SerendipityHappens

Yes it is free of both carbonation and caffeine.. It is also very low or no sodium and the "revive" flavor is an excellent source of potassium which some sleevers have a hard time getting enough of. I love VWZ! Drinking the revive flavor of VWZ had helped increase my potassium and eliminated painful leg cramps that I was getting!

I tried everything except bread since I'm wheat intolerant. I tried fried chicken, rice pasta, rice, candy, tortilla chips.. Course I don't eat these things regularly, I just wanted to give everything a try when I was going through my reintroduction phases. Yeah, nothing I can't eat! Pretty much have a sleeve of steel!

OMG, this would help me so much!

when I'm doing very low carb (under 20 net carbs) I do high fat.. When I do semi-low carb, (under 60 net carbs) I do medium fat... The only product I do low fat is Cottage cheese and that's just because I like it better. I use half and half in my coffee, I use whole milk to make yogurt, I leave the skin on my chicken, I use real oil and not Pam for cooking. I eat bacon and nuts weekly. I eat avocados daily. I have room in my diet for all these fats because I'm not eating any kind of grains or root vegetables of any kind.. no corn, rice, wheat, Beans, potatoes, etc... My only carbohydrates come from vegetables, low glycemic fruits and dairy. Lower carbohydrate and higher fat just works better for me... and yes I account for every calorie! .

Nope.. not weird at all.... Being a fat girl is part of WHO I AM.. I have been fat for 40 years. I actually never agonized over being fat and it wasn't until I started being concerned with the health aspect and certain things that I felt limited by.. that I seriously considered this surgery. Fat IS part of my identity.. just like ethnicity, or height might be for many people, it's just what I have always been and it has shaped me. I have absolutely NO idea what it will feel like to be normal weight or who I will be then... It's scary.. but kind of exciting too.

Breakfast: coffee with 4T of half and half and a scoop of protein powder Lunch: Quest protein bar Snack. half a cup of banana-boysenberry "icecream" (ok, it's just a frozen banana and frozen boysenberries run through my juicer, but it tastes like ice cream to me!) Dinner... haven't eaten yet, but I'm having 3 wheat free meatballs with cheese and maranara sauce Snack: A glass of mean green juice (kale, cucumber, celery, grannysmith apple, lemon and ginger)

If you want to tell then tell.. if you DON'T want to tell, then don't.. Just remember that once you tell one person.. you can't "untell" so choose wisely! Personally I've told my sisters and my boyfriend and that's it. I'll let the cat out of the bag to the rest of my family in August when I see them at a wedding I'm invited to. By then I'll be around 240 pounds (hopefully) and it will be pretty hard for people not to notice a 120 pound weight loss! I'm proud of the fact that I'm sleeved...I just didn't want to tell people in advance because I don't want them to have unrealistic expectations.

I continued to log my calories and exercise and tried to be patient... I honestly think that most times when people "break their stall" it's pretty much just coincidence.

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You are setting a fantastic example for your children.. You are facing your problem head on and putting your health first. You are not caring what everyone else thinks, you're doing what's best for you! What you are doing takes both courage and humility.. I know many people who are too afraid of what people think.. I know others who are too prideful.. "I can do it myself, I'm not going to do it the easy way" ... of course they never do.. but they are too proud to admit that they need a little help. Yup, I'd say you're setting a fantastic example for your kids.. Do what's best for you, don't worry about what others think. Stick with it and don't be too proud to accept a little help if you need it!

It's not that I just feel that way.. It's fact. I've always been the fattest by far....Weird thing is now that I'm losing so fast I'm afraid that I'll get thinner than my younger sister, I'll call her sister number 1. There are four of us and she was always the second smallest.. sister number 2 recently lost a lot of weight and got smaller than sister number 1 and now with me losing, I don't want my sister number 1 to be left behind. I'm only 10 pounds heavier than her now and I think it will be really uncomfortable for both of us if I got thinner than her. I live in a different state and sister number2 says sister1 has been losing a bit lately. I just don't want to come back and be smaller than her.. I'd love for us all to get smaller together.

You'll likely be fine to just sit around and visiting for a few hours Just get plenty of rest beforehand.

I take bariatric advantage capsules. It is a 6 capsule dose so I take two capsules at each meal.. the capsules are smaller than the acid reducer I was taking so the size wasn't a problem for me. I ordered from Amazon.com and was under $45.00 for a three month supply.

I drank 80 ounces my first day post op! My IV wasn't working right and I was getting dehydrated so the doctor reluctantly told me I could try rehydrate orally.. though he didn't think I'd be able to drink that much so early on. I had no issues drinking other than some spasms during the first few days if the drinks were too cold.. My first day out of the hospital, I could drink 16 ounces of chicken broth in one sitting and drink a whole bottle of water or gatorade. On day three post op, I was drinking some herbal tea and I accidentally took a three swallow gulp.. and felt nothing..... No pressure, no nothing.... I felt like you, I was happy but also worried because I was different than most people.. It was just because I didn't have inflammation in my sleeve so it was open.. Even when I started on things like yogurts and cottage cheese, I could eat more than most people.. I didn't really feel real restriction until I started eating chicken and meats.

At least your being realistic.. at my heaviest of 360 I kept thinking I'm about a hundred pounds overweight... UH.. I'm only 5'5".. I had 210 pounds to lose but was in denial!!! Getting that number will be very empowering for you because you'll then know EXACTLY where you stand. I'm so happy for you starting this exciting journey.

My goal weight is 210 pounds less than my highest weight. Even now sometimes I feel discouraged.. I've already lost 100 pounds and I'm still heavier than many people who haven't even started yet! But I just try to take it one day at a time and Celebrate every victory.. Two days ago I needed to get something off of a high shelf at work.. I stacked two milk crates on each other and stepped up on them and jumped down. I could never have done that at 360 pounds! That same day I walked into a regular clothing store, and bought a belt.. and it FIT ME! Granted it was a size XL and it fit on the second to largest notch... but there was a time when a size XL would only go half way round me! Small victories. As for the losing weight with "diet and exercise" uh... well you can tell your friends that that's EXACTLY what you will be doing! It's just that the sleeve helps you do that and be less miserable so you can stick with it. I've lost weight before with "diet and exercise" alone and eating small enough portions to lose weight with my full size stomach was MISERABLE. And there was no way I could keep it off because if I lost focus for one second, I was done for.. I could gain 20 pounds in a MONTH! The sleeve just kind of takes the edge off so you CAN exercise the self control that you have.. CLEARLY you have discipline, the sleeve just removes one obstacle from your way so that you can apply your discipline and GET THIS THING DONE!

Most WLS patients will gain back some weight after a while.. My ultimate goal is actually a somewhat chunky 170 pounds but I'm shooting for 150 because of the regain that most people naturally experience.

I was required to do a 2 week preop diet. I CHOSE to do a three and a half month preop diet though and yes I feel like it helped me a LOT. I didn't do all liquids. I did two or three shakes a day and a lean and green meal plus I could have Snacks such as: half of a piece of fruit, an egg, an ounce of nuts.. but I kept my calories to 800. Also often for my "green" portion of my diet I opted to juice some kale and ginger and add it to a Protein shake. I also made sure that I was getting 80 grams of protein in every day. During that three and a half months, I did fall off the wagon TWICE.. but each time was only one incident and I put a stop to it and climbed right back on. Overall I felt very successful and proud of myself. It made me feel like I really do have the self control necessary to make the sleeve work for me over the long term. I lost 45 pounds in the three and a half months prior to surgery and even though I was still a hefty 48 BMI at surgery time, but my surgery was very easy on me. I had no complications and healed quickly with minimal discomfort. I drank 80 ounces of fluids the day after surgery.. I could drink a small dixie cup of Fluid in about five minutes without any problems. My sleeve had very little inflammation. Honestly, I credit my diet with a lot of this.. I shouldn't be eating any wheat anyway due to the fact that it causes an inflammatory response in my body. So when I stopped eating wheat during the preop phase, I think that helped me a LOT. Also including kale and ginger juice which are both highly anti-inflammatory... and of course making sure my body had plenty of protein PRE surgery so that it could be well prepared. I also started taking my Vitamins when I started my preop as well. Yeah, anyway, that was my experience. I would do it again this way in a heartbeat.. In fact, when I go for plastics, I'm absolutely going to make sure that I'm having plenty of protein, green vegetables and ginger during the months preceding my surgery.

My mother is always fond of quoting George Bernard Shaw who once said something like Never wrestle with a pig, you'll just get dirty and besides, the PIG likes it. I do disagree with NativeTexan, I also do believe that her bringing up Mexico was an attempt to discredit my opinion and the opinion of my doctor, but I don't think that makes her a bigot.... maybe a little narrow minded. I'd say the majority of Americans.. even Latino-Americans would feel apprehensive about receiving medical care in Mexico. I know I did until I actually researched it and decided to go there myself!

My Grandmother moved from Illinois to Massachusetts when she was a young woman ... All the Lithuanian ladies on their street referred to their family as "the foreigners"... My gran was like WTF? I'm in the freaking DAR and I'm a Mayflower descendent .... and I'M the foreigner??? Took her a while to realize that to them a foreigner was anyone not from the BLOCK and not Lithuanian.

I used to drink several glasses of Water when eating. The waitress at my favorite restaurant always knew to just leave the pitcher for me! Learning not to drink while eating took some practice. The absolute best thing that helped me was just to make sure I drank plenty PRIOR to eating. One trick when out at a restaurant with friends is to drink your water and visit while everyone else is having appetizers. Then when the meal arrives you're all hydrated and you haven't already filled up your little belly on appetizers! As far as Snacks go, yeah I follow the same not eating and drinking rule too... sometimes I will have to put off my snack for a little while so I can drink first but it definitely makes the snack more enjoyable when I'm not thirsty!

I guess my point is that for those of us who are allowed soda under our plans, it's no different for us than drinking other sugar free beverages. It's ALLOWED for us during the weight loss phase, we're not looking to "get around" the rules.. these ARE our rules. Common sense certainly does NOT dictate that an occasional diet soda will be my undoing! If soda was a "trigger food" for someone then yeah, it should be avoided at least until they are really ready to do all the mental work required to actually learn moderation with trigger foods, which I believe CAN be done, but it's harder sometimes than just avoiding the food alltogether. But if it's allowed on your plan, it's not a trigger food, and you enjoy a few a month, i really don't see the big deal... I don't see drinking 8 ounces of diet gingerale as any different than drinking 8 ounces of crystal light... both should be regarded as occasional treats, not sources of hydration.