catwoman7

you're probably in the infamous three-week stall, as a couple of others suggested. Those typically last 1-3 weeks. Nothing you can do other than stick to your plan and stay off the scale if you need to. As long as you follow your surgeon's plan, the weight loss WILL start up again. as for worrying that you're eating too much, stick to what you're supposed to eat. You likely had some nerves cut during surgery, so your stomach isn't talking to your brain just yet. Thus, you're unlikely to experience a "full" feeling for awhile. Also, for many of us, "full" feels different than it did before surgery, and it can take awhile to recognize the new "full" cues. So you need to follow your plan rather than your brain for awhile. Weigh/measure and log your food - and stick to the plan.

I agree - carb flu. I had headaches the first few days of my pre-op diet.

yes - even after 5+ years, I'm still surprised by how "bony" I feel in some parts of my body!

^^^ what he said. Yes - there are unfortunately a lot of folks who don't make it to goal - and/or regain a bunch of weight after hitting goal. They let old habits sneak back in - or they're often trying to push the envelope. So I wouldn't assume that if someone is eating this or that, that they've been - or will be - successful at this.

I had similar thoughts, but I knew from decades of experience (I'm in my 60s), that if I lost weight, I'd always gain it back. If you're one who can lose it and keep it off, then you may be fine on your own. But I never could.

it's a personal thing. I only told my immediate family and a few close friends. I didn't want all my co-workers, casual friends, etc to know (I wanted to be able to pick & choose who I told), so no way would I have put it on social media. But some people do - again, it's a personal choice.

I go by calories now and have since I hit maintenance. I can maintain my weight on 1500-1700 calories a day, so I try to stay in that range. you probably won't stretch your stomach unless you're constantly overstuffing it.

when I'm dealing with regain I just go back to the basics - not all the way back to protein shakes, but the whole protein first, then vegetables, and then if I have room (and can fit them into my calorie range), maybe a serving of fruit or whole-grain, healthy carbs. my maintenance range is 1500-1700 calories per day, so if I need to lose a few pounds, I strictly monitor my intake (through tracking) and make sure I stay within that range. If I need to lose a few pounds, I try to stay at the lower end of that range or just under it. I'll also weigh myself several times a week. if you don't know how many calories you're averaging now, then track your intake for a couple of weeks to see. Once you know what you're eating now, cut it by about 100 calories a day. If a couple of weeks go by and you haven't lost anything, then cut it by another 100 calories (I find it easier to do it this way than to suddenly drop several hundred calories - it's easier to adjust when you ease into it slowly). At some point, you'll find your sweet spot where you're losing weight again.

I eat popcorn. But I was at least a year out (maybe more like two or three?) before I tried it.

a lot of people lose their hunger and their interest in food for a few months after surgery. And unfortunately, for most of us, it comes roaring back - and that's when things get a lot harder. So enjoy it while you can - it'll never in your life be easier to lose weight than it will right now, when you don't give a flip about food.

yep. In fact, most people have their first major stall at around three weeks out, so you're late to the party! the way to deal with them is to just stick to your plan and stay off the scale if you have to. They usually last 1-3 weeks. It WILL break, and probably soon if it's already been two weeks for you.

actually, most people report little to no pain with these surgeries -- although they'll send you home with pain medication. If you're one of the people who does have pain from this, just take the meds when you're supposed to to keep on top of it. It'll just last the first few days, and the meds will help a lot. But the majority of us seem to have little pain from this - I had almost none.

Some people are advised not to - but I know some who of done it. As the above posters said, it depends on your ferritin levels. It's hard to get those back up if they fall too low. I haven't given blood since my surgery since I'm a little afraid of that (i.e., ferritin depletion - not giving blood per se!)

at a BMI of 51, it's unlikely you'll be able to lose most of your excess weight and keep it off. Nothing against you at all, but fewer than 5% of people are able to do that on their own. I spent literally decades gaining and losing the same 50-ish pounds - and I had over 200 to lose. No way in h*ll was I ever going to lose that on my own, if I couldn't even keep 50 off, despite my best efforts. Maybe you'll be one of the people who can - but the statistics are against you. It's tough to lose that much weight - even WITH weight loss surgery it's tough, and some people do fail because of that, but it's a powerful tool that'll greatly increase your chance of success. (I know that YOU probably know this, but it sounds like your husband doesn't...) at one time weight loss surgeries were very risky, but they're not anymore. They've come a long way. Mortality rate on gastric bypass is 0.3%, for sleeve it's even lower (I can't remember the stat on that one since I had the bypass). Major complications are also rare. I was scared of it for many years, too, but I finally came the conclusion that staying at over 300 lbs put me at greater risk than having the surgery. I am SO GLAD I did it and would do it again in a heartbeat! I just wish I hadn't waited so long to do it! It may help if your husband started doing research on the surgeries - or reading books such as "Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies". Or maybe he could go with you to a consult. He's probably freaked because he doesn't know a lot about them. Hopefully armed with some good information, he'll start to come around!

