JamieLogical

Acid reflux is VERY common in sleeve patients. My surgeon prescribes 40mg of Omeprazole daily for the first 2 months, then has patients go off of it to see how they do. I had to go back on it immediately and it looks like I will be on it for life. I never had consistent issues with reflux prior to surgery, just rare heart burn. I'm honestly not bothered by having to take the omeprazole daily, since I already have to take so many other Vitamins and supplements. What's one more?

Your sleeve will do nothing to restrict you from snacking all day. In fact, that's one of the primary ways of bypassing the restriction of the sleeve. Make sure you aren't drinking and eating at the same time and that you are always putting Protein first.

Any white discharge? That would be the main symptom.

@@missswizzlemalarkey I have 5 scars as well. The smallest one is in the center, just below my breast bone and is maybe the width of a pencil eraser. Two are low on either side of my belly button, the right one is maybe the width of a dime and the right is about the width of a quarter. To the left of that one is another one about the width of nickel. and the to the left of THAT and a little lower is where my drain hole was, which is round and about the size of a pencil eraser. I am 9 months out and all of my scars are still very visible, since I am fair-skinned and they are all still somewhat red. Once they've faded to silver/white, I think they will be less visible. You can see the four lower ones pretty well in this pic taken back in March... they haven't faded much since then: http://www.bariatricpal.com/uploads/gallery/album_22059/gallery_226192_22059_1908353.jpg Edit: Jeez... I need to take new progress pics. I've only lost like 10 pounds since those pics from March, but I can definitely see the difference!

Had my first 5k race on the 23rd. My finish time was pretty terrible, but I expected that, because I hadn't run for over 2 weeks prior to the race. I was on vacation from the 9th to the 17th. While I was on vacation, I bought a bunch of dresses (I've NEVER worn dresses), which meant buying new dress shoes to wear with them. The dress shoes TORE UP my feet in a serious way, so I couldn't run for that first week I was back either. I finished the race in exactly 42 minutes, 0 seconds, which is exactly the time I had predicted. I had originally hoped to finish in under 40 minutes, but I knew with not having run in a couple of weeks, it would take me a couple minutes longer. The good news is, I have moleskin all over my torn up feet now and I can run comfortably. So I ran this past Thursday and again yesterday. Hoping to keep running every other day and work on improving my time for my next race on June 20.

First of all, I love that your progress pic is in your workout clothes! Proves that you have made a big life change. Second of all, you are looking GREAT! Third of all, today is my 9 month surgeversary and I just posted about how I am thrilled with my 60 pound loss so far. I'm to the point where I am only losing about a half a pound a week now and I have 21 pounds to go to reach my ultimate goal, but I am just thrilled to be living my life right now. If I don't lose another pound, I can be content in knowing that my life is forever changed and improved.

Yeah. Only 11 pounds from my nutritionist's goal, which also happens to be the same as the lowest weight I've ever been as an adult (got down to 165 at one point after losing about 40 pounds when I was 23... I'm now 36). I'm 21 pounds from my personal goal of 155, which would put me at a "normal" BMI, but I don't know how optimistic I am about reaching that weight at this point. I would be beyond THRILLED to get down to 165. 155 seems more of like a "pi in the sky" kind of achievement, but we shall see. I guess if I do keep losing a half a pound or so a week, I could get to 155 in like another year, but it seems unlikely that I can keep losing even at the half pound per week level forever. Seems like you are doing really well too! 77 pounds in 8 months is a lot!

Fluids are not the same as solids. Many people don't experience much restriction with fluids, because they just pass right through your sleeve. Those who DO feel restriction with fluids do so only because of swelling. If you were able to watch your barium swallow test-post op, you would have seen an ounce or so of Fluid moving right through your sleeve in a matter of seconds. I got to watch mine and it was literally 2-3 seconds from the time the liquid entered my stomach to the time it passed through my pyloric valve. PS: as a general rule, you should be mixing juice with Water 50/50 post-op, not drinking it straight.

