JamieLogical

As people are fond of saying on these forums, "we have surgery on our stomachs, not our brains." So much of what we think of as "hunger", is just cravings. Or acid... a lot of people on here think they are "hungry" post-op because their new stomachs are grumbling and growling. But that's just the churning of excess stomach acid or gas. My husband's doctor always said "if you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, you're not really hungry." If you are truly, physically hungry, healthy foods will satisfy that hunger. If you "need" junky foods, that's head hunger or cravings.

Lean protein is super filling and not at all calorie-dense, so it doesn't help in this case at all. I agree that you want to try to get the extra calories from healthier foods where possible, not from just added sugars and saturated fats, but I have definitely had to resort to a lot more "healthy fats" and carbs.

Walking helps with the gas pain too. Its so counter-intuitive, because when you are miserable, the last thing you want to do is get up and move around. But it really does help!

I have learned to accept the food waste. It was a challenge in the beginning. I would get "to go" boxes when I ate outjust so the server wouldn't think I didn't like the food. But when my fridge started stinking with all the leftovers I could never catch up on, I finally let it go.

The head hunger is completely insane. I was watching commercials in my hotel room the day after surgery and every food commercial was like "I NEED THAT RIGHT NOW!" even though I knew that if I actually ate that, I would end up in the hospital. It's crazy. It takes a long time for your head to catch onto the fact that your stomach can't handle that stuff anymore. It was a real challenge for me all the way through probably month 4 or so? Then I *finally* started figuring out ways of dealing with emotions and cravings besides turning to food.

I look at that and all i see is rice.

It really all depends on your insurance and what hoops they make you jump through. Not all insurance companies require a bunch of pre-op steps. Some require a ton. As for the recovery, that sounds incredibly optimistic to me! I know of people with desk jobs that returned in a week, but I wouldn't recommend it. I have a desk job and returned 15 days post-op and I was so exhausted in the beginning that I just went to bed as soon as I got home from work. Didn't really turn a corner there until I was on soft foods. So maybe if your surgeon moves you through the food stages faster than mine did, you will have more energy?

I have my FitBit goal set to the default of 10,000 per day. But it really depends on what my work-out is for the day. On my bike or strength training days, I only get around 6,000. On my running days I get 20,000+.

@@Reena 4/05/16 Glad you are feeling better! Yeah it's a real challenge to chew thoroughly and east SUPER slowly. The good news is, that's only temporary. Once you are all healed up, you'll be able to eat more normally. I remember the day I had my first protein bar at maybe a month and a half out. It took me almost a full hour and I finally just gave up with about 2-3 bites of it left. Now, at 20 months out, I can eat a whole protein bar in 5-10 minutes no problem!

So glad to hear you are feeling better. Solid foods was a real turning point for me too. There will still be a lot of trial and error figuring out how much to eat, how fast to eat, and what to eat. But it definitely starts to feel like "normal" is possible again once you are on solids. Just don't get discouraged again if your weight loss stalls. It's pretty common around 3-4 weeks out to see a stall. Don't panic. Just stick to your plan!

I have that problem on my long runs for my half marathon training. On a normal day, I only burn 500-700 calories through cardio depending on the scheduled workout, but on my long run days I can easily burn 1600-2000 calories. I'll be interested to see what I burn during the actual race on Sunday. None of my long runs have actually been 13.1 miles yet! The farthest I've gone is 11 miles so far.

For me, it's about vanity and comfort. I hate hate hate, that I can literally count my ribs through my skin now. I have weird veins popping out of my wrists and arms. My butt gets sore from sitting down. My bones are poking out everywhere. I absolutely refuse to lose even 5 more pounds at this point. I want to make a concerted effort to put on more muscle once I'm done with this half marathon, as my current schedule only allows for two days of strength training right now. But I know gaining muscle will likely mean I need to get even more calories! So that's a daunting prospect too!

It really is so hard, because of the restriction and not wanting to resort to eating absolutely terrible foods. I've just found that the only real way to do it is to eat more times a day. As you can see, I'm up to eating 7-8 times a day now, but there's just no way around it. Since you had bypass and have some dumping, I can imagine it would be even harder since you probably can't do as many carbs as I'm doing now.

It could be a symptom of ketosis. When you are on a high protein/low carb diet, your body enters ketosis which can cause dry mouth and bad breath. As you are able to introduce more foods, it should go away. In the mean time you want to be very particular about your oral hygiene. Use mouthwash and invest in a tongue scraper. Oh! And you also might have oral thrush. I did post-op thanks to the liquid antibiotic I was on. Check your tongue for a white film near the back of your mouth. If you do have thrush, your doctor or dentist can put you on an anti-fungal.

