catwoman7

Ha ha! I STILL wear leggings and tops almost all the time - not because I'm fat, because I'm not any more - I just like them!

some people experience hormone-related depression for a few weeks after weight loss surgery, but weight loss surgery would not have caused bipolar disorder.

you'll probably get different answers from different people. I prefer Fairlife because I can taste the protein in Premier shakes, but there are lots of people who love Premier shakes

I used to hear about bypass patients getting longer "channels" or whatever (i.e., they'll bypass more of the small intestine so you'll malabsorb more - I think they call it a distal bypass), but I haven't seen anyone post about one of those in a long time. I think normally when people revise from bypass, they go with the DS or SADI.

like someone else said, only 30% of bypass patients dump, and it's not common to dump on fruit, even though it contains sugar. People who dump tend to dump on things like ice cream, cake, etc (and often they can eat SOME ice cream, etc - like maybe a few bites - but just not a lot) I'm several years out. The first few months I really only ate berries (once I was able to, that is - anything with seeds I was supposed to avoid the first few weeks post-op). I've been able to eat pretty much any fruit ever since - although sometimes acidic fruits like pineapple and citrus fruits irritate my stomach. I still eat them occasionally, though. P.S. I do know someone who dumped on pineapple once, so it IS possible to dump on fruit - but that was the only time I've ever heard of anyone dumping on fruit - so I think it's pretty uncommon.

most VSGers do take vitamins. There's at least one person on here who no longer has to take them, though - but she wasn't told she could stop until she was a few months out, I think, and had had normal labs (i.e., blood tests) for a while.

your surgeon is nuts - you just had major surgery! Of course you're going to get easily fatigued! I had to take naps in the afternoon for the first couple of weeks - and it was probably two months before I felt back to normal (although it got a little better every day...)

by the way, since you have acid reflux, did your surgeon suggest gastric bypass (RNY) instead? That's often recommended for patients who have reflux issues (I was one of them...). RNY usually improves if not outright cures reflux. With sleeve there's about a 30% chance of it getting worse. Some people are comfortable with those odds and have gone ahead with sleeve and lucked out. I wasn't comfortable with the odds.

that's not why some insurance policies require a six-month supervised diet. They require it because they want to see if you're able to stick to a diet long-term, because they don't want to fork over thousands of dollars for patients to have an elective surgery only to blow it big time by not following their clinic's plan. On top of that, some surgeons require that you lose a certain number of pounds before they'll let you have surgery. I lost 56 lbs on my six-month supervised diet, and no way were they going to tell me I couldn't have surgery because I could obviously "do it on my own" (and honestly, fewer than 5% of people who lose a lot of weight can maintain it for more than a few months. Bariatric surgeons are well aware of this fact)

there have been a few Europeans on here who've had weight loss surgery in Turkey. As long as you do your research, you should be OK. As is true anywhere, there are good surgeons in Turkey and likely some not-so-good ones. Read reviews, check with people who've had it done there, etc. And make sure your GP is willing to do your follow-ups (regular blood tests, etc)

sounds like the infamous "three-week stall" (it's not ALWAYS the third week, but it usually happens sometime within the first 4-6 weeks after surgery). Almost all of us have our first major stall then. If you do a search on the three week stall on this site, you will find over 17,000 posts on it (and no, I am NOT kidding!). It'll likely be the first of several stalls during your journey. The best thing to do when you hit a stall is make sure you're following your eating plan to a "T", and stay off the scale. Instead of every day, weigh yourself once a week. As long as you stick to your eating plan, the stall WILL break. Usually takes 1-3 weeks. But it'll break. Mine lasted two weeks, and once it broke, I dropped like 6-8 lbs practically overnight. it's just a way for your body to come to terms with what's going on and re-calibrate before heading down again. It's a natural part of losing weight and happens to almost all of us.

I'm not sure if that was actual dumping or not. Nausea CAN be part of dumping, but it's not one of the more common symptoms. Usually it involves heart palpitations, cramping, sweating or chills, and diarrhea - and it can go on for hours, or so I hear (I've never dumped). It's also pretty rare in sleeve patients (although it's not unheard of), so I'm not sure if it was that or some ingredient in those foods that your body was reacting to. Although you could be right. I'll be curious to hear what others say/think.