@@bikrchk I want to be clear that, past the restricted food phases, I never really felt deprived about WHAT I could eat (though I did miss some of my more high-carb favorites) as much as I felt deprived about HOW MUCH I could eat. It was very frustrating to me to sit down to a delicious meal of one of my favorite foods and only be able to eat a few bites. I had been a binge eater prior to surgery so, eating massive AMOUNTS of food had been a big source of comfort for me, along with just being able to eat a lot of something when I really enjoyed it. Let me give you an example. I used to LOVE lasagna. It was one of my absolute favorite foods. My in-laws always made a big lasagna dinner for Christmas. My parents, husband, and I would go over on Christmas evening and enjoy this large meal. I had my surgery on Sept 1, so this past Christmas, I was almost 4 months post-op. I was cleared to eat all foods by then, so that wasn't a problem. But of course, all I could actually manage to eat was the filling from maybe one square of lasagna. No noodles and obviously no garlic bread. I definitely felt deprived in that situation. All of my loved-ones around me partaking of one of my favorite foods and I could hardly eat any of it. Now, I don't think I'd feel that way. I've definitely come a long way since then in terms of accepting what I can eat, how much I can eat, and not depending on food so much in social situations. But it was definitely a period of adjustment for me.

For me that time came after some trial and error, once I was allowed solid foods. I eventually got to where I could eyeball the correct amount of food to eat without getting over-full, but it definitely took some practice. I would joke that my eyes were literally bigger than my stomach. I would say I was really good at it by maybe the 3 month mark?

I had to fly while on my pre-op diet, because I went to Mexico for my surgery. I brought individual protein powder packets and a collapsible funnel in my carry-op. I bought bottled water at the airport and used the funnel to pour in the protein powder. Since you will likely need more than one bottle of water on the plane, then maybe just keep asking the attendant for water and mix a little bit of protein in at a time, since those cups they give you on planes are tiny.

It can still be gas at 5 days out. I definitely experienced that sensation for a week or more. Don't remember exactly when it went away, but I know I still had it sometimes when I was home from surgery and I spent my first 4 days post-op in Mexico. So it was definitely 5+ days out and I was still having it.

As I have read many times on these forums, they perform surgery on your stomach, not your brain. Your emotional issues with food will remain post-op and that is something you will really struggle with and have to work on. In my early months, I often felt sad and frustrated that I could no longer turn to food for comfort. I also was disappointed when I could only eat a few bites of my favorite foods or not eat them at all. The good news is, I did adjust, both mentally and physically. Now I am 9 months out and I rarely feel deprived. But, yes, it is highly likely that you will deprived in the beginning and will have to make a lot of mental adjustments to go along with the physical changes.

Today is my 9 months surgeversary. I am thrilled to report that I am down 60 pounds from my surgery weight and 84 pounds from the 260 I weighed when I started working on losing weight pre-op. 60 pounds might not seem like a lot to some folks. I know there are people out there who lose that much in just a couple of months. But, for me, I am very very pleased. In the beginning, once it became clear I would be a "slow" loser, I was very frustrated. I had all the same thoughts and reactions that I see other slow losers having on these forums. Why did I have 80% of my stomach removed and undergo an expensive and potentially risky surgery to lose weight more slowly than I could on my own? Why is everyone else losing 10 pounds a week when I'm only losing 1 or 2? What am I doing wrong? Luckily, that mentality only lasted a couple of months for me. Eventually I realized that I wasn't in a race. I was losing weight and I would continue losing weight until I didn't need to lose anymore. It didn't matter when I got to my goal, so long as I got there eventually and was able to maintain it once I did. After all, that was the main reason I got WLS. Weight LOSS is the easy part. I've managed to lose weight on my own dozens of times. It's weight MAINTENANCE that was always the challenge for me. And now I am VERY confident that once I reach my goal, I will be able to maintain it much more easily than in the past. Now, 9 months out, I am quite content to just be losing about a half a pound a week. Every half pound brings me that much closer to my goal, and meanwhile, I am just enjoying my life!

I'm burning way more than I'm eating and I'm losing.. stalls will happen though. Well, obviously, to lose weight you have to burn more calories than you eat. That's basic math. However, if you are burning more calories through intense exercise alone, than you are eating, that is a form of anorexia (anorexia athletica) and it can cause severe health issues and drastically slow your metabolism. So if you are eating 1000 calories a day, burning 300 through exercise, and 1200 through just living, then you have a 500 calorie deficit and you will lose weight in a healthy way. If you are eating 1000 calories a day, burning 1000+ through exercise and 1200 through just living, then you have a 1200+ calorie deficit and may be doing serious damage to your health and metabolism.

