Justinh125

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?)

Hey, my surgeon's "first assist" had clearly stepped out to smoke a cigarette before my surgery then tried to blame it on me. I haven't smoked in years!!! No big deal. You'll be fine. People lie about smoking all the time apparently.

Fred, you are in good hands with Dr. Pop. He's done thousands of bariatric surgeries--it's all he ever does. He took good care of me and I haven't had any complications. Except that I have to keep changing my wardrobe because my waist is shrinking so fast!

Had mine at barix in Michigan with Dr Pop. The nice thing about barix is that its all they do. You get an awesome book with recipes and a bunch of other great info, nutrition counseling, etc. They pretty much let me dictate the speed of the process. They also scheduled my surgery at a specific date that I needed because I had a small window to get it done, and they made it work

I remember a time where a girl I thought I was going to marry left me for a guy 100lbs lighter. I'm not going to miss that crap at all.
She left me for a skinny little guy...maybe one day I'll be the skinny guy in the story.

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

Ooh, here's another good one: I was told to never chew gum again. But like 5 days after surgery, I totally got some gum and chewed it anyways. Oh yea, I was a rebel.

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

This is before, and today (around 16 months post-surgery.) See if you can tell which is which.

As someone who personally knows the scientists that first realized that Ghrelin had anything to do with being fat, I learned a lot about Ghrelin back in 1999 and 2000. (Google "Tschop Ghrelin"...you'll find the Nature paper that first demonstrated it.) At any rate, every pharmaceutical company has synthesized various ghrelin antagonists (they do the chemical opposite of,) but while these chemicals suppress ghrelin, they don't seem to change body composition very much. Instead, the body up-regulates many other hormones to make up the difference.
The thing is, it's entirely possible that there are other hormones produced by the stomach that haven't been understood or discovered yet. Prior to about 2000, the stomach wasn't considered an endocrine organ at all. So it's reasonable to think that VSG does more than just dramatically decrease ghrelin production. It certainly does that, but a pill that blocked ghrelin likely wouldn't have the same effect as VSG. If it did, many companies would have such a pill on the market by now.
While ghrelin is certainly very important in regulation of hunger and appetite, it's not the "smoking gun" per se. There are other hormones that have already been identified (like leptin, for example) that also regulate hunger, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if more are produced by the stomach that otherwise signal to the brain that it's "time to eat!" If you take out (most of) the stomach, those signals are also gone (among other things,) even if scientists haven't yet figured them out.

As someone who personally knows the scientists that first realized that Ghrelin had anything to do with being fat, I learned a lot about Ghrelin back in 1999 and 2000. (Google "Tschop Ghrelin"...you'll find the Nature paper that first demonstrated it.) At any rate, every pharmaceutical company has synthesized various ghrelin antagonists (they do the chemical opposite of,) but while these chemicals suppress ghrelin, they don't seem to change body composition very much. Instead, the body up-regulates many other hormones to make up the difference.
The thing is, it's entirely possible that there are other hormones produced by the stomach that haven't been understood or discovered yet. Prior to about 2000, the stomach wasn't considered an endocrine organ at all. So it's reasonable to think that VSG does more than just dramatically decrease ghrelin production. It certainly does that, but a pill that blocked ghrelin likely wouldn't have the same effect as VSG. If it did, many companies would have such a pill on the market by now.
While ghrelin is certainly very important in regulation of hunger and appetite, it's not the "smoking gun" per se. There are other hormones that have already been identified (like leptin, for example) that also regulate hunger, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if more are produced by the stomach that otherwise signal to the brain that it's "time to eat!" If you take out (most of) the stomach, those signals are also gone (among other things,) even if scientists haven't yet figured them out.

As someone who personally knows the scientists that first realized that Ghrelin had anything to do with being fat, I learned a lot about Ghrelin back in 1999 and 2000. (Google "Tschop Ghrelin"...you'll find the Nature paper that first demonstrated it.) At any rate, every pharmaceutical company has synthesized various ghrelin antagonists (they do the chemical opposite of,) but while these chemicals suppress ghrelin, they don't seem to change body composition very much. Instead, the body up-regulates many other hormones to make up the difference.
The thing is, it's entirely possible that there are other hormones produced by the stomach that haven't been understood or discovered yet. Prior to about 2000, the stomach wasn't considered an endocrine organ at all. So it's reasonable to think that VSG does more than just dramatically decrease ghrelin production. It certainly does that, but a pill that blocked ghrelin likely wouldn't have the same effect as VSG. If it did, many companies would have such a pill on the market by now.
While ghrelin is certainly very important in regulation of hunger and appetite, it's not the "smoking gun" per se. There are other hormones that have already been identified (like leptin, for example) that also regulate hunger, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if more are produced by the stomach that otherwise signal to the brain that it's "time to eat!" If you take out (most of) the stomach, those signals are also gone (among other things,) even if scientists haven't yet figured them out.

