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I hadn't visited this thread in a while, but thanks to everyone contributing and sharing your experiences here! There is no real norm to weight loss and how to achieve goal. It's important that we stress that over and over again, both to folks doing research and to discouraged sleevers. Everyone has a different approach and you have to do what works for your body and your mental well-being. Not giving up is really important, and when we're feeling frustrated and discouraged it's easy to feel like we're wasting our time. Add in a months' long stall and, well...it's a recipe for disaster if you don't adjust your mindset! I wish more people would come out of the woodwork, stop hiding and share their struggles. There are far too many extremes here and I think it fails to really represent an accurate image of life post sleeve. Not everyone whips to goal in six months on 20 grams of carbs a day and not everyone takes two years to shed their weight, either. I think that there's this idea that if you're not a very quick loser or on an exceptionally strict diet and exercise plan that somehow you're less knowledgeable or less successful at navigating post sleeve life. What works for you is what works for you, and sharing that experience can only help other people figure out what works for them. The goal isn't the scale goal, even though reaching that is highly satisfying. The goal is to lose a significant amount of our excess weight and keep it off forever. Do not ever forget that! ~Cheri

coops is definitely a vet! One of my favorites, too. And a source of inspiration because of the way she's been open and honest about her struggles throughout her long and quite frustrating journey. We need a variety of voices here, and sane or even serious ones are hard to come by lately. Oh, and how many times must I tell you that measuring success by the scale goal you or your doctor set is selling yourself short?! Haven't you maintained that loss? It was hard won for you, but instead of quitting and suffering a massive regain you've hung in there when many of the immediate gratification folks would have dropped off and only returned to moan about the fact that the sleeve didn't solve all their problems. You rock, and I wish you'd visit VST more often. ~Cheri

Nothing I did (and at first I tried everything) had a noticeable impact. The reality, as frustrating as it may seem, is that unless you can be sure your stall is related to not eating enough/eating too much/eating the wrong things the only real answer is to just wait it out. It's when people quit trying and just give up that they find it hard to lose again. ~Cheri

What's a typical day look like for you? Share what you're eating. We are all different, but for me, short of a stressful event triggering head hunger, I found that incorporating a more balanced diet (a good ratio of protein/carbs/fats) really helped give me satiety and help me feel in control. It didn't negatively impact my loss but it changed the mental aspect entirely for me. So let's start there, if you're up to sharing. Beyond that, know that this is a part of the journey for many of us. If we had easy relationships with food, we'd have skipped surgery altogether. It's entirely possible to get through this if you focus on changing. I also had those periods where I couldn't lose easily and I couldn't seem to get past a certain point. It's actually not uncommon, even if it is frustrating. Sometimes our diet can help change things up. Sometimes we just have to wait it out, as frustrating as that is. ~Cheri

By what measure is losing 4.5 pounds a week anything to be frustrated about? It's a huge accomplishment and you should be focusing more on what you've already lost than on what you need to lose to reach goal. I understand how hard it is to avoid comparison with other patients, but we all lose at our own pace. The point is that we all lose. The real goal isn't a scale one. It's learning how to have a healthy relationship with food so that you can stay at goal for the rest of your life. There's no rush and no time limit with your sleeve. I was a slow loser - I had two nine week stalls and entire months where I lost nothing or one single pound. It took me 17 months to lose 107 pounds but that had absolutely no bearing on how successful I felt reaching goal. And maintaining was far easier for me than I've witnessed in other sleevers that whip to goal in the time it took me to figure out a nicely balanced diet! Relax. Put that scale away before you drive yourself crazy. Enjoy the fact that you're losing at a very rapid pace, and that every single pound you lose is one gone forever if you do the head work while you're on this journey. Best of luck - you're off to a great start, ~Cheri

Hooray for a positive post! One day at a time and it's all manageable. Great work, keep it up! ~Cheri

Oh, I'm so sorry about your loss. Give yourself some time to adjust - I'm sorry you've had to go through this, especially with your first pregnancy. Big hugs and positive thoughts, ~Cheri

Ah, that clears things up. All I can say is that I'm terribly sorry you've had such a miserable experience. Nobody wants to be in that 1% with complications and nobody ever thinks it'll be them that wins the complications lottery. I hope that whatever course you and your surgeon decide upon provides you with relief and improves your quality of life. Because nobody should live with issues like that after choosing a surgery to improve their life. ~Cheri