Have someone take pictures of you once a month (I had my husband take them from all four sides). You may not detect a difference from one month to the next, but if you compare a picture to one taken three or four months ago, yep, big difference. Plus it's fun to have a pictorial documentation of your journey.

wow - they didn't knock you out? I've had two or three of them and they always sedate me (and you're right, it's not general anesthesia - it's the same type of anesthesia they use for colonoscopies. You're technically awake, but you have no idea what's going on and don't remember anything afterward). I've never heard of an endoscopy without any kind of sedation. That would be awful!

like others have said, a majority of us lose our appetite and desire to eat for a while after surgery. It can take up to a year to come back, although with some it's a few months (mine came back at five months out). So the liquid diet AFTER the surgery is way, way easier than the liquid diets some of us have to do BEFORE surgery.

I also started using them once I was a few months out

I wouldn't worry about it. As the others said, well-chewed cooked vegetables usually aren't a problem. Plus leaks are rare and almost always happen before you even leave the hospital.

the SADI is a fairly new surgery and isn't very common - which is probably why the office staff isn't that well versed in it. Although if the surgeon is going to be offering that surgery, they really need to get the office staff up to snuff, because they're the people you're usually going to see when you're there as far as red, purple, yogurt, and fudgsicles, they're probably talking about the day or two before the surgery, and not the regular pre-op diet that many of us have to do for a week or two before the surgery. I've had about four surgeries, plus a couple of colonoscopies, and having a completely liquid diet for the day or two before with nothing red or purple is pretty standard with any procedure. They don't want anything in your G/I tract (that's why they say only liquids), and red and purple fluids look like blood on the equipment they use, so they tell you to avoid anything red or purple.

this is more a response to what you said rather than the general focus of the post, but I just wanted to say that when I weighed 170ish and told my clinic's dietitian that I wanted to try to get down to 150 (which at 5'6" is within the normal BMI range), she told me that was a bit unrealistic because only about 10% of their patients make it to a normal BMI. The rest end up in the "overweight" or "stage 1 obese" (which is not very obese) categories. Research actually does back that up (I checked). I DID actually make it down to 150 - well actually down into the 130s. But at nine years out, I'm now slightly "overweight". But that's where they wanted and expected me to end up anyway, so I guess I'm OK with that (I'd still like to be around 150 +/- though - but it's hard to lose weight when you're pretty close to a normal BMI!

I agree with Mrs. Fritz - anyone who started off at well over 300 lbs and is now under 200 lbs should be celebrated..that is an amazing loss!

I don't know about brownies specifically, but unsweetened cocoa powder is fine. It's really low in calories. I often mix it into vanilla yogurt and throw some berries on top for a treat.

my primary exercise in the summer is biking - and in the winter it's water fitness classes. Although I do try to rotate in different things once or twice a week since that way I'm working different muscle groups

BMI isn't always the best way to judge for people who've lost massive amounts of weight because even though we've lost muscle and bone mass in addition to fat, we still have more muscle and bone than "normies" who weigh about the same but were never obese. (we needed a lot of infrastructure to hold up all that weight!). The PA at my bariatric clinic said we often look 10+ lbs lighter than the scale would suggest, because of that extra muscle & bone (well, there's the extra skin, too - but skin doesn't weigh very much. I think I "lost" about 4 lbs after my skin surgery - but there's that, too, if you haven't had it removed). Your PCP evidently hasn't worked with a lot of massive weight loss patients....

yes you COULD experience deficiencies - but that's why they'll have you take a bunch of supplements and have labs done (probably a few times the first year - and then annually thereafter). That way they can catch any deficiencies early and correct them. As long as you stay on top of your supplements and have your labs done when required, you should be fine.

it's been a while for me, but I think we were allowed decaf at about three weeks post-op and regular coffee at about six months out. The acid in some coffee does bother my stomach - I can handle coffee that's only mildly acidic but some is so acidic that I just can't do it. That may be why in my case (and yours) they wanted us to wait three weeks even for decaf.