ladycathy

of course some shredded cheese and sour cream!
Paul12677

I've tried everything eating less, eating more Fiber, working out more, this 6mo stall is the worse.
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I am stalled as well at 7 months
I lost 100 lbs, but stuck for last 4 weeks
I too hope it breaks soon, to get last 20 lbs down, but enjoying how well I feel
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Im 6 months out and love them. I usually get chocolate chip cookie dough, white chocolate raspberry, Cookies n cream, or double chocolate chunk.
People complain about the carbs...what some fail to realize is out of the 21 grams carbs is 17 grams of Fiber. You subtract the Fiber from carbs, leaving you with just a few active carbs.
The fat...they do have fat in them.
But our bodies get to a certain point where its been low carb for so long that the body won't let go of anymore weight. Thats where adding in healthy fats and some carbs come into play. Our bodies need both in order to function.
They can be sliders for some people tho, and eating too many supplemental Protein products will mess up your blood levels at your surgery check up. It did mine, and I was told to eat more food by the dr and surgeon to bring a few things back up to acceptable levels.

Quest bars are a staple in my diet - I eat them for at least 2 of my 4 meals each day, and sometimes 3 meals. I've tried most of the flavors, and my faves are vanilla Almond (that's Breakfast each day) and Cookies and Cream (4 PM each day). Others that I eat sometimes are Choc Chip Cookie Dough, White chocolate Raspberry and Coconut Cashew.
There are several that I found just so-so, as in not bad but not good enough to buy again. Then there were a few that I really did not like.
The consistency is not like most protien bars - Quest bars are more like a cookie dough consistency, and they're not dipped in anything so they are just a bit sticky to the touch. Not a problem to me at all, but it is different than other bars.
For me 1 bar is a full and satisfying meal, and I think $2.75 for a meal is not pricey. Where else can you get a nutritious, yummy, satisfying meal for that price? And they're convenient to carry, too.
I'm with gomekast about the carbs in them - there are only 3gms NET carbs per bar.
As for fast food... There are some good choices at fast food places, but fighting the temptation of the not-so-good choices may not be worth it.

Hello everyone!
Today is my birthday....yay me! I am so blessed to be 16 months post-surgery. Had the gastric sleeve on 8/17/2015 and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I am down 125lbs, and I feel great. I have gone from a tight size 22W to a 12. If I ever had skin surgery I would probably be a size 10. I am 5'10. I don't know if I will ever have skin surgery, it's not so bad. My body is my body and I am ok with how I look. I might get it done in the future, I haven't ruled it out. I also went back to school to pursue my Bachelor's Degree. I should be done by June of 2018. I'm taking one class per semester (they are accelerated semesters) because I have so much going on. I'm really enjoying the work.
There are so many things I can do now that I couldn't do before the surgery. I can walk and walk and walk and even run when I need to. Going up and down stairs is no problem. I have so much more energy. I can cross my legs, fit in a standard seat, get into a booth, etc. When I see my reflection sometimes I can't believe that the person looking back is me.
It's been such a journey these past 16 months. I am in a great bariatric program and I owe the fine people at St. Elizabeth's a kudo's! My nutritionist and surgeon are awesome. Since having surgery a friend of my family decided to have it done and he is down over 100lbs since August of this year. A cousin of mine just reached out and is thinking of having it done too. It would be wonderful for her because she has so many weight related health issues. I feel great being able to help them on their journey.
I hope everyone is having a great day.
Margie

