OutsideMatchInside

Most PS won't operate when you have a BMI over 32. It is too high risk. You are going to get better results with a lower weight. You are going to have to contact Dr's and ask for consultations. A Dr will decide how much is excess skin and if surgery is safe.

I'm really sorry. I didn't see this was in they guys room and I can't delete my post. Sorry guys. I don't mean to invade your space.

Yes and crab. Crab used to have me stuffed now not so much. That is just normal healing. It isn't a big deal but this is why portion control and tracking are important because as time goes on your portion sizes will naturally increase as your capacity does if you don't set the portion before you start eating. I don't really eat shrimp often because shrimp has a small amount of carbs and is not filling.

You are not limited on the amount of fluids you can consume. You can drink a gallon of water a day post-op if you want to. You can't gulp water down, you have to take sips all the time. The more you drink, the more you can drink, think of it as exercise for your sleeve. You won't be able to drink 16 ounces of water in a minute, but you can in an hour. The longer you can take off work, the better for you. As far as not being able to eat for 6-8 hours, as long as you eat the other times you should be fine. Post-op you won't be hungry anyway. So going without eating won't be an issues. What might be an issue is 6-8 with no fluids, early on if you are having issues getting your fluids in. Also everyone is different, in how they heal and how their sleeve reacts. In your position I would be more concerned about being able to consume enough calories to support your physical activity level. You might have to supplement with a lot of protein shakes for longer than most people and your calorie needs are going to be higher than the average sleever.

It does seem like most people settle for not being obese and their Drs encourage that. Even though physically I am about as small as I want to be clothing and size wise. I want to get down as low as possible. I don't think I have to lose to 25 though, if I lose to about 27/28 I can get to 25 with skin surgery. The only reason I want to go as low as possible, hopefully to a 24 or 25 BMI is because I am still young and with aging I am going to end up regaining some. I would rather have enough bounce room I never end op obese again. I also think near the end it is so hard to get that last weight off people just give up instead of continuing to feel like they are failing. Many people also have a lot of their identity wrapped up in being fat, and they don't want to give it up.

I am surprised at how much I can eat at this point also. I can only imagine what it will be like a year or 2 from now. Tracking helps me stay on track (ha!). I can still be more than full and satisfied with 4 ounces of meat, but if I didn't portion and track 4 ounces, I could easily eat 6 or 7. When we get beyond meat, I can eat almost normal sized portions of things. My sleeve isn't stretched at all but 8 ounces of the wrong food, or even good food can be too many calories. Your restriction won't save you forever, only good habits will.

Fast and easy. It is going to vary by your plan though. There are tons of different plans and what the cover is different.

I love that everyone in this thread that doesn't track is fresh from surgery. Good luck with that long term. Food tracking is the absolute key in my opinion. I think tracking and a scale are just as important as the actual sleeve. The first 6 months post op, you can get away with a lot because the sleeve is doing all your work, after that it is basically all you, so you need the support of tracking unless you want to regain. Saying that what you eat isn't able to be tracked is a cop out. You can track anything. I use the LoseIt App and I make recipes and split the recipes into servings and it is accurate. I add things that are not in the app using USDA calories and nutrition information. You can track anything if you want to. I also try to avoid eating things that are a pain to track, like chicken wings. I have friends that have not had WLS and by tracking because I track they have lost weight and been very successful. And they are using eating plans they used before without success. Tracking is easy mode once you get it setup. I also eat a lot of the same things so that makes it easy to track them. The benefits to tracking as I see them. 1) You learn nutrition better than you know it now 2) You can see that one [insert item here] isn't the end of the world, and you can adjust the rest of your eating to accommodate it so your macros for the day work. 3) Seeing the calories and macros for some items really makes you question their value, making it easier to avoid them 4) Security. If you track everything you eat and you stall, you know it isn't your food. If you gain 2 pounds overnight, you know it isn't you food.

Ask your Dr. Crossfit is going to be at least 6 weeks, because of hernia risk. I have done Crossfit and honestly you won't be able to drink water fast enough or eat enough calories for it until at least 6 months.

I eat every 2 to 3 hours, In the beginning you are definately going to have to eat every 2 hours to try and meet your protein goals.

What a great question. I noticed more capacity at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. My capacity at almost 20 months is about the same as 12 months. What I had to do was at mainly dense protein. I had to switch to steak, chicken breasts, pork chops. I increased my fat and increased my calories per day. Even with increased capacity, dense protein is going to sit in your sleeve, so things like steak are your friend. I had to give up things like chicken salad, too moist, no restriction, no satisfaction, still "hungry" afterwards. I learned that salad was a slider at that point so I would eat a lot of baby spinach in the afternoons, like a whole bag.

Day 4, Rolled over in my sleep and it felt so good. It helped so much with the gas. If you have something tight on to support your stomach, it should't be an issue

I know it seems crazy to some people but there are lots of us that have never liked carbs to begin with so not eating them is not a sacrifice. I have never liked pasta, or rice. I only ate bread with sandwiches so that is easy to give up if I can have the meat inside. Not eating carbs for me isn't a sacrifice, it is a pleasure.

8-12 pounds a month isn't slow weight loss. I have lost 178/180 pounds ish, and most of it was in small amounts monthly. I would stall for a week or 2 and then in a week lose like 10 pounds. It was stall, loss in chunks This is my whole first year. Month 1 21 Month 2 11.5 Month 3 13.6 Month 4 20 Month 5 8.7 Month 6 6.7 Month 7 16 Month 8 7.1 Month 9 7.7 Month 10 4.6 Month 11 4 Month 12 7 Total 127.9 I do not consider myself a slower loser. I think people have unrealistic expectations about what weight loss is like after WLS. Most people are not losing massive chunks of weight each month, the body just can't support that. I have lost another 50 ish pounds so far in my 2nd year, and I still have 4 months to go to hit 2 years. I'm hoping to lose another 20 pounds before the 2 year mark but my weight loss is pretty slow right now. I went form a US size 28/30 to an 8/10 currently.

