Justinh125

I can't keep it to myself anymore. This surgery works if you do what they tell you to do. I'm living proof. I hate doing what doctors tell me to do. But even I can follow the directions they give me. So I did. And lo and behold, it worked!!! I'm lighter than I've been in years and my belt buckle is tighter than it's been in years!!!!

You know what? I'm WINNING!!! It is WORKING!!! And that makes me very, very happy.

It's like over time it gets better and better. It's not just that my waist is shrinking and that's cool. It's also that I become more and more comfortable with small, healthy portions of food instead of the huge meals I used to eat.

I met with my surgeon for my 6-week followup yesterday, and in addition to loosing 31% of my excess weight (by insurance definitions) I'm feeling great! I had some tasty grilled chicken for lunch today (probably around 4oz.)...it was delicious and filling. How cool!!! I had that small meal and didn't feel a need to have more...

Here's the thing: there's a lot of calories in alcoholic beverages, and it's not like it's healthy calories...just "empty" calories. Next, alcohol (especially hard liquor) can irritate the lining of your stomach...something you don't want right after surgery.

Once it heals a bit, I think what many of the others are saying is true: probably a small amount in moderation is ok. Remember, it will get into your bloodstream faster...so make sure to drink accordingly...you might get drunker than expected otherwise.

The other thing is that many of the recommendations are adopted from instructions they give gastric bypass patients. Obviously, for us our intestines aren't getting re-arranged, so many of those guidelines aren't as important. For example, my surgeon explicitly told me I can have coffee and that the "no coffee" rule is just for his gastric bypass patients.

It was a hard habit to break. For me, sometimes I have to chose less spicy food because no Water to wash it down.

As you probably know, A1c levels are a measure over time...a 3 month average so to speak. Work on keeping your blood glucose down and the number will drop.

I know I shouldn't be thinking like this, but I just can't shake it tonight. I understand that as a society we're not supposed to judge people by their size, and I don't think I ever did. Many of the women I've dated were larger, and I loved them and thought they were absolutely beautiful and sexy exactly the way they were.

Unfortunately, if a woman is content with her size/shape, she's considered "empowered." If she wants her guy to quit being fat and get in shape, nobody seems to think twice. So I've had a string of 3 women, all who were over 300lbs, and all whom I loved and found extremely attractive, and they all left me for super-skinny guys. We're talking guys where you can see their ribcage. Three women in a row. And I wouldn't have even mentioned their size other than it felt slightly hypocritical that they wanted me to accept them for who they were as larger people, but could never accept me for who I was as a larger guy....

So here I am again....3 serious relationships, and they all ran off with Mr. Skinny guy....

I know if I keep this up, I'll be skinny like those guys they left me for....but still it's frustrating to be on the receiving end of that.

That's comforting.... it's just that I can feel my stomach contract strongly when it happens, and it is sometimes sore afterwards. When I see my doc next month, I'll have to see what he says about it. I would love to hear any other thoughts on the topic.

If it is any consolation, your stomach isn't sore. If it was your stomach that was sore, the pain after your surgery would be unimaginable. After all, they literally cut off the vast majority of it. The stomach doesn't have pain receptors of the kind that your skin or other parts of your body has. It cannot "feel" pain in that way.

Instead, you likely feel pain from the muscles that contract when you vomit. For most people, those muscles are rarely, if ever used. So it's normal that on the occasion that you vomit, those muscles will be sore...just like if you did some other exercise working a group of muscles you don't normally use. Since they are muscles in your abdomen and around your stomach, that's where you will feel the pain. But all is well. The soreness will dissipate.

I asked this exact question. They said it wasn't dangerous at all, but your surgeon may say otherwise. I've vomited a few times where I overate, and nothing bad happened at all. The things they use to create the sleeve can endure far more than the muscle contractions caused by vomiting.

You'll be fine Remember that God blessed your surgeon with the skills to do a good job on you. One second you are asleep, and the next you are already done.

Justin have you considered seeing another doctor?

Why would I want to do that? I think my surgeon did a great job and I'm thrilled with the results...even better than he advertised.

I gain 10lbs just from the i.v fluids alone!!! My surgery weight was 228, my post-op weight (just a few hours later) on the same scale was 238!!!

