anaxila

If anything, I'm eating more spicy foods - and more spicier - than before. I'm eating so little that it makes a big difference if every bite packs a punch. Good luck!

I'm about 6 months post-surgery. I have eaten Pasta or bread a couple of times, and they just don't taste as good as they used to and don't sit well anyhow. I don't miss bread at all, and I used to be a fiend for any kind. Pasta I sometimes miss, but the experience isn't the same so it's not hard to avoid. I just tried lettuce and spinach other raw veggies in the past couple of weeks, and tolerated them fine. I've been fine with celery since about 3-4 months post-op, but I've only ever eaten it sliced into tiny chunks. I also tried cooked asparagus this week and that was fine too. I was surprised that strawberries are as low in sugar as they are (and that oranges, grapes, and bananas are so high!), so those have been a welcome substitute for other fruits. (Incidentally, this is a great visual: http://www.sugarstacks.com/fruits.htm)

I got clearance for gum at my 3-month appointment. The NP said the reason it was forbidden is because it's REALLY REALLY BAD if you swallow it, and if I could be trusted to never ever do so I could have gum. So I did.

I just added both of you (invite will say it's from Amy B.). There's also an official fitbit thread over in the Fitness & Exercise forum if you want to find other new friends: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/191404-official-fitbit-thread/

I was extremely worried about hair loss prior to surgery. I started taking Biotin as soon as I could get the NP to support it, and sprouted lots of new hair almost right away. As others have said, biotin won't keep your hair from falling out, but it will inspire new growth. My thinking at the time was that if I started taking it early enough, the new hairs would be long enough to make the inevitable loss less noticeable, and I was willing to try anything. At this point, I'm about 6 months post-op and the hair loss never really happened. I feel like it may have increased in the past week or two, but it's still just a few more strands than normal and not the handfuls / clumps that I feared. For me, it's been a complete non-issue. From what my nutritionist said before surgery, some people lose hair and some people don't, and there's no way to know which you'll be and nothing you can do to stop it once it starts other than just wait for 6-months or so when it'll stop on its own and your hair will start filling back in again.

How I respond to the craving depends upon the cause and the specifics of what I crave. If I am dying to hit the drive-thru on the way home from work, I know that I'm just hungry and I try to pivot to thinking up foods I can make for dinner quickly once I get home. If I'm craving sweets, I'll try to find a suitable bariatric-friendly alternative or have a tiny little taste of whatever it is I want. I agree with @@Rebecca Jo Ragon. Sometimes, you just need to grab a steak fry, dip it in ketchup, and enjoy it. In the 6(ish) months since my surgery, I can count on one hand the times I've indulged in sweets or other things that were off-book, and I don't have a problem with that rate of deviance. And on that front I also think @@aelovelady is right: build any cravings into your meals, as the biggest risk factor to sabotaging your own weight loss is grazing. Especially if you work in your craving at the end of your meal, there's only so much damage you can do from going off your plan.

In my first couple of weeks after surgery, I literally had dreams that consisted of sitting down and eating a cheeseburger or a slice of pizza. I always had to laugh when I woke up from one of those. No digging through metaphors for me, I just missed my favorite foods! The dreams stopped within a few weeks. At this point, I still have occasional cravings for things outside my plans. On very rare instances I have given in to the cravings, and none of the foods have ever tasted as good as I remembered or as I built them up to be. As a result, the cravings are diminishing in both frequency and intensity. It's a process.

I'll cross the 6-month threshold in 10 days, and my surgeon's office is similarly unwilling to suggest the number of calories to shoot for. Like you, I have no trouble exceeding Protein and Water goals, and am starting to wonder about calories even though they say not to worry about it. I've had my goals on myfitnesspal set to 800 calories/day from the beginning and was averaging that for a long time. But I've started increasing my intake over the past month or so as I've been running more. I think 1100 is probably a better goal at this stage, but I get so nervous when I go about 1000. I remember learning that the 2-week pre-surgery diet was limited to 1300 calories/day and thinking that I'd never be able to make such a drastic cut. Now I find it difficult to accept eating so many even on an exceptional day. It's amazing how your perspective can change in 6 months.