Nope you are doing awesome. Having the sleeve is kind of like having strep throat. If you keep things going through it, it stops it from being so inflamed. So you can keep eating/drinking. It is really important in the beginning because it helps keep the swelling down. Keep doing what you are doing, you are rocking it. Also fluids go right through your sleeve. I had a live swallow test, and the valve at the bottom of your stomach works like sand going through and hourglass. As soon as you take a sip, it opens and things slide though. So as you are just sipping, it is passing right through. Now later when you can gulp, you have to be careful you don't drink too much at once. All it takes is one time and you will learn your lesson

Do yourself a favor and stop thinking about eating off plan as cheating. This is a life going forward of healthy eating, not a diet. There is no cheating, you make a mistake, you get back on track next meal. I live alone, and did when I did my pre-op diet. If I had been stuck on liquids but surrounded by food I would have ate some food too. Days without chewing is maddening. So I'm not going to judge you. If you have to eat something just let it be carb free. The only day you really can't have anything is the day before surgery and that is to make sure your surgery is entirely safe. Good luck.

I'm going to be honest. I never chewed slowly, I still don't. I don't chew a ton of times, my chewing is basically the same as it ever was. I could never master the slow chewing and I hate cold food, so I never ate super slow either. I sometimes drink with my meals because I would rather take a sip than choke to death, I know crazy. there are something I have that I drink with, like I will drink water and eat a protein bar. Mainly because a protein bar is a lot of calories that can be consumed in a few bites and drinking water with it stretches it out. I didn't do this until past the one year mark but I do it. As long as your portions are measured and you know your capacity, eating and drinking isn't a big deal. You won't do it much just out of habit because it can cause you to be overly full very fast or push your food though. This is learned behavior by following your food progression post-op. It won't seem weird or like a punishment, it will seem normal. After the one year mark I sometimes eat and drink when I am in public eating situations but it is pretty rare. I grew up not eating and drinking so this doesn't seem like odd behavior to me. It really isn't something worth getting hung up on. You are only going to need to follow it rigorously for the first 6 months, and that is just to prevent being overly full. Long term you can eat anything with the sleeve unless you have complications. The question is will you want to eat these things. You probably won't long term, but you might short term. I love orange juice, I mean love it. I have had it twicee in the past 2 years at special occasion brunches. It was amazing, but I don't crave it because it isn't a part of my normal diet. That is what following your food steps and retraining yourself on how you feel and think about food does. I can have orange juice if I want, it doesn't make me dump or anything. I just don't want it. Lastly a lot of people are going to those groups just to lord things over people. I have been very successful in my opinion and I have never been to a group. When I was in orientation and I saw how people were asking about having toast and oatmeal post-op, I already knew those groups wouldn't be for me. WLS is like being a parent. Everyone tells you how hard babies are and that they cry etc. No one warns you about teenagers, college age kids, and being a parent to an adult child. Those are the really hard parts, People just focus on the beginning. The beginning of WLS is tough because you are healing, long term, as long as you don't have complications, you are not every different from anyone else. You just have a smaller stomach. The end game, maintenance and almost being at goal is way harder than the beginning.

Honestly, probably never. Being overweight and losing the weight ravishes your body. Also my left side has always been smaller than right side, and that continues now. I barely have a love handle on the left side, but I have one on the right side.

@LittleLizzieLilliput Where did I say one unkind thing? I'm taking my time that could be spent doing anything else in an attempt to help a stranger on the internet. If that isn't kindness, I'm not sure what is. Refuting bad advice is not being unkind. This is a discussion board not an echo chamber, people are going to disagree.

And it is a fad diet. I have and will continue to advise people against fad dieting. It just creates and continues unhealthy relationships with food. People need to find life long ways to eat that are sustainable and healthy. I lost my first 100 pounds eating real food every day. I didn't need a liquid diet to lose weight. Doctors prescribed Fen-Phen too, doesn't mean it was healthy or sustainable. Also, no offense but you aren't even 6 months from surgery. You have no idea what life is like at this point. OP should have posted in the Vets forum.

There is an entire forum dedicated to it. http://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/427-pregnancy-with-gastric-sleeve-surgery/

You can't live forever on a liquid diet. That is just fad dieting. The best thing about having WLS is you never have to fad diet again. A liquid diet works against your tool. A protein shake would be like drinking water to me and I would still be hungry. Dense protein is our friend post op. If you had 4 ounces or so of steak would be full for hours with no desire to snack.

You might be losing really fast and the hormone release is triggering depression. See someone though, don't suffer alone.

Comparing yourself to other people doesn't help. Everyone has different start weights and biology that is going to affect how they are losing. It is better to look at how you are eating. Are you tracking all of your food? Are you weighing/measuring all your portions? What are your macros? Protein grams? Carb grams? That is the stuff that is going to determine how fast you are losing weight. I lost 66 pounds in my first 4 months. I also started with a BMI of 60. If you start with a lower BMI you are going to lose less. No one in the world is going to think 10 pounds a month is slow weight loss. People are grossly unrealistic about how fast you lose weight post op with WLS.

Is your depression under control? Losing weight is going to make it worse for a while.