JupiterinVirgo

To be honest with you, I made it a point not to use the scale. After my surgery, I didn't weigh in until my first check up at the surgeons office 30 days after. Then I stayed off the scale till the next one two months later. And again for three months. Now, many people feel that they should weigh themselves weekly to keep themselves on track. For me, I knew I would just take myself on crazy head trips and become obsessed. I still have a policy to never weigh myself more than once a month. I know when I am eating true to what feels good for my body and my life and when I'm not. That said, there's a scale that is put out by fit bit that syncs up with your fit bit and your app and it supposedly helps you keep track of not only of body weight body fat. I know a lot of people on this forum think highly of the measurement of body fat as opposed to using weight alone as a measure of success. Me: I am just trying to fall in love with my body regardless. And too much quantifying disrupt the process. Best of luck! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

For the first few months not much does settle well. Just go slow, pay attention to what pisses off your belly, and do your best to eat the things that create the least amount of digestive turmoil. Over time, you really will be able to eat almost anything you want. But I'm a year out, and if I eat too fast-almost anything too fast-and I still get nauseous. Great reminder to be mindful about food. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I'm from a big Italian family and to socialize means to eat. What helped me was shifting my focus from the food to the people I was there to be with. And even on the occasions in which I have fallen off the wagon, damage was minimize it on account of my beautiful little sleeve. The first year post up almost doesn't feel like real life for a lot of people. But it is. This is the rest of our lives. We need to be able to be around food without letting it own and control us. For me, focusing on how grateful I was to be with my family even when we were all out eating out a big Italian restaurant maybe not miss gorging myself at all. In fact, I love just having a bite or two of a few different things. Lord knows that since I've had the sleeve I don't do much cooking because it just doesn't pay to cook a complete meal for myself alone. I would have to eat it every day for the entire week. And I never do that-it ends up in the garbage! Enjoy your loved ones. Let food just be the punctuation mark not the star of the show. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

There is a for him somewhere nestled in all of these rooms on this app for a post up vegetarian diets. It is not the busiest for him but there are a few people down there who are really good at this and can help you with specific ideas. I think being vegetarian in the first few months is a little difficult because the restriction is extreme due to swelling, but I think down the road it's much more realistic to have a vegetarian diet and get everything you need from it. Good luck! I have considered this myself. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

First of all I think it is so amazing that you lost 72 pounds before you even got the sleeve! Congratulations! I think you have every reason to be excited and optimistic and you're going to take it all the way baby! May you have the most peaceful possible experience moving through your surgery with the most benevolent outcome possible. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I think in general, the bariatric industry has a very long way to go and understanding food and nutrition. I have read countless posts, and made posts like this as well, asking for direction because there was so little from the surgeons office. The bariatric gospel preaches high Protein and low carbs and for some that might be the healthier way to go, but I don't believe that bodies respond universally to lifestyle choices when it comes to diet. My surgeons office had these little photocopies-tiny CliffsNotes, and one of them said to be eating around 100 carbs a day. In the beginning I ate super low carb, and after a couple of months I couldn't think straight. I literally didn't eat enough carbohydrates to have proper function in the mind. As for speed of weight loss, I know that we all want to lose the weight as fast as possible-most of us anyway. But I think once we get past that point where everything hurts and it's hard to move around and we lost enough weight to start having our lives back there is less pressure to rush and get the rest of it off. At least that is been my experience. I am now at a wait where I can function physically, I feel much better, I look much better, overall I am fairly happy with myself even though I could still stand to lose 30 to 40 pounds. For the rest of my life, I have to watch my relationship with food. The sleeve does not change that. It just gave me a Headstart. It showed me that I could do this. And it will be a tool that I always have, but I ask myself what difference does it make how fast the weight comes off? At this point, it doesn't matter that much. If it takes another six months to lose 30 pounds it's not a big deal. Breaking my metabolism by starving myself, depriving my body of any single food group that it needs to function properly and restore itself to health and balance-I'm much more worried about that then slowing down my weight loss by eating a few more carbs so that I can think straight Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Over the last year and a half that I have been on the site I have seen several posts from women whose husbands have withdrawn their loving support. I have always found this to be extremely disappointing, and I have always believed that it had to do with the insecurity of the other partner Who is in someway feeling in adequate and perhaps subconsciously figured that they are inadequacies can be overlooked on account of the physical issues of their wives. To put it simply, husbands are afraid to lose their wives when they lose weight, and some, who do not have better instruments of Communication and self reflection, turn to abusive tactics. I'm sure that most married women would love to think that their husbands love them. When a man turns to you and says he doesn't "like "something about your body, he is withholding love in an attempt to create emotional blackmail. Most men who do this are not specifically malicious, but themselves they are wounded. You have a right to be healthy. It's your body, you live inside it, and it is only your choice what you would have it be like. I can't imagine how discouraging it must be for you to be confronted by your husband this way, but I want you to know that you have every right to do what makes you happy! Maybe he should be worried. Maybe when your body is reflective of your glorious womanhood, you might realize she prefers something better or something different. But in the meantime, girl you go for it! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Stay off the scale for the first month. When you are on liquids and puréed foods, they kind of "slide" through your sleeve pretty quickly. Believe me, when you get to the solids phase you'll realize just how much restriction you actually have. That's why so many surgeons push the high protein/meat eaters diet postop. Three or four bites of that and you'll feel it! The first month after surgery your body is going through some serious trauma, you have been pumped full of opiates and fluids, and your body is not going to be either to let go of its resources until it knows by its own intelligence that it has regained some stability inside itself. I'm telling you-stay off the scale until you're 30 day check up! Weight-loss really starts to get a lot quicker after that and stays that way for at least 6 to 9 months more. A year from now you're going to be shocked at where you are! In a good way. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I would say I didn't start feeling significantly better with the aches in my belly until about 10 days out. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I noticed since losing all this weight that it hurts where my leg bones go into my pelvic bowl/hip bones. Overall, I have less aches and pains and they are less severe from the weight-loss but when I get a lot of aching in my muscles, like my calves or my toes or something like that I find that if I take a magnesium supplement even just a couple times it clears itself up. Not the joint aching but The muscular aching. I take natural calm. It's a magnesium supplement. Non-GMO. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I want to earnestly thank everyone of you from the bottom of my heart for being so receptive, and so kind in your responses. I read them all. And I am so grateful if in some small way my story helps you to claim the life you truly deserve. Aliveness has become my primary value. I am pursuing it with all my primal might. LOL Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I had the same experience during the liquid phase of the diet before surgery. There were times I was too weak to even walk from the car to the store for more Protein shakes! During my preop liquid phase every few days I would eat a salad with chicken on it because I really was afraid I was going to die from starvation but it will truly was not head hunger. My body was very weak because at 300+ pounds, three Protein shakes a day wasn't enough to keep me standing upright. Postop was much easier in the sense that I definitely did not want to eat anything. I did not experience hunger. Only exhaustion and some pain which went away after about 10 or 12 days. The fatigue lasted for several months. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Wow! You look AMAZING! Great job! Don't look back, turn the page, and let your next chapter begin! Thank you! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