No way would I convert to bypass. I'd convert to DS, because the sleeve is the first part of the duodenal switch. It comes with malabsorption like the bypass but doesn't have the stretchy pouch. Have you been checked for strictures yet? I think that before jumping to another surgery, you'd discover the cause of the nausea first. It could be the way you're eating - either too much, too fast or bite size, or it could be a reaction to something in your diet. Lactose intolerance caused me miserable nausea until I cut the dairy out of my diet. If you've exhausted all of the possible tests to find the cause of the issue, then if your doctor feels this will solve the issue, that's good. But I would be concerned about scrapping a surgery and replacing it with a new one after just six months if you don't know the cause of the problem. Best of luck to you, and I'm really very sorry you're going through this. It's certainly not the norm and I'm sure you've been miserable. ~Cheri

I also say wait as long as possible post op. I conceived at two years post op and there were still challenges. You need to consider the risks of your weight vs. the odds of your fertility decreasing with your OB/GYN before making this decision. It is never the ideal to conceive while obese, but fertility comes with a time line, and a sleeve works no matter your age. So, have a really serious sit-down with your gynecologist is my advice. As an obese woman you're at risk for certain complications during pregnancy. If you're in generally good health otherwise but have suspect fertility, it might be better conceive now. I reached goal before getting pregnant and in my case (my high weight was 280s, I was 242 preop) this pregnancy was no less complicated or uncomfortable, but your situation could be totally different. I will say that watching the scale go up post VSG has been far more challenging mentally than I ever expected, but unlike my previous pregnancies (80 and 97 pound gains) I have been able to keep my weight to a normal pregnancy gain. That's one big plus, but still no easier to see on the scale! Good luck, ~Cheri

I will be three years out in July and I am currently pregnant. 1. Do you look FORWARD to your meals and Snacks? - Sometimes. For a long time, the answer was a definite NO. Now I look forward to eating particular foods or meals but eating is more about subsistence or fuel, even now. 2. Do you ENJOY what you eat? - I try to make only foods I'll enjoy. It's hard to explain this new relationship with food that I have. It doesn't particularly excite me the way it used to (I lusted after food before) but yes, I do enjoy my food. I think the fact that I do not live on a diet and I never eat low fat/sugar fake foods help a lot. 3. Do you feel satisfied with the taste given how little you can actually eat? - Yes but this took time and my tastes changed dramatically post op. Again, I think eating REAL food (real sugar, real fat) helps with the enjoyment factor. If I'm only eating a few bites, they'd better be wonderful! 4. Do you feel better the further out you get when you do get to eat a little more? - For me, the real change came when I incorporated more quality carbohydrates. All of a sudden, I had more energy, felt more satisfied and didn't feel deprived any longer. I think it wasn't until I shed some of the emotional food baggage and started to look at food like a person that never had a weight problem that I really noticed a huge shift in my feelings about food, satiety and mental well being. 5. Do you feel the majority of sleevers can eat whatever they want, so long as the portion is right? - Yes. This is both a good and bad thing. If you do the head work, it's great to feel "normal" and not have problems with binges/emotional eating/grazing. If you don't, it's easy to find that you can easily eat your way through an entire box of Thin Mints in a day if you put the effort into eating a handful of Cookies each hour. On the other side of this, I can eat anything but ice cream and regular cow's milk (lactose intolerance) and it's wonderful. But portioning becomes an issue in the 1-2 years post op time frame if you haven't put real work into breaking the bad habits that contributed to your obesity in the first place. There are always those people that have honest to goodness trigger foods and must stick to a more rigid diet lifestyle post op. It's all about how your body reacts to those foods and how much work you put into breaking the triggers. 6. How has your feelings or attitudes changed about food? - It's different. I love food, I enjoy cooking and baking and I enjoy the social customs we have that center around food. But I can walk away from any of it now and it won't even bother me or make me feel deprived. Food isn't the center of my universe any more. I assume this is how people that never dealt with obesity or had food addictions must feel about food. 7. Is there anything you really wish you could eat, that you can't? (And if so, do you get over that?) - I developed lactose intolerance post op, though I admit it was already a mild issue before hand. For about a year I couldn't have any dairy except hard cheeses in very small amounts. Around one year post op this mostly faded and prior to this pregnancy the only foods I had to avoid completely were ice cream and regular cow's milk. It was frustrating at first, though, because I relied heavily on dairy for Protein. 8. Can you still eat spicy foods? (curries, peppers, etc) - Oh yes, and the more the better! I fully believe that one way to get through the maddeningly long post op liquid diet is to embrace spicy food. It breaks up the monotony for sure. Best of luck to you. I will say that the sleeve will do one thing for certain: control your portions of dense foods. It will most likely take away your hunger. But nothing will change your feelings or food addictions but you. If you rely on the sleeve to do more than control your portions you will have to confront the rest of the package later. You'll never sit down post sleeve and eat a massive plate of food again. But you can graze and binge on slider foods to your heart's content and regaining isn't that challenging if you're not careful about what you eat. It's important to know and understand this prior to surgery, and I applaud your research efforts because they can only help you succeed long term. As for pregnancy, my recommendation is to weigh your fertility vs. your obesity and see which one is the biggest obstacle. No pun intended, of course. I got pregnant two years post sleeve and it was still challenging for me to eat enough, especially of the right foods. My lactose intolerance came back full force with pregnancy and my little one wouldn't allow me to eat any meat for months without morning sickness. It also took me more than a year to get my labs up to par again - I was seriously deficient in Iron and B12 for a long time. Go into this telling yourself you should wait at least one full year post sleeve to conceive, but I'd really say two is a better option. If that might affect your odds of conception for some reason, make sure you take that into account before surgery. While it's never ideal to get pregnant while obese, in my case, the pregnancy I had when obese wasn't any more difficult or complicated than the one I'm having post sleeve. ~Cheri