So, last Friday was my 3-year surgiversary. I had good intentions to post on that day, but this is the first day that I haven’t been slammed with work or other stuff. This in itself kind of makes me smile because while I was busy before I had surgery, it was never because I was away from my desk for huge amounts of the day and not really thinking about weight at all.
On surgiversary day, I woke up at my goal…I was 129.2. I have been at goal for about 18 months now, although I do fluctuate down to 127 and up to 133, depending on the day. The only way I have been able to stay at goal is to weigh myself every day and take immediate steps to correct any weight gain. As an example, while 9 days ago I was 129.2 and 3 days ago I was 129.8, this morning I woke up at 132.8 (yikes). This happened because I spent two days eating sweets. I had a mini scone from Starbucks…and then two more. I had a pumpkin spice latte, several pop tarts, a cake pop, and I’m sure I’m missing something in there. I really didn’t eat much more than that, so I wasn’t much over my calories for the day, but sugar and sweets are one way that I gain weight almost instantly if I eat them more than occasionally. So, this morning I’m back to my normal routine where I can have sweets sometimes if I want to, but I’ll be more careful for the next few days and I will be right back around 129 by about Tuesday. In the event any new person happens to be reading this, getting to goal is difficult, but being aware of the fact that you never get to just ignore the scale and think you get to stay skinny once you’re at goal is also not exactly the most fun realization. I am fine with it because my size 2 clothing makes me far happier than cupcakes, but it is a sobering thought to know that if I want to be thin, every single day for the rest of my life I will need to be aware of my weight and the actions I take to maintain it.
On that note, maintaining is not terribly difficult as long as I don’t eat too many sweets. I was one of the people who didn’t follow the vast majority of the rules after I hit the 6-week post-op mark, and it worked for me. When I want cake, I eat cake…I just make sure I weigh myself and then if I gain weight, I eat carrots instead of cake the next few days. Most days I don’t workout anymore. When I was losing I worked out for 1-3 hours a day- now I don’t have time for that and to be fair I’m kind of lazy. I eat about 1200- 1500 calories on average, which means that on days where I am out of my house all day I eat about 800-1000 calories and days where I am at home all day I munch my way through probably about 1600-1800, but it all averages out to roughly 1200-1500-ish. Most days I have sugar free Red Bull and a Bevita bar for Breakfast, I snack on goldfish crackers throughout the day, and then I will have either half of a pick 2 from Panera for lunch and the other half for Breakfast (ex: a cup of chili for lunch and half of a sandwich for dinner), or a turkey and cheese lunchable for dinner without much lunch, a few bites of a Chipotle salad as kind of a lunch-dinner ongoing chew-fest at my desk, or some other variety of something that usually involves some form of meat, vegetable, and mild carbs.
Past that, I drink coffee like a fiend and I mix in the full fat caramel from Starbucks with skim milk, I drink diet soda, I never use a straw, and I drink and eat during all my meals. If I want to have alcohol, I do, although to be fair I think I’ve had a few glasses of champagne and a few sips of wine once this summer and that’s about it in probably over a year. At three years post-op, I know what foods my stomach doesn’t like (too much sugar, dairy, oil, fat, fried stuff), so if I want to eat something like that I know I get a few bites and if I eat more I’m going to get sick. Basically my diet is one that works for me and is something I can do for the rest of my life. I don’t care that I don’t eat Pasta, burgers, pizza, chips, brownies or Cookies anymore, because I know if I want them, I’m allowed to have them, so I don’t have much interest in having them often. I don’t care that I can’t sit in front of the tv and enjoy a giant pile of food like I used to or that I don’t really get to fully enjoy the going out to dinner experience because some food just makes me want to barf looking at it. I am just fine with not being able to eat heavy foods in the morning- no more eggs and waffles, because just thinking about that made me feel woozy, and I am ok with walking through a grocery store and feeling no real interest in actually buying and eating anything. My relationship with food has become one of necessity as opposed to friendship. I eat when I am hungry (and sometimes when I’m bored), but not when I’m sad or overly happy and I don’t wander through the grocery store after a bad day and throw everything that looks good into my cart because I can console myself with it later. Food and I are friends now, because it keeps me healthy, not because it makes me happy.
Beyond that, my life is totally different now. When I first debated having this surgery, I was horrified that I was cutting my stomach out FOREVER. What in the flip was I thinking?! The first few weeks after surgery I was sure I had made a mistake and I read all of the stories on here in the hopes that I would feel better. I looked for those of people who were years past surgery to know that I wasn’t making a mistake. I can honestly say at this point having the sleeve was the best thing I have done. For the first time in my life, I am not obsessed with my weight. I had been thin in the past but it required exercising everyday and constantly feeling like I was starving. I very rarely even feel hungry now. I had put so many things on hold in my life because until I was thin, I had no interest in doing anything else. I now own two successful businesses, I am in law school full time (a dream I have had since I was a kid but never even considered seriously as an adult before) and I am working on my MBA. While work was good before the sleeve, any pursuits outside of that were entirely oriented toward being thin. I had no time to improve my education because fat people need to be on treadmills, not in law school (my thoughts at the time- not now!). When I leave my house in the morning, I look in the mirror and 90% of the time I think…damn, you look good. Never once in my life have I felt that way before. When I have a bad day, when someone is not very nice to me, or when something doesn’t go right…my first thought is no longer that it happened because I am fat and worthless, and in fact, it doesn’t even cross my mind. I shop in stores where 3 years ago I couldn’t fit in their biggest sizes and now I am in their smallest sizes. I spend money on makeup, shoes, watches, clothing- things to make me feel pretty, whereas before I never bothered because I didn’t think I was worth it.
Although this is kind of a long post, as a three-year update, if anyone is thinking about the sleeve, I wanted to explain how much it gave me my life back, how I really do get to eat normal food and live like a normal person, and because of this surgery, I have SO much more in my life than I ever did before. I am happy, I am healthy, and every bit of misery along the way after surgery was worth it to be at the place I am now.

