ella74ny

I don't know if I'm the only one who gets EXTREMELY annoyed when reading complaints about alleged "stalls". *sigh* sometimes I feel empathy for folks but most times I feel extreme aggravation. Listen folks...we aren't gonna lose weight every day or every week for that matter. If that was the case we would lose 365 lbs in a year! This surgery was not intended to be a "quick fix". I personally don't believe in "stalls". Have I experienced weeks of no loss??? SURE! What did I do to "break my stall"? NOTHING!!! Im 8 month's out and still follow my doctors orders and exercise...REGULARLY. That's it...that's all! When the numbers don't move I don't give into fear...I simply "stay the course". I really get dissappointed when I read about folks being taking on an emotional roller coaster by the scale. If you are eating what you're suppose to be eating and exercising like you're suppose too...YOU WILL LOSE!!!! This is not a race...its a lifelong journey. Our main goal should be to optimize our health and live better lives..not chasing a number on a scale or a size. We have to have the mindsets of those who've lost weight and maintain healthy lifestyles without surgery! I hope I don't sound harsh or judgemental...that's not my intention. I just want to encourage those who are feeling down about the "sta lls" or "slow loss" not to give up! I send my "cyber love" to all of you!

I think (and no offense to anyone) that it's easy to be kind of cocky about how easy it all is and how you'd have to be deliberately eating around your sleeve not to achieve goal.
And I say that because I used to think that, too.
The reality is much more complex and it's unfair that we, as people that have struggled with our weight our entire lives, are so quick to criticize or shout diet! exercise! to anyone that's struggling post sleeve. It's as if we're applying that same logic our family, friends and doctors had prior to our surgeries - it's not working because you're failing or it's not working because you have no willpower or it's not working because you're lazy. The end result being the message that of course losing weight is easy and if you really want to do it the weight will just fall off and you'll be on your way to happily ever after.
Not so. The issue is something not even fully understood in the medical world. If weight loss were simple restriction and willpower, the very first time you tried a 1,200 calorie diet you would have lost that weight and made it to goal and you would not be here missing 85% of an organ.
I have friends here that struggle and have struggled for years to either shed weight or stay on track for various reasons. It is not all willpower. I know folks that are the strictest eaters and most diligent exercisers that CANNOT reach goal and are still fifty or sixty pounds overweight.
Naturally, some of these people might feel less than thrilled with their results.
Now, for the original question: I am three years out. Today, I can say I am fully satisfied and love my life post sleeve. Six months out or nine months out you would have heard a different story. I struggled to lose at the pace I felt everyone else was meeting. I had two nine week stalls - one at six months and one between nine and twelve months. Now, I was still happy for my sleeve but I was also frustrated. I think you'll find very few people here (though you will find some, particularly those that had bad complications) that regret their surgeries even when things don't go as planned.
And yes, the biggest hurdle most people that are disappointed have is that their initial expectations were not realistic, usually because they either thought they would avoid complications of any sort or because they simply did not research the sleeve diligently prior to surgery.
Best of luck to you, whatever you decide. The wonderful universal of this surgery is that even those that are disappointed, frustrated or stalled have lost weight. Not as much as they'd like in some cases, but we all lose.
~Cheri

I consider myself one of the blessed individuals who has had none of the side effects/problems/complications - whatever you want to call them. My surgery was on April 29 and I'm down about 20 lbs. I've been steadily loosing about 2 lbs a week with no stalls as of yet.
The recovery was quite easy except for the 6 hours in recovery following the surgery - gas pains which thank God were gone the very next day. Thankfully I've avoided bouts of nausea or vomiting so as I said I consider myself pretty lucky and truly blessed.

This is a good example of believing and knowing what should be happening with your body. You handled this correctly. I am so glad you got that 2nd chance and things are moving in the right direction for you now! I'm sorry you went through the first one and it was such a disappointment but I am also glad you shared your story to prevent this from happening to others. I wish you the best outcome ever!! Keep us posted!!

