momohime

I've always measured my food and stopped myself since surgery. In my experience, that full feeling means I'm about to have a bad time.

I dunno.. my surgeon's office told me to expect it to take a little while to get approval. It was almost a month before I got the good news. Sucks to wait, but I wouldn't necessarily worry. Insurance companies like to take their sweet time apparently..

Channel all that energy in a different direction. Be proud of the 60 pounds you have lost and continue to move forward! Stressing over what could have been doesn't get you anywhere. Instead of constantly weighing yourself, try to get in the habit of logging your food and exercise. Keep an honest account of what you're doing daily and try to find a way to stay on the downward slope, even if there are a few bumps along the way.

Could be acid.. that's what mine "hunger pang" feeling was early on. I had to stay on my PPI for about 4 months before the feeling finally went away. Now my hunger indicator is completely different.. it's not a pang type of feeling at all. You can ask your surgeon or your PCP about it and they might prescribe one for you to try, or you can try something over the counter if you want. A prescription dose will be about 3x stronger than what is recommended OTC though.

Spanx has a cheaper brand available in Target and other department stores called Assets. I've tried the kind that are just like high waisted panties and the kind that have the legs too. I hate them both. Even with the little grippy plastic strip at the top, they want to roll down at least once. Where mine hit me when it was up was just at the right spot for the band to squeeze across my tummy. I swear that I had more problems with acid whenever I was wearing it because of that. They usually come with a strap that can attach to your bra to prevent rolling, but it's a pain in the butt to use and mostly just pulls your bra down. Also, Lord help you if you really have to pee cause you're going to have an accident. They're hard enough to get up/down on their own, but if the straps are attached too and the mood strikes.. Godspeed. Even with a larger size, I still have to basically do jumping jacks to get them up and down. I don't think the slimming effect is noticeable enough to make the hassle of it worth it. They do help keep things in place when you bend over.. other than that, I couldn't tell much difference though. If I was going to invest in another shaper, I'd try the cami. At least then I could go to the bathroom without the trouble of getting it down and back up.

I'm actually not sure if I had a catheter during surgery.. I didn't wake up with one, but that doesn't necessarily mean I never had one. I did have difficulty emptying my bladder for the first two days or so immediately after my operation. It was just so SLOW, if at all. My surgeon said it was normal following surgery and should go away.. and it did. It was really annoying though. @@jjinWA, As far as catheter use goes.. Most hospitals now have CAUTI prevention plans, to decrease the amount of catheter associated UTIs that occur. Hospitals are not reimbursed for any fees associated with CAUTIs, so catheter use has significantly decreased. A catheter is supposed to be pulled as early as possible because extended use is a huge infection risk. That's why you may never know (unless you ask!) that you had one during surgery. If an MD wants catheter use to be continued, they have to write a specific order for it. Some unit protocols make it necessary for those orders to be written daily. Because it's such a huge issue, a lot of MDs no longer place them if they don't expect a procedure to last very long.

There's pretty much no way that you can NOT lose some muscle mass along the way. It doesn't make it "unwise" because things are redistributed. When I was at my highest weight, 260, about 132 of those pounds were lean body mass and the rest was fat. I needed more muscle then because I was so heavy overall. Now my whole body weighs 132 pounds, ~100 of which is lean body mass and the rest is fat. That puts me around 23% body fat, at a healthy BMI, etc for my height and current weight. I don't need to still be 132 pounds of lean body mass because I have less weight to carry around on my frame. Yes, I lost muscle.. but no, that alone is not bad. It's normal for my current size. (It is very important to get your protein/vitamins in daily because, while you can't completely stop losing lean muscle mass along the way, you do want to minimize it as much as possible so you're not "skinny fat".) Yes, my BMR is lower than what it was when I was heavy. It's not because of all the muscle I lost, it's because I'm generally just smaller. And my numbers at the side are slightly misleading.. I was 260 at my highest pre-op, but I lost 30 pounds by day of. I'm almost to 100 pounds lost post-op after >7 months. Still though, my surgeon (and everyone else for that matter!) is very proud.

Yep, your goal is totally achievable! You can definitely do it.

I didn't have a pre-op diet to follow either really. My surgeon just wanted me to lose at least 10 pounds in my 6 months of medically supervised diet visits that insurance required. Then, just like you, no food after a certain time the night before surgery.

Wherever you have stretch marks, don't be surprised if you have loose skin in those areas too. It may or may not firm up some with time/exercise/moisturizers/etc, but it's probably never going to look like it wasn't stretched at some point. The areas where I didn't have stretch marks bounced back pretty well, but wherever I had them is a hot mess. Basically, my body now looks much like my body before.. only smaller and less full. All the rolls I had prior to surgery are still there, they're just no longer filled with fat like they previously were. It's definitely not perfect, but even still.. it's a vast improvement!

Yeah.. Diet Pepsi was what I missed the most, but I'm kinda over it now. After some of the previous experiences I've had with food, I don't think the carbonation would be pleasant anyway.

