Globetrotter

Hey Kathy, my surgery was July 14th. I exercise everyday but very gently, only 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill 3.0 incline and 2.0 speed. I am a slow loser and wonder whether I would lose more quickly if I ate more. My surgeon said that wls patients have a 9 month golden window to lose weight at an accelerated pace, after which we become regular losers because our bodies readjust. I should probably step up the exercise but I am still very heavy and anything more than a brisk walk hurts. I've ordered a beginner pilates dvd and will incorporate that. fatsecret.com is my food tracker, you can go there and see what I'm eating on a daily basis. I'm globetrotter there as well.

Maybe it is the old dieter's mindset but I just can't bring myself to eat without carefully calculating every calorie and morsel on my food tracker and if I go over 600 I feel like I'm sabotaging my sleeve. =(

I'm dealing with the CB's too, (concrete bowels) and I've discovered that colace and dulcolax give me painful cramps. I like a powder that gets added to water rather than a chew, since that also encourages me to get in my water quotient. I've just started a benefiber powder, it comes in individual stick packs, 8 to a box, 3 grams of fiber each. I got the Cherry Pomegranate flavor.

I guess my approach is different than the incredibly positive and helpful ones above, lol. I like to get even. I know it's juvenile etc etc, but sometimes you just have to get even. For Banded Guy I would confront him and possibly say something about the regain/complication rates for Lap Band. Maybe I wouldn't get that nasty but I would definitely put him in his place. As for the person of authority, there is no place for bullying behavior in the workplace and I would be collecting evidence of bad acts for the day when I finally would make an official complaint. As for the donuts, I found a blog called worldaccordingtoeggface and she makes Protein donuts that look and taste like the real thing. I would still indulge, just indulge in those. If neither of those suggestions work, I like knitting, lifting weights, punching the heavy bag, singing, drawing, dancing, jazzercise. I've heard Zoomba is good. Like Tiffykins I love to plan so I enjoy researching hotels and vacation spots and obscure places. I also like to online window shop. I haven't lost a lot of weight yet and I don't actually purchase but it is fun to go through websites and pick out silly outfits and accessorize them.

Did your surgeon give you guidelines? Mine did, 600 calories - 70grams protein - 60 ounces water, every day. I know that these are a bit stricter than most folks.

I've mentioned recently that I was in the market for a good high protein food/snack. I had "discovered" Planter's Flavor Grove roasted almonds and Blue Diamond roasted almonds. WELL - they arrived today and all I can say is, they are so delicious I am going to have to keep them at work. If I keep them in my room it will be too easy to just graze my way through an entire bag. I got a couple different flavors, my favorite from the Flavor Grove line is the cracked black pepper onion & garlic, and my favorite from the Blue Diamond is the butter toffee - tastes like something incredibly decadent and high fat but is quite reasonable at 5grams protein, 170 calories for almost 30 nuts. Tonight I am seeing a movie so I'm swapping dinner for the nuts. Actually I'll get more protein from the nuts than from my canned turkey!

I think we just eat Atkins style automatically. My surgeon said 600 cals, 70 g's protein a day. In order for me to get in 70 g's of protein in the tiny space of my stomach, I can't really eat much else so I'm automatically on a low carb diet. I looked at my tracker just now and it seems that my carbs on average are about 20g's a day and my protein 80g's. For me I've noticed that if I don't keep my fats up my weightloss slows down so I try to keep my fats at 20g's or slightly more every day.

Hi panda, I'm a norcal resident and had my surgery with Dr. Jossart at LapSF in San Francisco in July. Feel free to PM me any time with questions or anything!

My hair was already compromised due to PCOS and now 8 weeks out I am seeing shedding. I've decided that before it gets really bad I will invest in a really high quality wig just in case. I'm not kidding.

