Daisee68

Premier Protein chocolate for ready to drink. For powder, I like Precision Engineered whey Protein Isolate - Chocolate and Vanilla are both great. Number of shakes depends on how many grams in the drink you are using and how far out you are from surgery. The further you get, you should be able to decrease the shakes as you get more protein from your food. I am 1 year post-op in 2 days and I still drink 1 per day.

Thanks so much @@MichiganChic! Very helpful! Sent from my HTC One M9 using the BariatricPal App

You look great and are doing an awesome job! It takes a while for us to see the changes in ourself. I will be 1 year post-op on Saturday and am down 120 pounds since surgery (146 total) and I am just now really realizing the difference. Keep up with the pictures. That will help. Take your measurements. And every once in a while try on the largest pair of pants (or a dress) you had. (I only kept one thing - my size 28 jeans.). I only put them on maybe 6 weeks ago and I think that is when I finally realized how far I had come. Keep up the great work! Sent from my HTC One M9 using the BariatricPal App

Hmmm... that's a tough one. If it is something someone has brought to your attention, it must be bad. Perhaps timing taking GasX before work or a little before a lunch break so that it can help the gas relief before you are at work?

@@Autumn Riley Arnold - Honestly, I think you will have to ask your dr or NUT. I have read lots of things lately about "clear liquid" diet and I know I was supposed to be on it, but I don't know that I really did what I was supposed to! The day before surgery, they said Clear liquids and I understood that to be nothing with red or blue dye and that you could see through so I used the premixed Isopure drinks on that day (UGH!! I hated those BTW. Some like them but just the smell makes me shiver... ) I was only in the hospital one night and I am sure I was supposed to do "clear liquids" but I think I drank my chocolate Protein drinks mixed with Water right away. I am not sure that was correct though. I am hoping to have plastics in the fall, and the instructions for that are also clear liquids for 2 days prior to surgery, so I will have to get it clarified for then too! I am just not sure how you get protein in on a clear liquid diet. I know that wasn't helpful other than to say, I did it and was confused about it (and still am!)

@@StefanieSparklePants - Just wanted to say I love your screen name!

@@LolaSerena - I'm glad it helped! And thanks! I was just telling someone else how shocked I am that it has all added up and here I am at goal at 1 year post-op. Never thought it would happen! But boy you should see some of my posts from the first few months! Just couldn't get past the "what have I done?!" stage. I am well past that now.

Oh girl! Trust me, I totally understand! I think I have weighed every single day since surgery (and well likely for the 4 months before surgery!) I am approaching maintenance stage and am going to have to stay off the scale myself! It is so weird to not see the pounds dropping anymore and a tiny bit of panic when it goes up by 1 pound. I just have to get used to that part. I don't want to lose anymore but I don't want to gain either! Promise your stall will end! And the best part is, once it breaks, it sort of free falls for a week or so (seriously some people see 3 to 5 pounds in one day!) My therapist asked me today "did you ever expect to be down 120 pounds in a year when you started this?" Um, nope. I sure didn't. I thought I was a pretty slow loser too but boy does it add up! You got this!!

Completely normal feelings. Give it some time. I felt the same way for probably 3 months but then the weight loss picked up, the nausea went away and I am SO thrilled! I will be 1 year post-op on Saturday and I am down 120 pounds since surgery and a total of 145 pounds. Diabetes is gone. Off cholesterol meds. Can do so much more than I could have before! Worth every second! But I promise you I didn't feel that way in the beginning. Just know you are among friends and you can come here and vent. You will be amazed when you look back at this in a few months!

You are smack in the middle of the famous (or infamous perhaps) 3 week stall. You are doing everything right. It is totally normal. Your body just has to catch up. Ride it out. It will break soon and typically breaks by a pretty significant amount. in the meantime, stay of the scale for a week (if you can) and concentrate on your Protein, fluids and Vitamins. As @InnerSurferGirl says, "Embrace The Stall"!!

It is a good product. The Vitamins are "free" . It is the Nascobal (for which you have to have a prescription) that is expensive. But my insurance paid for it without issue once I had used my deductible last year.

I used Nascobal for about 8 months post-op. It comes with the Vitamins which is great. I got laid off though and starting over with a new deductible, the prescription for Nascobal is really expensive - $500 range I think. I was sad to stop because I got such great labs with those vitamins but I ended up finding (on the BariatricPal store) another brand called BariMelt which has exactly the same vitamins / amounts.