Congrats on joining the losers bench! Glad to hear you are feeling okay so far. Take it very easy. Don't push yourself too far too fast. Sip, sip, sip and walk, walk walk!

Well chicken and fish are fantastic sources of protein. So definitely keep that up! If you need to supplement a little more, then I suggest Protein shakes or bars that are low in carbs and sugar. My favorite ready-to-drink shakes are EAS AdvantEDGE Carb Control, which are available at Target and Walmart. I prefer the Rich Dark chocolate flavor. As for Protein Bars (may be a little too much for you to eat right now), I like Quest Bars, which are available at GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, and some grocery stores (I buy mine online). My favorite flavor of those is the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

@@Cupcake I hope you manage okay with only 10 days off work. The muscle repair is NO JOKE in terms of pain and limited mobility. Best of luck to you!

@@allycatt98 I preciously posted some more before/after pics on the first page of this thread if you hadn't seen them: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/337866-plastics-before-after-post-your-pics-here/

Are you allowed to swallow pills now? I was allowed to swallow pills at 7 days post-op. Might be easier for you to handle than a chewable.

Are you working with a coordinator? I didn't have my surgery through Bariatric Pal, but I have had surgery in TJ twice now and both times I worked with a patient coordinator who answered these sorts of questions for me.

I'll be 9 months post-op this weekend. I don't know if I could eat a whole bagel or not, since I haven't had any bagels since surgery. But I do know that I could probably eat an entire large muffin from my grocery store's bakery. A couple of times now I have bought one and split it with my husband, but I am pretty sure I could eat the whole thing if I tried. The muffins are pretty "cake-y" though and I know cake is way easier for me than breads. Since a bagel is so dense, I think it would be more of a challenge. I was just recently able to eat an entire piece of multi-grain toast with peanut butter on it. It was the first time I was able to eat a whole piece of toast at once. I had tried a few months earlier and only been able to eat about 3/4 of a piece. Anyway, that was after having been sick with a stomach bug for over 24 hours and I wasn't able to eat any meat or protein bars, so I thought I would give a piece of toast a try, since pre-op, toast was always recommended for situations like that. I put peanut-butter on it, just so I could get SOME protein in.

If you like the taste of SlimFast, I would recommend EAS AdventEDGE Carb Control ready-to-drink shakes. They taste a LOT like Slim Fast to me and have more Protein and far fewer carbs and calories than Slim Fast. I buy mine locally at Target and Walmart. Edit: I like the Rich Dark chocolate flavor the best. They look like this:

@@gtmikki Congratulations!!! Your loss seems pretty fast and consistent. I was only losing an average of 6 pounds per in my first 7 months or so.

I am beyond thrilled with the results of my tummy tuck. Like WAY beyond thrilled. I ultimately regained 80 pounds after my plastics and my TT held up through it all. Now that I have re-lost the weight post-sleeve, my TT still looks perfect. You can see some photos in my gallery, but the most recent ones were from March. I've lost about 10 more pounds since then. The fat grafting held up surprisingly well through my weight re-gain and re-loss as well, but I think it would have been better had I not had such huge weight fluctuation. I think (though I don't know with certainty) that having the TT and fat grafting done at the same time may have contributed to the complication I had with soft tissue swelling in my lower back. Because my tummy tuck was so extensive, there was only a 3-4 inch "gap" in the scar near my butt crack. If you consider that that little gap was the only place for fluids to move between the upper and lower halves of my body, with all of my other lymphatic channels being severed by the TT, then you add to that the fact that I had to have a lot of fat injected into the top of my butt (since that's where it was most hollowed out after my weight loss), then it's possible that the fat grafting served to block the Fluid movement between my upper and lower body as well. So the fluid had no choice but to build up in my lower back. That's my theory anyway. So I guess I would say that if you have to have a lot of grafting to the TOP of your butt and you are having an extended TT with a very long incision, then it might be best not to do both at once. However, my swelling issue went away years ago and I've just been enjoying the results of both my TT and FG since then, so I really have no complaints at this point. Edit: I really cannot say enough about how happy I am with my TT. My scar is very symmetrical and it is so low that you can't see it even when I am wearing the skimpiest of panties.