delta_girl

Mirilax and chia seeds.

I've gone once every two weeks since surgery and it is rough. Smell is atrocious. Yes, I'm doing something about it now.

My surgeon doesn't even want his patients eating eggs at all, just egg beaters. I go with just the whites. If you look at competitive athletes and body builders, they eat egg whites for the protein and ditch the yolk. You can even purchase huge gallon jugs of egg whites only.

I dated a guy for six months that would tell me if something happened between us I would never find anyone else as good as he was, that I would have to settle for some elderly man with no teeth. He wasn't trying to be funny, he was serious. A little stab here, another there. As long as he kept me in an insecure position and he had relationship power, he felt that he could say things that diminished me as a human being. But he wanted to marry me. I finally had enough. No one should ever feel like they have to settle, that things are comfortable enough not to rock the boat, that they've been together this long so might as well.... All of that is bullshit. You don't get your life again. This is it. Why waste years? You are better off being emotionally healthy as a single person providing self-care and surrounding yourself with people who love and support you unconditionally. If a man's commitment is conditional on your weight, then ...and I'll probably get a lot of heat for it ...but you might want to look at yourself for why you are willing to stay. It's easy to blame the guy, but half of the relationship is you accepting whatever is going on in it.

Don't wait for surgery to start weight loss. Do it now. You will feel better, your surgery will go easier and your recovery will go faster.

No yolk for me. Just whites. Yolks are fat.

Yesterday

I'm 5'3" and set my goal weight at 115 lbs. When I asked my doctor's nurse why they had selected 128 lbs for their goal weight for me, she said that it was based on their guidelines, which look to be in line with the weight chart posted by Pinky Green.

No soda for me ever again, which is fine with me. Now beer...that is a crying shame. I will absolutely be compliant. I didn't run around being fat and unhealthy for 44 years to go through the expense and pain of surgery, the recovery and the change in relationship with food, just to sabotage myself back to where I was before. That would be insane.

The knot may be a pocket of inflammation or an infection. Don't be afraid to call your doctor at this stage.

Mine is not pretty and getting worse as I drop more weight. But if that is the price to pay, I'm good with it.

I had a really great supper last night. I sautéed some cut up chicken pieces in seasonings with a very tiny bit of olive oil. In a bowl I chopped up some baby spinach leaves, 1 pecan, a bit of feta, a small piece of tomato, a tiny bit of goat cheese, some sweet pear, and a little bit of avocado. I mixed it all together with fat free raspberry vinaigrette. It was SO GOOD!

I would think the doctor telling me that would be enough motivation. It really comes down to how much you want it.

I had my first few bites of salad last night. I used a very small dessert sized paper plate and put my bits of chicken and torn spinach on it, some low fat raspberry vinagrette, a few crumbles of feta and a tiny piece of avacado. When I got full I looked at my tiny plate and it looked like I had never eaten anything from it. It was still full of food. So leftovers for lunch today. It really seems bizarre when you think about how much we could eat before!

How far is your house from the hospital? I couldn't have done it, though I was at work 5 days after surgery.

I have read some really far out posts in the forums about stomachs stretching back out to their original size or larger, having to redo the surgery, so on and so on. Then I've seen posters flock to tell their story of the same thing happening to someone they knew. So much hearsay can really ramp up the rumors. There may be a unique case or two when something unusual happened to a sleeved stomach, but it is certainly not the norm. Then there are so many new members here that ask questions about their sleeve stretching out that it strikes fear in the minds of readers. I like facts nice and tidy whenever I can get them that way.

I've read probably close to everything on these boards about sleeve stretching and I've read as much as I could find out in the inter webs. There are a lot of different opinions and people have a lot of different experiences. So .... today at my 2 month office visit with my surgeon, I asked him about my sleeve stretching. I wanted a definitive answer to this question that has been driving me nuts. He said that you can "challenge" your sleeve by eating more than you should. You can even challenge your sleeve every day. This means eating way too much (not that it necessarily hurts to do it). Then I asked him if you could permanently stretch your sleeve. He did say that over time as you heal and begin eating more normally, your sleeve will relax, which is good because you do want to be able to eat somewhat normally. I would also guess that if it never did relax you might be in danger of losing too much. So based on this conversation, my understanding is that the sleeve will eventually relax many months out but it does not stretch and will not stretch permanently. You can, however, challenge it all you want. But that would be cray cray after going through all that vsg entails. The next time you meet with your surgeon, please ask him or her the same question and post here to share what you found out directly from your surgeon (not your primary care doctor or nut).

My father has a lap band (2 years) and has the same problem. It is slow, but he drops a pound here and a pound there. His weight loss has not stopped. He eats all of the time, too. It isn't to the point that it is frightening, but eventually it really needs to stop. Your problem to some here may sound like, yeah....that's a problem like winning that big lottery ticket. But it is a very real issue. I hope you get things turned around soon and when you do please share what you did.

I had my first bm at 10 days. At 9 weeks I've only had 4 bms.

It takes a few weeks. The first few I was crazed with wanting food. Not now.

Reading OneWritersSoul I remember that I loved eating canned tuna mixed with low fat cottage cheese during that food stage. It really felt like "real food." It was filling and tasted SO good after all of that liquid stuff.

If we eat 3 meals and two Snacks a day, and there really isn't much difference between the size of the meal or snack, and we are supposed to spend 30-45 minutes eating each, then that would be up to 4 hours a day just eating. Not practical.