Indeed Tiff, indeed! Yes to all that! I have worked hard to acheive the life I have now, the education, the job, the experiences. So I feel confident in saying that yeah, "if only I were thin" really does cover a lot of my problems! And I too am willing to say hey, I want to wear trendy fashionable beautiful clothes and super big clothes JUST AREN'T any of those things. They aren't. And no matter how much fat-acceptance I preach and practice, there are some styles that do not look good on a fat body. Yes I want deeper things; a return of physical strength and flexibility, fertility, regain my physically adventurous spirit. But I'm also willing to admit that I want to be admired for my attractive shell, want some satisfaction on those evil bitches who had skinny asses in high school and never left our hometown, and to have my Pretty Woman moment .... all the times that I was treated as invisible or worse if I dared to darken the doorstep of a skinny girls store ... "You work on commission right? Big mistake, huge! I have to go shopping now!"

I think this is kind of a luxury problem, kind of like "seriously" thinking of how you would manage all your money if you won the lottery. The likelihood is very slim, no pun intended. I've never heard of anyone that has lost too much weight with the VSG, I mean they probably exist but, like lottery winners - few and far between.

Oh, eggs? Soft eggs are recommended to us as this great source of protein and yet many sleevers have problems with eggs, me included. At about 2-3 weeks out I tried a soft scrambled egg, I could barely eat half of one egg, nibbled over a period of an hour. Even taking it slowly, it felt like it just sat in my chest for a really long time. I had some sharp pains at 3 weeks out that turned out to be gas. I don't know how much danger a person is in at three weeks for a leak.

Okay, I feel like mentioning something. We are so good at being politically correct, us sleevers. Maybe it is because we spend so much time defending our decision to people who don't understand, so we get good at downplaying how much being not-fat would change our lives for the better. I'm always seeing people write, "I know being thin won't mean life is perfect" or, "I know just being thin won't bring happiness". Well I am coming out of the closet - Being average or thin is GOING TO BRING ME A LOT OF HAPPINESS!!!! :confused1: And being average or thin IS going to solve a LOT of my problems!! I just posted to a thread about your top 10 reasons to get VSG. I read everyone's reasons and then posted my own and that's what got me to thinking - gee, without all these problems, life IS a lot better. We say "if only I was thin", FOR A REASON. Because being not-fat will vastly improve our lives. There, I said it. I get that there are issues for all of us that don't go away just because we fit in with society but at least we will be focusing on those, and not those PLUS our weight. Please don't flame me.

These are whey protein, whey isolate. They are by Body Fortress and have 26 g's per shot.

When you say stomach area, do you mean your belly or your actual stomach? If it is the belly region it could be constipation, that is what my pains turned out to be, if it is the stomach itself you could have just gone one bite too many or whatever you ate may have been too harsh for your recovering tummy. At three weeks out I would think you would still be on full liquids, maybe moving into mushies. Are you measuring out your ounces? That helps while we are adjusting to what the size of our meals look like now.

This sort of thread seems to pop up every few weeks, I love them and will put my 2 cents in every time! 1. To return to my hometown after a self-imposed exile because I didn't want anyone I had known to see what I had done to myself. 2. To participate in the experience of American womanhood. 3. To dance again. 4. To have breasts that no longer have their own time zone 5. To have my face again, my actual face, not the swollen copy of my face. 6. To no longer be afraid of chairs in public. 7. To stop experiencing the humiliation of air travel. 8. To (ironically) eat whatever I want and not be judged by every single human who sees me ingesting. 9. To wear beautiful/trendy/chic/quality clothes. To participate in fashion trends - the last trend I participated in was ... okay maybe I've never been trendy. 10. To feel "in" my body again, like this body is mine and not some punishment. ** Bonus: To wear high heels again.

Thanks guys, if it weren't for the liquid protein bullets there's no way I would get in enough protein, there are just days when I canNOT eat another bite of boiled chicken or canned turkey and the sodium is insane! The cold cuts are so salty they make my lips dry and cracky. I've ordered those almonds and I'm going to try to eat some vegetables, on vegetable days I will just have to substitute a protein bullet for meat food if I'm to keep my cals within range.

