heidikat72

definitely make a point to get your fluids in. that was the toughest part of transitioning to purees for me - started back a work and having to separate liquids from purees. Made it tough that first week on purees. set reminders on your phone to prompt you to drink if it helps. Also, I struggled with fatigue for a good 6 weeks but it does get better. The dizziness could definitely be from not enough fluids but also check your blood pressure (especially if you are on any meds for hbp), I was shocked I quickly I need to reduce my blood pressure meds.

that is fantastic! making changes pre-op helps so much with post op life.

exactly what KristenLe said! but if it makes you feel better - in the first two weeks I lost...NOTHING not even a tenth of a pound. Now at 4.5months out, I'm down 70lbs. So everyone loses differently but if you follow your plan, you will lose.

yep - i did lovenox injections twice a day for 14 days after I got home to prevent blood clots. From what I understand, it is pretty normal now - especially for patients with a higher BMI that may not be particularly active. The shots are easy to give yourself - and the nurses will show you in the hospital but basically pinch a little skin in the love handle area and inject slowly at a 90 degree angle. there will likely be bruising - so try to inject a little bit away from a previous bruise each time. And since I did them twice a day - i alternated sides - did my left side in the morning and right side in the evening. the bruising can take a few weeks to go away so tell her not to be alarmed by that and I even had some hard little nodules below my skin from a few of them - doc said that was normal too and about 6 weeks later they were gone.

do you have high blood pressure or take meds for high blood pressure? if so, you may want to call your surgeon or primary doc and discuss reducing dosage - I was shocked at how quickly I needed to reduce the dosage on mine due to extreme dizzy spells.

you've lost 21.5lbs in a month - that is phenomenal!!!! That's why I lost my first month and I had a very high starting BMI (66) on surgery day. My only advice is increase your Water especially if you are closer to 40oz instead of 60oz. Really you should target a minimum of 64 oz fluids a day especially now that you are a month out and drinking shouldn't be as hard as it was the first week. Otherwise, let you body adjust and catch up after that massive loss your first week. Keep following your plan and walk as much as you can and the scale will move again. Weight loss is not a constant daily thing for most people but more stair step like.

The biggest thing that has changed in my life since surgery? Simple, the fact that I actually HAVE a life now! Instead of dragging myself into work, leaving and getting fast food or takeout on the way home and plopping my fat ass on the couch watching tv until I fell asleep - I now LIVE and DO THINGS! I take a walk at lunch at work, hit the gym after work a couple times a week (3 or 4). I go out and do something almost every weekend - tour local botanical gardens, festivals, the zoo etc. Last week I was on vacation in Tennessee and walked miles every day sightseeing including hiking 5.5 miles at steep elevations in the Smoky Mountains one day. A year ago I was in constant back and knee pain and couldn't walk a city block without gasping for air and having my legs about to buckle. Now, I'm enjoying life! You also asked about starting exercise now or waiting until you drop some weight. Start NOW. No matter what size/fitness level you are - there is some sort of exercise/activity you can do. I started with just a little pedal exerciser and some resistance bands at home last january. When I had my surgery in June - i was walking 30 minutes a day plus had a weekly fitness class (run by a doctor who designed it for obese patients) to concentrate on core exercises. The idea is to start wherever you are at NOW and gradually increase. There is no need to wait until you've lost X amount of pounds. Best of luck on your journey! Great things are ahead!

How much have you lost in the 3 months and how much did you expect to lose in 3 months? 50g of protein seems to be on the low side - what Protein target were you given? What's your current Fluid intake? A leg injury can make exercise difficult but not impossible. Try going to youtube and doing a search for chair exercises, chair yoga and chair dancing - any activity helps!

How is he defining "highly elevated"? Mine are at least double the normal range at my 3 month bloodwork and neither my surgeon nor my primary were concerned at this point. I did some research and found some studies that indicated particularly in women it is not unusual for liver panels to initially go up before coming down with rapid weight loss. Your doctor may order some more specific tests to rule a few things out but I wouldn't worry at this point.

1. Don't rely on "full signals". Stick to measurements suggested on your plan. On purees, my guideline was 2oz. 2. Focus on protein - while cauliflower is better than potatoes carb-wise, you still aren't really getting any protein and pureed cauliflower probably won't have you feeling as sated as a protein based puree will. I know the idea of pureed meat can be off-putting. For me, the idea of pureed chicken salad or tuna salad was a little easier than the thought of just pureeing meat and stock. So my go to's were chicken or a pouch of tuna or a pouch of salmon pureed with a little nonfat plain greek yogurt - the flavored tuna and salmon pouches were great for this!

yep - giving in to head hunger will derail you. Also, are you taking a PPI? If not, excess stomach acid can cause what feels like hunger pangs. When the head hunger hits - try to reset your brain by doing something active - go for a walk or just anything. For me, having my hands active helps - so I colored a lot and started teaching myself to knit - hard to eat and knit at the same time

it did on my plan.

1200 calories still seems high for 1 month out. Are you sticking to the amounts recommended on your plan? It is super important to weigh and measure early out. Just because you can eat more, doesn't mean you should. I just looked back in my diary on MyFitnessPal and at 6 weeks out I was around 525 calories a day which included: half a carton of dannon light and fit yogurt for breakfast, 2 oz turkey and a low fat string cheese for lunch (with a tsp yellow mustard), 2 oz fish or chicken and maybe 1oz soft veggies for dinner, and a Protein shake made with 1 cup fairlife skim milk for a snack. Totaling 73 grams of protein a day and getting 56-64oz of fluids a day.

that is awesome! you are very lucky to have such a supportive group of colleagues!

A stall in the 1st month is common. If you are consuming sugar - that isn't going to help break a stall. Try upping your water - 40-50oz is pretty low and can lead to you retaining fluid. 1200 calories seems high for only a month out - can you list a typical day's intake?

