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OutsideMatchInside

Gastric Sleeve Patients
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Everything posted by OutsideMatchInside

  1. I lost hair, it came back as soon as it stopped. It is hard to just blame it on surgery since my hair sheds a lot in the winter anyway. It stopped and it is growing back now super fast. It is noticeable to me, not other people. The great thing about curly hair is it masks so many hair "flaws". I didn't vomit after surgery, the only nausea I had was in the hospital on morphine. I still never vomited. My gas pain was aching in my shoulder and my hip. So it wasn't pain as much as it was a deep ache. No drainage tubes. That depends on the Dr really. There is a Dr at the practice I go to and he always does drains, my Dr doesn't. Don't overthink it or stress about it too much. Stress causes problems and solves none. One of the benefits of my moving through the surgery process so fast was, I didn't have time to worry about surgery. I had to spend all my time prepping my home and my business for after surgery and that occupied most of my thoughts.
  2. You need someone to drive you home. Most hospitals are not going to let you go home in a cab or an Uber. It is kind of a stupid rule because just because you have someone you "know" drive you home it doesn't mean they are actually going to take care of you. I moved everything in my apartment so I would have to reach high for anything or bend over. I put all the food I would need (broth, Protein powders), on the counter. The ready made shakes were in the fridge on the top shelf. My friend took me to the hospital and drove me home. After dropping me off at home, my friend went and picked up my prescriptions. There was a hassle with the narcotic because the Dr wasn't in the FDA database and she had to sit there for an hour while they worked it all out. I would have never had the energy to do that myself 28 hours after surgery. Not because I was in pain but just flat out I wouldn't have had the energy to argue with them and make them do it, let alone sit on a hard chair or bench in the store while they got it right. My friend left the next day and I was alone and I was fine. I drove on my 3rd day home and went to get a pedicure. I'm single, I live alone and I do everything by myself and I thoroughly enjoy it. However for surgery, you need someone with you. My friend flew in from the coast to help me and it is something I will be eternally grateful for. Even independent people need help some time. You might have a friend from out of town that will be willing to help.
  3. @@BeeRodMul Most physical trainers in America available at most commercial gyms, need trainers themselves. They don't have the physique to match the title. It is also very easy to obtain a certification and it doesn't mean they actually know anything. They also offer nutritional advice and at most gyms are required to try and push supplements. Unless you can find a really good one, from a personal recommendation, it isn't worth it. If accountability and sticking to something is your issue, group classes are a great place to start. Unless you have no idea how to use gym equipment, trainers are a waste, unless you can find someone REALLY good, with a lot of clients and a lot of results. If you are serious about adding muscle and trying to minimize loose skin, find a good Yoga studio would be a better option. Yoga uses every muscle in your body, every pose can be adjusted to your fitness level. Yoga helps manage stress with makes weight loss easier and the environment is more mellow and friendly. The stretching that comes with yoga is very good for your skin and the skin elasticity not to mention the poses in yoga help flush toxins from your body.
  4. Don't chew gum. All it does is stimulate your digestive juices and make you hungry. Have you tried a high quality deli ham like Boars Head? You should be able to eat that easily. Potatoes are some thing I don't touch, they offer no nutrtion, just carbs. Does your mom make green Beans with Easter dinner? You didn't mention any green veggies on the menu. We always have green veggies at holiday meals in my family, and as a kid eating them wasn't optional. Not one person in this thread suggested eating a vegetable. Ugh.
  5. Little pain, besides the gas pain in my shoulder and my hip. That was just an ache, it was annoying because nothing helps with it, you just have to deal with it. No nausea once I was out the hospital and off morphine. The morphine was the worst thing about the whole thing really, cause more pain that it solved, which was none. I felt good once I stopped taking the pain meds. I felt good on day 3. I drove, ran errands. I felt so good I kind of over did it. I had a lot of energy but it didn't last long, I took naps every day. I work from home so I worked and napped as needed. I live alone so even though my friend came home with me from the hospital, they left early on the 2nd day, so I was alone and easily able to care for myself. My recovery was a breeze. If I had it to do all over again, I would have never taken any of the narcotics offered to me. I have a high pain tolerance and they do nothing for me. If you aren't on narcotics, you shouldn't need laxatives. You are on an all liquid diet, liquids in, liquids out.
