I have a psychiatrist and psychologist and take my meds but now he is comfortable doing surgery.

So, frustrated I had to wait until I gained almost 50 more pounds to get here but excited he is willing to do it I am researching the other surgery he thinks will be a better fit for me called the SADI. At the same time I am still not buying the note in my chart thing. Cause that was never true.

I guess the important takeaway for those of you here that are just starting out is even if you do regain don’t lose touch with your team and don’t give up. I feel like my dr wavering in whether he would do the surgery didn’t help but I could have asked more questions sooner and I wouldn’t have so much to lose this time. Plus, hopefully you guys can take the weight loss meds and won’t be facing a second surgery.

I’ve been gone a while from the forum. life has just been busy and I guess time just gets away from me. It’s like I turned around and I’m old 😂 not really old but you know what I mean.
looking at my profile it’s hard to believe I’ve been banded since 2014. I can only imagine where I would be if I never had the surgery. Or if I had done it sooner….
today I’m probably the healthiest I’ve ever been. I’ve got to be the mother and grandmother MY parents and grandparents never were and it’s because I changed. My career my marriage and my family has all flourished!
is it all because of the surgery? Maybe not. But I definitely attribute a lot to it!
the way I feel, the activities I can do…my overall mental health….i still deal with body image issues….still that chubby woman in the mirror, stuck episodes and bad days. We all probably do. But the good definitely outweigh the bad!
I recently went to the dr for a horrible sting and when she took my blood pressure it was 55bpm I said “isn’t that too low?”
she said “honey, you are almost 44, sitting cross legged on my table and just told me about your 20 mile mountain bike ride. Just looking at you I would say other than this sting you appear pretty healthy. It’s just fine.”
coming from a family tree with tons of health issues, cancer and obesity I felt a huge win!
so here’s to hoping the band holds up another 10 years😂 (I see a lot of horror stories) she has been a lifesaver and a huge help. Without her I don’t think I would be where I’m at!
cheers to you all! Wishing you all the best of luck on your journey!

Tell us of your eating and activity programs so that we may give rational advice.
For example, how many meals per day? Consisting of? How compliant are you? What activity program do you follow? How often? How are you performing compared to program goals?
Additionally, are you tracking your eating and exercise? How consistent are you?
Surgery addresses short term over-eating pretty successfully. However, 'grazing,' which is constantly eating smaller amounts over a longer period of time defeat our restriction component pretty effectively. There are actually other similar traps we may fall into without being aware.
So, let us know and there are tons of folks that will fall over themselves to help you out.
Good luck,
Tek

I made it to the other side. I had surgery yesterday. It was not easy. My pressure sky rocketed in the recovery room but I'm much better now. But this burping is killing me.

I'm two days post-op and got home from the hospital yesterday around 1:00 pm. I feel pretty good. I don't require anything beyond Tylenol at this point for pain and I bought a s/f liquid version of it so I could dump my crushed daily medications into it. Anyway- this is about gas. Everybody said, "gas pain, gas pain, gas pain", so I expected something, but this? This is beyond. I never imagined gas could make me feel as though something was really going wrong. I'm not looking for advice. I have all the tools I need to deal...just wanted to commiserate.

Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and peas. I’ve switched from buying premade rotisserie chicken to scratch made and everyone agrees it’s much better.

...which leads me to:
this fine looking salad i prepared for lunch. greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, feta cheese, broccoli, mushrooms and the fried up leftover Protein from earlier.
logged as 503 calories for the whole thing.
i ate...nothing (yet).
as often happens, the excitement of eating and prep has waned by the time i was done, and now i no longer feel like eating it. i'll want it later fo sure tho! so for now it will wait for me patiently in the fridge

had some leftover roasted chicken and pork belly. not enough for a meal for the "regulars", so i fried em up all crispy to use as salad toppings: