SerendipityHappens

Yeah, can't see too much of the legs yet, but... OMG your tummy looks fantastic!

I definitely agree here.. anything that is a trigger, we should try to stay away from. I didn't have a problem with soda pre-sleeve and mostly just drank water so having an occasional soda doesn't trigger anything in MY brain. Don't get me wrong.. I have PLENTY of trigger foods that I try to avoid, soda just happens to not be one of them so I see no reason to give it up! There are a lot of people here, not YOU Mrs.G, but there are others, who can't understand that Soda is NOT a big bad trigger food for everyone. Also, there are people here who go on and on about all the chemicals in soda, but yet drink crystal light or eat sf jello!?! If people don't want it for WHATEVER reason that's great, but I do believe that it it's overly demonized.

I was SPECIFICALLY TOLD that diet soda was fine.

That's FANTASTIC! How wonderful that they're all doing this together. Who is their doctor?

What makes you think she's "on the couch"? Even at 360 pounds for ME exercise was NOT the problem.. the problem was in the kitchen! When someone would give me advice like "oh just walk around the neighborhood for half an hour" or my personal favorite "park in the furthest parking spot" I'd just look at them with a really confused look.... and say...."so you mean if I just park in the furthest parking spot, that will help me more than my 15 mile weekly hiking/walking schedule?"

I hear you.. I KNEW it was normal, I KNEW it was going to happen but it was still hard to accept! I stalled for about a month. The thing that kept me going was that I had a fancy bodycomposition scale and it confirmed that I was indeed increasing my bodywater % and decreasing my fat% so that helped me Also the fact that my pants started falling off of me during this time helped too... but yeah, even with this, I still felt like I NEEDED that validation from a drop in pounds.

Reading all these posts it occurred to me... Are you guys thinking of regular sugared soda??? I mean drinking a soda with sugar in it didn't even occur to me. It didn't even cross my mind that the OP could have meant a sugar/HFCS soda.. I mean, I don't think I've consumed a sugared soda since gas was 94 cents a gallon. I assumed she meant a diet soda... which I see as no more "bad" than consuming a crystal light or a sugar free jello.. Not the healthiest choice, but probably OK in moderation... Are all of you "slippery slope" folks assuming that she's talking about sugared version of soda?

I believe the OH board (obesityhelp.com) has a section for DS and a lot of them have had sleeve to DS conversion. They may be able to help you.

I haven't been told I was carb sensitive but I know I am. I have committed to doing a very low carb, high protein, high fat diet for the entire month of May after losing only 3 pounds in april. I'm doing 20 net carbs (carbs minus fiber) 70-90 grams of protein and the remainder of my calories from fat. There are a lot of folks who say "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" but I don't feel like it is the case in my body. Give it a try, see how you lose, see how you feel.

well the reason I didn't get the band is because although initially it seems like lower complication, the complications from the band just keep increasing with time.. errosion, slippage, never getting the fill amount right. NO THANKS. The thing that appealed to me about the band is that you could loosen it if you needed to if you were sick or pregnant... but then I realized that honestly it wouldn't be a big deal with the sleeve if you needed more nutrition due to pregnancy or illness... just DRINK some extra nutrition.. so that was no longer an advantage for the band in my eyes.

I purposely make sure my multi does not have Iron.. that way I can take it with my calcium citrate without it interfering with absorption.. I take an iron pill by itself just before bed. I take calcium citrate miniatures with d3 pills from Puritain's pride. www.puritan.com Item # 33195 Right now they're doing buy one get 2 free. A bottle of 100, 200 mg pills is 13.99 so with the two free bottles it works out to $4.66 a bottle.. Each bottle last just over a month (I take six of these pills a day spread out over the entire course of the day. This is ABSOLUTELY the best deal on calcium citrate I have found anywhere... a single bottle of citrical petites which is the EXACT same thing is 14.50!!! I have done a "dissolve test" where I checked how long it takes these pills to dissolve in plain Water and they dissolved in under 6minutes so you don't have to worry about the sitting around in your sleeve.... Now these pills are in tablet form and I was not cleared to take them until two weeks after surgery. Talk to your doctor and see how long before you can take tablets some say two weeks and some want you to wait longer. For my multivitamin, I chose Bariatric Advantage capsules. Really almost any multi-Vitamin will do. Some people like Centrum, others just take flintsones chewable. I like having my muli in capsule form and I like that the bariatric advantage dose is 6 small capsules for a RNY patient. Because I don't have malabsorption of RNY, I only take four capsules a day... I like that I can just spread my dose out throughout the day for maximum absorption. A bottle of 540 capsules lasts 4.5 months if you take four capsules a day and the cost is just over forty dollars for the bottle.. so that's only $10.00 a month which isn't really that bad for a good quality multivitamin. I get mine at Amazon.com Iron, I take an iron pill at bed time.. Several hours after my last multivitamin or calcium pill. I use ferrochel which is a chelated iron product. I use this because it is supposedly more gentle and non-constipating. I buy it from Puritain's pride and it's quite cheap there (it's not eligible for their buy one get one prices though) I also take a sublingual b-12...again I get it from puritain's pride because it's the cheapest, but riteaid and walmart also have it and it's not an expensive supplement.