You'll probably be tired for the next six weeks! Plan on taking naps LOL Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I was a smoker before surgery, and I still am. I was required to show efforts of quitting smoking, which I did: I wore the patch, and I switched to vaping but because I did not quit of my own accord, I went back to smoking after surgery. I had no intention of permanently giving up my two biggest crutches: food and cigarettes at the same time. I maintain that as long as I am still losing weight I have no intentions to quit smoking. Nor will I be willing to quit and gain weight after all of this effort. I would love to be a non-smoker, but I don't know if that's ever going to happen. That said, I didn't let it keep me from getting the surgery and if your friend really needs and wants the surgery-if it is right for her-she'll do what she has to do. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Getting more calories is easy. Just replace that quarter cup of food with whole foods that have a higher content of fat and calories: avocado, nuts, seeds, nut butters etc Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

My high weight was in the 320s, and I had my surgery one year ago. At present, I'm about 190 and have another 30 pounds to go. I have seen many posts over the last year of people who have lost even more weight than that! Yes, it is very possible-likely, even! Don't worry. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

When I was preparing to have my sleeve surgery, I spent a lot of time on this forum. I found most of the people here to be very helpful. Even though there's every kind of personality here, we all have one thing in common: we wanted to lose weight and be healthier. Approaching any surgery is scary. There are real risks, and real rewards when all goes well. I have struggled with weight my whole life. Total sugar junkie. Used food to replace every unmet need I had, to repress every emotion for which I was unprepared to deal. I gained and lost hundreds of pounds over the course of my life. Hundreds. When my husband died eight years ago it broke me. I shattered, and it took me almost a decade to put myself back together. During that time, I lost everything: my beloved, my home, my income, even my sense of self. And I spent the next eight years eating to fill this giant empty void inside my being where someone who I thought of as the love of my life used to be. I ballooned up bigger than I had ever been, surpassing my previous high weight and moving into the 320s. I avoided social situations, and only left the house when necessary. I was afraid I would have to ask for a stronger chair when invited to sit down for dinner at somebody's home. I was afraid that I would need to sit down every 20 or 30 steps during a leisurely stroll through the mall with a friend. My body ached; sometimes the pain was so bad that I could scarcely move-even sitting still was painful. Life had become extremely small. Deciding to get the surgery was surprisingly easy, but getting through the approval process and going through with the surgery summoned up terror in me that had been there since my first surgery when I was three years old. I thought it would be a miracle if I were able to get the surgery, simply because my trauma was so severe for so many years that it seemed like an impossible feat to put myself in the hands of medical professionals, who I have never trusted all my life. With lots of support from my mother, my sister who had already had the surgery, and my therapist, I was able to get the sleeve. And it changed my life! I also decided that I was going to make up for lost time now that I was going to be able to physically get around again. I sold all my stuff, ditched my apartment, bought an RV and moved in! And it's wonderful! I could not have fit in here, nor could I do the things necessary when living in an RV, at my previous weight. This surgery has allowed me an opportunity for a whole new lease on life. I am officially one year postop, and I am down about 130 pounds, with another 30 to go. It's amazing the difference a single year can make! If you know that this is right for you, and the only thing giving you pause is fear that is not coming from your true intuition: there are many people on these forums who feel that this surgery has saved our lives. I am one of those people. Here is a before and present a photo of me, in a year, this could be you! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I have been on this forum for about a year and a half. I have seen so many posts of people worrying about excess skin after weight loss. I find this to be incredibly trite and shallow, a roadblock thrown up in the mind to justify the subconscious reasons why we put on and hold the weight to begin with. First of all, there are of course permanent consequences for getting so big that your skin has to stretch to be twice the size it would be if we were normal weight. It doesn't go back to a state in which it was as if we never were overweight. And so what? What is often unspoken in these forums is that a very overweight person worrying about how they are going to look if they lose weight because of sagging skin, is silly in a society in which obesity is considered ugly to begin with. More importantly, most of us have the surgery because our bodies and lives were becoming unmanageable due to excess weight, not to look better at speed dating. For those who are asking the question I have seen posted on this forum a million times, no your skin will not go back to being how it was before