SerendipityHappens

You don't *need* a juicer but I LOVE mine! I've used it almost every day for the past year. I have the omega 8006 and it was around $250.00 I like to juice kale and add a bit of kale juice to various things. I also use the blank plate and make fruit sorbets.. My latest creation: 1 avocado sliced and frozen, 2 very ripe bananas cut and frozen, 4 cups mullberries frozen juice of two limes, ginger, gingerale, stevia powder..Sprinkle a teaspoon of stevia powder on the frozen berries, squeeze the lime juice on top. stir.. return to freezer. Set up juicer with the juicing plate on and juice about an inch of ginger.. set aside. wash juicing plate and put blank (pureeing) plate in juicer. alternate berries, avocado, and banana through the juicer. when it's all done, pour half a cup of diet gingerale (if you don't do soda, you can use water) and the ginger juice and stir everything up. Serves 6 at around 140 calories per serving. portion out what you don't want to eat right away and put it in the freezer.. when you're ready to eat, just pour some gingerale (or water if you must) on top and let it melt a bit and stir into a thick slush and enjoy.

Those mexico prices ppasjm lists are about what I'd been seeing too.. I paid $4500 but I paid in December and price went up to $4700 since then. I had Dr's Ismael Cabrerra and Lousiana Valenzuela and was sleeved at MiDoctor. In Mexico, most of your packages will include ground transportation, two night hotel stay, two night hospital stay, preop EKG and blood testing and of course the actual surgery. There are doctors in Louisiana, Texas, and Nevada who I believe are under 10K but I don't know exactly what that includes, I think the one in Nevada might be a day surgery but I'm not sure.

I made it. I boil chicken legs, thighs and especially BACKS in seasoned Water until the meat is done. remove the meat and feed it to my boyfriend.. return the bones to the seasoned water. add my "goodybag" of vegetable scraps from the freezer (when I'm cooking, I save all my bits and pieces of veggies for stock) Add several garlic cloves. Simmer for five more hours. Strain.refrigerate. take off fat. freeze or eat the stock If I've chosen to BAKE the chicken instead, I remove all meat from the bones and feed to my boyfriend, then I SCRAPE the drippings in the roasting pan into a pot of water. I get all the good bits in there. all the fat. all the salty brown bits, EVERYTHING.. add the bones and skin.. add my goodybag from the freezer.. simmer for five hours. Strain.refrigerate, take off fat. freeze or eat the stock.

3 months and I'm at 1050 calories... Actually, when I went to solids I wanted to eat less. A nice piece of meat has few calories and makes you really full..When I was on purees I felt like I could eat a LOT more.

Chicken stock was considered clear by my doctor. And it was a lifesaver for me! I had bowls and bowls of it during my 3days of clears preop and my week of clears postop.

I wore granny panties. my incisions were above my navel.

HUH? What did I miss?

The sleeve will restrict the amount you can eat at a meal but if you choose to graze throughout the day or incorporate calorie dense foods, the calories can add up very quickly. For example if you eat your lunch at noon and then wait an hour and eat a 400 calorie dessert... then wait an hour and down a 280 calorie pack of corn chips, then wait an hour and stop off and get an 850 calorie chocolate McCafe shake from McDonald's... Then wait an hour and eat your dinner.. then graze on a snack as you watch TV..... Well you can easily see how it's possible for the calories to really add up and for all your weight to be gained back. The good news is that the sleeve does help restrict how much you can eat at a sitting.. so if you in a moment of weakness decide to eat a high calorie food, you're not going to do too much damage because there's only so much you can fit.... but if you do it continually that's where you're going to run into problems.

Grace, you can try mybodygallery.com . It shows real pictures of women at different weights. You just type in height, body type and weight and it shows you real women. I love the site and have even submitted my own pics at several different weights.

dehydration+ketosis+bvitamins= super smelly pee.... BUT, on the plus side if you are taking a LOT of b-Vitamins, your pee will be a fun neon yellow!

