Véronique

When I was waiting at the transit centre after my follow-up appointment with the surgeon, there is this snack bar with all sorts of junk food and when I saw a can of Dr. Pepper, my thought was "I'm so going to miss that".

That's not bullying, @jaminator gave some pretty sound advice. We all have our ups and downs, our highs and lows. Hell, my emotions could come crashing down tomorrow. This is why I've set myself up with resources. I have two therapist appointments set up for this month (the first being tomorrow), my therapist's practice has a walk-in clinic I can access if need be, I have access to my GP, and I have a nurse line I can phone at the surgeon's office. I prepared for this surgery because I knew I was going to have it and my surgeon, his office, and the staff at the UCHealth Bariatric Centre of the Rockies properly prepared me for this surgery. But even if they didn't, it's still my responsibility to know. Even if they just told me what I needed to do to satisfy the insurance requirements and sent me on my way, it's still my responsibility to educate myself on what I'm about to do. I have been on this forum for over a year despite having had my surgery almost two weeks ago and this isn't by accident. I wanted to make sure I had multiple perspectives on what could go wrong; I took notes; I asked my surgeon, GP, and dietician questions; and I formulated a general plan as to how I would live after I got out of the hospital. That plan is subject to change, but I did plan.

Just keep in mind that the surgery is a tool. It can take you to a place where it is easier for you to do the work needed to be done, but in the end, you must do that work. I know this will be said by people smarter and more articulate than I, and it may sound pedantic, but it bears repeating. Yes, the surgery isn't all roses. I got my clearance today to advance to the soft foods stage of my diet and it was kind of embarrassing having my lunch (which consisted of baked chicken) come up. I know why it likely happened (I ate a bit too fast) but it is still embarrassing all the same and it is crucial that we remember that our habits must change after surgery as well. One of my goals with the surgery is to look good naked. But I'm not going to touch that goal if I don't make a plan on how to ramp up my exercise once my surgeon says yes. Tonight, I resumed skating with my roller derby league... but as a non-skating official (a referee) in our league's internal bouts. I think it would be best for me to wait four more weeks before I return to the full contact in the rink... but that's the decision I'm making. I'm being more conservative than my surgeon (he seems pretty confident that I could resume being a skater, even knowing this is a contact sport) but it is my body and I will live with the consequences. The TL;DR (too long; didn't read) version? Fail to plan and you plan to fail. How dare you chastise this poster? Sure, people who have not had the surgery may not have perspective but lots of us lack perspective in lots of areas in life! Some people, after getting fit, may contribute to the culture which stigmatises fat bodies - thereby engaging in a loss of perspective. The post you quoted is neither horrible nor cruel, just misguided.

Yeah, I'm really thinking about exploring more of Fort Collins and Loveland while I have this time off, as I have already seen a lot of Boulder and the other cities south of me.

I just ended my walk and I'm still 964 steps short! Gah!

Honestly, I don't see the regret in myself yet. Maybe it's because I know rationally that I've exhausted so many other avenues that this became reasonable. If this doesn't work, then I am at a loss to understand what would and I would need to have a conversation with my surgeon and GP to figure out next steps.

I'm waiting for sundown to get ~3,600 more steps in to reach 10,000 today. I'm going to make it my personal mission to get 10,000 steps every day this month.

I think they might have given me some Oxycodone prior to surgery. ... Which reminds me. The book they gave me was wrong about PCA. I didn't have PCA. If they came by and had pain meds, I had the option to say "yeah, I want that" or "nah, I can go without".

Well, I'm going to be lacing up my roller derby skates, putting on my roller derby pads and my roller derby helmet... ... To be a freaking NSO (Non-Skating Official). Seriously, even though my surgeon thinks that I should be fine to be in the rink with the rest of my teammates, I think he's nuts. I went to a support group the night before the surgery and Dr. Roller (one of the other surgeons in the practice) said he thinks I should wait six weeks before any contact sport and you know what? I kinda agree with him on this. I've seen enough incidents on the track to know that I'd rather be an NSO right now and ease back into derby.

I had my two-week post-op today and I get to move on to soft foods! We even scheduled my six-week check, for Friday the 13th of October!

Well, they gave me a local anaesthetic to put in the IV port, but on anything else? No, they made it pretty clear that they test your urine before the surgery for those things and if your urine isn't clean of drugs, they won't do the surgery. ... Though, they didn't test my urine before the surgery, which I felt made all the warnings beforehand kind of a tease. Yeah, I don't remember much of the PACU (the place where they put me after surgery). I do know that I was having trouble remaining awake, which held up the process of getting me my own hospital room, but when I was able to stay somewhat awake, I got wheeled into my own room on the surgery floor. I know the bariatric coordinator from the programme swung by to congratulate me. My last memory pre-op was four breaths and then lights out... which is great. While I'll admit to personal curiosity, I'm quite satisfied I wasn't awake for that. Yeah, at the hospital I went to, the ER is on another side of the hospital which, given the building layout, makes it tough to get to ER when your goal is to try to get to surgery. I actually tried to get to the front desk of the hospital through the ER and it took more walking than I would have thought.