So don't worry so much about fluids...they can come and go a lot through the course of a day.

I should add on that no matter how large your liver is, your doc could do the procedure as open surgery, but it would greatly cut into your healing time. You really, really want your surgeon to be able to complete the thing laproscopically.

Awesome. Just keep eating healthy, and move your body (within the limits your doc. sets.)...and I'm sure the results will keep coming.

So when your body is in a "positive energy balance," meaning calories in < calories out, your body stores the excess in 2 ways: fatty tissue, and in your liver. When your body is in an negative energy balance (the opposite,) your liver will usually burn up its store of "stored energy" before your body burns fat tissue. So by being in a huge negative energy balance, you are forcing your liver to release its stored up energy, and hopefully in the process helping it shrink so your surgeon can safely and correctly do the procedure.

I know it isn't fun, but that's really why they want you to do it....the smaller your liver, the better.

And as an addendum, I doubt any of us really enjoyed the pre-op diets our doctors made us do. At least for me, I got to be so large I needed bariatric surgery because I love to eat. So I did. For many, many years I ate and ate and ate, and it eventually turned me into a very large man.

So I wasn't really excited at all when I was told I'd have to go on a "liquid only" diet to prepare for surgery. Especially because "liquid" doesn't normally consist of a large pizza plus a few pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream...at least not according to my doctor.

So most of us know how that feels. And while I agree that "most" people that haven't struggled with their weight don't know what it's like to be as hungry as I used to get, I would respectfully argue that I DO know what it's like. I promise it's worth it

Put the work in now and think of it as an investment in your future. If they're concerned about your liver, ask what you can/should do to help shrink your liver before surgery. I know it's not easy. It wasn't easy for me...I hated every minute of it, but I kept reminding myself about the payoff. And the payoff is worth it!!! You're going to be blown away when you have a tiny portion of food and feel like you've eaten a buffet!!!

And you'll love it when your pants fall down because your waist keeps shrinking....and then you'll look back on that (pain in the a&*&) diet and remember that it was worth it

Back when I was a distance runner in high school, the week before the state finals our coach would put us through "hell week." It would be the most brutal, intense, painful workouts of the entire season, and we all would feel like our bodies had been beat down by industrial machines.

But when the state finals would start, suddenly we found we were all running the fastest 5K of our lives....most of us posted the best times we'd ever done, and were full of energy.

I guess the point is that "hell week" wasn't even slightly fun. But it was worth the payoff to run the best race of my life. I didn't enjoy the liquid diet at all, but I saw it as the food equivalent of "hell week," and I just saw my doc today, and I've already lost 31% of my "excess weight"...a very large amount relative to what they usually see at 6 weeks.

So I'd say my food equivalent of "hell week" was totally worth it. To use a quote I used to say to the freshmen on our team: Pain is temporary, pride is forever.

Anyone puréed cheesecake ? I'd love some cheesecake.

Would you really have to puree it much? Maybe just the crust would have be pureed. Mmmm.cheesecake.....

Yeah, I see my surgeon on Monday for my 6-week follow-up anyways, so I'll talk to him about exercising (more than walking) then. Not worth jiggling organs around, though I'll have to do it next time my friends go, it sounds awesome.

Plus, the skin around my abdomen is really loose, so I don't know if it would just shake all over the place or what. It used to be firm, but not anymore. (TMI?)

Doesn't sound like much to me at all. I eat much more than that every day and I'm rapidly loosing weight.

Note: I don't have stitches anymore. They either dissolved or the skin is healed over. Not sure if that makes a difference.

Some friends are going to play trampoline dodge ball tonight. On the one hand, it sounds like fun, but on the other hand, I'm not even 6 weeks post-op. Think I've healed enough to bounce around on trampolines?

Hey, that's a big accomplishment too!! Don't short-change yourself. Try to remember the healthy things you've been doing to get to this point (your best in 4 years!) ... and keep up the good work.

Be sure to check your state's laws. Some states do not honor living wills, and require other types of documents. Other states won't honor your advance directives while you are being worked on in surgery.

I burped all the time anyways before surgery. I was told years ago it was because I had a hiatal hernia, but when they went in for surgery, it turns out there was no hernia. It was a phantom hernia. Of course, there's no good explanation for the GERD now....

Still burp, and it usually feels nice.