FrankyG

I'm seeing the crepe paper wrinkling with the lovely stretch marks on my tummy now, but in certain light - the lamp in my bedroom - it isn't so bad. Guess I'll just have to carry that lamp with me every where I plan on exposing my stomach from now on. As far as the hair loss.... I ate my Protein like it was going out of style and had very little - like my hairdresser didn't even notice. I was taking Biotin in my bariatric Vitamin, and they said don't bother taking more as it just gets peed out if you take too much (wasting money). The big deal is protein, and also make sure to eat lots of jello/gelatin when cleared for those. Gelatin is excellent for hair and nails (it's basically a protein similar to collagen, which is one of the building blocks hair, skin and nails need). So get your protein in ASAP and the hair loss might not be super bad! But honestly, I think it's probably genetic how your body will respond - but at least the hair loss thing should be temporary! I wish the stretch marks were too.

You don't say what your goal weight is, or where you started so it is hard to tell details about whether you still have a very long way to go or not... but I'm going off of your stats on the side that you are around 2 ish months out (if it's three, your progress is still awesome). But in any case, 50 pounds in 2 months is AMAZING. I would have been over the moon happy at that level of progress at 2 months out, and you totally should use that awesome progress to really focus your energy and motivation on. You should be proud and psyched up about how well your body is responding already - not depressed that it isn't 10 times better! At 2 months, you're probably eating so little calories that just puttering around the house would exhaust you; but you're out working and doing assemblies and field trips in addition to your regular job in there, and still managed to exercise once too? Girl, that is mind blowing! You have nothing to be ashamed about. I was not exercising at all at 2 months out and I don't regret it one minute. It took me until about 6 months out to have the energy and motivation to establish a real exercise routine. It is HARD to start from morbidly obese with very sedentary habits and hit the ground eating perfectly and exercising 3X or more a week. I think you are being waaaay too hard on yourself. You need to forgive yourself and definitely not set such crazy high standards and goals! This is not a race. You have the rest of your life to get and stay healthy. To discover fun exercise and find joy in eating healthy foods and being active because you enjoy it and not because you're forcing yourself to go through the motions. Your sleeve will not fail you if you work at it - get in your Water, eating Protein first, good veggies and complex carbs in moderation and slowly get moving and find ways to stay active. But you absolutely should banish the shame. You are working hard at changing your entire life. That is going to take time, and life also gets in the way - job, family, home obligations - they are all going to slow you down while you figure out how to put the pieces for this new puzzle together. But you'll figure it out - even if it takes you a few months or a year - and it will be GLORIOUS. You are doing fabulously and will be successful if you focus on the happy and the amazing and toss the shame and guilt and depression. Good luck!!

There are so many points where you could stop yourself from going out to buy fast food - before you stand up and walk to your car keys, as you are gathering your wallet, stepping out the door and locking it, getting into your car... at every point, you have an opportunity to tell yourself HELL NO and go do something else. I could even understand one time (because many of us have cheated once on a pre op diet) ... but if you are doing this over and over again, then you are definitely not ready because you are sabotaging yourself. You have to distract yourself from this sort of eating. And you really aren't even eating real food - all that fast food crap is fat, sodium and carbs. Nothing at those places is good for you and it is hurting you every time you put it in your mouth. I'd even try picturing eating broken, dirty glass every time I craved that stuff if it was me to reframe how you think about it. It is not healthy food; you're craving it because you're addicted to fat/carbs/sodium and you use food to comfort/reward yourself. You need to speak with your doctor/nutritionist before surgery if you can't get this stopped ASAP, because if you go into your surgery eating that crap right up until time (I'm assuming at some point they'll have put you on a pre-op diet) then your liver is going to be a very possible cause to cancel your surgery due to it being too large or fatty to perform it safely. That could mean you make it to the operating table and they cut you open and get in there and see your liver is too poor a shape to continue. You could have serious, life threatening complications if your liver is damaged during surgery, and that is why they want you eating healthy, low fat foods (or even a liquid diet) before surgery to shrink your liver to make it easier to move around (it overlaps your stomach and they have to move it with the laproscopic tools). It is not about losing a ton of weight before surgery, it is to make sure your liver is as small as possible. If this is scary sounding I mean it to be, because sometimes it takes scaring someone to finally get through to them - USE THAT FEAR. Every time you get up to go out the door to buy fast food... tell yourself that you may end up very sick, or have your surgery cancelled, or injure your liver if you step a foot out that door! And I would not lie about your eating to them either, because all you'd be doing is risking your life and health to hide the fact that you have an addiction to food - which they already know since you're having this surgery. You need to commit to doing your absolute best - this surgery will change your life and you will be so very, very happy if you can make it through successfully. It is only a few weeks and anyone can be strong for that short of time if they work hard enough. Tell yourself that you are worth the work. You ARE going to be awesome and in control and you don't need some nasty fast food crud to make you feel better. Taco Bell and all those nasty sandwich shops are NOT your friends and you're dumping them right now. You have better things to do with your time and energy - and you deserve to have a super outcome. You can do this!!