I've lost more than 1/3 of my body weight and I had surgery less than 6 months ago. I have more than 50 pounds left to go and have no doubt at all that I will get there. My surgeon said something similar to me at the outset, and I think he was just trying to manage my expectations that WLS isn't a "miracle cure" but a lot of hard work and that success is up to us individually. His long-term tracking data say that their RNY patients lose an average of 60-65% of their excess weight and maintain that same level for at least 3 years. This is at a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence. Well, I've lost exactly 65% of my excess weight as-of this morning and I have no intention of slowing down. Averages are just averages, and I intend to exceed expectations.

Pretty common sense stuff, but I thought this was a good distillation of a lot of common themes from threads across Bariatric Pal. http://www.everydayhealth.com/news/ways-avoid-weight-gain-after-bariatric-surgery/

I only met my surgeon once before the day of surgery, and it was early in the process. I thought he was a bit of a cold fish and very intimidating, but I also believe that his beside manner is beside the point. I was unconscious for the most important part of our relationship. He just needs to be good at cutting me; the rest of the team can look after my emotional well-being. So I stuck with him because he's the head of the program (which is a Center of Excellence and all that) and is in his third decade as a bariatric surgeon who's done this literally hundreds (thousands?) of times. I'm really glad I did, as I have warmed to him considerably since the day of surgery and through the aftercare. Also, the nutritionist, nurse practitioners, aides, and support coordinator are all stellar and I have felt very comfortable with them all along. Having said all that, you should definitely challenge the team on the choice of surgery between sleeve and bypass. If your reflux is as bad as it sounds, sleeve is most likely the wrong choice and it's not too late to change course if that's the right thing for you long-term. Good luck!

Aw, this really takes me back. My first big diet was following the instructions in The Sweet Dreams Body Book. I was 12, which is about how old you have to be to follow nutrition advice from a publisher of teen romance books. My next-silliest was Deal-A-Meal. I think Richard Simmons is delightful, and the concept was brilliant, but I couldn't follow that diet to save my life.

I track everything in MFP, but not always to the exact quantities. I cook a lot from scratch, and cook by "feel" rather than recipe, so it can be a challenge at times. In the 6 months since my surgery, I've done slightly more measuring than usual, just to make sure I'm cooking like I think I'm cooking, if that makes any sense. I think it matters on the big things - big carby / starchy stuff, butter and other fats, etc - the ones that really "move the needle" from the okay range into the danger zone. All that really matters is that my Proteins stack up at the end of the day and my fats and carbs don't get too out of hand, so I try to keep that in mind when I start to obsess. I use my kitchen scale to weigh everything at home, especially when I am making food on the weekend and packaging it up for lunches for the week. I keep reasonably good track of what's going into the recipe, then monitor portion size more closely as that's where I always used to get into trouble. I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing things that are hard to measure (condiments, shredded cheese), but will still weigh them on occasion just to make sure I don't drift too much. I'm from Wisconsin, so cheese is my kryptonite and has a tendency to creep up if I don't watch it closely.

I saw my nutritionist more than everyone else in the office combined. They take a team approach, so you can see any one of them for your mandatory 6-month supervised weight loss thing, and for whatever reason I picked her. She tried every trick in her book to get me on track, but it never really stuck. I knew she was making sense and knew what she was talking about, but it didn't change my behavior. She was a nice enough person and very earnest, but I just wasn't ready to hear any of what she was laying out there. I didn't lose a single pound during that process, until the last 2 weeks before surgery when I suddenly managed to squeak out the expected 5% reduction for liver-shrinkage. Immediately pre- and post-surgery, I would just schedule appointments when I felt like I needed it. When I was about to go on my first business trip or first vacation post-surgery, I'd schedule a session and just talk about how to navigate those situations. And when I transitioned from one food phase to another, I'd schedule an appointment to talk about what was OK / not OK on the new plan. At the end of the day, I must have been taking in what she was saying on some level, because the more time passes the more I'm following the instructions she gave me more than a year ago. I'm almost six months post-surgery and haven't seen her for three months and don't have any appointments planned, but I still feel like she set me up for success even when I wasn't really taking any action yet.

