John.L

Hey guys! It's been about 8 months since my sleeve and I'm down 96 pounds from my pre-sleeve weight. The food is still a struggle sometimes, but thankfully the sleeve is a great tool at keeping me in-line. I love to eat and breaking the habit of wanting to gorge on something tasty is tough! Anyways, I've just bought my first bicycle since my youth and as my first hard exercise since the sleeve, I rode almost 15 miles yesterday. I felt like such a boss and it was so much fun! I have some pretty major lower back issues, and running (or any other "bouncy" activity) makes my looseness bounce too which is very uncomfortable and unsightly, so cycling seemed like the perfect solution. I think picking up a new, fun, hard exercise will jump start the rest of my loss to get down to my goal weight. Speaking of which ... I don't even know what my goal should be! I originally put 225 in for my goal here, but I feel like I could lose more, but I don't know what my "ideal weight" should be. I've never been a healthy weight before. I'm 6' tall. If I could crack into the 1's that would be amazing, but I don't know if it's realistic with my body frame.

Wow! Great work! I hope I can get to that point too!

It's been a little while since I've visited the forums, but I wanted to check back and share some success! My surgery was July 31, at 350 lb, and as of today I'm at 292, which puts me at a BMI of 39.6, under the 40 cutoff for morbid obesity! I'm so excited! The last week I've bought some new clothes and it feels good to throw the old ones away, although I'm keeping a few for some before/after stuff. I'm right on the border of being able to shop at more "normal" clothing stores, and I can't wait. I'm eating pretty much everything now, nothing hurts at all and I feel as normal as I can, but if I try to cheat or eat too much, my body punishes me, and I like that. My old habits can't come back. My wife loves that we can share meals now because it helps her to eat less too. My 4-year old even out-eats me! It's really great. I'm so glad I made this choice to get the surgery. Even self-paying it at just under $20,000, I feel like it was the best investment I've made in myself. My next goal is to get a total of 100 lb down by the end of the year. I'll be ramping up the activity to help with that, and my caloric intake has been fine I think. Anyways, I'm typing this right before bed, and shortly after the period of time where I take my nightly sleep meds, including Ambien, so how it feels like I;m kind of all over the place. So I guess I'll end it with that. Good to see you all again!

I do get hungry, and I do miss being able to eat like I used to sometimes, but it's not been a significant problem at all. I do eat my favorite foods still sometimes, just drastically smaller portions. I get full so quickly and sometimes I wish I could keep eating because of how good something tastes, but I can't and I'm glad I can't! It's helped me to develop good habits. And as far as hunger goes, I never feel like I'm not getting enough food, and the cravings are much less than what they used to be.

It's been a little while since I've visited the forums, but I wanted to check back and share some success! My surgery was July 31, at 350 lb, and as of today I'm at 292, which puts me at a BMI of 39.6, under the 40 cutoff for morbid obesity! I'm so excited! The last week I've bought some new clothes and it feels good to throw the old ones away, although I'm keeping a few for some before/after stuff. I'm right on the border of being able to shop at more "normal" clothing stores, and I can't wait. I'm eating pretty much everything now, nothing hurts at all and I feel as normal as I can, but if I try to cheat or eat too much, my body punishes me, and I like that. My old habits can't come back. My wife loves that we can share meals now because it helps her to eat less too. My 4-year old even out-eats me! It's really great. I'm so glad I made this choice to get the surgery. Even self-paying it at just under $20,000, I feel like it was the best investment I've made in myself. My next goal is to get a total of 100 lb down by the end of the year. I'll be ramping up the activity to help with that, and my caloric intake has been fine I think. Anyways, I'm typing this right before bed, and shortly after the period of time where I take my nightly sleep meds, including Ambien, so how it feels like I;m kind of all over the place. So I guess I'll end it with that. Good to see you all again!

Well, luckily for me the pain has all but disappeared now that I'm 10 days out. I read a lot of stories on here about people having minor pain, or even nothing but a little soreness, so I wondered if something was wrong. I haven't had to take the pain or nausea medicine in 4 days now. I've not been able to find a Protein shake that I could tolerate yet, and I've been through probably 7 or 8 different ones now. I've also tried a few "real people" foods and have had good success. I started with some tomato basil Soup, then some egg whites with milk, blended chili, oatmeal, egg whites with cheese, and most recently I've survived some ground beef with taco seasoning and cheese. This is finally allowing me to hit my protein targets, and thankfully I have tolerated it all perfectly well! I have a lot more energy and I can feel the "fullness" trigger and identify it. This was my biggest concern post-op was if I'd be able to stop myself from eating too much of something. I think something that helped is that we got these little bowls that can only hold about 4 ounces of food, and that's what I measure into them. It's hard to not just hoover an entire plate of my favorite things, but i'm learning to slow down, fully chew and try to enjoy each bite without thinking about the next one. I can make it take about 15 minutes to eat it all which seems to be a sweet spot for avoiding the "ate too fast" pain and still feeling full after it. I'm finally feeling more like a normal person and I've lost about 30 pounds so far. I'll update again later but I thought I would share my post-op progress with anyone looking for someone else's perspective!

