JamieLogical

How low? Protein bars come in such a huge variety. The main things to keep and eye on are carbs (especially sugar) and saturated fats when choosing a protein bar. My protein bar of choice is Quest Bar, chocolate chip cookie dough flavor. The have about 200 calories, with 21 grams of protein. They have somewhat high carbs with 21 grams, but a lot of those come from a "fake fiber" called Isomalto-Oligosaccharides, which isn't fully digestible by the body. They only have 1 gram of sugar and 3 grams of saturated fats.

Do you have a 5k race scheduled? I'm hoping to run one in the second half of May, but haven't signed up for a specific race yet.

What you are describing can only be fixed with muscle repair surgery, usually done as part of a tummy tuck. You may loos some fat around your abdomen as you lose weight, but the only way to "tighten it up" once there has been that much damage to the abdominal wall is surgery.

That completely depends on your surgeon. I was allowed full liquids on my 3rd day post-op. Everyone has a different plan and the OP should follow the one their surgeon gave them.

It depends on what shakes you are drinking. I was on three shakes a day during my pre-op.

You might want to get some liquid B12 as well. And make sure you read the dosage label for your calcium. Most calsium supplements require you to take multiple pills more than once per day. I am on Citrical Maximum and take two pills twice a day, which is still less than the label recommended two pills three times a day. Make sure not to take your calcium and multivitamin at the same time if your multi has iron in it.

If you're 7 weeks out, there shouldn't be any issues. Bring snacks with you to work and lunches if you can't get home at lunch time. I bring string cheese and greek yogurt for snacks and go home or out for lunch each day. But when I go home I just eat leftovers, so I could just as easily bring those into work with me if I didn't have time to go home at lunch. I also keep some emergency rations in my desk... peanuts and canned chicken salad, just in case I need something in a pinch.

I would go ahead with Ariel Ortiz and OCC, because that's exactly what I did! It was a great experience and you are looking at being sleeved in a matter of a couple of weeks, versus who know how long and how many hoops IF your insurance does end up offering it? You have the means now (I borrowed against my retirement instead of actually withdrawing), you have the date, you've already spent a chunk of the money, you've already taken the penalties from withdrawing the money... I wouldn't back out now!

My advice is to not over-prepare. I bought a lot of things pre-op that I never ended up using post-op, like different flavors of Protein powder I ended up not liking. You can be out and shopping within a couple of days after surgery, so there's really no need to stock up on a ton of stuff pre-op. A couple things that I DID get a lot of use out of are my food scale and small storage containers. It helped to pre-measure my food once I got to the pureed and soft food stage so I didn't overeat. I bought these little 2 oz. plastic containers and used the a TON (still do use them for some things actually): http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Blocks-Freezer-Storage-Containers/dp/B004QZBEFK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1429125556&sr=8-2&keywords=oxo+2+oz.+container Edit: Oh! another good thing to have in the early days is some sort of strainer so you can strain the chunks out of Soups. In my full liquids stage I bought pretty much every creamy Soup my grocery store sold and strained out the chunks. Even with the chunks strained out, the variety of flavors kept me from getting bored.

I haven't had any problems with spicy food at all. Even started adding taco sauce to my eggs and such in the soft foods stage. The main thing that took some getting used to with spicy foods is not being able to eat and drink at the same time. If it's really spicy, it's hard not to want to reach for some water to wash it down!

I don't know how you feel about running, but doing the Couch to 5k program has really helped motivate me. It takes you from not being able to run AT ALL to being able to run 30 minutes straight. The program is supposed to be nine weeks long (3 days a week), but you can repeat workouts and entire weeks as necessary. For me I think it's going to take about 15 weeks, because I've repeated some weeks and I will have had two weeks of vacation in there by the time I'm done. Hoping to run a 5k sometime in mid to late May.

Congrats on your decision to have WLS and welcome to the forums. Feel free to post any questions, concerns, thoughts, etc. here. We're all at various stages of this journey and willing to help however we can.

My snacks are usually reduced fat string cheese, Dannon Light & Fit Greek Yogurt with some granola or Kashi cereal mixed in, 1 oz. of dry roasted lightly salted peanuts, some sort of meat stick (like a beef stick, but usually turkey instead), and protein bars.

You will get dozens of differing opinions here. It really is a matter of taste. Personally, for me, I use Now Foods Unflavored Whey Isolate powder (buy on Amazon) when I mix my own shakes and Torani sugar-free syrups to flavor them. For ready-to-drink shakes, I drink EAS AdvantEDGE Carb Control Rich Dark Chocolate flavor (buy at Walmart and Target).