Ooh, here's another good one: I was told to never chew gum again. But like 5 days after surgery, I totally got some gum and chewed it anyways. Oh yea, I was a rebel.

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

Ooh, here's another good one: I was told to never chew gum again. But like 5 days after surgery, I totally got some gum and chewed it anyways. Oh yea, I was a rebel.

Sometimes I gulp instead of sip fluids. I'm a bad, bad man

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

As someone who personally knows the scientists that first realized that Ghrelin had anything to do with being fat, I learned a lot about Ghrelin back in 1999 and 2000. (Google "Tschop Ghrelin"...you'll find the Nature paper that first demonstrated it.) At any rate, every pharmaceutical company has synthesized various ghrelin antagonists (they do the chemical opposite of,) but while these chemicals suppress ghrelin, they don't seem to change body composition very much. Instead, the body up-regulates many other hormones to make up the difference.
The thing is, it's entirely possible that there are other hormones produced by the stomach that haven't been understood or discovered yet. Prior to about 2000, the stomach wasn't considered an endocrine organ at all. So it's reasonable to think that VSG does more than just dramatically decrease ghrelin production. It certainly does that, but a pill that blocked ghrelin likely wouldn't have the same effect as VSG. If it did, many companies would have such a pill on the market by now.
While ghrelin is certainly very important in regulation of hunger and appetite, it's not the "smoking gun" per se. There are other hormones that have already been identified (like leptin, for example) that also regulate hunger, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if more are produced by the stomach that otherwise signal to the brain that it's "time to eat!" If you take out (most of) the stomach, those signals are also gone (among other things,) even if scientists haven't yet figured them out.

As someone who personally knows the scientists that first realized that Ghrelin had anything to do with being fat, I learned a lot about Ghrelin back in 1999 and 2000. (Google "Tschop Ghrelin"...you'll find the Nature paper that first demonstrated it.) At any rate, every pharmaceutical company has synthesized various ghrelin antagonists (they do the chemical opposite of,) but while these chemicals suppress ghrelin, they don't seem to change body composition very much. Instead, the body up-regulates many other hormones to make up the difference.
The thing is, it's entirely possible that there are other hormones produced by the stomach that haven't been understood or discovered yet. Prior to about 2000, the stomach wasn't considered an endocrine organ at all. So it's reasonable to think that VSG does more than just dramatically decrease ghrelin production. It certainly does that, but a pill that blocked ghrelin likely wouldn't have the same effect as VSG. If it did, many companies would have such a pill on the market by now.
While ghrelin is certainly very important in regulation of hunger and appetite, it's not the "smoking gun" per se. There are other hormones that have already been identified (like leptin, for example) that also regulate hunger, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if more are produced by the stomach that otherwise signal to the brain that it's "time to eat!" If you take out (most of) the stomach, those signals are also gone (among other things,) even if scientists haven't yet figured them out.

As someone who personally knows the scientists that first realized that Ghrelin had anything to do with being fat, I learned a lot about Ghrelin back in 1999 and 2000. (Google "Tschop Ghrelin"...you'll find the Nature paper that first demonstrated it.) At any rate, every pharmaceutical company has synthesized various ghrelin antagonists (they do the chemical opposite of,) but while these chemicals suppress ghrelin, they don't seem to change body composition very much. Instead, the body up-regulates many other hormones to make up the difference.
The thing is, it's entirely possible that there are other hormones produced by the stomach that haven't been understood or discovered yet. Prior to about 2000, the stomach wasn't considered an endocrine organ at all. So it's reasonable to think that VSG does more than just dramatically decrease ghrelin production. It certainly does that, but a pill that blocked ghrelin likely wouldn't have the same effect as VSG. If it did, many companies would have such a pill on the market by now.
While ghrelin is certainly very important in regulation of hunger and appetite, it's not the "smoking gun" per se. There are other hormones that have already been identified (like leptin, for example) that also regulate hunger, and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if more are produced by the stomach that otherwise signal to the brain that it's "time to eat!" If you take out (most of) the stomach, those signals are also gone (among other things,) even if scientists haven't yet figured them out.

Back when I was consuming copious amounts of various hallucinogens, I heard somewhere that aspartame caused hallucinations if you consumed enough of it. Some friends and I went to one of those bulk stores and purchased an enormous amount of it. We all took the equivalent of maybe a few hundred packets of the stuff each.
Unfortunately, nothing interesting happened at all. One of my friends got diarrhea. That was the most interesting thing that happened. No hallucinations at all. Not even an acid flashback.

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!