  6. @@UltrarunJohn At 49 with kids that young. I would probably have surgery. Only because the older you get the harder it is to lose weight, the more serious the co-modbities get. You are almost 50 and those kids needs another 10-15 years of parenting. If you are serious about life change then the sleeve is a great tool. You have to be willing to do the work with it, and follow the steps. A lot of people that post here do surgery for the restriction and the other physical changes. One of the biggest changes that comes with surgery that people don't give enough credit is the forced retraining of how and what to eat. You basically start over from surgery like a baby and relearn how to eat. You can learn how to eat the right way and continue to eat like that for the rest of your life. The physical changes reinforce the mental changes, if you let them. If you have surgery and right away are thinking about Taco Bell, when you can have your first slice of pizza and how many crackers you can have with your tuna salad, then you will miss the point. I think people that are self pay can be more serious because they have to shell out the cash. At 49, I am not sure you should gamble on trying to lose on your own, if you were 19 or 29 my opinion would be different. Also like @@JamieLogical said I think an important thing about surgery is the ability to keep weight off. As far as people comments that 60lbs isn't that much, that is BS. 60lbs is still a lot of weight to get off and keep off. There are all kinds of people that post here that had surgery at low BMIs. If you want to have surgery and you are committed to making the life changes then do it. I will say that it seems the hardest for people with families to make the life changes. I'm single I can control everything that comes in and out of my home. People with kids and spouses seem to constantly be surrounded by things they shouldn't eat.
  7. You can have your resting metabolic rated tested. There are fitness places that offer it or a good University will offer it, for less.
  8. Don't go overboard on stuff. I am still working on tubs of protein from when I had surgery 8 months ago. I don't even want to use them but I am trying to just use them up and get them out of here.
  9. Before surgery I thought if I could get below 200 it would be a miracle. Then after I lost so much in about 6 months, I thought maybe I could make the 150s. Right now I am just trying to keep losing as long as my body wants to, and see where that takes me. If I never lost anymore weight, I am pretty happy with my weight now and my health is so improved, that I already consider surgery a huge success. Still I want to go below 200, as far below as I can possibly go. Once you start losing after surgery, that is a better time to evaluate your goal.
  10. Yeah but you are marathon training and probably underestimating how many calories you are burning. You can eat quite a bit. The average person that posts here is going to barely walk. If they were eating toast with Peanut Butter they would but posting about how the sleeve is a failure and they haven't met goal, and they have no idea why, all along never producing any receipts and food logs.
  11. do you need a comordbidity with your BMI over 40?
  12. @@lisalisa1212 Gherlin is produced in the larger lower part of your stomach, if the stomach is removed, the area that produces that hormone is gone. Even in the absence of Gherlin, you can still have head hunger. http://drvamar.blogspot.com/2014/08/sleeve-vs-bypass-vs-ghrelin.html Head hunger is not the same as real physical hunger. https://youtu.be/7llL1lE6Mz8?t=1m21s Also helps to mentally work to a place in your mind that it is okay to be hungry or not full. Feeling full is an emotional crutch for a lot of people that is removed once they have surgery and they can't cope without it.
  13. A good bra takes 10 lbs off you. No reason to scrimp or not wear the right size. The comfort of a good bra is life changing too.
  14. Find a lingerie store that works with women post breast cancer. They have seen everything and are very good at measuring. They can usually tell your size just by looking at you braless.
  15. I wish I took less to the hospital. All I really need was my face wash and lip balm. I wish I knew I wouldn't be a "freak" forever. At 6 months I felt just like a normal person with a smaller appetite and capacity. I don't feel different or like I had weight loss surgery, at least not how I thought it would be. I wouldn't have stocked up on anything before surgery like I did. I ended up tossing so much of that stuff recently. I wavered a little on telling people about my surgery, but now that I am 8 months out I am very happy and secure in my decision not to tell people. It has made my recovery a lot easier and my weight loss easier also. Things get better at 6 weeks, better again at 3 months and back to normalish at 6 months.
  16. @@Airstream88 If you look at most long term successful people they don't eat bread or rice. Dieticians and nutritionists seem chained to the food pyramid even though it is setup the way it is because of lobbyists not nutritional needs. If you think post op you are going to lose and maintain with grains, you might find that isn't the case.
  17. @@Airstream88 Eating bread might work before surgery, but after surgery you don't have the room for bread and a lot of people can't tolerate it. Eating bread would make it hard to get enough Protein in. Some people eat bread in maintenance. I also noticed that a lot of programs include things not to scare people off, but when you talk to the Dr and nutritionist one on one, they tell you to avoid those things, even though they may be in the book. Most larger programs have more than one doctor and perform multiple surgeries so they include things that don't apply to everyone. Post surgery fruit and bread are really unlikely to happen just for the simple fact if you put protein first, you won't have room for them. So getting hooked on them as a crutch before surgery isn't going to be that helpful long term.
