WitchySar

When was your surgery?

Thank you for posting this. When I saw my surgeon at 4 weeks I told her I was worried because I wasn't meeting my protein and calorie goals. I try, I really do, but I just can't manage to get in 60-80 grams of protein and 800-1000 calories in a day when I can only eat 2 oz every 2 hours. I'm doing everything "right" according to my plan. I weigh and measure my food, I eat 2 oz every two hours, I drink at least 64 oz of water a day. I'm cleared to start working out tomorrow (was unable to do the walking post op because of knee and ankle problems causing instability and pain, surgeon knew this) and I'll be doing weight training several times a week. So I'm doing everything I can but it's still not perfect.

Plus the fat it has in it is healthy for you and keeps you feeling satisfied longer.

They should definitely have explained exactly what wasn't covered in the price they quoted you. I've never been self pay but all the paperwork I've ever seen (I have a medical background) indicate that the anesthesiologist and labs would be separate bills. If they led you to believe it would all be included I would fight it with my surgeon's office.

No I didn't cheat on my pre-op diet because I don't consider it "cheating." Did I follow the diet completely though? No. I didn't go nuts eating nachos and pizza and cakes, though. My pre-op diet was a liquid diet for 1 week prior to surgery. After a lot of research (why yes I do have a medical background, so let's nip that in the bud) and a LOT of soul searching I came to the decision to follow a strict low carb diet for 6 of the 7 day diet and then on the final day do the liquids only. Part of my reasoning was that I knew myself, if I felt hungry on the liquid diet I would end up going off it anyway but I wouldn't make healthy choices. I WOULD have eaten nachos and pizza and cake. By eating strict low carb though I didn't feel deprived, I wasn't hungry, I felt no need to eat the "bad" foods. And I lost 16 pounds in that one week. And no, just because I didn't follow my surgeon's guidelines for the pre-op diet doesn't mean I've cheated post-op. After the surgery the stakes were a LOT higher. If I cheated while healing I could die, that was enough motivation to follow the diet progression. Plus I mutilated my insides, I'm not going to let that be for nothing. (Wait, I take it back, I moved to purees one day early. Oh no!) And even now, just a couple days away from going onto whole foods I feel no need to *cheat*. I'm still eating only 2 oz per meal even though I've been told eating 3 or 4 would be fine, I'm eating protein first trying to get up to 60 grams at least, and not eating junk food. So just saying that because someone doesn't follow exactly what their surgeon told them to do pre-op doesn't mean they won't be motivated AFTER the surgery.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah I'm looking for something I can put in an actual vape pen, mixed with a nice smelling and tasting liquid. I can't stand the smell of regular pot, makes me cough and gag. I'm really only willing to give this a try if it doesn't smell or taste like pot.

I wasn't over 60 bmi but I was damn near it when I started everything. I believe at my highest weight I was something like 59.4 bmi, that was in June at my appointment with my primary when I told her I'd decided to have the surgery. In the 6 months before surgery I'd lost 36 pounds, and since the surgery I've lost about 30. Considering my size when I started I really expected to lose a lot faster but apparently even at really high weights the loss can still go slow. Disappointing but I try to remind myself that I know how to lose weight, fast even, since I've done it before. What this surgery is going to do for me is give me the tools to KEEP it off.

If it were me I would stick with having the sleeve instead of the DS. It was because of my meds that I went with the sleeve even though I had considered the DS.

Might be a good idea to find another neurologist to discuss the medication issue then. Definitely not something to take a risk with. I take bipolar meds and my surgeon said he'd had experience with patients that had the DS have problems with absorbing the meds and so I went with the sleeve. If you can't get a definite answer about the seizure meds it might be safer to consider the sleeve instead of the DS.

Some meds do have absorption issues, not just extended release either. For such serious meds as for seizures I highly suggest discussing the medications with your surgeon and your neurologist.

It won't let me send a request without a full email address. I wonder if it's because I'm doing it from the computer and not the app.

I can't figure out how to add you as a friend, it only gives me to option to add from email or Facebook. So if someone would like to add me I'm WitchySar.

I'm sure this has come up before but my search function is giving me an error. A few days ago I finally bought a food scale. Until then I'd been measuring everything in a 1/4 cup measuring cup. Now that I have the scale I'm noticing a LARGE difference. For example I just measured out a food in the cup, 2 oz, and then weighed it, 0.9 oz. So which should I be using? The nutritionist wasn't very clear apparently when I last saw her. She suggested getting a scale and also said to have measuring cups and measure everything. At the time it didn't occur to me there would be a difference. It makes sense now that I think about it since different foods have different densities so not everything the same size is going to weigh the same. But it makes it hard now since I have no idea if I've been eating too much, too little, etc. So what do you do and why?