The general concept is that most obese people have enlarged livers. The liver sits on top of the stomach and has to be lifted and propped up out of the way for surgery. By shrinking the liver through the pre-op diet, it makes it easier for the surgeon to access the stomach. But every surgeon is different and has their own requirements.

It varies so drastically, I don't think there is any possible way for you to predict. Plus, even with a massive loss, you may not go down any clothing sizes. I think I had to lose like 40 pounds before I went down even one pants size. I lost 11 pounds on my pre-op diet (15 days) and 14 pounds in my first month post-op. Some people lose like 20+ pounds on pre-op, some people only lose 4. Also, keep in mind that not all pre-op diets are created equal. Mine was very strict and only totaled up to 450 calories a day. Some people eat more like 1200 calories a day, depending on their guidelines.

I had a real challenge in this department as well. Especially once I started half marathon training. I burn a LOT of extra calories through cardio almost every day now. I had to start tracking my food again, but this time to make sure I'm eating ENOUGH. I added more calorie-dense foods. Every day for lunch I have cheese and peanuts, for example. I also added in more Protein bars as "snacks". In order to not lose weight, I need to eat 2300-2400 calories a day which is a challenge. Here's what my day is looking like lately: Breakfast: coffee with cream followed by a Combat Crunch bar Morning Snack: something carby, like a piece of whole grain toast with some Peanut Butter Lunch: 2 oz. of cheese (I like to experiment with fancy cheeses now) and 1 oz. peanuts Afternoon Snack: Coffee with cream followed by a Combat Crunch bar Pre-workout Snack: Clif Bar Dinner: Meat! (usually 3-5 oz. of whatever meat my husband is having for dinner) Evening Snack: Halo Top ice cream sundae (half a pint, plus some kind syrup and crushed cookie on top) Bedtime Snack: Coffee with cream followed by a Combat Crunch bar See, lots of Protein Bars in there and I've had to add back a lot more carbs. But so far so good. I haven't lost anymore weight since about 2-3 weeks into my half marathon training (I'm on week 14 now with the actual race this Sunday!).

At five weeks, if just a couple of bites of food is causing you discomfort and you've already done the usual steps of trying to eat more slowly and chew more thoroughly, then I think you should call your surgeon.

That is completely dependent upon your insurance company and specific policy. You should contact them. Generally speaking, most insurance companies will only cover people with a BMI of 40+ or with a BMI of 35+ and comorbidities (high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, etc.). But, again, only your insurance company can tell you for sure what your specific policy might cover.

There is a whole sub-forum on BariatricPal for plastics: http://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/393-plastic-surgery/ A lot of great info in there and most of your questions will get more of a response there. I haven't had plastics post-VSG, but I had plastics after losing 90 pounds "on my own" five years ago. I had an extended tummy tuck with muscle repair, breast lift with augmentation, and all over lipo. I was originally scheduled to be off work for four weeks, but ended up taking off much longer and working half days a while after I went back, due to a complication that caused excessive soft tissue swelling in my lower back, making it painful to sit for more than a couple of hours at a time. Typically speaking, barring any complications, you should need about 4-6 weeks off work for tummy tuck or lower body lift. Much less time for breasts or arms (maybe 2 weeks). They probably won't do tummy tuck, breasts AND arms all at once. Unless you have two surgeons working on you simultaneously, since they don't want to keep you under anesthesia for too long. I am going for a spiral thigh lift in September and I was told to take 3 weeks off of work for that. Though I think I'm going to plan on 4, because while I do have a desk job, I have to park very far away from the building where I actually work and I am concerned about the long walks to/from my car.

Are you taking them with food?

@@Kittymappus At 10 months I was probably close to 1400 calories a day, doing cardio 5 days a week. I know I had to quickly push up over 1100 calories a day in order to do any sort of intense cardio and once I got to the point where I was running 5k's again, I needed closer to that 1400 mark.

Had you had problems with blisters in any of your training runs?

Are you on a PPI? How far out from surgery are you? Did you recently introduce new foods that could be causing it?

Definitely important to stay active and meet your protein requirements so you don't continue to lose muscle. As for gaining muscle, that will come with time, once you are done losing weight and are able to get more calories and protein in, which WILL happen. I have about 7 pounds more muscle now than I started with (not much, i know), but that does mean that I was able to lose minimal muscle and at least gain SOME with the cardio and strength training I do.