  18. Are you sure your size is a 38DD? Have you been measured by someone good? and I don't mean at Lane Bryant. Like at a lingerie store, or Soma? Bras can make you look so much slimmer, I don't mind spending $40-60 on one, even knowing it won't fit soon. They make such a huge difference in how you look in clothes that they are worth spending the money. If you are sure about your exact size, then buy one from ebay. There are new bras for around $20 on ebay all the time. Also, bras aren't meant to be worn that long. The heat from your body destroys them. Bras should be replaced every 6-8 months, if you aren't wearing them every day and are rotating them. You shouldn't wear the same bra more than one day in a row, so it can reshape. If you are wearing the same bra daily, it won't last longer than 2 or 3 months. Just because you can still wear a bra, doesn't mean it is still working at a optimal level.
  19. If I didn't "snack" I would never meet my calorie or Protein goals, ever. I was never a snacker before surgery, I don't like most of the things that people like as Snacks. I hate crackers, I find chips annoying. pretzels are useless, don't like popcorn even the smell of it is gross. So the typical snack foods that most people like are a non issue for me. I like meals. I eat 4-5 times a day, and I weigh and track all my food. I don't eat mindlessly and I leave appropriate amounts of time between meals. I gained weight before by only eating once or twice a day and having huge meals. Small meals keeps me on track and prevents me from overeating. I'm not very hungry this week because I have a huge work project I am working on. In the past on days like these I would have just had one huge 2000 calorie meal late in the day when i was starving because I was so engrossed with work that I didn't eat all day. So today I am not hungry but I am making sure I keep eating at the appropriate times, I had a shake for Breakfast, a steak for lunch, and now I am sipping on a shake as a "snack", and later I will have some fish and veggies. Sometimes in the afternoon I have spinach as a snack so I can get in veggies and you can eat a ton of spinach for basically no calories.
  20. @@CowgirlJane It really depends on the kind of change. I know someone and I have them in mind that I am thinking about, so that is making my opinion a little bias. My experience with this person is they pretended to be a nice person, just because they felt they were inferior because they were fat (why, who knows), then once they lost weight they turned into one of the meanest people I have ever encountered with a truly nasty spirit. No only just being in general mean and nasty, but specifically mean and nasty towards fat people. Even though when they lost weight they never got to goal and are still very obese. That is the kind of fake life and fake change I am talking about. People gaining enough confidence to be complete jerks. Everyone who grows up should become more confident and secure in who they are as they get older, and that should be continual, intelligent people should always learn and grow. Complete change and different outlook on life are two difference things. Or I guess I should say some people just change for the absolute worst. You learn a lot about people when they think they are better than other people. you see their true self.
  21. I really don't want my Protein or low carb items to taste like normal baked goods. I just want them to taste good. I don't want to set myself up for eating things that taste like things I shouldn't eat. I like to eat things that taste, healthy or different. I eat Halo Top ice cream, it is delicious, but it doesn't taste exactly like regular ice cream. Just like the protein brownies I eat, they don't taste like brownies but they taste good and a lot better than Protein Bars. I'm not really out to mimic real baked goods. The only thing I have ever made at home that tastes exactly the same is cheesecake.
  22. If you want to feel fullness, then eat dense Protein, like steak or chicken. The shakes you are making have some hidden carbs in them that might be triggering your hunger, milk has carbs and sugar, 4 strawberries seems like a lot, one would add enough flavor and sweetness. You could use almond milk instead of milk and one strawberry. The goal when you eat should be to feel satisfied not full. Like @@Bufflehead said It is okay to be hungry. I eat at set times, I am not usually really hungry, I get bored at my desk and want to eat before my mid afternoon meal. Even if I eat a steak, I am not still full 2 hours later. food doesn't sit in your stomach that long, especially when your stomach is small. You might want to think about why you want to eat and why you have regained and not think so much about feeling or getting full. Do you have triggers that make you want to eat?
  23. Influence your outlook on life and "change you" are two really different things. Any adult with a little bit of self awareness should should evolve over time. I am personally very leery of people that completely change after losing weight. That means either they were living a lie before or they are living a lie now. Either way it is a massive character flaw in a person I am not interested in entertaining.
  24. If you don't qualify for a signature loan, then it is unlikely you will qualify for loans. If you have bed credit saving up and paying cash is the best option.

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