Glad you're getting in to see the doc. My first thought was also stricture or else some type of problem healing that's causing you to still feel nausea. At five weeks out I'd say you should be over the worst hump and feeling much better, though still unable to eat more than a few bites at a time. Plain Water bothers a lot of people. Have you tried warm tea or some other warm beverage? I also had a sensitivity to artificial sweeteners post op, so Crystal Light caused me some problems, too. And what are you mixing your Protein shake with? I had a similar issue post op with nausea and it turns out that I developed lactose intolerance post op. I was ruining my entire day with the first thing I was putting in my stomach: my Protein Shake mixed with milk. It took some experimentation to find liquids I could mix my shake with and I even had to switch my Protein powder to one that was lactose free, but I did find a solution that worked for me. If this is your issue, take heart from the fact that for many of us, the intolerance fades as time passes. Sometime after one year post op I was able to tolerate just about everything but ice cream. Good luck, and please update this thread once you talk to your doctor. Someone else in a similar situation might stumble upon this and get help they need from your experience. ~Cheri

Yep, sounds about right. I tell people all the time they'll go from "starving" on liquids and full liquids/soft mushies to unable to eat more than a few bites on mushies. It's true and it's amazing how much your perspective can change. For me, eating went from being something I missed to being a chore. I had issues eating a significant amount of food until sometime between six and nine months post op, and until more than one year post op a single egg scrambled with cheese was my absolute limit. Good luck! This is why every bite counts and we push Protein first. When you can only eat a few bites, you need to make them count, and hit the shakes/protein drinks in between. ~Cheri

Put that scale away or you'll make yourself crazy. I gained 11 pounds post op and didn't lose any weight my first month until about three weeks out. ~Cheri

In your case, I'd do ART now, unless your weight is a very serious consideration. I'm not sure of your specifics or stats. At the very least, do the stim cycle/harvest and have him give his donation to the cause as well. I'm assuming IVF, of course. DH and I did IVF w/ICSI in 2007 - I was obese but otherwise the doc had no serious concerns about my conceiving. We did have success (b/g twins!) and we froze five embryos as well. I had my sleeve in 2010. In July of 2012 we did a frozen transfer of the embryos that made the thaw and I'm due in three weeks. In all absolute honesty I am going to state that in my case, at least, this pregnancy post VSG was HARDER than the twin pregnancy prior. I'm healthy, yes - and I didn't develop gestational diabetes this go round which was nice. But watching my diet and general physical discomfort were actually worse. I'm not saying that having babies while obese is the ideal - I'm just saying that for me, losing the weight didn't make pregnancy as easy or better like my docs told me it would! I say do a cycle now. Do your sleeve post baby, once you're done weaning (assuming you plan to BF) and then focus on your body and you. I didn't conceive until two years post sleeve and it was still a challenge to build up to eating enough and eating properly. I cannot even imagine doing it sooner, though many women do. Some types of ART are more likely to make you pack on pounds than others. I can say that I gained quite a bit with my full IVF cycle because the stims. No doubt, it was absolutely worth it to me. This go round I was really worried about weight gain and I admit that the hormones did have me gain ten pounds almost right out of the gate, but then I slowly put on the rest of my gain over the next seven months. I've had a perfectly normal weight gain this time and it's apparent that it's all baby. I have no doubt I'll be back at goal within months of delivery. Best of luck to you! ~Cheri Edited to add: Do yourself a favor and find an aggressive reproductive endocrinologist that's experienced with advanced maternal age. Don't waste your time on someone that hasn't dealt with your situation before - get onto some fertility message boards and put feelers out, because as iggy mentioned, your rates of success are lower (sorry to say) so you don't want to waste precious time. All the best!