Okay, I'm a pre-sleever going thru all the hoops right now (twice since I changed hospitals after being disappointed with the first one.) They (thankfully) will accept my psych eval tho from the the first hospital. Anyway, I also passed my psych eval but I don't think it's an eval to see if you're able to cope with the sleeve, I think it's just an eval to make sure you're really not "out there" mentally. I could be wrong but in theory, you won't know if you're ready for the sleeve before hand since you're not living the "sleeved" life. They also don't want you to think that after being sleeved you're going to become a super model or be beating men/women off (altho that could happen ~ haha!) I think they just want to know if you're in a "stable" place mentally & if you are, they get to check off that part of the insurance or program requirement.
Will people have regrets? Of course! food is a HUGE part of our lives...or we wouldn't be here. I'm guessing it will feel like a death in the family, there will be mourning to go thru until you finally start seeing changes in your body & I'm assuming that eating healthier will give you more energy & feel better, exercise & then the endorphines kick in. It's a win win once you get to that other side, but I'm guessing that the "getting there" part is really sucky.
Oh Lordy...please remind me that I'm going to mourn food & it will be yucky for me the first part of this journey. I know in my head right now that it's not going to be a picnic. I'll have to work hard & I'll miss certain foods at first, & at the very least I'll miss chewing food the first few weeks, but am I ready? Maybe. Will I have regrets? Maybe. Will I be healthier & live longer? Maybe. Will I like the new me when I'm 100+ lbs down? DEFINITELY! (Even if I have to toss my excess stomach skin in a wheel barrow & push it ahead of me & toss my loosey skin boobs over my shoulders!) Will this all be worth it? Most likely. Is it time for me to shut my trap now since I really don't know what I'm talking about? Absolutely!

It takes a lot to admit jealousy.
It takes a lot more to accept an apology.
Glad it went as well as it did. Good job confronting her and settling it like adults

I have kept my surgery private. I had mine done last Tuesday, the 21st. I went to lunch with my girlfriends yesterday & ordered the broth from tortilla Soup. No one questioned me. If anyone does in the future, I will simply say I am watching what I eat. If someone is rude enough to keep questioning me after that, then I have no problem telling them I really dont have to explain myself any further. If they are your friends and care about you, the fact that you are changing the way you eat should be enough.

I'm 42 and preop I would still break out. Now that my skin isn't oily, I don't have that problem anymore. I'm actually happier with my skin now than before I had my surgery.
Could the dark circles be a Vitamin deficiency? I haven't had that issue yet and I'm going on 7 months out.

It does take a while to advance your diet to the point of eating 1000 calories a day.
Here is how it looked for me:
Week 1-3: 100-300 calories
Month 1-2: 300-600 calories
Month 3-5: 600-900 calories
Month 6-7: 900-1200 calories
Month 8-9: 1200-1400 calories
Month 10: 1400-1600 calories
In the first few months, you are just focusing on Protein and Water first. It hurts to eat too much. For me, it was a struggle to eat more then 2-3 oz lean protein and was having a real hard time eating any vegetables. In the next few months, you are healed more and can eat more. It does not take so long to drink water. I started eating 3-5 oz of lean protein and an extra ounce or two of side vegetable. After month 6, you can eat almost anything requiring you to be disciplined about what and how much you are eating. You will be hungry more often. Also your fitness levels should really start to pick up if you have not already started a good plan. Working out more of course requires more calories in order to keep your body out of starvation.
It is a gradual process and give yourself time to let all the pieces to fall into place at the right time. Fortunately the healing process of the sleeve forces you to advance slowly. It is definitely progressive, a bit like advancing through mathematics at school. You are not going to start out with vector calculus, linear programming, combinatorics, etc. you first need to learn about basic algebra, then trigonometry, then beginner calculus, then differential equations, etc.
if you don't like my mathematics analogy, consider the progressive steps to learning how to play a musical instrument. I play the violin. You are not going to start out playing the bruch violin concert or even something like Bach unaccompanied solo partitas. You first need to learn the basic mechanics of playing the violin, advance onto scale structures, learn the notations, practice étude after étude, give recital after recital, etc before taking on the classics successfully. Otherwise, you will fail as it will be too much too early.
The same principles of learning mathematics and mastering a musical instrument apply to advancing / progressing through the caloric needs of a post op. Give your self permission to go slow when moving from stage to stage. Take the first 6 months to master the basics before taking on the advanced calorie consumption needs of someone entering the vet stage.