Everything went great, but to be honest, for me it was kind of painful. Thankfully the nurses were excellent and really on top of the pain medication when needed. It seems like for some, the pain was almost nonexistent so you may get that experience too! The night in the hospital I didn't sleep much, mainly just dozing off for an hour or two here and there, but it was fine. It's just hard for me to sleep in those conditions. I slept a lot more when I got home the next night.

Sleeve was done Thursday, just checking back in! I'm down a total of 21 pounds in the last 7 days (from liquid diet start time to now). I don't expect that rate to continue, but it is nice to see a jump start for encouragement. The pain I had post-op was very significant and I'm still taking the liquid painkiller medicine a few times a day, but it is much less than it was before. I've still not found a way to hit the protein target. I got some Gatorade G-series protein drinks that are 16 oz and 15g of protein, and they don't taste great but don't make me gag. I'm going to check out some other options again at the store tomorrow and see if I can find anything better. My wife made some tomato basil soup tonight that I had about 1/4 cup of and it was amazing! I couldn't decide if it was satisfying my pizza or spaghetti craving, but either way it really hit the spot. I'm looking forward to being able to eat something tangible like eggs, but I feel like the nausea finally leaving me is starting a "light at the end of the tunnel" towards the next phase.

The post-op pain is rough, not gonna lie. The gas apparently is really a big source of pain for me. Thankfully the pain meds help some. I am so thirsty! My throat and mouth are completely raw. How did everyone else fare on their sleeve?

Checked in now, just waiting to go in for op! Very nervous!

Well, I am self-pay so there was no insurance hoops to jump through. My initial consultation with Dr. Minkin til surgery day (tomorrow!) was only a couple of weeks. I did all of my pre-op testing last week and everything came back good, and I attended a pre-op nutritional meeting about a week ago as well.

You can do this! You are so close! You still have 5 days before your weigh-in. It may be a miserable 5 days but if you eat right (and cheat the scale a bit by avoiding fluids and stuff the day before), you can totally do that! Make sure to post back on Monday with your success and due date!

I'm definitely anxious and I've had a few morbid thoughts. There are obviously things that can go wrong with the procedure, but my doctor had a good analogy. Driving on the highway to get to the hospital is just as dangerous as the surgery will be for me. I try to keep it all in perspective. The foods I was eating and life I was living was damaging my health and the surgery is putting the odds in my favor. As far as the diet goes, it's been grueling and I have no energy (I went cold turkey on caffeine too, used to drink diet coke like a madman). I'm very thankful that it's only 3 days and I'm approaching the end of it. I've spent a lot of time napping and trying to find other things to pass the time so I wouldn't think about food. Hang in there. It is perfectly normal to be nervous!

Congratulations!! This is one joy I didn't get to experience. Unfortunately my insurance has a specific exclusion so I'm self-pay. I would have jumped through any hoops I could to get them to pay for it, but instead we're putting a gigantic dent in our savings. I can't imagine how excited you are to finally get the approval. I hope the rest of the process goes smoothly for you!

Wow, small world! It's nice to hear that I chose a good program. Dr Minkin seems to really know his stuff and he put my wife and I at ease during our consultation. I hope to be discharged sometime on Friday if everything goes well, but if I see you there I'll say hello!

I don't know if I could survive 2 weeks. I'm in day 3 of 3 and the cravings are still very much alive and punishing me!

Mine is tomorrow too! Check in at 7:15 AM (yuck). Good luck to everyone!

I feel like such a baby! My pre-op liquids diet is only 3 days. My surgery is on Thursday, but today's hunger has been brutal! I've had 5 servings of Protein shake, probably 100 oz of Water, some sugar free pudding and unsweetened apple sauce and I'm still thinking about nothing but food. Was it this hard for anyone else? The reasonable part of my knows it's only a few days, but the life-long eater in me wants to go cheat and cross my fingers that it's not a big deal! Anybody have any tips for dealing with the hunger?

Hope your procedure goes well! I'll check back tomorrow!

I've managed to get by and not cheat! There were a lot of opportunities I had to sneak something in, but I decided if I can't even make it 3 days, how am I going to make it a lifelong change? It's tough, but I know why I'm doing this and I want to do it right. I've had some monstrous headaches (possibly due to caffeine elimination) and a big lack of energy as well. Surgery is tomorrow though, so I'm almost there!

Best of luck! Mine is on Thursday ... I can't wait!

Hey everyone! I just got my pre-op tests done and am still on-course for a July 31st sleeve. I'm trying to get my new diet stuff lined up and wanted to see if anyone has recommendations on Protein powder or other liquid items. Is it OK if they are sweetened? Does it matter if it's real or artificial sweetener? I'm not diabetic if that matters. Also, can anyone recommend anything else in particular that might make the liquid phase easier? I'm open to all suggestions! I really love food so I want to try to make the liquid phase as tolerable as possible with high-quality/tasty products!

Do you all order your Protein supplements online or do you pick them up in stores? I'm going to try to find some I like before the surgery so it's one less thing to worry about later!

My pre-op diet is only for three days, with nothing after midnight the night before. My guess is that some patients might benefit more from certain pre-op precautions? I want to do everything I can to make this go smoothly so I'll follow his advice to the letter!

Good for you John! Where are you having it done? My procedure will be done in St. Louis at Des Peres Hospital by Dr Darin Minkin!