My stalls are frequent, but generally short. It's not uncommon for them to last many weeks, but if you're doing all the right things the scale will move again eventually. As soon as I notice the scale getting stuck, I decrease the frequency of weighing myself. I usually weigh in every day, but it's easy to get obsessive during a stall and it's important to fight it. As far as stall-busting, I suggest changing your behavior for a couple of days. If you're exercising every day, take a couple of days off. If you're not exercising much, hit it hard for a couple of days. If you're in a food routine / rut, try something different for a few days. And always try increasing your Water intake. If you're drinking 60 oz, try for 80; if you're drinking 80 oz, try for 100. Additional water almost always helps with whatever isn't working. At the end of the day, whether these actually break the stall or just give you something else to think about and take your mind off it for a few days, doesn't matter. Either way, they do seem to work. Good luck!

Sometimes, this cuts both ways. Hardly anyone at my work ever comments on my weight loss - over 100 pounds and still going - and I actually find it kind of unnerving. I interact with tons of people across many different groups, and I've known most of them for many years. We're all on friendly terms, but only the (very!) few people closest to me ever say anything. Before surgery I was terrified of people noticing my weight loss and shining a spotlight on what I was doing, almost to the point where it was a barrier to getting surgery at all. But now I'm like "COME ON! Do you not SEE this? WHERE'S THE LOVE?" It's like all of their other friendliness and stories of kids and family and non-work activities doesn't mean as much if they can't recognize this amazing transformation I'm going through and be at least a little bit curious. EDITED TO SAY: I think my reaction to this is probably a product of where I am in the process. I'm just a few months post-surgery still rapidly losing, so of course I expect people to notice. Heck, *I* notice it being different from one day to the next. But once I'm at goal and have been at goal for a long time and my transformation is no longer shiny and new, I can see how it would become an unwelcome reminder of something that's firmly in the past.

I just posted this on a thread about whether we regret having surgery, and realized that it really belongs more in this forum. Apologies for the double-post. ------------------------------------------- I am less than 5.5 months post-surgery, and have lost over 100 pounds. I crossed that threshold just yesterday, and that means I'm just three pounds from the mythical place I never thought I'd see again: ONEderland. In the 5.5 months since surgery... ... I've discovered running. I completed couch-to-5k (thank you, "C25K Free" app!!) and then two 5k races, and have more scheduled every weekend for the next 6 weeks. Before surgery, I couldn't run half a block to catch a bus if my life depended on it. I definitely would've been the first one down in the zombie apocalypse. ... I've discovered bicycling. I rode 25 miles in a benefit event, including up a freeway ramp and across a big high bridge near Lake Michigan. And I did it without stopping. Before surgery, I hadn't been on a bike for 20+ years. ... I've discovered gardening. There was a large area of my property that used to be a garden and I always wanted to reclaim it. But the weeds were waist-high and the one time I tried to clear them out I could only manage a 2-foot square and that was even while sitting on a bucket. Now I'm growing 46 different crops and I have fresh strawberries every morning. ... I've vacationed like a fiend. I planned a big bucket-list vacation for my mom to Peru for 4 months post-surgery, and I conquered Machu Picchu like I was born to do it (see my icon). When I was in China a year ago, I could barley explore any of the Great Wall and mostly sat on a bench while watching others break out. ... I've kicked medical issues to the curb. I've beat diabetes (last A1C was 5.0 with no meds and no monitoring), high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. My knees don't hurt. My back doesn't hurt. I don't get headaches anymore. The past 5.5 months have felt miraculous and magical and transformative on every level. I catch myself getting excited about sneaking carrot sticks into the movie theater for a special treat during the show, and I hardly recognize myself. So, no... no regrets.