The main issue with the pre-op diet is that they want to shrink your liver. The liver sits overlapping the stomach area, so to do the surgery, they have to move it out of the way. They want it small as possible so that when they use the tools to shift it around, the liver isn't so heavy that it bends or breaks, as that is a really serious complication. You do NOT want your liver damaged! You have a few days left until Tuesday. Get super serious right now that you're going to stick to the liquid diet for the rest of this time. It is only 3 days - you can totally avoid eating off your diet for 3 days! And chances are good that if you can hold on for this time and you've been doing okay otherwise, this will still be enough to have your liver not be an issue. As long as you weren't stuffing yourself silly with really fatty stuff when you were cheating for dinners, things should work out okay. Good luck!!

One surprising comfort thing I do now is go out for a long walk. Like an hour or more. I can cover close to 5 miles in that time and I blast music and feel a whole lot better when I'm done. I think it is a combo of distracting myself from whatever got me down, and the endorphins from exercise that make me feel better. I find myself going out walking much more often now when I'm feeling down or depressed or angry. It's become a bit of an addiction, but I find it an excellent replacement. Another super thing is I have some awesome perfume-y bath gels (bath and body works stuff) and I go take a hot bubble bath and maybe put on a face mask and do the foot scrubby thing and feel much better after. If I'm really craving something "awful" I eat a piece of dark chocolate with hazelnuts. I buy large bars of them from Aldi, and they are lower carb than most chocolate (net carbs for one serving size/piece is 9 grams due to the higher fiber) and dark chocolate is supposed to be good for you in small doses. And that one serving size does the trick every time, as I don't want to eat the whole thing at all now.

I walk mostly. I have great sidewalks in my neighborhood, but also a marked 1 mile trail about a block from my front door. I also found a free yoga class at my local library that rocks. There's some skinny mini ladies in there, and there's some older guys, but we're all comfortable and I'm not the fattest or the most out of shape and don't care even if I was - yoga is fun and it's great exercise. I also do a beginner's bodyweight routine at home; all you need is a yoga mat and some dumbbells (and you could use a milk jug filled with Water really). This is the one I do, but there are tons of bodyweight routines that require very little in the way of equipment and work as well or better than a gym machine routine: http://skinnyms.com/beginners-total-body-fat-blasting-routine/ I have never liked gyms and think it would be a waste of money to me, so I don't bother. If you're not going to use them, don't waste your money. Get some good walking shoes and just go outside and walk - it's easy, it's free and you'll feel just fine doing it and can start working up to walking longer distances over time. Oh, and I swim in the summer. I ride my bike to the neighborhood pool and splash around and swim for hours. I had a blast last year, and am really looking forward to the pool opening later this year. Something to keep in mind. If you are embarrassed to be seen exercising - why? You might be fat, but you're out there working on it. You're doing something healthy and getting up and out the door and you should be PROUD of yourself, and most folks aren't judging you for that; they're probably secretly rooting for you like - "well, she's trying - good for her!" And really, if anyone says a word that is negative... that's on them being a small minded jerkface; do you really care what asshats like that think? Hell no!! YOU are awesome, and you don't need to give away your own power and let some dumb jerk mess with your head or bring you down because you are going to be fabulous!

