JustWatchMe

Ok, I prepped and planted my veggie garden today. Small garden, so it took only 45 minutes. Yes, I was sweating and tired and sore (arthritis) when done, but when I calculated the calories burned on MyFitnessPal and another calc site, it came out to way more burned than a mile of walking does on the treadmill at 3.0 mph. I found this weird. Does anybody else consider gardening to be exercise? (Maybe because of all the bending and digging.....?)

Yes, yes it was. Delightful.

My gas pains were from the air injected into the abdominal cavity for surgery, not intestinal gas. So Gas-X was useless for me. Walking helped, and for shoulder pain, karate chops a few times a day. It took most of a week for the gas to be reabsorbed into the tissues.

Noise and diarrhea are normal. If you can't tell if it's hunger or pain, it might be normal postop irritation, but if it gets worse instead of better each day, call your doc.

That's great to hear! Day by day, things will continue to get better. I'm so happy I made this decision. You have a new life ahead of you!

I found one! Online, at Blair. It came today, it FITS, it's not expensive, and it looks lovely on. I am promptly ordering another one a size down in the other color so I have something for the end of summer (see what I did there?). Here's the link: http://www.blair.com/p/womens/swimwear/slimming-swimdress/pc/1361/sc/1434/35909.uts# Don't I look adorable in it? Har!

Thin and not creamy.... Minestrone, strained? Mexican tortilla soup, strained? I discovered Chinese hot and sour soup this month and loved it.

Think of soups you normally like, buy them and strain them through a colander. Give your dog what's left or freeze it to make pureed soups for your next phase, or just toss them out. A can of soup isn't that wasteful, and you're only doing this temporarily. As for work, I absolutely had to have protein shakes handy, if you're allowed them. I prefer Atkins dark chocolate for work, and Unjury chocolate for home because I have to mix that one. Good luck!

Yes, it was definitely a special occasion. I think it's the first time I've ever gone there without ordering the Bloomin' Onion. And the portions are huge, which I never realized until I was monitoring my food. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I had the right portions. I have lobster maybe once a year, so the drawn butter won't be a recurring thing. LOL.

I dreamed about this meal (DINNER) while on my six-week post-op liquids phase. Granted, it's double the calories what my recent meals are lately (I'm trying to stay under 800 per day and usually succeed), but for the day yesterday, this brought me to 1,062, which I consider okay. This meal itself was 621. A lot? Yes. Worth it? Yes. I also brought home more than this as leftovers. My point is, if you use MyFitnessPal, just about everything is in there and you can easily plan ahead. This is steak and lobster and a wedge salad. I had moderate portions of each. I obviously will only be eating this way once in a blue moon, but yesterday the moon was blue, so there you go. (Note: the drawn butter killed the counts, but made the meal.)

Skinni(er) jeans! They're not skinny jeans, but I got a little bit skinnier, and these jeans I haven't worn for years fit today -- loosely! I'm also pulling blouses and tops from the back of my closet that fit again. I almost got rid of them about a year ago when I was depressed and needed closet space for bigger clothes. Thankfully, I never mustered the energy to go through the closet back then. I won't make the same mistake with my too-big clothes. Those are going to be donated pronto!

@ nailed it. I had a long post-op liquids phase by most standards (6 weeks), after a five day clear liquids pre-op. Talk about cleansing your system. It was hard, but doable. I'm glad it's over, but grateful for the benefits it gave me.

Ivyh, thanks for posting this, it's something I need to remember. Congratulations on your fantastic achievement!

Just discovered something new a minute ago. I had my lunch, nice small portions, no hiccup, no burp. I stopped anyway, since my lunch was measured out for work. I sat there and surfed the web on my phone for another fifteen minutes. Then I got up and walked over to my desk, sat down , and Burp! And Hiccup! LOL, a two-fer! I'm convinced that standing up and moving triggered those soft stops. So when in doubt, I can always stand up and sit down again.