5-18-13 & it had been exactly one year since I had my vertical sleeve gastrectomy. At my highest weight, I was 358, at the start of my pre-op diet, I was 338, on the day of surgery, I was 288. Today, I'm 193 pounds. (I'm 5'7) From a size 30 jeans, 30/32 tops to a MD top, & size 12 jeans. May 28th I will have my corset Trunkplasty to remove my excess stomach skin. My surgeon estimated 15-18 pounds of skin & from a 12 to an 8. Mentally, I struggle everyday because I feel like I should be smaller. But I've been exercising HARD since my 6 month pre-op diet, following my surgeons plan to a T. Not much else I could've done. I just have to love myself & where I am, but I'm going to keep on pushing towards my goal!
Kristie

I don't typically cross-post between here and my blog, but I wrote this last night and thought it'd make for good discussion here too.
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The issue of weight and body image has been on my mind a lot lately. I guess it’s somewhat natural that it would be, but I truly didn’t appreciate how it would come into play every single day until I made the journey that I have.
Life is pretty good right now in the health and weight department. I’m down more than 130 lbs. from my peak, and I’m at a point where I feel healthy, am fitting into clothes that I could have worn 20 years ago, and all vitals are positive. My BMI is very close to “normal” (almost not even “overweight”!), my blood pressure is low, and I’m having few problems adjusting to my new diet. But the day-to-day living with this new version of myself is proving to be very different from what I expected. Not all good, not all bad. Just different.
A great case in point: I was in an elevator today, the kind with mirrored doors on the inside. I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time in front of mirrors, but this elevator kind of forces you to look at yourself. I checked myself out, even did a glimpse from the side, and thought, “You’ve still got more to lose there, buddy.” In case you’re wondering, there was no one else in the elevator.
Then the doors opened and I made my way to my desk. In the span of about 50 steps, literally, two people commented on my weight and how I’m looking good these days. It’s flattering; I get some kind of comment from someone daily, and it’s really nice. The kind words make me feel good. Hell, I think I thrive on them; I couldn’t have done this without the support of my friends.
But the disconnect between what I see and what others do troubles me. I’ve had two people recently tell me that I’m “slim.” I can’t see it. Can’t imagine it, really. When you’re fat for a long time, the notion of being slim is so foreign that they may as well have called me plaid. But words have meaning, and enough people have said it that I think they truly are perceiving it.
So, why am I unable to do so myself? Part is, I suspect, that this new body is still unknown to me. I lay in bed in the morning and feel my ribs as if I’ve never noticed them there before. I can feel their edge, the individual ribs, and if I suck in my stomach, I can almost reach under the curve of them. I’ve been working out a lot more and I step out of the shower to see something close to pecs forming in the mirror. Not to drag a cliche or movie into the mix, but it’s a little like Freaky Friday. I feel like the same person inside, but that guy in the mirror isn’t me. The fat cheeks are more or less gone. The skin around my waist and chest is no longer being pushed out by all that fat. And the change has been--most dramatically, anyway--since January. Four months. There are bottles of salad dressing that have been in my fridge longer than I’ve been living in this body.
The other part of my disconnect, I think, is our larger definition of people based on their looks. Without piling on the jackass from Abercrombie and Fitch who was in the news lately, we pigeonhole people. Marketers do it, sure, but we each all do it too, and shame on us if we can’t admit it. There are a lot of people who talk to Me 2.0 who probably wouldn’t have talked to Me 1.0 in the same way. It’s not that no one talked to me when I was fat...far from it. I’m an outgoing guy. But a lot more people are talking to me now. Friends, co-workers, employees at stores, people in line with me. Men, women, young and old. Attractive people, normal people, and attractive people. I may have mentioned attractive people. It’s noticeable, and more than a little weird.
I got to thinking: do I do that too now? I suppose I do, in a way. I certainly don’t think I’m a different person inside, but I’ve noticed overweight people a lot more than I did before, and I definitely notice people eating huge portions more than I ever did. I HATE this new enhanced vision I have. Mere months ago, I was the one ordering the combo plate and finishing it without a thought. Mere months ago, I was wearing size 54 pants. It’s ugly and it’s unhealthy to have this combination of constant self-criticism of myself, and what seems like a constant view that centers around obesity.
So, as I remind myself that I’m the same person inside, I think it’s a lesson for us all that the outside is really what society transforms us to see. We prize slimness, we eat a lot, we look down on people who are overweight. But it’s the inside that really counts, and finding peace and balance with who you are. I have the same moral compass I did at 362. I have the same big picture values.
Another step in the journey, I suppose, and one that I didn’t see coming.