Try it again in a few weeks. I often make a "dip" out of plain nonfat greek yogurt and some herbs or even pesto. Dipping the chicken in a little of this as I eat it helps it go down for me. If I don't feel like a yogurt dip, I use a little plain yellow mustard - very low cal/low carb but it seem to help with drier dense meats like chicken

What is your Protein level and target? Did your medical team give you a calorie target? Once I started eating solid food, I started phasing the Protein shakes out. At most I'll have one a day now (4 months out) and even that is rare. How big is your "hunk" of chicken? 300 calories seems pretty high does your jambalaya have rice? if so, that is a lot of added calories without much nutrition value so that's another place you could cut back If you are still within the calorie target on your plan and are meeting your protein goals and are losing, then talk to your team but you can probably stay where you are. If you want to reduce your calories - look at where you are on your protein target and I would probably look to cut back on the number of shakes

Take a deep breath. I think most of us have had this fear of failure with the surgery at some point - or even at several points. Let's face it, we've failed at all other attempts before surgery so it is in our heads that we could fail here too. Some of the things you mentioned, you have absolutely NO CONTROL over - so accept that. I'm talking about reflux or developing gallstones. If they are going to happen, they will. With the reflux - take your PPI, it may take some dosage adjustments to figure out what works best for you but you and your doctor will figure it out. If you do have a gallbladder attack - guess what? They can remove your gallbladder - a very common surgery. I know no one wants to have another surgery, but if you need your gallbladder removed at some point - it isn't the end of the world. So let go of your fear of those - they can be dealt with, IF they ever occur. Speaking for myself - I don't have it all figured out - I am still figuring it out, and there are always new things to figure out the further out I get. It will be a constant learning process for what works FOR YOU. You don't have to have it all figured out right now. You will need to be mindful of your eating habits forever - that's part of a healthy lifestyle. It will take commitment and will be an adjustment but it can be done. It is completely natural to have these fears. But try to channel that energy you are putting into being fearful, into learning and making conscious decisions and you will be successful. And remember - YOU ARE WORTH THE EFFORT. I think it is particularly helpful on the tough days to have a list to refer to of why you are doing this and what you are looking forward to that the obesity has kept you from. I know this helps motivate me and keeps me from giving into the fears and giving up. Hang in there! You can do this!

the benadryl tablets are pretty small - i was definitely allowed to take tablets that size whole. But since benadryl is not extended release, you can always cut them in half or crush them and take them. Most kids liquid medicines have a lot of sugar or sugar alcohols so I personally would try to avoid the liquid form of benadryl.

A BMI of 47.5 more than qualifies you for surgery and it is much better to deal with obesity now before you get a lot of obesity related health issues. You don't want to do like I did and wait until I had almost uncontrollable high blood pressure, excruciating joint and spine pain and greatly reduced mobility. I doubt your family would want those things for you either. At the end of the day, this is a personal decision between you and your surgeon. While I had my surgery in the states since my insurance would cover it, from what I've read on here the program that bariatric pal helps coordinate in Mexico is quite good and there are a lot of people on here who have used it. I do agree it would be best to have someone travel with you - not because it is mexico but just in general traveling a distance for surgery by yourself would be hard but not undoable. I've very surprised your primary doc says surgery is unnecessary at your BMI. But why does your family say that? Have you discussed with them the impact of obesity on your life? As well as the impact of years of yo-yoing weight loss and weight gain? And lastly - you are not alone - everyone here understands and supports you.

It likely means you don't have as much swelling. Did your plan give a time limit to meals? I ask because mine said to limit to 30 minutes. Basically it said to take the full 30 minutes to eat but that at 30 minutes to stop.

i had to do them twice a day for 14 days after i left the hospital. yep - great big bruises that stayed for a couple of weeks after i stopped. Even had some little hardened areas under my skin that probably took a month to go away - my surgeon and my primary doc both said that was completely normal with lovenox injections and not to worry.

Dr. Dumon is great. HUP was so so. They tell you up front that your recovery will be in a ward that only deals with bariatric patients but that wasn't true in my case. In fact, I was the first bariatric patient any nurse on my ward had ever dealt with and they had no idea what the protocol was - I had to keep educating them. For instance, the day after surgery I must have had 5 separate people bring me a can of full sugar ginger ale and a straw to drink. Had to explain to each of them why I couldn't use a straw, why I couldn't have any carbonated beverages and why I couldn't have sugar. Then they would offer to bring me coffee to "perk me up" and had to explain why I couldn't have caffeine. Plus my surgery was at 9:30am, I was in the post op recovery area before noon but didn't get to my actual room until almost 11:00pm and they refused in the recovery area to let me get up and walk and they hadn't even bothered to turn the compression wraps on until I complained for like the 10th time. I think they just take on more surgeries in general than the rest of the hospital is prepared to deal with. But all that said - I had no complications and it was only two nights in the hospital and the nurses I had did want to learn. And the pre and post support through Penn has been great. Just make sure you understand your immediate post op requirements (they will be explained to you in the nutrition class that you have about a week or two before surgery) because your nursing staff in the hospital may not actually be familiar with them. The next support group meeting at the perelman center (right next to HUP) that I'm going to is November 12th - if you attend, please come up to me and introduce yourself!

Depending on your level of lactose intolerance you might be ok with the whey isolate powders (example syntax nectar and unjury). My dietician said many of her lactose intolerant patients did fine with those. She said if those still triggered the intolerance there are soy protein isolate powders.

I think HFFM has the most likely explanation. She probably asked an admin or someone else to send you "something" and didn't specify what to send or go into detail about what surgery and that person thought "oh, i'd love for someone to send me cookies so I'll send her cookies"