if you're having it done laproscopically, those scars are pretty tiny (well, with sleeve I think you'll have one longer one, the one where they'll pull your stomach out from). Mine were not even noticeable after a few months.

I've been doing carbonyl iron for the last five years - it's considered a gentle iron, along with a couple other versions, and I haven't had any stomach issues with it. and yes - heme iron supposedly doesn't give people stomach issues, either. I think it's mostly the ferrous sulfate (??) that people have G/I issues with

I don't know who that study researched because I've never seen anyone lose 15 lbs a week on any of the internet forums I'm on. Maybe they meant 5-15 lbs a month? That'd be a pretty common loss after the first month..

oh yea - I forgot about him! Things sure are quieter around here now!

I didn't even lose that much during the first MONTH, and I started out at over 300 lbs. 5 lbs a week is about average for the first month or two (an average range seems to be about 15-25 lbs for month 1, but of course there are outliers), but after that, it slows down quite a bit. I've been involved in the bariatric community for about six years, and I've never heard of anyone losing 15 lbs a week. Maybe five lbs - but again, usually just for the first month or two.

a lot of us who end up losing 100% of our excess weight look emaciated in year 2, but we don't by..or sometime during...year 3. Fat is redistributed a bit so you don't look as "drawn", and also, most people seem to have a 10-20 lb rebound after hitting bottom. So I wouldn't purposely try to gain weight now - just try to stabilize. my weight loss just kind of stopped on its own at about 20 months out - but I started out heavier than you did.

not all RNY'ers dump. The statistic I see thrown around a lot on forums is that about 30% of us do. I don't know if there's any hardcore medical research behind that, but I know there are a lot of us who've never dumped, so I wouldn't doubt it. even if you end up being a dumper, you can manage that by limiting/avoiding sugar. Several dumpers I know can eat *some* sugar - just not a ton of it at one sitting intolerance of certain artificial sweeteners seems to be more of a problem for some of us. I can eat/drink any of them, but some of them give some folks G/I distress - especially sugar alcohols (the ones that end in "-itol", like sorbitol, xylitol, etc) it's hard to predict if you'll dump or be intolerant of certain artificial sweeteners - but you'll figure it out pretty quickly once you've had surgery.

it could be just a really long stall, but make sure you're following your clinic's food plan to a T....

I don't know if you have GERD or not, but if you do, surgeons usually recommend the bypass because the sleeve can make that worse (it doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens to a significant enough minority that you'll usually be advised to do bypass instead). You may have other health issues that would make one surgery or the other more appropriate for you - if so, I'd at least consider what the surgeon is recommending.

unless you're the size of someone on "My 600 lb Life", the chances of you losing 15 lbs a week is pretty minute. Most "normal" WLS patients lose somewhere in the 15-25 lb range the first month - and it slows down after that. Of course, you'll always find outliers who lose more or less than that, but that seems to be about the norm for month #1. So you're perfectly normal - well actually, a bit ahead of the game. P.S. I don't know where you're looking on this forum where you're seeing people losing 15 lbs a week. I've never seen that, and I've been hanging out here for five years.

yep - evidently it's fairly common. I had high ones and my PCP thought I had "fatty liver", but then I googled elevated liver levels and bariatric surgery and yes - it does happen due to the rapid weight loss. And when I went back to have them re-checked, they were normal - as expected since my weight had stabilized by then. Although given all the other stuff you have going on, it's definitely possible yours might be due to something else, too. Keep us posted... P.S. you may not have heard this since I don't know if many people have their liver enzyme levels tested as part of standard bariatric blood panels. Mine were tested for something else (I think it was when I was having some upper abdominal pain a few years back that my PCP was trying to diagnose). So I googled it when I got home. Anyway, since then I've seen that issue come up on this and other bariatric forums - not a lot, but it does come up occasionally. But then that's only when people actually have them tested. My bariatric clinic doesn't test for that.