Thanks for the laugh! I'll look into the strips tomorrow.
For now it's little disposable toothbrushes that have toothpaste sot of build into the, They are small, discrete and I can even get away with using them at my desk.

Color. I used to be all about the black. I still like black, but now I WILL be caught dead leaving the house wearing pink, red, yellow or any mix of prints and stripes. The crazier the better! Color has to do with how I want to be seen. I still wear black when Im feeling like I don't want to be so visible...or I fear not being taken seriously. I also walk a lot more. I took up bird watching which takes me to the river, I started to "monitor" the outer edges of the school I work at...I walk the perimeter every day at least once....isn't it a sign of addiction if you sneak your object of addiction?...if anyone asks, I'm just looking out for vagrant students!

I have become an attention *****. I soak up praise and admiration like a sponge. I guess it's because I was invisible for so many years. Go ahead and laugh (300#+ and invisible!), but I know y'all know what I mean.
And to make me sound even more debase (coffee addiction..pfft), I'm addicted to sex. Thank God only with my husband, but still! I wasn't that way before. As a matter of fact, I detested it. I could gag thinking about it. Now I'm like RAWR all the time. I never get tired of it. *hangs head in shame* my poor husband wishes I liked coffee...
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Don't beat yourself up. You misunderstood and now you're taking corrective action. This journey is all about moving forward. What's done is done, you will be fine, it's a lesson we all learn along the way.

The Listerine breath strips are strong but I used them anyway. The monkey a$$ breath was even offending me. My poor little dog would want to come give my some cuddles but as soon as he got a whiff of my breath, he went a runnin!

Go to my profile blog under size of your stomach. There are a few videos in this post. One of them shows liquids passing through the sleeve.

I was actually considering Listerine Breath Strips that you simply place on your tongue and they simply dissolve... any thoughts?

Ha ha me too Ella !!!

My doc had me chewing gum in the hospital after surgery! Even though it made me drool and made me nauseous. I hated it. It is so funny how different doctors say different things. I'm glad everything is going to come out all right in the end

Hope everything comes out okay! Glad that the nurse was reassuring.

Glad you are ok! My doc doesn't allow it because it stimulates saliva, which in turn makes your stomach think food is coming and it produces more acid. Tooth brush and paste in future :-)))))))

Thanks everyone - you are the best! I did speak with the nurse at the surgeon's office and he confirmed that I should be fine. As long as I'm not vomiting or having issues with drinking, the gum will run it's trail to my system and that should be the end of the story. Lesson learned!!!

Thanks everyone - you are the best! I did speak with the nurse at the surgeon's office and he confirmed that I should be fine. As long as I'm not vomiting or having issues with drinking, the gum will run it's trail to my system and that should be the end of the story. Lesson learned!!!

You should definitely call your doctor--mine doesn't allow gum chewing for the first 12 weeks specifically because there can be a concern about swallowing it. It's not a foregone conclusion that something will go wrong because you did swallow it, but definitely something to get checked out.