Miss Mac

Soups made with bone broth instead of salty canned broth will give you more nutrients. You could make a home made beef vegetable soup with veggies of your liking, strain out and then mash the veggies, and save the mash in small baggies or ice cube trays for when you get to the puree stage. The broth will be so much more rewarding than canned soup. I made some home made chicken broth just last week after I had bought a rotisserie chicken to have as a protein "snack on" for the week. After I pulled the meat off the bone, I cooked the carcass and meaty bits with onion, carrot, and celery and some boxed broth to make it fuller instead of with tap water. I added pepper, but not salt. I strained out the veggie bits and pureed them, then put them back in the broth. On full liquids, you could not add the veggies back, but you will still get the awesome flavor and nutrients.

When I am typing text documents independent of this website, I get the red and green squiggley marks, but not so on bariatricpal.com. In my Word program, I can open REVIEW and click on the checkmark icon for spelling and grammar, but I just do not see that here. What am I missing? When I hit the arrow to exand the task bar for more options, it closes out my response.

Mine required a three month supervised diet, but no weight loss was required.

I will agree to politely disagree. Grammer and punctuation used to bother me, but the older I get, the less I care. But I do think that different ways of speaking and spelling and typing make me have to read some things over a couple of times. My biggest gripe is texting abbreviations, but I will admit that having to look them up expands my horizens a bit. My biggest fail, per the OP (see, I learned something!) is that I never do a spell check - ever. Since you brought up spelling, I will try to remember to spellcheck. Thanks for the nudge. O K, which one of the task bar icons is the spell check?

Hang in there. I have heard (and I hope it is true, because I am a slow loser, too) that a slower weight loss allows the skin to recover elasticity more easily and will help the hangover to not be so bad -especially if you are young. I think I will have to change my signature for a while. The new one will be "Stalls are like lovers. Your first one will probably not be your last."

You look so healthy now. Who knew you were hiding in there? Congratulations.

At four days I wouldn't have done it if I had to travel more than a few miles or was in the wedding party. If it was close to home and I could do a "fly by" apppearance and then leave gracefully, then maybe just maybe. If your surgery details are being withheld from family and friends, then you might (closer to the wedding) let the bride and groom know you are under a doctor's care and would still love to come to the wedding but may have to duck out early. Use your best judgement depending on how close you are to the bride and groom. You really do not want your health issues upstaging the bride. It's her day. Like the others said, if you do go, you should have an exit stategy.

You have only been introduced to "the dreaded third week stall" a few days early. I know we get tired of hearing that our bodies are just adjusting, but that is exactly what is happening.

Uh....I don't know......I saw that guy on the stretcher Are the different segments of the race continuous? I would think that since your surgery was on your stomach and not your legs, you should give it a go and do us proud! Just find a way to hydrate and get your Protein. Good Luck!

When it was discovered that I had some thickness in my heart, I was told hat it came from chrnic high blood pressure. If your doctors are concerned, they should call you, but I would not wait very long without getting assertive and start asking about your results and prognosis. You are your own best advocate for your healthcare. Bug them about it and don't be shy.

OMG, I am so glad you are OK. This is a good reminder to all of us to not disregard symptoms when our body is trying to tell us something. I am thankful that you asked questions and that you called your doctor.

I found out that my insurance co-ordinator at the bariatric clinic was going on a two-week vacation and no one woukd be covering her. So, I called the insurance company myself, and got approved in two days. They sent me a letter (another three days down) and I faxed that to my surgeon's nurse manager. I had a date that same day still a week ahead of the co-ordinator coming back from vacation!

How great it is that you are going into this together! I agree that having support in the household will be your strongest advantage above anything else. You can practice now with high Protein meals and ways to modify old favorites into something more nutritious so that you won't feel so deprived while adjusting to your new healthy lifestyle. You will learn so many new culinary skills on this journey that you will be amazed at yourself. You will become what is called a "nutitarian". Meaning that everything you eat must have some redeeming nutritional value in it. You may sneek a taste of a cheat now and then, but frankly, you will just not have the digestive real estate for much more than what you should be eating anyway. Once you get that first 30 or 40 pounds off, you will start feeling a vitality that you have not felt in a long time. I think that is my greater goal more so than reaching my goal weight on the scale. I want to reach that healthy vitality that I have not felt in over thirty years. I am so glad that you are entering into this process at a young age rather than consuming the best years of your life with yo-yo dieting. Good for you, and congratulations to Mama, too. I had to giggle at your response of "Ty" to the previous poster. As an older person who was not raised as a texter, I sometimes have to think real hard or look these things up in an urban dictionary. I guess it keeps me on my toes! Welcome to the forum.....you will find friends here.