I have never posted pictures on here because I never wanted to put out what I used to look like as I am no longer that person. I am a new person but have come to terms that I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't lived life as a larger person. I also know that when I started out looking at other people's pictures were such at motivation for me so I am hoping these will help someone in return. The picture of me at my largest was after I had my son. I had lost a significant amount of weight before my day of surgery which is the pic of me looking grumpy and in pain.      
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June 8th
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June 8th
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I am a RN at a large Neuro Center. My job doesn't require heavy lifting. I am going to ask for 3 weeks FMLA and come back after 2 weeks if I am recovering well from RNY bypass.
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I'm getting sleeved July 28, I work in a smaller but very busy and very high acuity ER on nights. I've been open about my surgery, we are a very close knit group and I'm sure I'll get plenty of help with the heavy lifting, which fortunately there isn't too much of. I'm planning on 2-3 weeks off depending on how I'm feeling, I'm agency contract so I don't have PTO, but I have freedom to take off as much time as I want (provided I can afford it!) previous surgeon was very confident I could go back to full duty 2 weeks post RNY tho.
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I do Case Management and was back to work after 6 days

I am a registered nurse. I am in administration, but walk a lot and stay busy responding to codes, patient complaints and dealing with staff. I took off four weeks and was so glad I did. That gave me plenty of time to allow my body to heal, take naps during the day if I needed it, and also allowed me time to learn how to eat according to my plan. I am glad I didn't go back sooner. However, everyone is different.

I wanted to say hello. I'm 44 and had the gastric sleeve done on 5/24. Slept at home last night. Was up every hour. Some pain but gas x is helping. Already done a lap around my street. Trying to keep moving.
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I do Bedside Nursing as well. 12 HR Nights. I took FMLA for 4 weeks. Hopefully that will be enough. Bypass surgery is 6/1. I'll go back July 4th weekend.

Doesn't seem enough time off.

I'm an RN and also took 4 weeks off. It's not just about the work part of the recovery, but also about hydration hydration hydration. And getting your Protein in. Especially important in early stages of recovery. And for me, there was no way I could do that on a very busy L&D unit.
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I'm getting sleeved on the 1st I have 4 weeks off because I actually do have to boost patient up in bed, turn patients, lift patiets, and I work 12-hour days. My job doesn't have light-duty either. I know that certainly doesn't answer your question. But I do know someone who had a desk job and only took 3 days off work post op.
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June 8th
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