I've ordered some benefiber and have started having tiny amounts of apple with the skin. I'm also drinking a lot of herbal tea to keep things moving. According to my food tracker I'm losing 3 pounds a week. I should be thrilled by that but ...

What's it like April? What does it feel like to walk into a regular store and be able to try on regular clothes? What does it feel like to not be embarrassed in a situation where your size will obviously be a factor? Airplane seats, shopping at the Gap ... what does it feel like to be included in all these things? I too only had 4 years of participation in American womanhood during high school before I ballooned. Even though I was fit and shapely in those years, even then I still gained 10 pounds a year, going from 115 to 145. I had one single pleasurable shopping experience in my life, when I was 16 and a size 8 juniors and my Mom took me shopping at The Limited. I remember how strong I felt and ... accepted, and worth something. Worth the effort and expense of dressing my body well in good quality clothes.

I am grinning right now, not because I find your post funny but because your post could've been my post - and was! - just a while ago. I am 8 weeks out and at first I lost 20 lbs in the first 2 weeks post-op, the clear liquids phase. Then it too came to a screeching halt and didn't pick up until week 5 when I started working out (30 min. sllooooow walking on treadmill), then it started to come off really well. Then I experienced the false gains that come along with constipation and water retention from the salty sodium filled meats I have to eat (all that's available). So I will tell you what all the encouraging folks told me: The body does strange and wonderous things while it is recovering from major invasive surgery, you WILL lose weight it is nearly scientifically impossible that you wouldn't, and don't forget to drink drink drink. I am on a 600 cal diet per my surgeon and I did notice that once I upped my fat intake and my water intake, the weight loss resumed. Good luck and welcome to the other side!!

It has been 12 years since I was in an 18, 14 years since I was in a 14, and 17 years since I was in a single digit!! I have lived in a "uniform" of jeans and 3/4 sleeve plain knit shirts since 1999. It's kind of ironic that only in the months before making the decision to have surgery did I finally find stylish stores online for plus size! Kiyonna, Old Navy, Eddie Bauer, JJill ...

Go to a thread in the Ladies Room entitled, "now there's a side effect". I think you'll get a kick out of it and find it informative!

I have 128.8 pounds to lose to reach my initial goal. My surgeon's goal is higher than mine so as far as he is concerned I only have 108.8 pounds to lose. Since all of us on this thread have over 100 pounds to lose I have a question: Did any of your surgeon's tell you that you have a certain window in which to lose the weight and that you have to lose X amount of weight by a certain number of months out? I ask because that is what my surgeon told me and his is considered one of the preeminent VSG surgeons in the world. He said we have a 9 month window to "work" the sleeve, after which we just lose like "normal" people. Because of that, and because of how much I had to lose, he wants me to lose 75 pounds by my 3 month surgi-versary. I'd be thrilled to do so, but it seems like I may be a slow loser so am a bit anxious.

I love taking the time to put on make up, granted it is a rare occasion that I wear anything beyond tinted moisturizer and tinted lip balm but when I make the time to do my hair and make-up, it is almost like a zen thing for me, because I am taking the time to beautify myself. It doesn't have to be a chore to apply make-up! There are so many advancements in make-up technology these days, I swipe on Almay invisible foundation, it's freaking amazing! I don't know how it does it, but it goes on white and then turns the color of my skin, if it weren't for the obvious blemish I knew I was covering, the first time I used it I wouldn't have known where I put it on my face! So between that and my old stand-by Bonne Bell Dr. Pepper Lip Smacker, my face is done in 45 seconds!

I think that body type is actually easier to dress than mine. I'm big on top, big in the hips, but I don't have a super tiny waist. I do have thinner legs, but that just makes the hips look even bigger. If I dress to fit my hips then the legs are just swimming. If I dress to fit my chest then the area between the shoulder blades has wads of extra fabric. Guess I'll just have to learn to sew!