Well this is very interesting. I have definitely not been eating enough then. When I compare measurements vs weighing nearly everything has a huge discrepancy. Perhaps this explains why I'm losing so slowly. I already knew I was having trouble getting in my protein and calories but it seems I have been even farther from my goals than I though. Thanks everyone!

I like Baritastic. Easy to monitor weight and measurements.

I didn't have an orientation, per se. The beginning of June 2016 I decided I wanted to do this so I called a few surgeon's office until I found one I liked and made an appointment. My initial appointment was scheduled for mid-July. On june 8th I saw my primary and told her my decision and when my appointment was. We recorded my weight and she started me on a "supervised diet" so to jump start my insurance requirements (6 month supervised diet). I saw my surgeon in July along with his nutritionist and counselor all on the same day. He said my appointment with my primary in June would count toward the requirements so that shortened my time by a month. I had my surgery on December 19th, so from my first visit with my primary it was 6 months and 11 days from start to finish.

What portion size were you told to eat? And in what time frame? If you weren't given any guidelines then I highly suggest you contact your nutritionist again and ask for some.

I was advised to eat 2 oz over the course of 20 minutes and then stop, even if not feeling full. Your signals (coming from the nerves) telling you that you are satiated are not working yet. Don't just keep eating, that's really bad for you.

Are they aware of your surgery? If so I would recommend bringing a small bowl that you can measure your food into. Make sure you stay with the portion size you're supposed to be eating, and immediately request a to go box for the rest. If they don't know about the surgery it gets a little more difficult.

Not quite a full month, but very close. Surgery 12/19/16 SW - 332 CW - 307.4 So I've only lost 24.6 pounds. Very disappointing since I can easily lose more than that by following strict low carb.

Before my surgery I would read posts from people like "I haven't thrown up at all, is this a problem?" or "I haven't found a food that's made me nauseated, what's wrong with me?" and think to myself that they were just trying to brag about how good they were doing. Now I understand and think differently. My surgery was 12/19/16 and I'm currently in the soft food phase. I have not had any nausea at all, not even immediately after the surgery, and haven't found a food that my new stomach couldn't handle. (Don't worry, I'm sticking with the plan I'm talking about allowed foods.) I do feel restriction and still only eat 2 oz at a time, every 2 hours (though I'll admit sometimes I get busy and go 3-4 hours. Oops), so I know the surgeon did SOMETHING in there but considering how many people vomit when they try new foods, or can't tolerate eggs, etc I feel a bit weird. I do have a lot of food allergies so my available foods to try is more limited than a lot of people but I seriously haven't come across anything I couldn't tolerate. I'm worried what this is going to mean later on. If I don't get any problems from foods I feel like this journey is going to be harder than I was expecting. Like I said, I have portion size restriction but without restriction toward types of foods will this truly work?

I didn't tell me girls until after I had my surgery. They are prone to anxiety and I didn't want to worry them unnecessarily. They were staying with their dad when I had surgery on a Monday and I got them back on Saturday and I told them then. They were really glad I didn't tell them before hand. I explained I only did it because my health was getting bad. My youngest was really sad I will be losing weight, I've always made sure they know that being fat isn't a bad thing and that I loved my body as it was, etc. So we'll see how it goes.

I was told I could drive once I felt like I could twist (to see behind me) and had been off all narcotic pain meds for 24 hours.

I have to eat low carb and that's definitely been easier in the soft foods stage. Still stuck in a stall right now but apparently that's common at this time. So pretty much all the foods that I've tried have been low carb, high protein, and no problems at all. I did take one bite too many one time and it made my new tummy hurt a little but I laid down and within about 15 minutes I was fine again. I now understand when people feel like they have it too easy. You see so many people talk about throwing up with new foods, or vomiting for hours, you feel a bit like something is wrong to NOT do that.

I've already customized my calories but even with the lower calories as my goal it still gives me the same error. Oh well, sounds like they just don't give a crap. I'm using it because a couple friends are and I want to connect with them so it's not a big deal. I also track on Spark People and that one won't even let me set my calories as lower than 1000. Irritating that they don't care about those who've had surgery. Bah! I don't really want to fool it though because I want to be able to flip back through and easily see my days accurately. Oh well... at least it's not just me.