I would not because of the threat of blood clots.. I was afraid if I had any blood clots developing that massaging them could release them into my bloodstream. I was definitely hyperparanoid about bloodclots for some reason!

I'm thrilled that you had such a wonderful experience. There are MANY competent and caring doctors, top notch coordinators, and clean facilities in Mexico but we don't hear a lot about Dr. Illan or Baja Bariatrics so thanks for the review.

uh... I'm 8 weeks today and my weightloss has finally started picking up again.. My weight loss for the ENTIRE month of April??? THREE POUNDS. Stalls happen.. you won't lose weight every day.. or even every week.

Many people experience success with the band. It was DEFINITELY not the option I wanted, but some people have a great experience with it. Maybe he knows someone who had a great experience and recommended it to him.

Can you describe the location and nature of the pain?

I've been drinking 12 ounces of coffee a day since 3 days post op. I was told not to overdo it but one or two cups was fine. I actually put a scoop of protein powder in my morning coffee since I'm not a "breakfast person" so two birds with one stone.. I get my morning jolt.. AND 25 grams of protein!

Walking, walking, walking, walking, walking.... and time. Short frequent walks are best.

Just something for all you grazers out there.. BERRY FLAVORED LISTERINE STRIPS... I hate chewing gum because I can't chew it lady like (I always look like a cow chewing her cud) but when I'm cooking or passing by food, I pop a listerine strip in my mouth and my palate is ruined for at least 15 minutes so I'm not tempted to pop anything into my mouth. I buy the strips in a three pack and they last a really long time and I can carry them very discretely in my pocket.

Yeah it stinks but I'm learning to adapt. I try to include something moist such as a dollop of greek yogurt with my meal. I do "drink" with my meal just enough to take my Vitamins.. about two tablespoons of Water.. I don't suppose that's enough to even count. A lot of people are raised to never drink with their meals... but I always drank a LOT with mine so it's been quite an adjustment

And people wonder why so many of us go to Mexico....$4,500 covered everything except airfare and gratuities. I'd have stayed home if I could have found comparable care for even TWICE the cost but the price I was quoted locally was over $20K and who knows about additional fees.

Great routine.,. Staying compliant with Vitamins is really hard for some people so having a regular routine is really important! Here's mine: Wake up. pop my synthroid. hit snooze..... 20 minutes later get out of bed and do my morning hygene routine and get dresed etc.. Take out six calcium citrate pills, four multi Vitamin capules, one Iron capsule, one b-12 sublingual, and two probiotic beads. Pop two of the multi vitimins into my mouth and toss the rest in my pill box, Toss all the other pills into my pillbox EXCEPT the iron which gets left on my nightstand.. Then I take the pills in my pillbox throughout the day.. When the pillbox is empty.. I'm done... When I get into bed at night, I pop the iron pill. Done.

Did your doctor tell you you have to crush them? If so, then follow his orders, if not then perhaps you don't need to? I've been swallowing all my pills including my tablets and they go down great.

I lost 13 pounds in the first two weeks then STALLED for three weeks.. then lost three more pounds.. then another week of nothing.. This week so far I have lost three more pounds. Stalls happen. For me, I have one of those super fancy body composition scales so it was interesting that I could see my body Water percentage climbing.. It actually increased by the equivalent of 10 pounds..So If I hadn't been gaining water weight.. I wouldn't have been in the stall! My BF% was actually going down during this time sooo REEEEEAAAALY it wasn't a stall, it just looked like one because the pounds weren't moving. The reason my body water percentage went up is because I went from being in ketosis, to increasing my carbs as I introduced new foods into my diet. When you go out of ketosis, you gain water. Stalls happen... they are NORMAL. If you are eating how your are supposed to and getting a reasonable amount of exercise. (and my doctor told me nothing more than light walking for SIX WEEKS post op) then it's not your fault, it's just your body adjusting.

You also have to remember that you lost a lot preop as well! Assuming your preop was 2 weeks long, that's 24 pounds in a month... Average of SIX POUNDS a week. Sounds good to me!!!! At two weeks out I was down 13 pounds from my surgery date... Then I didn't lose another stinking pound for three weeks (actually I gained four pounds then slowly shed them over the three weeks timeframe).. Then I lost three more pounds then nothing for another week... Then this week I'm already down three more pounds! I did 3.5 MONTHS of preop and my average loss was 3.5 pounds a week. Since my surgery my average loss is 2.5 pounds a week.