I took two weeks off and probably could have returned to work in a week, but I also had a desk job to come back to. I can't imagine doing a physical job that soon after. And one of my biggest issues wasn't pain, it was exhaustion. At two weeks out, I was still on a liquid diet and barely getting 300 calories a day in. I was dragging myself around to get water/food and go to the bathroom and make a feeble attempt to walk every few hours (to prevent blood clots), but otherwise I slept most of that time. But the time I got to work, I was really glad I could sit most of the day as I just had no energy at all. And I was lucky enough to experience zero pain; others on here have had pain for weeks after. If you're in pain and exhausted for weeks, you'll have a real issue trying to go back to work too soon, doing what you do. I'd recommend speaking to your doctor to discuss when he would want to clear you to work due to the nature of your job - and make sure to tell them how much lifting/walking/moving you do. I honestly wonder if they'll expect you to not be doing any lifting/strenuous activity for at minimum 2 weeks, but it might be longer, and you need to find out ASAP so you can get something figured out. Your job may have the ability to put you on an alternate workload that is lighter for a few weeks to ensure you don't hurt yourself while you are healing if you have a medically necessary reason.

Oh hun, I'm so sorry you're in this situation. Having someone belittle and control you is a horrible place to be in. You should definitely discuss this all with your therapist and ask for help getting out of there and getting your father out of your life and bank accounts. If you didn't have him, they'd assign a court appointed neutral party, so maybe that's what you should be pursuing right now. Ask for help as soon as you can, as what you're describing sounds like an abusive situation (verbal abuse for sure, and the fact that he stole money from your accounts means he is definitely not the right person to be helping you). Family is supposed to help and lift you up, if they aren't doing that, then you cut them out of your life, or at the very least you distance yourself and remove any possible control they have over you. Just because you're related, doesn't mean you should put up with poor treatment. Getting out of that living situation and removing your father from your accounts would probably go a long way to making you feel better about yourself and make it a bit easier to work on your own progress. Lots of hugs and good thoughts your way. Take care of yourself!!

I had a similar incident in a store - vasovagal response brought on by pain (starting my period always is super painful) and a combo of being dehydrated and having not eaten in around 6 hours. I used up my reserve sugars fighting through the vasovagal response and that dropped me right into a low blood sugar episode. I was lucky that I recognized what was happening fast enough to do something about it - I ate about 4 mints out of my purse and then was able to hobble to the front desk to ask for help. The store almost called an ambulance but I begged them not to and told them just get me a soda and I'd be fine - so I laid on their floor behind their service desk sipping a soda. Turns out I was right. I didn't actually pass out, but it was close for a while there. The joys of weight loss surgery side effects, huh? I would not drink alcohol on an empty stomach, and I would not drink more than one or two over the whole night either since alcohol is pretty much empty sugar calories. It will really screw you up.

This bit (the pre-op diet) is just a very tiny amount of time compared to the rest of your life that is to come. You absolutely can make it through this time and just need to concentrate one the next goalpost coming up. 6 months from now - I guarantee you won't even remember how you feel right at this moment except as a foggy memory. And you'll be doing so wonderfully you'll know that it was all worth it anyway. You can do this!!

Most results I've seen are that you have no effect at all on recovery since they're doing very little to actually correct a hernia compared to the major surgery for the sleeve. At most, you'll experience a bit of reflux or GERD that may or may not resolve within the year. And I was off work for two weeks because that's how long I wanted to take off. I technically could have gone back to work within 4-5 days, but would have been exhausted. I had no pain really at all, and other than some swelling issues that made it difficult to get fluids in for the first 3 days, all I felt was tired and I slept most of that time off.