your weight gain. There is no cream, no wrap, no swanky magic that's going to make it be as if you were never overweight. The only real option for getting rid of excess skin if you are very overweight when you start, is plastic surgery. And that comes with its own price. I am not knocking people who choose to have that, I might even choose that eventually, as vanity is one of my flaws. That said, plastic surgery is very very serious, and fairly savage. And still, your body cannot look like it would have if you had never put on weight. They will be scars. Big ones. Surgery of any kind is a serious injury to the body. The point I am trying to make is that if you are considering having weight-loss surgery to save your life, stop worrying about your skin. Worry about the inner conditions that have led you to the point where this is necessary. Focus instead on changing your behaviors. Focus instead on health, not looks. We have such a distorted view of bodies in this country. Body diversity is beautiful! Stop thinking that you have to look a certain way. Be healthy. Be you. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

It's your body. Only you will live with your choice. Don't let other people tell you what is right for you, if you know. I went with the sleeve, which was the advice of my family of nurses, Who explain to me some of the likely issues that occur with bypass and not with the sleeve. Particularly, long-term nutritional issues. For a long time, I thought any surgical procedure for weight loss was very extreme until I became so big that I was even more extreme than that. I am one year postop, down from over 300 pounds to 190, with about 40 pounds to go. Since either procedures a permanent alteration to your body, why not start with the less invasive action? (Sleeve)? But if you feel deep in your being that you really need the bypass, again only you will live with that so do what's right for you. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I understand the urge to have some unit of relative measurement, but the truth is that we all lose weight at our own pace. If you start with a very high bodyweight, you drop more of it much more quickly at the beginning. People who start with low BMIs, lose more slowly. If you want to know the averages, at six months post-sleeve, the average weight loss is 80 pounds. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I was nauseous for months. I still get nauseous sometimes if I put the wrong thing in my body. Some days, especially in the first six months, no matter what I ate I felt nauseous. Other days, fine. It's just part of the process. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I have noticed something I never noticed before. That in our culture, it's OK to be overweight but only to a certain extent. As a woman, it seems to me that I am not allowed to be over 200 pounds without serious social consequences. Once I got under 200 strangers started to be nicer to me. I feel disgusted by this realization. I don't want to be loved for my body, or distained for it. I am so much more than my body, and I am coming to a level of success with my weight loss that is bringing me up against a very deep psychological pain, that was not dealt with fully, or even that I was aware of it until now. Due to severe trauma over a number of years around sexuality, I realize that I have been hiding my sensual personality. Growing up and seeing menace predators caused me to try to hide from them: under a lot of weight. Now that I am becoming visible, a part of me wants to stop losing weight. It scares me to think that I could fall for somebody who says they love me but really it's my body they prefer. That is, that same individual would not even give me the time of day at my previous weight. I feel disheartened by this. I am a widow and I have been single a long time. I don't date much, and I don't intend to change that. I am only making this post with the hopes that I will discover that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I worked very hard on myself as a person for many years and I am finally becoming somebody that I like. Losing the weight has been great, but I'm a little bit afraid of losing anymore even though I'm still in the high 100s. My current body type is still way outside our cultural norm, and I am realizing that that has been a big part of the point of being overweight to begin with. Has anyone who has reached her goal moved through these feelings that if you become too pretty, too thin, it's dangerous? Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I definitely felt this way before I had my surgery too. I was so afraid that I was never going to enjoy eating again! For me, food was standing in for all kinds of unmet needs and that was the real panic-if I couldn't substitute food for all the things my life was lacking I was afraid that I would not be able to cope. But the truth is, that a few months after surgery you will probably be able to eat most of the things that you eat now, but you won't want to. And if you slip up here or there, it's not really that big a deal because people like us will have to watch our relationships with food for the rest of our lives. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Tell them you're seriously considering suing the hospital for malpractice as well as the surgeon involved. That'll light a fire under their ass real quick. They are trying to disempower you because they messed up. Don't fall for it! You are the customer. They work for you. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App