I don't have a single regret. I don't even regret not doing it sooner, as I don't think I was in the right head space until recently. And trust me, this is a mental game at least as much as a physical one. I am less than 5.5 months post-surgery, and have lost over 100 pounds. And I'm just three pounds from the mythical place I never thought I'd see again: ONEderland. In the 5.5 months since surgery... ... I've discovered running. I completed couch-to-5k (thank you, "C25K Free" app!!) and then two 5k races, and have more scheduled every weekend for the next 6 weeks. Before surgery, I couldn't run half a block to catch a bus if my life depended on it. I definitely would've been the first one down in the zombie apocalypse. ... I've discovered bicycling. I rode 25 miles in a benefit event, including up a freeway ramp and across a big high bridge near Lake Michigan. And I did it without stopping. Before surgery, I hadn't been on a bike for 20+ years. ... I've discovered gardening. There was a large area of my property that used to be a garden and I always wanted to reclaim it. But the weeds were waist-high and the one time I tried to clear them out I could only manage a 2-foot square and that was even while sitting on a bucket. Now I'm growing 46 different crops and I have fresh strawberries every morning. ... I've vacationed like a fiend. I planned a big bucket-list vacation for my mom to Peru for 4 months post-surgery, and I conquered Machu Picchu like I was born to do it (see my icon). When I was in China a year ago, I could barley explore any of the Great Wall and mostly sat on a bench while watching others break out. ... I've kicked medical issues to the curb. I've beat diabetes (last A1C was 5.0 with no meds and no monitoring), high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. My knees don't hurt. My back doesn't hurt. I don't get headaches anymore. The past 5.5 months have felt miraculous and magical and transformative on every level. I catch myself getting excited about sneaking carrot sticks into the movie theater for a special treat during the show, and I hardly recognize myself. So, no... no regrets.

Ninja!

I hate to complain about such a wonderful problem to have, but I am SO TIRED of nothing fitting properly. Shirts I've worn once are too baggy. All my pants are saggy. And I'm in the nebulous zone between plus size and regular size where everything on one side of the line is too big and everything on the other side is too small. I remember that problem from when I transitioned from regular to plus size about 25 years ago, and I hated it then too. I desperately need to go shopping, but it's so hard to spend the money when I know everything I purchase will only work for such a short time. I don't have the patience to slog through the selection at my local goodwill for used items, and for some reason none of my usual online haunts have any sales going on. I've found that as I shrink, the territory covered by any given size is also shrinking, which makes it even harder to find the right fit at the right time. I could pull off a size 24 for many, many pounds, but I said hello and good-bye to 18 in a very short span. In the meantime, I've got 28 grocery bags of too-big clothes on the floor in my guest bedroom, waiting for my mom to claim them for her next garage sale.

I used to buy it when I was doing Atkins. It is, basically low carb bisquick that you can use in anything. It was great. Haven't tried it since surgery though, so I can't speak to whether it would disagree with me like basically all breads do now. Sorry I don't have more recent info.

While on vacation in Peru, I hit the halfway point in my WLS journey. 80 pounds lost, 80 pounds to go. I celebrated at the top of Machu Picchu, which involved 16,000 steps and 208 flights of stairs (presumably 104 up and 104 down). This was something I could never ever in a million years done before surgery gave me back my life. I am just 3.5 months post-RNY and have never been so thankful for anything in my life.

I just got around to looking at the progress pictures I took a couple of weeks ago, and I can't believe what I see. First picture in each was taken 10 days before surgery. Second picture in each pair was taken on my 3-month surgiversary. This is an excellent reminder to me to TAKE pictures and LOOK at them, or my mind will never catch up with my body. I still have a long way to go, but I'm happier than ever with this decision!