My vision was much worse; had to get new everything and it hasn't improved at all. My optometrist did say that significant weight loss can change your vision, and what I was told is it is because of both blood sugars (average differentials can change significantly - it is one of the main reasons diabetics end up having vision issues) and overall shape/pressure, and asked me to get tested to make sure I didn't have a Vitamin A deficiency. No idea if it's permanent, but I'm over a year out and it's not gotten any better. She said she usually saw vision improve, but lucky me got the other direction. Googling "weight loss and vision changes" there are significant amounts of data to back this phenomenon up. Medical doctors are fallible, and if they don't keep up with the medical journals or pursue further research in their field they can end up out of the loop.

Ohhh yeah, this bugs me too. My doctor specifically discussed this with me when I brought up something similar (friend of a friend has had the sleeve, and was already asking about being cleared to eat crap again). He told me that ANYONE will lose weight in the first year or so - even those that eat total crap like fast food, high carb/fat. The sleeve will be controlling the portion sizing for quite some time, and unless you're bedridden, you'll lose due to the small amount of food you actually consume. The goal is to use this time (roughly 12-18 months) to reteach yourself how to eat HEALTHY. Protein first, then healthy veggies, then complex carbs and rarely eating the crap foods. The real purpose of this surgery is to give you the restriction to help you drop weight NOW, along with reducing or even eliminating the overwhelming hunger most of us feel (due to the hunger hormone ghrelin, which is produced in the stomach... that is almost completely removed when they take most of the stomach out). This allows you to make smarter food choices since you should not be driven with uncontrollable cravings and better able to make smart choices. I've also learned healthy versions of dishes I used to love that weren't all that good - so I can still have things I used to love, but they're not nearly as bad for me. It only takes a few months for the new eating style becomes habit. That is the ultimate goal - learn to eat good, healthy foods for the majority of the time, and still be able to have occasional indulgences. If a person has this surgery thinking they'll be able to eat everything they had eaten before - fast food, fried everything, drink and eat total crap - sure, they'll lose for a bit just because they can't physically get that much in their sleeve, but then as they get further out and it gets a bit easier to eat, they'll regain and gripe about how the sleeve "failed" to work for them. They are the ones that failed however. No one can do well on a diet consisting of high fat, carb and sodium for any length of time. Most crap foods have very little nutritional value as it is, so eating those regularly is just asking for failure. You can eat anything after 6-12 months. Cake, doughnuts, Cookies, bread, Pasta, fried foods, deep dish greasy pizza... Should you? NO. You should make those types of foods a very rare event.

Fruit is one of the things I don't eat hardly at all any more. Just can't take the high sugar. Be careful tho, as it could cause a sugar dumping episode (sick/throwing up and shaking). Look for lower carb (low sugar) fruits like strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe. And eat VERY little of them until you see how you feel after.

Fairlife milk or if you're in Texas, check out Mootopia. Both are much lower sugar (lactose) and double the protein. My NUT specifically recommended it, and it is the best. The Mootopia is super good (comes in 2%) and it tastes wonderful (better than regular 2% milk).

Stalls totally suck. They mess with your mind for sure. I waver up and down in a 2 pound range for several weeks at a time and just want to scream sometimes. Take your measurements (simple ones like waist, upper arms, chest, neck) as you might see more results when the scale doesn't move. A pound of fat is way bigger than a pound of muscle, and with your exercise and calorie intake, you are probably dropping fat and building muscle. I'd avoid eating bread and Pasta if at all possible even if they do officially clear you to eat all food. My doc highly discouraged eating both of those ever again. One you start adding bread/pasta back in, you start craving them more too. I very rarely have either any more. We get a double fiber whole wheat bread if I'm dying for a sandwich, but mostly I do low carb tortilla wraps to get the bread experience. Pasta is also rare, and whole wheat as well when it does happen, but I have a more difficult time with it (craving more) so I pretty much don't eat pasta at all much at this point.

That is so great your legs are responding so well to treatment. Hope you won't still be doing this by Halloween tho!

https://www.bariatricpal.com/forms/1-contact-us-form/

I'm almost 14 months out and still feel full (restriction) after about 4 ounces of solid, or 5-6 of more liquid/soft foods. Your stomach will eventually relax a bit more and you'll be able to eat more than in the early months, but you should always have the feeling of restriction/fullness when eating solid foods. The issues happen when you consume liquids or super soft stuff like ice cream or cake, or crackers with liquid - things that will turn to mush easily will slider right through your stomach and can cause you to feel like you still can eat more. That's why they call those types of foods "sliders."

