JamieLogical

@@lmoore I'm fairly certain I paid my deposit with paypal, then a cashier's check for the remaining balance on the day of my surgery.

@@HappygoSusan Yeah, I'm always shocked to see them eating sandwiches and bread post-op, but most of them seem to be pretty successful in their weight loss. I also think their pre-op "milk diet" is a little weird.

I didn't go anywhere at night, but I did walk around the area of the hotel during the day time the day after my surgery. It didn't seem sketchy to me. There's a Walmart and an Applebees in a plaza just up the hill from the hotel. Seemed pretty normal. The lack of english TV channels was a little annoying, but I knew about that in advance from reading other peoples' experiences, so I had downloaded a bunch of shows from my DVR to my laptop before traveling and just hooked my laptop up to the TV with an HDMI cable and watched all the shows I'd saved on my hard drive. Ironically, I watched about 15 episodes of Chopped (a cooking show) while only being able to eat about two teaspoons of broth and Jello.

Thanks for reposting that here, Alex. I'm not on Facebook, so I would have missed it otherwise.

Are you sticking to your nutrition plan? Are you getting all your water and protein? Are you at least walking daily? If so, then you aren't doing anything wrong. Everyone loses at their own pace. I only lose about 6 pounds per month and I am religious about following all the rules and sticking to the plan.

I was happy to make it to 6 months without throwing up. Will be thrilled if I make it to 14 months! Sorry you had to learn that lesson the hard way!

I was on a liquid antibiotic for 4 days post-op. Gave me oral thrush! That wasn't fun.

I stayed the night before in the hotel, the night of surgery was at OCC, then one more night in the hotel post-op. I then had to stay a night in San Diego, because I couldn't get a flight back to my hotel that left after 11:00am and the OCC shuttle won't get you to the airport early enough for a pre-11am flight. @ Did you stay at the Marriott? I didn't consider it "kind of ghetto". My room was very nice, large, and clean and the service was great!

I was restricted to brisk walking for two months post-op. But, yeah, definitely talk to your surgeon.

It can be both. There can still be subcutaneous fat beneath the skin, just less of it than before, causing it to hang more loosely. If you pinch two layers of the skin together, is it more than an inch thick? If so, there's still fat in there.

Babbs, you had your surgery 9 days before me and weighed one pound less than me on your surgery day. You now weigh 9 pounds less than me. So you're beating me!

What about my other questions regarding what kind of food you are eating and how long it takes you to eat it?

I only had mine for a day and a half.

I had the easiest time with cottage cheese at that stage. Have you tried it? I had a hard time with chicken and tuna salad, when I was first cleared to eat them, but tried them again a few weeks later and it was easier. It's a lot of trial and error early on, plus things will agree with you one day and not the next. Some great advice I've read since my surgery that I wish I had read sooner is to take one bite of something and then wait 5 full minutes before continuing to eat it. That way you have a chance to find out if your stomach is going to like it or hate it that day before you eat too much of it.

I went to bed early pretty much every night of my pre-op diet!

You don't really have to count stuff to stay on track with your surgeon's plan, if it's anything like mine at least. The only real target I got from my nutritionist was to aim for 100 grams of Protein per day. I guess there's a little "counting" in there, but it's just more of a rough estimate in my case. I know that if I eat my normal, routine foods for Breakfast and Snacks, and get about 15 grams of protein each at lunch in dinner, then I've hit my 100 gram goal. There are some recommended restrictions against Pasta, rice, etc., but I don't have room for those things anyway if I'm getting all my protein in. I definitely don't feel like this is a "diet" the way I did back when I was trying to lose weight in the past and logging every single thing I ate and trying to stay within calorie, fat, carb, AND protein ranges!

I stick to mine VERY strictly and my loss is sloooooow. I'd be terrified to find out what would happen if I went off plan. Probably would GAIN weight!

I would definitely advise that you get regular blood work done if you intend to not take vitamins at all. Deficiencies in some vitamins are no joke and can be life threatening.

I was allowed to keep taking my pill right through the whole process. You should discuss it with your surgeon for sure. Post-op I also used back-up birth control methods, since I was on antibiotics and because I was a little worried about potential absorption issues where I might not be getting the full benefit of my pill.

Three weeks is still pretty early and you are probably still healing internally. What kinds of actual foods have you been trying? I'm not sure what your plan calls for, but at 3 weeks I was still on mushies/purees. I was allowed cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, tuna salad, soft cheeses, etc. So, specifically what kinds of food have you tried, how much did you try, and how quickly did you eat?

It happens to the best of us, thus my overly snippy response earlier. Sorry for that!

Definitely increasing your protein and fluids will help with energy. You can also probably up you calorie intake a bit. I found that in order to really sustain my workouts, I needed to be right at or a bit above 1000 a day. I also started adding a little Kashi cereal (1/4 of a serving) to my greek yogurt in the afternoons, because I found that having a little bit of carbs pre-workout really helped me get through. Then I would have a high protein dinner shortly after my workouts. I always work out in between when I get home from work and dinner. I find that's the best time for me to work out, because instead of changing out of my work clothes and into my house clothes (pajamas basically) I would change straight into my workout clothes. Once my pajamas are on, I know working out is NOT gonna happen, so by changing into my workout clothes right after work, it forces me to go ahead and do my workout!

Thank you for sharing your story. It can serve as a lesson and reminder to all of us about what can happen if we don't stay on plan. I wish you the best of luck in getting back on track and reaching your goal!

Yep. This happens to me pretty much all the time and I'm 6 months post-op now. My best guess is that it has something to do with low blood sugar.

I haven't, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't.