Yes, it is normal. It is MAJOR surgery and you are only on day 4. (I recall day 4 and 5 being my worst.) Try to be patient. Use some ice or heating pad and take your pain meds if needed. It gets better but give your body time to heal.

Here is one I forgot and just realized this weekend - I was so looking forward to my shirts being small enough that they would stop falling off hangers! I have achieved that and just realized this weekend that my now size "large" shirts (not 22/24 or 2X/3X) actually fit the hangers!

@@aelovelady - Have you seen the recent news about Biggest Loser and the contestants who regained so much because their metabolism was ruined by eating so little? I am very surprised your NUT gave you that advice, but too each his own I suppose. Just so newbies are aware, I will say that you are certainly in the minority on this subject though.

So sorry you are going through this! Glad you can sit out of work a little longer and SO glad someone at ER listened to you! We know our bodies best and yet sometimes drs just think we are wimps or exaggerating. So frustrating! I was in ER with a "nope nothing's wrong" after CT scan and blood work and 2 days later I am getting balloon dilation for a stricture because my stomach openness basically scarred over and barely a pin hole opening so nothing was getting thru (and coming back up). That was just 4 short (or frankly quite long) days after 3 month checkup saying I knew something wasn't quite right. Quick fix and much better now and no way they would have known differently but glad I kept calling after not holding anything down for 4 days straight. Sent from my HTC One M9 using the BariatricPal App

Well you have come to the right place then. Tons of advice and support on here regardless of your geographical location! Eating too little can actually be counterintuitive and slow your weight loss. Remember that you have to start thinking of this as a lifestyle of new habits and eating - not a "diet". I don't know that I have any great suggestions for food given you have different types of food than we do. I ate things like hummus, soft cheeses, refried Beans, cottage cheese, yogurt, sugar free pudding, etc. in the soft food stage but I struggled with that for a while because I had a stricture (which I didn't discover until the 3rd month) so I had difficulty keeping too much more solid things down until after that. Hopefully some others closer to your part of the world can make some suggestions.

UGH! That would be tough! Hope you sleep well when you get home. Meanwhile - drink, drink, drink while you are running your errands. Get some of that Protein and Fluid in before you fall asleep. Good luck! You are almost there!

One other thing - I just read your other posts and see that you are a revision patient. My understanding is that revision patients tend to lose slower. Given that information, I would say you are doing OUTSTANDING! Give it some time. You have been through this before and I can only imagine how anxious you are given the past surgeries, but try to put that behind you and just press on. You got this!

It is the famous 3 week stall. You have lost 15 pounds in 20 days! That is amazing! I actually gained coming out of the hospital due to the all the fluids (and imagine you did too) so given that, the loss is great! I thought I was a slow loser too and I will be 1 year out this week and down 120 pounds since surgery (145 total including pre-op diet). Those losses add up! Here are some suggestions: 1) Stay off the scale for a week (admittedly, I was never able to do that but just thought I would throw it out there ). Hopefully the stall will be broken in a week and you will see the loss and can decide how you want to weigh going forward. 2) Are you able to eat more than 1 meal per day? Seems that is a little low. If you are able to eat more than once, I would look in to having at least 2 (maybe 3) small meals per day at this stage. Take no longer than 30 minutes to eat. If you are not done with your 4 Tbsp in 30 minutes, put it away and have it at the next meal. Do you need some suggestions for foods other than fish or were you instructed to just have fish? 3) Are you able to drink something other than Optifast for shakes? I think there are some much better options - but it may depend on what your dr instructed and where you are located geographically.

Sorry just went back and read your ER post. I would call your surgeon on Tuesday and get in to see them. Any chance you can postpone going back to work a few more days? I know this stinks but don't let it derail you.... I promise it gets better! HUGS!

I am sorry I don't have a response but have been thinking about you. Is this what they decided was wrong when you were at the ER yesterday?

@@Nikki_B - Hope today is better and it is sunny where you are and can get out for a nice walk!

@@j16 - you might want to call and see if they can be more specific. Is yours a liquid diet? I had only 1 week of liquid diet and was told only liquids and try to get at least 60g of Protein but get to 90g if I could. If I had food included during that time, I would definitely had to have some better instructions. Given it was liquids only, the carb and fat weren't relevant for me.

I wasn't given targets but I can say that when I did "low fat" diet many years ago, my target was no more than 30 grams. Did they give you a Protein goal? Sent from my HTC One M9 using the BariatricPal App