Hello and welcome to the forum. I chose the sleeve because I did not want my system rerouted or live with a port the rest of my life. My favorite aspect of this site is that for the most part, people are kind and non-judgemental. You will find however, that opinions and tact will vary, so take each response for what it's worth. What I wish I had paid more attention to going in is that stalls are usually aggravating and often as our bodies make adjustments.......way more often than I expected. Just keep in mind that stalls are like lovers - your first one probably will not be your last one !

With my insurance, BCBS Federal Employee, you have to have a BMI of 40, or 35 with comorbidities. There is a 90 day medically supervised diet, plus you have to provide two years worth of medical records showing that you have at least tried something during that time. I had monthly nutrition and bariatric physician visits, saw the psych and the surgeon at the first and the last of my program.

What she said.

I do not like tracking either, but as for me, if I don't track, I lose track.

My biggest incision (out of four) was tender for a couple of weeks. The smaller ones did not bother me at all.

I see here that you do not have a response yet. Just prior to my surgery, I was in the hospital for eight days with left side pain under the ribs, but my was an issue with ischemic colitis. When I had gallbladder trouble, the pain was on my right side under the ribs and under my shoulder blade in the back. Since the CT did not show anything at the moment, I would just stay in tune and keep a notebook about symptoms and timing. I am glad you had the CT scan. Sometimes it is comforting to know what something is not. I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks. Sometimes I don't know where that stuff comes from.

I had forgotten about the Haribo sugar free Gummy Bears. When I first head about it, I bought some on purpose, and they will clean you out in about four hours. The rest of the family will have to go to the restroom at the gas station down the street. Do not eat these on the way to work! If you have coworkers you do not like, put a big jar of them on your desk around Halloween. Amazon.com has some reviews, and it is the most hilarious material I have ever read. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-SUGAR-Classic-Gummi-Bears/product-reviews/B006J1FBLM/ref=dpx_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1

There are those folks in this forum who can expess the need for counselling with your doctors and nutritionist much more eloquenty and clinically than I can, so I will move on to what my original thought was when I first read your post. Perhaps you need to think of the next phases not as a pre-op liquid diet and a high Protein diet bereft of your former culinary favorites, but as war! You are literally in a fight for your life (and your quality of life) until you reach your expiration date. Those of us who are in our sixties can attest to the fact that excess weight which is inconvenient and embarrassing in our thirties turns into arthritis, joint replacements, high blood pressure, strokes, immobility, heart attack, etc etc and the list goes on. You are at a point where you can make so much more of difference now, and have a much longer, healthier, happier life. You will be more able to travel, enjoy family and social activities and become more present and involved in the world around you. At some point, the excess weight that is inconvenient can turn you into a shut-in as I am now, due to a stroke brought on by high blood pressure brought on by excess weight brought on by lack of control over my stomach's desire to hijack my brain. If I can encourage you to do anything, it would be to find a private moment alone with your thoughts and without distraction. You are grown and no doubt smart and capable in many ways. Take on the devil on your shoulder and you be the one in control of your health and your future by being in control of you dietary choices, against all odds. How would you encourage someone else who is two weeks behind you in this journey? This is one time in your life where you MUST NOT get tired of being strong. You deserve to be healthy and happy and active, but good health will not come knocking on your door. You are going to have to chase it down and put your name on it. Please don't think of the pre-op liquid phase as a burden to bear. It is a right of passage and will be over in a few days. After you have your surgery, you will learn by doing and become quite adept at making smart choices and weighing and measuring and tracking. You can look forward to becoming a champion at this, well able to encourage others with confidence. I cannot believe that come Christmas, I will pass my first year since my sleeve surgery. There were rough spots to be sure, and times when I thought I am not losing fast enough, but the scale keeps going downward, and I will take that as a good thing. Keep your chin up and trust in yourself to do a great job at this. You can always come here for encouragement when you are having a dark day.

Hugs.....welcome aboard.

Some people are off their BP meds before they leave the hospital, but not me. I am 8 1/2 months out and still on my full dose of a three-med combination. I think my pcp wants me to be far enough below the weight I was when I had a stroke on 9/9/2010. I am only 13 pounds below that mark right now. That's OK. I was off of Metformin right away, and am at 1/2 dose of Lipitor. All in due time, I guess.

I had my sleeve on 12/23/2013 and was a size 22 /2XL at the time. During the holiday season, so many stores were having deep discounts up to 75% off, so I started buying up 8/10/12/14's so that I would have a few pieces in each size as I go down in weight. I am into my 12/14's now at 172 pounds. I really hesitate to buy anything smaller than an 8 until I see what size and shape I am as I get closer to goal. I have not weighed 135 since 1986, so I think at that point I will need to quit buying online and actually go out and try something on. My other biggest problem right now is that none of my wide shoes fit, and I do not want to buy shoes online.