A born scientist. I like to get creative in the kitchen. My family does not share my enthusiasm.

This is only my second day of solid food, but I've learned a lot in 24 hours. I have no fill yet, so some of this surprises me, and kind of makes me worry if my fill three days from now will make me too tight. But anyway, I feel the soft stops and it's amazing. The key is eating slowly. Way slower than I'm used to. At every meal so far, as soon as I feel anything at all, I stop for a minute. What I mean is, the first bunch of bites don't give me any feeling of "being there" in my esophagus or stoma. But then one bite suddenly will, if I listen for that sensation. If I do wait for a minute, I might or might not hiccup, or lightly burp. Soft stops!!! If not, I take another bite. If I feel its presence again, I'm getting to "done". Both times that I felt the soft stop, I could tell I was already satisfied and done. So that tells me I need to eat slowly enough for the soft stops to happen before I wolf all my food. I can't tell you how happy I am that I can feel these signals. I'm so glad I learned about them on this forum before my first day diving into solids. So far, no runny nose or watery eyes for me. Just the burp and hiccup, at two different meals.

LOL, love it, Martha!

Ddsweighin, don't stress over the weight gain. Perfectly normal the first month post-op. Stay on your eating plan and it will come off soon. Your body's been through a trauma, and it's healing. After the first three weeks I started to lose at a good pace. Two weeks post-op I developed a head and chest cold, and it hung on forever. I'm still coughing sometimes and I'm now six weeks post-op. I'm pretty sure the duration of this cold had something to do with being compromised by surgery, having a breathing tube, etc. I'm prone to bronchitis in the winter anyway. It's getting better, but slowly. If you're truly worried about any specific symptoms, call your doctor. Really! They can't help if you don't. But feeling generally lousy from time to time the first month is par for the course. For me, walking and lots of Water improved things. The days I felt crappy I was usually dehydrated and didn't realize it until I logged my calories, water and exercise in MyFitnessPal. Good luck.

My protocol required two meetings. I ended up doing three. Pay attention at the first one. For some reason I had interpreted his comments about stopping tv snacking as a gentle suggestion. At my second meeting the following month, he told me he wasn't signing off because I hadn't broken the snacking habit. Boy was I p!$$3d. I got mad, and then I got busy. I broke that habit by the next meeting. That was in November. I have not tv snacked since. Only afterwards did I understand that he was right. If I couldn't or wouldn't change that behavior, no way would I succeed at WLS. I didn't realize until then that this process really requires discipline on my part. No easy fix here.

Years of arthritis and obesity have done a real number on my knees. I get the cortisone shots in both knees three times a year, but this last time I stretched it to six months. Banded in March, I'm off NSAIDs for life now. Tylenol is a joke. But as I lose weight, it gets better. I've been walking on the treadmill 3.0 to 3.2 mph no incline without a problem. I bumped it to 3.5 for a few days this week and promptly lost my enthusiasm for exercise. LOL. I was trying to make my two miles go faster. One day I tried jogging at 4.0 and that lasted a minute. Too hard on my knees. Unlike TMF, I tried a regular bike a couple of weeks ago and my right knee screamed in pain with every up-bend, even without resistance. So I think knee pain is very individual. I do know one thing. If it hurts, stop doing it and try something different. Pain is not the same as being tired. Pain means stop.

These posts are both amazing! Congrats to all!

Congratulations! Take good care of yourself and keep us posted!

@@gowalking, you have gorgeous gams!

Doubts surface at every phase. But here's my experience so far. I'm feeling so much better than I did in February. I have energy, I sleep better, my skin looks good, I've stopped taking (%@? from (%@?-shovelers, and I know this was the best decision I've made in years. It hasn't been a cakewalk, but here's the thing. It HAS been better than any typical day of my overeating former life. By far. Good luck tomorrow and keep us posted!

"It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. Helps me get through my dreadmill, um, treadmill workout each day.