MacMadame

Isopure saved my butt in the early days because it gave me 40 g of protein and 20 oz of liquid.

I'm going to guess it's a speed issue. I know that I was eating much too fast at first even though I thought I was slowing down. The good news is that I have slowed down a lot in the past 10 months!

My sleeve doesn't restrict popcorn. I wonder if this is because I'm so far out. Well, I don't know for sure it wouldn't restrict it eventually. I've only eaten the "small" size bag. Which is about 7-11 cups depending on the movie theater. It's still only about 300-400 calories, but it's not something I want to be doing all that often.

There is Dr. Ungston in MX too if your financial situation changes.

Not me. I am not just a big popcorn eater. It's too greasy for me.

I keep talking about eating it but not eating it. Maybe talking about it is enough for now.

In the early days, it's just not possible to eat more IME unless you start in on some bad habits. You'll be able to eat more as you go a long and your calories will just naturally go up. But your weight loss will slow down, too, so it's a mixed bag. :thumbup:

My surgeon prefers to do it as one operation.

You don't have to get all your Protein from shakes. You can use protein hot chocolate and add unflavored protein to broth and also use the bariatric foods like the protein enhanced Soups and the Protein drinks that are fruity. Generally, people start out getting in about half the protein and half the Water that they should but by 2-3 weeks, you need to be getting all your Fluid and most of your protein. The fluid is the most important early out. If you get dehydrated, you can end up back in the hospital.

My surgeon told me that happens when you eat more than the stomach can hold or eat too fast. The food is backing up into the esophagus.

I had bad experiences with the epidural but not the spinal. The spinal is more complete, I think. These were with childbirth, not the VSG.

Hi Lisa! I was thinking about you the other day... I remember that you had some complications with your surgery and I have always wondered if your doctor didn't make your sleeve as tight as normal because he was dealing with the nicked liver and the internal bleeding... that would explain your ability to eat more and your cravings. I believe WLS is effective most of the time precisely because it controls our hunger. If you still have part of your fundus, you will have ghrelin than the rest of us and will feel more hunger. Getting switched could help combat that -- that's the way it seems to work for the DS gang anyway. Another option is to be resleeved to a smaller size but understanding is that this is risky and most of the time the surgeons won't recommend it.

I meet a lot of people by joining clubs. The nice thing is that even if you don't meet anyone to date, you can make a lot of friends and find a cool hobby that way. I met my husband at a gathering of people who all talked together online who got together in real life for pizza.

You might want to delete the message then after we've read it. So someone doesn't come along months from now and use it against you. My mom only gets the biopsies when her chinese herbs stop working. She sends the results to her herb guy and he changes the mixture. She hasn't had to do that in a while though. That stuff works! Well, it manages her symptoms anyway. It's no cure.

Personally, I haven't found the "date someone new to forget someone old" tactic ever worked for me. I had to be ready or no date would satisfy me.

All this popcorn talk has me jonsing for some kettle corn too.

I feel bad for my mom too. She had to lose weight because she has Hepatitis C and her weight was giving her NASH. So she did. But she fights every day to keep it off and she never lost as much as I have. She is still technically overweight, in fact.

Your fears are very normal. And sane too because there are people who don't get to goal with the sleeve even if most people do fine. Will you be one of them? First, the odds for success are definitely in your favor. WLS works most of the time for most people. Second, there are some questions you can ask yourself that can help you access whether the sleeve is the tool that will do the job for you. Such as: -Am I ready and willing to change my relationship with food? -Do I have any underlying emotional issues to work on? -When I go on diets, do I generally lose weight or do I find it very difficult to lose weight even when I severely restrict my calories and exercise on top of it -Is my BMI under 60? If you are ready to change your relationship with food and work on any emotional issues, you will be well set up to succeed with any WLS. Note: you don't have to solve all your issues prior to surgery to succeed, but the sooner you start working on them, the better. If you can lose weight when you restrict your calories and up your exercise, then you are well set up to succeed with a sleeve. IME the people who don't succeed with WLS, in general, are the ones who sabotage themselves due to unresolved issues. The ones who don't succeed with a sleeve, in particular, are the ones whose bodies don't lose much weight even when they are consuming many less calories than they burn -- maybe they have insulin resistance, maybe they have PCOS, maybe their metabolism is very, very slow. These people need a stronger surgery such as the duodenal switch to combat their body's inability to lose with calorie restriction alone. Some people with very high BMIs also have trouble losing more than 100-150 pounds with a sleeve. Sometimes it's because they also have unresolved issues and/or trouble losing weight with calorie restriction alone. But sometimes it's just because they have so much to lose and their bodies fight losing that much. These people may also need something with more firepower such as a DS.

I went for a bike ride and then a clam bake after. I just got home!

I had some issues with heartburn when I went off the prilosec and I ended up on prescription Pepcid. But I haven't had to take it for a couple of days. I'd rather take Pepcid a few days a week than something else every day. But if I end up taking it every day for more than a week, I'm going to go back to prilosec.

Oh, susan, I was so disappointed in my VS trip! I have two bras I bought there but they didn't really have my size so selections were limited and I don't like the bras I bought. Oh well, at least I can say I did it. Friday I wore my "skinny jeans" that I bought at Hot Topic on clearance and I had to pee. I was in a hurry so I just pulled them down without unzipping them. They came right off too! Just two months ago when I first bought them, they were tight!

When I started working out more, my surgeon had me up my Protein from 70-90 g a day to 100 g and that gave me a ton of energy. However, it's normal to be tired in the first month or so after surgery pretty much no matter what you eat. Your body is healing and just walking around the block can sometimes be exhausting.

I'm not WASa but Dr. Aceves is not running a teaching hospital. He's a proctor and that means that he travels to other surgeons and shows them how to do procedures. My understanding is that he does all his own surgeries and his assistant only holds the extra instruments.

They are all self-reported for all surgeons. It's kind of frustrating because you see people saying things like "My surgeon has done over 5000 sleeves" and you just know that's ridiculous (the math doesn't work out), but what can you say? If you know of someone who had a leak and someone says their surgeon hasn't had a leak, you can give the name of the person and say "so-and-so had that surgeon and had a leak" but you can't prove how many surgeries anyone has done one way or another.

That's called "board dragging". It's lame and unnecessary and generally frowned upon throughout the internet. What happens at OH should stay there and what happens here should stay here IMO.