Honestly, I still don't feel normal. I feel normal-er.. but, I dunno. I think it's mostly just a head thing. While I'm much happier to be smaller, going out to eat with friends can still be a challenge for me. If I'm not careful, I can make myself sick very easily. It draws attention that I definitely don't like. I've had several friends comment that I don't eat much.. Not that I'm saying any of this to try to discourage you! Like most other people, I would make the same choice over and over.. at least now I go out to eat with friends instead of avoiding them completely like I did before because I was so ashamed of myself. True, it's not all sunshine and roses.. but still, no real regrets. Sometimes I feel like I'll just always need something to complain about.

When you reach whatever your goal weight is, you start working on maintenance. It's part of your MD/NUT's plan too! You just might get to that stage a little earlier (or later -- all depends on you!) than some. I can see where it might be possible to lose a little more weight than you intended if you up your calories slowly when you start maintenance, but.. I don't think you should worry too much about going from a size 12 to a size 4 if that's not what you want.

I think people mean the right thing (that the same weight in muscle is smaller than the same weight in fat), they just don't say it the right way. It's just an idiom that comes out all wrong sometimes. Kinda like how a lot of people say, "I could care less" about things.. You know what general idea they're trying to get across, but they say it backwards from what it really should be.

Don't really have a good answer for you, but I'm in a similar boat.

Oddly enough, drink more water! Easier said than done, I know.. especially if you're already drinking that much in a day. More Water in = more sodium/excess fluids out though.

My surgeon told me I could stop crushing at my 2 week post-op appointment. Of course, he knew all my meds were small gelcaps so that may or may not have had something to do with it. Still though.. best day ever.

Your hair growth cycle can be interrupted just from the shock of surgery, so even if you do everything right you still might see more loss than you're used to. To minimize it, make sure you get at least your minimum amount of Protein in daily from the start. Take your Vitamins every day. I know this sounds like common sense/easy advice to follow, but the first month or so can be difficult! Some people say extra Biotin helps too. I didn't start feeling like I was losing more hair than usual until about 3-4 months out. I was the only one that noticed.. I had my mom, boyfriend, and best friend look at my scalp multiple times and they couldn't tell anything was different. Now at 6 months, it seems like things have reverted back to normal. That's even after getting my hair colored! I stressed about it at the time after seeing all these extra huge hair balls in the bathtub, but it honestly hasn't been that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

1 ounce is 30 mLs, so 50 mLs is just shy of 2 ounces.

My stomach felt like it was gnawing at itself for a little while after surgery, even while I was taking omeprazole. It wasn't hunger though, it was acid. It was really prevalent for the first 4 months for me. It felt very similar to what I thought hunger felt like though, for sure. Now I have no problems and still don't actually get hungry.

Your stomach isn't fully healed. I dunno if you've ever binged on anything dry and pointy like Cap'n Crunch that's cut your mouth up or had a Dorito get wedged underneath your gum line.. but if you know what I'm talking about, that can happen to your sleeve. Imagine your stomach now -- the protective layer it had has been cut completely through, you've got a huge row of staples/healing tissue still exposed to not only stomach acid but whatever you eat. It takes at least six weeks for that incision to heal, and even then it might not be completely healed. Crunchy foods early on can cause problems. They can do the same things that they do to your mouth, only a healing incision is much more vulnerable. I don't think you would've posted if you didn't already know in the back of your mind that you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. Stop making excuses and/or looking for approval for bad behavior. And if you need to get out of the house, go! There's nothing stopping you. Get a cute new Water bottle and take it with you wherever you go so you can get your daily Fluid in. Also, look for new ways to be social that don't involve food. It's all a big adjustment, but you'll get used to it. You can do it!

You're two weeks out and already feeling "sheltered"? You're being normal.. the normal old you that got to 255 pounds. If you want things to be different, you actually have to be different from what your normal was and start following your new plan. Make yourself a new normal! Your sleeve alone won't do all the work for you, so take this seriously. You've already done the hardest part. All you need to do now is just stick with it!

I've averaged about that much per month since my surgery (I was 233 day of surgery and now ~6 months out I'm 140). The only reason I wish it had maybe happened a little slower is because I think my skin might have handled the loss slightly better.. but I dunno, maybe not. I'm still happy and my surgeon is super proud of me!

Don't worry about it too much. How much restriction you have really depends on the type of food you're eating! Some things you might not even be able to eat at all for a while.. finding out what those foods are is the only unfortunate part.

Really soft foods like mashed potatoes go through incredibly easy and probably won't make you feel full, especially if you eat over a 40 minute period. Eating to "feel full" isn't very reliable, so I would measure/portion your food beforehand. My NUT recommended eating 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of food for the first six months (for reference, the lean cuisine you had was a little over 2 cups) and that's what I've stuck to. Can I eat more than that? Yes, definitely.. but I don't. I'm not hungry afterwards, so it's not much of a problem. I just had to learn to limit myself.