I tried salad at 7 weeks.. Used spring field greens and put some cucumbers, onions and tomatoes.. I cut everything small... like the size of the onions and tomatoes in Tabouleh.. I even cut up the field greens small.. I made a homemade avocado-ranch dressing.. It was delicious but really filling. No tummy troubles.

I haven't had one yet and I'm 3 months out. Talk with your surgeon. I believe alcohol can be irritating to a new sleeve.

This does not surprise me at all. I haven't had experience with any WLS friends exhibiting this behavior but I've experienced it with other things. I can't imagine the level of self loathing they must have. Sad huh?

I don't eat protein first... I like all my food mixed together.. so instead of eating my turkey and THEN my avocado... I eat them TOGETHER.

I followed my diet exactly as written.. EXCEPT I got confused and ate melted cheese when I was on purees.. I thought it was on the puree part of the diet because a lot of the recipes that people post for purees include melted cheese but when I went back and read my diet again, I saw that cheese wasn't until the next week on my plan. OOPS. But anyway, yeah, I followed my diet exactly except for that little mishap.... and I had a sleeve of steel with no pain, no rejection of any food, nothing... but I still didn't want to chance it.

Not every place will carry every flavor. I order it from the coca-cola distributor when I make the order for the store. Also, if a customer promises to buy from me on a regular basis, I gladly stock products just for them, your local mom and pop will likely do the same. They can order a case of 24 with their Coca-cola order and the shelf life is usually 4 months on the vitamin waters so as long as you promise to buy from them regularly, they might stock just for you.. I do it all the time for people.

I was on clears for the first week. I bought two vitamin water zeros in the airport and drank them on the plane. I didn't take protein supplements for my first week. just clears.

Yes, I'm three months out and I've had diet sodas on a few occasions and it didn't feel any different than it did on my pre-sleeve stomach. For the record, I was NOT advised against carbonation. I was told by my doctor that it is simply a matter of comfort and that SOME people experience discomfort when drinking carbonation, but that if I don't experience discomfort, that I am welcome to enjoy it. Other doctors may advise differently Personally, I enjoy a diet soda maybe once every week or two and it's delicious and refreshing.... course for my general hydration needs I stick to pure H2O, Edited to add: I was told no carbonation for the first six weeks.. then after that I was free to try diet soda.

When I could eat soft foods, I was allowed very thinly sliced deli meat. I liked to wrap delimeat around a piece of an avocado.. YUM!

I felt perfectly safe at all times. I was at MiDoctor/Marriott. I walked around outside in the area near the hotel with another sleever and felt perfectly safe. Stick to the tourist/shopping areas. Drivers will take you to the safe places. No problems bringing meds back.. doctor will give you a script for everything you need. Our driver warned us not to bring back any tequila because that can hold things up. Small souvenirs were no problem though.

Enjoy the remainder of your preop. I was sleeved by Dr. Lousiana Valenzuela. She is AWESOME.

My doctor does an oversew of the staple line but there are many quality surgeons who do not. My doctor believes it helps prevent leaks.. Other doctors choose not to do the oversew because they believe that adding the sutures may actually cause leaks. It's not that they are lazy, they simply believe it's better not to do it...Basically two opposing view points with very capable surgeons on each side. The same goes for Drains.. different surgeons feel differently about them. Personally I wanted a surgeon who did the oversew AND used a drain, but others choose differently.

My gyn is also an ob.. and he was telling me about a patient he treated who lost over a hundred pounds during her pregnancy. He said he believed that she and her baby were healthier for it and he believes it's perfectly safe for very obese women to lose weight during pregnancy as long as they are getting adequate nutrition. MU (Missouri University?) did a study about weight loss during pregnancy and the findings were very favorable toward weight loss.

WONDERFUL.. Welcome to Twoderville! It was a huge deal to me when I crossed over too.. My highest weight was 360 so getting into the 200s was AWESOME....Onderland isn't even on my mind yet.. I'm still THRILLED to just be out of the 300s! Keep up the good work!

Well then according to this, I should have lost 56 pounds by june 1st... I lost 38... Slow loser it is! I figured I would be.. after all that's why I chose to have the surgery in the first place!