That's what I came here to say. I am 100% addicted to the chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Quest Bars. I had been eating two a day for months (one for Breakfast and one as an evening snack), but I am trying hard to cut back to one a day now. It's not been easy. I just love them sooooo much. I'd just eat five a day and nothing else if I didn't know how horrible that would be for me!

My recovery was nothing like AvaFern's experience! I had an extended tummy tuck with muscle repair, breast lift with augmentation, all over lipo, and far grafting to the top of my butt. I spent 2 full weeks in a recover house with 24/7 nursing care and the surgeon coming to check on me every single day (this was in Mexico). I had to wear a surgical bra and a compression garment that went from just under my breasts all the way to my ankles. Only time I was allowed to take any of that off was when I was showering. I had two drains, one at each hip. While I was in the recovery house I was in a hospital bed, which I wasn't able to get in and out of on my own for the first couple of days. My nurses helped me get to the bathroom, helped me in the shower, and helped me walk around a little inside the house with a walker a little more each day. By the end of my second week there, I was walking without the walker and I even did a day trip with two of my nurses to the beach! I walked a fair amount that day and it was pretty exhausting, but I did it. I had my drains removed on the day I flew home. Once home I did VERY short little walks around a cul-de-sac in my neighborhood. I laid on the couch, propped up with a wedge pillow most of the time. And I slept with the wedge pillow in my bed. I returned to work at 4 weeks post-op, but swelling in my lower back kept me from being able to comfortably sit in a chair for a prolonged period of time and I have a desk job. I worked half days for the most part in those early weeks/months. I got a kneeling chair for my desk at work, which was a little easier for me to sit on, but the swelling in my back lasted a good 6 months or so total. It caused me a lot of pain and made daily life pretty hard. I couldn't sit in a chair (car seat was the ABSOLUTE WORST) or lie on my back. The only really comfortable position for me was lying on my side. It was tough. I also couldn't do any intense exercise for month. However, all that being said, I'm now 3.5 years out from my plastics and am THRILLED that I had them. Well worth the hardships I endured early on.

My surgeon prescribes a PPI for the first two months post-op to every single sleeve patient. Acid issues post-sleeve are incredibly common.

The tough part of week 5 is the 20 minute run for Day 3.

I was self-pay in Mexico, so I didn't really receive any kind of formal consultation about the mental/emotional aspects of the surgery. My interactions with my surgeon's office were all about the pre and post-op nutrition, medications, vitamins, scheduling, and logistics. I had to do a lot of research and reading on my own and I still had a tough time emotionally post-op. It's just such a huge life change and there are so many emotions involved. I'm not sure any amount of knowledge pre-op could have fully prepared me for the actual experience. The good news is that I got through those early months and I am perfectly fine and happy now.

Ha! Once you have the surgery, you will understand there is nothing "easy" about it. The process of getting approval is a whole ordeal. The surgery itself and the recovery time. The HUGE sacrifice you are making in terms of what you will and won't be able to do/eat ever again. And you are still going to have to track your food and exercise regularly to actually lose the weight.

I had internal stitches and external glue. No band or any sort of compression garment.

I continued taking my pill straight through surgery. Didn't take it the morning of my surgery, because I wasn't allowed anything by mouth for 12 hours pre-op, but took it later that evening after my surgery. My husband and I also used condoms for the first 2 months or so post-op, because I had been on antibiotics and I had heard SO MANY stories of increased fertility post-op, so I was terrified of getting pregnant!

Yeah, my nutritionist told me never to eat carbs without protein. So always peanut butter or greek yogurt or something like that along with my fruits or whole grains. Of course, I'm still never really eating fruits or whole grains, so it hasn't been an issue for me yet.

Nope, I've heard the one where you should be getting a max of 0.9 grams per pound of body weight, which is used by most bodybuilders and athletes who are trying to "bulk up". I'm nowhere near that, even getting the 100 grams per day my nutritionist recommends. Max for me right now would be 162 grams, so no risk of that!

If you were going to have a "terrible complication" it likely would have already happened. The main issues you need to worry about in these very early days, once you're through the actual surgery, are blood clots and dehydration. Walk as much as possible and drink as much as possible (you might still be on IVs if you are in the hospital still?). Marching in place made drinking easier for me.