catwoman7

also, we're in good company - Gwyneth Paltrow is also a "rectangle"!

re: rectangle-shaped - yea, it was a new one on me as well. But my measurements are 36-34-38 - so almost a perfect rectangle-shaped person!! (and I have very little fat anymore, so it's all just my body structure...)

I've heard of it, but I had so much loose skin that I knew traditional plastic surgery was the way to go for me. Not sure how cool sculpting works if you have minimal loose skin.

bodies are all different. I was apple-shaped when I was obese, and now that I'm normal weight, I'm "rectangle shaped" (hadn't heard this one before a couple of years ago). I asked my plastic surgeon about it, hoping he could nip my waist in, but he said there wasn't much he could do - some people are just shaped like that. So at any rate, sounds like you have the same shape.

I drink all of those and they've never bothered me. Some people are sensitive to artificial sweeteners, though (or at least SOME artificial sweeteners). To some it's the taste, to others, they get G/I distress from them. I guess keep trying to see if there's one you can tolerate.

vertical sleeve gastrectomy. It's the formal (medical) name for the sleeve. Like roux-en-Y (RNY) is the medical term for the bypass.

mine started falling out when I was about six months out and lasted maybe three months (so months 6-9). I didn't lose very much, though.

I only told my immediate family and close friends. I had my surgery in June 2015 (I told people I was on a "staycation" to work on some house projects). People didn't start noticing my weight loss until October, and I told them I was working with a dietitian (doing low carb) and exercising like a fiend. Skinny people believe that schlock. Plus it'd been four months since my "staycation", so I doubt anyone linked it back. Later on I was more upfront with other obese people (although luckily, I didn't have to deal with this at work - there were no other obese people there) - but I did have some obese acquaintances from other places who were curious. I did tell most of them because I knew they'd never believe the diet & exercise story - but most skinny people do.

I worked in education at the time (I'm retired now), so I had to wait until the end of the semester to have it - so it was three or so months for me, but that was a special situation because of my particular job. My pre-op diet was two weeks long.

^^ I was going to come back and say exactly this, but then I forgot to! Yes - it took me quite awhile to research surgeons, come up with my short list, and then arrange (and have) consults with them - and it's not too early to start doing that!

we were advised not to take vitamins in gummy form - but I had bypass, so maybe it's different with sleeve. also, once you've had surgery, watch your labs and adjust when needed. The amount of calcium I was taking turned out to be not a good thing - my endocrinologist said I was excreting so much of it that I was at a huge risk of developing kidney stones.

I was hooked on sugar free breath mints for awhile (I was eating them when I was craving food), but I started eating so many (like a box of them a day) that I recently gave them up. Even though there are very few calories in one of them, I was probably taking in A LOT more calories than I thought because I was eating so many. But if you can control yourself, it should be OK...

you should call your clinic and ask them what you can eat. I didn't eat any fruit for the first month or so.

for my multis, I just take two Centrums (or the generic equivalent) every day, so those are cheap (especially the generics). Although like Alex said, you can even get bariatric-specific vitamins for way less than what you're currently paying (most of those you only have to take one of, which you said you liked..)..

non-scale victory

let your clinic know you're in a lot of pain - they should be able to prescribe something to help with that.

if you have GERD, go with bypass. If you don't, it comes down to personal preference. Statistically people lose more weight with bypass, but it's not by a significant amount. IIRC, the average weight loss is 70% of excess weight (RNY) vs. 65% of excess weight (VSG). I don't know that cutting out 80% of your stomach and throwing it in the garbage is any less invasive than putting a staple line across your stomach and moving your small intestine up, but that's just me. They both seem pretty drastic to me... anyway, you'll find people who are wildly successful with both surgeries - and others who have failed both surgeries - and others who are kind of in the middle. Success is really more a matter of your level of commitment rather than which surgery you go with. They're both good surgeries and if you're committed, you'll succeed with either one.

that depends - do you want to lose weight or not? You're awfully early out to be thinking about this.

a lot of plastic surgeons recommend that you be at a stable weight for 6-12 months before getting plastic surgery - but not all do. I think it's a good idea, though, since many of us have a 10-20 lb bounce back after hitting our lowest weight.

they're really small since they do most surgeries laproscopically. I can't even see mine anymore.

I didn't eat crust my first year or two post-op (I just scraped the toppings off and ate those), but I eat the crust now. I can physically only eat 1-2 pieces of pizza at one sitting, though - but that's fine. That's more normal than half a large pizza! (which is what I used to eat pre-surgery...)

I know you didn't ask me this, but yes, that's how it works with most insurance companies - although yours may be different. You could always call them and ask - then you'd know for sure.

I was the first year or so. Not any more. It's very common, esp the first few months after WLS.

I know being cold is very common in bariatric patients, but I don't know about Raynaud's being common in us - I think this is the first time I've seen anything about that. I just googled it. Most of the hits were the same article, which was published in different databases. But there were a few mentions of it in different places...although again, most were of that one article/study. Another article said being cold after WLS could also be due to rapid weight loss and the slowed metabolism that often comes with that. I suspect that's probably what causes the coldness for most of us - but I don't know. Interesting. I'll keep my eyes/ears open for this from now on.

yes - start with your PCP. Many of them are very supportive of WLS. If yours isn't, find a new one, like ms.sss said.