For that activity level, yes you sound like you're eating too little food. Should add in some healthy veggies and complex carbs in moderation (like Beans, lentils?). I'd shoot for at least 1200-1400 calories for a few weeks and see what happens. You also should be aware that you might be dropping fat and building muscle - and you won't see that register on a scale. If you're not measuring, how are your clothes fitting? One pound of fat is much larger/bulkier than one pound of muscle...

Phenomenal progress!

Yup, and yes it does work. You are going back to basics, and reminding yourself and your sleeve of what you should be eating. I did it for a carb detox. Once I had the carbs out of my system, it was much easier to get back to Protein first and then healthy veggies and stopped the hunger/carb cravings that had creeped in. (I know now that I can't eat high carb sugary stuff without it making me crave more of the same - so I am not eating any of that type of food except for very rare occasions). http://5daypouchtest.com/plan/theplan.html is the one I used. @@Dub - a pouch is just another term for your sleeve.

Also a slow loser and totally agree with the others. It does suck to be a slow loser sometimes. I get sad seeing folks posting how they reached goal in 6 or 10 or 12 months, and I'm still plodding along with my goal way down the road. But I know without a doubt that I will get there because the one thing I have plenty of is time - time to adjust to eating healthy portions, time to do the meal planning and shopping for better food choices, time to get active and learn how to have fun exercising. Being a slow loser is a good thing because we are working our butts off to lose every pound; I know if I spend a year or two concentrating on how to eat, what to eat and ramping up my exercise to finally make my goal, I'll definitely feel more committed to keeping this up for the rest of my life! And slow losers generally have a bit less loose skin to deal with too. It isn't important how fast you lose the weight. What is important is that you are still working hard at losing weight and still sticking with your dietary/water goals, improving your fitness and reteaching yourself how to be healthy. But you're still really early in the whole process, and you might not be a slow loser in the end. You really need to work on your Water and getting your Protein in and see if that doesn't increase your weight loss... but if it doesn't, it's still going to be okay - just keep at it!

Your doctor is just being silly. 77 pounds in 5 months is super. You're just a slower loser. As long as you're following the basics - getting in your Water, Protein and working on becoming more active, you're doing well. I'm also a slow loser, and my doctor was disappointed in me at first, but when I showed them what I eat, how much I exercise and what I'm doing day to day, they really just had nothing to criticize me about. At most, they told me with my activity level I might need to eat MORE food. And yet I'm still losing weight, reducing in inches and doing well. I'm healthier than I've ever been. And I have every confidence that I'll make my goal and be even better than anyone could have imagined. Just might not be on my doctor's timeline. Are you also measuring? I know I'm working hard at building muscle and cardio, so even though it looks like I'm not budging on the scale some months, I'll drop an inch or two off my hips or waist... because a pound of fat is MUCH bigger/bulkier than a pound of muscle. So do start measuring if you haven't been! And slower losers tend to do better in the loose skin department too. So there's a plus! Do not let someone else - even your doctor - make you feel bad about your progress. As long as you are losing and working at getting healthy, you're on track. It is not a race. You will get to your goal if you keep working at it. Keep your head up, tell yourself you're worth every bit of effort and you're doing super, and don't let anyone tell you differently. Good luck!!

Yes, there are tons of threads discussing this type of thing. Fat stores hormones. As you lose weight (especially if you're losing at a good pace) those hormones are flushed out into your blood and will make you crazy feeling - angry, sad, weepy, super happy, irritable - and sometimes all within a short period of time! This is just another side effect of dropping that fat, and warn your friends/family that you might sometimes need to take a step back and collect yourself and apologize for any outburst weirdness. And when you're in the middle of feeling rage or weepy - remind yourself that this isn't really you - it's those nasty hormones that are getting in the way!