Lorelei

Hi Aaron, Thank you for responding. I'm wondering, if you were able to take off 36 lbs in just 2 months, why didn't you continue on that journey instead of going for the surgery? It seems you were having great success without it just with your diet and exercise, and you had the will to do it. Thank you again, Lorelei

Also... What is the highest protein, least calorie thing you can consume? I've heard some of you mention powders that contain 30mg of protein per tablespoon, but did not learn the name of these products. Is there something I can get at GNC which will be high in protein, low in calories, (not have any stimulant properties) which I can consume to be sure I am getting enough nutrients if I'm only having broth and things like that? Thanks agian, Lorelei

Greetings all, I noted that many of you said you lost a fair amount of weight pre-op on the required liquid diet. I would like to hear from some of you what that experience was like. IE: what you had to eat, how much weight you lost just doing that, how you felt, etc. My BMI is probably too low for the surgery, I'm at 33.5, and I don't think my insurance will cover it. Although I've read about 99% success stories, the 1% who regret having the surgery have prompted me to at least try one more time to lose the weight without surgery. I thought maybe if I tried your pre-op diet, I might get a kick-start to motivate me. So I'd like to hear about your experiences pre-op. Right now, I'm trying to do what some of you talk about doing, like "preloading" protein so I will fill up as much as possilble with what my body needs to maintain muscle mass, and hopefully I will be less tempted by garbage foods later. It seems easier to say to myself "I can have that, AFTER I have the important stuff" than to say "I can't have that." I'm also trying to consume as much warm liquid as possible, like decaf, broth, tea and water, in an effort to keep myself feeling fuller and less hungry all the time so I will eat less. Thank you in advance to all who share their thoughts and experiences with me. And, happy new year to all of you :-) Lorelei

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and experiences with me. I hope to be able to read the shared thoughts and experiences of others as well. The more information I gather, the better. Thus far, this is what I have gotten from this thread, or rather what I have decided at this time. I am going to do all the leg work to get the surgery, IE: see whatever hoops I have to go through for insurance to cover the cost, gather any proof or documentation they may require, and get the ball rolling in case they make me wait 6 months etc. This way, if I decide to go through with it, I will hopefully be ready and covered and not have to wait any further. In the meantime, I am going to try harder to lose as much weight as I can the normal way. I have one new tool, a really wonderful gym at the place where I work that is free to employees. I will take advantage of that. (which might screw me up if I Do decide I want the surgery and then bring my BMI down too low and get stuck at what you call a "stall"). No surgery, and no more weight loss, we’ve all been there I think, but I will try again. I managed to lose 65 lbs once, took about a year, but I did it for the wrong reasons. I didn’t do it to be healthy, I did it to look better and mostly for a person I was in a relationship with. So when he cheated on me, I lost all my will and put on 15 lbs. Then, I moved across the country, only to get a diagnosis of breast cancer, so I spent a year fighting that, (and winning fortunately, still even have two breasts), during which time I put on another 25 lbs from the steroids they give you when you have chemo and lack of activity, also due to chemo and radiation. I don’t think that having survived breast cancer constitutes a co-morbidity to the insurance companies, but it should. When I was finished with my treatments, my Oncologist very specifically stated that one of the first most important things you should do to avoid a recurrence, is to be as skinny as possible. Not just lose weight and get healthy, but to be as skinny as possible, his exact words. This is because the fat in your body holds on to estrogen, and when you have an estrogen receptor positive cancer, it feeds the cancer if there is any left in your body. You have to take medications to prohibit the production of estrogen in your body so it is very important to lose as much fat as possible as well. In my view, this makes being a cancer survivor (which puts you at risk for recurrence), is something that should most assuredly be considered a co-morbidity. I hope to talk to many of you about how much weight you lost pre-surgery following the prerequisite liquid diet and how difficult that was for you. I would expect that if you were doing it just to lose weight without the promise of your surgery at the end of two weeks, it would be much harder than doing it all by itself to lose weight. Hard to combat hunger indefinitely with no light at the end of the tunnel. So, I'm trying to cover all of my bases. Get everything in line to have the surgery, and make sure I actually need it before I take that deep of a plunge. I have what is considered a low BMI, 33.5. I’m 5’7” and weigh about 215 so I have less than 100 lbs to lose. I want to start by getting down to 140 and then see what my body and health are like to decide if I should go further and shoot for 120 at my height. I will be searching the forums for more information about everything, including the liquid diet requirements and the subsequent results. I thank you all and look forward to hearing more from you. Best wishes and a happy healthy new year to everyone. Lorelei

Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I very much appreciate it. Lorelei

Hello Fellow Newbie, I'd like to ask you, 8 months out now, are you happy you had the surgery? or do you regret it? If you had to do it all again, would you? I'd love to know. Lorelei

Great, thank you :-)

Hello everyone, I, as you can likely see, am new here. This is my first post. I came here because I would like to have this surgery and am gathering as much information as I can as I'm sure you all did. I'm a big googler, I will not take any medication until checking every little detail about it and have found this necessary because Dr.s do not always know best unfortunately. Most of the time, whatever it is you are researching, you will find a ton of horror stories first because the happy people generally go on about their lives in contentment while those who had bad experiences go online to post and talk. So....I have been searching and searching for horror stories about this surgery, complications, people who regret having it done, anything negative at all, and I can not find anything. Even the few people who said they got nauseous, or had trouble getting in enough protein, little things like that, all say they would do it all again. I feel that if I can not find ANY negative stories to consider, then I must be missing something, and I want to be fully informed in every regard so I can make the best decision for myself. Another reason to look at the negatives is the possibility of going to Mexico for surgery. If one does that, how can they get followup care? I believe that if your insurance company will not pay for your surgery, they also will not pay for revisions, treatment for complications, and followup care. So... before I go plunging into these forums to find answers to my many questions, I'd like to start out with the cons...I think I have a pretty good handle on the pros and am seriously considering this surgery. Thank you for reading this far, I tend to be a bit verbose, and thank you in advance for your answers. Lorelei