If I could still eat ice cream (lactose intolerance makes me sad) I'd go for a teeny portion of the real deal over fake stuff any day! It's far more satisfying and made of ingredients you can pronounce. That said, I have many WLS friends that swear by eggface's Protein ice cream so you should definitely take that link OTR so kindly posted and check it out. ~Cheri

Be careful with it - sometimes stopping carbs completely makes you even more sensitive to them if you do eat them, affecting your blood sugar and setting off a binge. It can also cause that feeling of deprivation that makes sticking to your program difficult. I think the best thing to do isn't eliminate them, but rather change them into better carb options. White breads, white sugar, etc. are addicting for many people and cause issues. But we NEED some carbs to be healthy and many women seem to have a real problem sustaining low carb diets long term AND feeling healthy (mentally and physically) while they do it. Everyone is different and we all have to tailor our diets to our bodies. For me, incorporating some healthy grains and veggies at every meal helps me feel satisfied and leaves me plenty of room for my Protein, too. Since I started this more balanced approach around nine months post op, I've found that I feel more "in control" of my desires to eat and the urge to just binge or graze all day is, for the most part, gone. The issue here sounds more like tackling bad food habits like grazing, binges or emotional eating could also shoulder some part of the blame. Breaking those habits is difficult for many of us but it is possible if you can address the causes. Certainly you could have trigger foods but if you're dealing with emotions through food you can try to work on that, too. Honestly? The first thing I'd do is address the prescription. It's your body and your choice - I'd make it clear to your doc that what you're on isn't cutting it and you need to try something new. I rediscovered the joys of acid reflux when I got pregnant and went through the same phase you're talking about here. I felt hungry all the time, I was miserable, I wanted to snack and I craved carbs constantly. For me it was as simple as getting back onto my PPI (after eventually realizing acid was the issue, DUH) and then tackling the head hunger part of the equation once that was under control. You may find that you have a much smaller issue to deal with once the acid is adequately controlled, so I'd start there. Best of luck, ~Cheri

I'm also grumpy sometimes. You've got to catch me on my good days. Best of luck, really. I wish that there WAS a one-size approach because it would make things so much easier. Just don't be afraid to experiment and don't be afraid to add in calories or carbs or Protein if that's what your body needs. You're off to a great start and should do really well. ~Cheri

Is it possible to be off topic in such a off topic post? Anyway, I will talk about a lot of things on the forums, but always get creeped out by bodily function posts and never open them. I suppose we all have our limits. I'm willing to help with a lot of things, but diagnosing poop issues is above my pay grade. ~Cheri

It varies by surgeon. There are benefits to having one and benefits to not having one. I didn't have one, either, and it was one less thing to worry about. Good luck, ~Cheri

Now you're being evil. I'm going to refer all PMers that I can't help from personal experience directly to you. ~Cheri

^ The real thread killer...

Honestly? I can say great job that you're tracking. I can say it looks like you're making good food choices. But the only way to know your optimal diet and caloric goal is to track and watch for patterns. What worked for me won't necessarily work for you and you'll find as many different and varied approaches to diet here as you'll find members. I think you're on the right track. As you progress farther out track your progress and fiddle with your diet (adding in more Protein here or more carbs there) to try and find your optimal diet. Often it's a larger window than we realize. I lost just as well eating 700-900 calories with about 70 grams of carbs daily as I lost eating 400-500 calories a day and eating 40 grams of carbs or less. Same pokey pace, far less mental struggle due to carb deprivation for me. You'll find what works best for you and should stick there. Good luck, ~Cheri

Should be no problem. Once you're allowed full liquids, I also found satiety with really thin Cream of Wheat. ~Cheri

I'll be three years out in July - my situation is WAY different. Bread does expand a bit. That doesn't mean it will stretch your sleeve. What it means is that you can go from feeling just fine with a few small bites and within a few minutes be uncomfortably full or even toss up those last bites. I have a bigger issue with pasta, rice and flour tortillas, honestly, but everyone's body is different. In any case, in the early stages it's best to focus on protein first just because you have so little room. I didn't start incorporating more carbs and eating a more balanced diet until around six to nine months post op. ~Cheri