Well, this is one of the advantages a well-designed app could have: push notifications to help supplement the e-mail notifications. That way, people can review and change their orders as needed. Also, not app-related but maybe you should integrate notifications via Facebook Messenger as well?

I'm asking if anyone else did, because when I was being wheeled in, I sang the first verse and chorus of La Marseillaise.

I haven't received anything like that from my surgeon's office yet (I received a BA pamphlet with a discount code), but I'm going to have my first post-op follow-up appointment roughly two and a half hours.

On Tuesday, I'll be two weeks out from the surgery and my only complaint is that it isn't MORE effective. I can't wait to get to my goal weight.

Oh! One thing I've just thought of: a vitamin tracker (both taking and supply tracking). It gives us, the end-users, the benefit of an app that tracks our vitamin usage (including when we took our iron vitamin so we can know when it's okay to take our calcium citrate vitamins) and also allows you the benefit of upselling vitamins when we start to run low.

Hello, So, since I can't tolerate Carnation Instant Breakfast, my surgeon's office recommended that I try a water-based protein supplement like Isopure from GNC. So, I bought a bag of "Strawberries & Creme" protein powder from GNC the other day. Put simply, I'd rather drink Pepto Bismol straight from the bottle than try that Isopure garbage ever again. I specifically asked the cashier lady at GNC "which one isn't the worst?" and she recommended this flavour of Isopure. Does anyone else have any recommendations about protein drinks?

Alrighty, here are a few more: Apple Health integration: You know, device-specific integration might be delayed for a time if you're using the health database already coded into iOS, Apple Health. It's a great repository of things including weight, steps and even a count of flights of stairs taken. I'm not sure what you could do with that data, but you might think of something. After all, activity is a crucial part of success after bariatric surgery (so everyone involved in this process has told me). Also, in doing so, you would be able to capture the data from those of us who use Apple Watches. WLS Magazine: There's a way to integrate this feature of the site into the app in a way that is more pictorial and attractive. Look at the sidebar on this site. That might be understated for the real estate a desktop/laptop screen might have but it would be perfect for a mobile app. This isn't really an app-specific issue, but more a site-wide issue: If I select to use metric units to note my weigh-ins, why is it that some areas of the site (such as other people's weigh-ins, the sidebar which reads "together we have lost", etc) are also shown in imperial units (lbs)? Also, it does make me wonder if the "together we have lost" bit takes into account those of us who do use metric as the ticker shows this for me: Which is interesting, since I do not weigh 137,5 lbs but I do weigh 137,5 kg (which is roughly 303 lbs). Is that number being lowballed, not including the weight of those of us who use the site in metric? The most important thing is that the app should be an extension of the site and should put your best foot forward. It's an opportunity to have more control over the design and layout of how a mobile user experiences Bariatric Pal. Use it to your advantage. Also, my discount from BA is 15%.

Yeah, I don't think my hunger instinct has returned yet. I weigh myself every day using a wifi scale so that I get a chart of my weight over time. Each weigh-in is a data point and it allows me to understand how I'm doing using the surgery. If I see an upward trend, I know that I need to make changes. Here's a chart of my weigh-ins for the last month (note: the last weigh-in before my surgery date was the 27th of August or 27 août):

One other thing that I've noticed is that you aren't integrating your store into your app, which seems like a missed opportunity. I mean, sure, I'm not going to buy from your store. I get a better deal buying from Bariatric Advantage directly, but somebody might want to buy from your store and it'll also allow you better advertising/monetization opportunities.

Don't get me wrong, McDonald's isn't my thing anyway (even before surgery, I would make jokes about how the "food" at McDonalds was okay for Hindus to eat because it is made from free-range used gym mats and shredded Chinese newspapers) but being on a liquid diet, the temptation to sink my teeth into a beef-flavoured gym mat patty is pretty big.

Agreed, I have this 1,4L Nalgene bottle from before I had my surgery and I notice I can drink only 300-600 ml in one sitting

Well, every time I tried having that Carnation Instant Breakfast junk to get more protein in, I hurled it so one of the surgeon's nurses recommended that I switch to a protein powder I could mix into water, like Isopure. I don't know how well this is going to work but I bought a small bag at GNC (on clearance) and I'll see how I can tolerate that.

I know that for me personally, it takes a while to drink 300 ml of water, which is about how much I can drink at a time. I also know that those Carnation Instant Breakfast drinks are the one thing I can't tolerate at this point. I can do puréed food and lots of other liquids but Carnation Instant Breakfast, which is recommended by my programme in order to help bump the numbers closer to the nutrients I am supposed to be getting, is something I can't do,

Well, I would say it's normal. It could be lots of things. Just be sure to keep a food journal (either digital or paper, whatever works for you) and track your results. Make notes of the trends and try out different things. Just make sure you're tracking so that if you decide to seek help from a nurse or a dietician, you've made their job easier to figure out what's going on.