IcanMakeit

Love the purse. I'm glad you allowed yourself to have it. I totally understand how a beautiful handbag can brighten your day.

As a teenager I used to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches with maple syrup. I haven't thought about those in years, but I remember loving them.

I understand where you're coming from. I had planned on having my first glass of wine on Thanksgiving, since I would be over 6 months out, but I chickened out and decided to spend my calories on cake instead. I think I'll have wine at my company's Christmas dinner party next month and skip dessert.

I second the suggestion about rehydration. I suffered headaches until I was able to drink enough every day. Please discuss medications with your doctor. They warn against aspirin for a reason.

I missed this post until today. I'm so glad that you shared this beautiful story. I admire you for your strength and positivity. Go ahead and own that new, thinner self image. I hope you have an easy recovery from your surgery.

I was thrilled to see a weight below 140 (139.8 but that counts) for the first time in 15 years. I may have gone up a bit from that due to holiday eating, but I can see my goal weight as a near possibility. I am so thankful that my body is cooperating with me and releasing the fat relatively steadily.

I'm staying in a house at Lake Tahoe that has no scale, but I weighed in at 140 before I left home. I'll post again if that has changed when I get home on Saturday. I didn't go absolutely nuts foodwise yesterday, but I did eat some carbs. I'm hoping I won't see a gain.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family. We rented a cabin at Lake Tahoe and cooked a great traditional dinner. I had planned to have my first post surgery glass of wine (I'm 6 months out), but decided to save those calories for dessert instead. I'm glad I did. My daughter brought German chocolate cake. The food was great and I enjoyed cooking, but I could do no more than taste a bit of some of the foods and skipped a few high carb choices altogether. I ended the day just below 1100 cals, but my self-imposed limit was 1200, so I did ok. I hope everyone's holiday was just as great and you were able to enjoy your family time without discomfort.

After not dropping a size after losing many, many pounds, I am finally able to wear regular sizes and shop in regular stores. I've kind of gone crazy at Ross. And even though wise women on this site warned me not to, I bought a bunch of new clothes in sizes that quickly became too large. So now I need to clear my closet of not only my plus size clothes, but also some of my size L clothes, as well. It's a good thing I've been running wild at Ross rather than Nordstrom!

Best of luck to you. I'm sure you're missing your family and they are missing you, but you'll see very soon that it's worth it.

In high school and college, I danced, practiced, and exercised at least two hours and sometimes up to five hours most days of the week. With all that exercise (and youth), I could eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight. When I finished college, I got a 9 to 5 job and stopped working out altogether, but I didn't change my eating habits. I gained about 30 lbs in the year between my college graduation day and my wedding day. Later, I gained more weight during my two pregnancies, much of which stayed with me.

An interesting PowerPoint presentation which compared weight regain after different WLS's was posted by @MyBariatricLife yesterday: I was already glad that I chose the sleeve because I have two sisters who have experienced significant weight regain with the bypass, but this presentation makes a good case for choosing the VSG or the DS over the bypass. I see that the link did not work. The original post was titled "Does the patient fail the procedure or does the procedure fail the patient."

I'm so sorry you are suffering so severely and I hope your doctors can help you soon. I did not have the duodenal switch, nor were my symptoms as severe as yours, but I can relate to feeling like you made a colossal mistake. I felt that way until about week 8. Then the nausea went away and the constipation began to ease. Since then I have rarely gone a day without reflecting on how happy I am that I had WLS, and how grateful I am for my improved health.

I'm following this. I have a large container of flavorless protein powder that I would like to use. It was very expensive.

I am cooking a traditional Thanksgiving meal and my daughter will be bringing one of her excellent cakes. But I'm really not worried. I'm still in weight loss mode and am not really tempted to go too far off track. Luckily for me, I can cook and my husband is a professionally trained chef. I don't have to load up on holidays because I could have good food available to me anytime. So the holiday doesn't feel like an occasion to throw caution to the wind. I'll probably go above the normal day's intake, but not too seriously. This is what I hoped for when I got WLS: the ability to enjoy a taste without going overboard.

I'm sorry you had to go through all of that and I hope things get better for you from here out. You already know good nutrition supports good health. Now that you have dealt with such serious consequences of poor health, you are probably more motivated to get back on program than you would otherwise be. Since you adhered to your plan successfully before your illness, I think you should feel confident in your ability to get back on track. You have already shown yourself that you can do this.

While it seems unfair that you can do everything right and still not lose weight (at least for a while), remember that healthy eating habits and exercise make you stronger, more vibrant and more fabulous. It's totally worth it to persevere. Especially since you know that eventually your body will stop being so contrary and begin to release the weight again after it gets past whatever stupid thing is slowing the weight loss.

And this is why we need to hear from vets. So many people believe that once they lose weight, they can basically go back to "normal," forgetting that their "normal" is what caused them to need WLS. I have been thinking long and hard about how to do maintenance. Your way sounds about right.

You look marvelous. I am glad you stopped by to check in. It is very encouraging to those of us who are in earlier stages of our journeys to hear from vets like you. I wish more successful people could find time for sharing, but I understand how once you reach goal, you're on to other challenges and not so laser-focused on your weight.

I wasn't put on a pre-op diet at all, but on my own I was doing the same thing your doctor recommends for the five months preceding the surgery. I lost 42 lbs and had a very smooth surgery with no complications. Correlation does not equal causation but perhaps the two things are related? Maybe your doctor is on to something.

@@Mel_74 Are you me? At about the same point in my journey, I could have written your exact post. Everyone assured me at the time that all I had to do was stay on plan. They were right! Stay on plan and give your body the time it needs to adjust to the new program and you will see amazing results.

Thank you for sharing this. My sister is beating herself up because she has had a significant regain after RNY. This will help her understand the reasons and mechanisms.

I am 6 months out and can fudge a little on the 30 minutes before a meal part of the equation, but I need more than 30 minutes after a meal before I can drink comfortably. I guess you have to listen to your body to know what's right for you.

My restriction is still pretty strong. I am worrying about what my behavior will be when I no longer have it to lean on. I know I will start out by continuing to eat healthfully (that has been my pattern in the past), but I'm not confident in my ability to avoid drifting further and further from my healthy habits (because that has also been my pattern in the past). I don't want to end up, a couple of years down the road, hearing my doctor warn me about my weight.

In the first couple of months after surgery, I had trouble getting to 700 calories in a day. And now, 6 months out, I'm at about 800-900 calories on idle days and 900-1000 on exercise days. I worry that when I reach goal, I won't be able to raise my intake by much without gaining weight. My intake now is governed by my sleeve. I'm really not very hungry most of the time. What will happen when my restriction lessens and I am able to eat more? I'm not sure if I have really learned how to eat less or if I'm just eating less for now because I can hold less. My problem pre-surgery was not so much what I ate but more about how much I ate. I never felt full until I was stuffed. I know that my stomach has been greatly altered, but I fear that I'll return to that pattern in a year or so. I don't want to be on a diet for the rest of my life, but I'm afraid that when I allow myself more calories in maintenance, I'll slowly regress to my old, bad eating pattern.