Tufflaw

After my sleeve surgery, I drove about 30 miles to visit my sister for holiday dinner (I didn't eat much of course) and it was fine, spent most of the time sitting on the couch but I wasn't in pain or anything. After my revision I think I was able to get out of the house by myself a few days later too. I don't know if either of mine were done robotically or not, I don't think it really makes a difference, whatever the surgeon feels most comfortable with is probably what you want to go with. The procedure is the same either way. I had no exterior sutures, the incisions were closed up with surgical glue and it all came off within a month or so I think, maybe less.

Yikes! I wasn't cleared for surgery for at least a month, possibly two. 6 days is WAY too soon to do anything other than just walking.

Yeah it wasn't easy, you just have to wait it out sometimes.

Yikes! Why would anyone do this voluntarily? Remember the goal of the pre-op liquid diet isn't to lose weight but to shrink your liver. It's not a particularly healthy diet in terms of long-term nutrition, and it's hard enough to manage the two weeks when you know surgery is coming up, I would never have done it otherwise.

I don't plan on ever stopping tracking. It takes a few seconds and for me, personally, it's worth it. I know that after my sleeve surgery in 2016 I lost 120 lbs in about 7 months, then when I slowed and eventually stopped tracking I put almost all of it back on. I had the revision to bypass last November and I'm down about 90 lbs so far, still tracking everything, weighing what I can as well (including myself every morning). If it works, why stop?

Welcome to the club!

Both of my surgeries I brought a bunch of things, both times I didn't use anything. They kept telling me to bring my CPAP machine - I never even plugged it in. I had to get up every two hours to walk around anyway. I brought my tablet to play games and/or read books - never even turned it on I brought my phone which I didn't use the first time, the second time I used it for about 10 minutes to video chat with my kids I brought a puzzle book to work on - never took it out of the bag

The 6 month wait and pre-surgical testing has nothing to do with being the US, it's required by your insurance company, so even if they covered international surgery you'd still need all that stuff. Every insurance company is different. When I got sleeved in 2016 I had Empire and I had to wait 6 months. When I got my revision last year I had Fidelis and only had to wait 3 months. My doctor said if I still had Empire I wouldn't have had to wait at all because they changed their policy. Mexico should only be considered if you can self-pay.

5 lbs in a week is pretty good - think of it this way, if you lost 5 lbs every week that's 250 lbs in a year! Of course that can't really maintained, and some weeks will be more and some will be less. Everyone's numbers are different, as long as the weight keeps going down that's all that matters.

Yeah pretty much - I have a good routine now but I haven't even added exercise in, hopefully when I do that (hopefully soon) it will help kickstart even more loss.

Congrats and good luck! All I can say is that after two surgeries in five years (sleeve, then revision to bypass) I've never thrown up from overeating. A few times if I ate more than I should I felt very uncomfortably full and even had to lie down to relax a couple of times, but never even close to puking. As long as you eat VERY slowly at first you'll quickly learn your limitations. Just be sure to move from the mindset of cleaning your plate, although if you weigh and measure everything and have the appropriate small portions you should be able to finish what's on your plate without stuffing yourself.

I just checked, and to get a "healthy" BMI, I'd need to get down to 168 which seems objectively unreasonable, but we'll see. I'm not making that an official goal, but I'll call it a "unicorn goal" - likely unattainable but if it's possible I'll see what I can do.

Good for you! I was nervous at first as are most if not all of us, but right now my biggest regret is not doing it sooner. The statistics don't lie - there is a significantly higher mortality rate for people from obesity than from getting this surgery.

A year before my sleeve surgery I had to have an appendectomy, and before I went under they checked and said I also had an umbilical hernia that they would repair while they were in there.

Any results? 150 might not even be enough.

1200 calories is pretty low. Have you considered increasing your caloric intake? It's not intuitively obvious, but sometimes eating more calories can increase your weight loss - your body may be in starvation mode and conserving due to low calories. Increasing the calories, even to 1400 or so, might kickstart your body into burning fat again.

For me it was the best thing I've ever done and my only regret was not doing it sooner. That said, you need to be both physically and mentally prepared to do this, it's major surgery and a massive life-changing event - if you don't think you're ready, you probably aren't.

The two week pre-op diet SUCKS but once you make it through that you're golden. Also it's much easier to follow the plan once you've gone two weeks eating nothing, just having half a scrambled egg feels like you're indulging yourself. I also use Myfitnesspal, just make sure to keep up with it every day post-op.

Halo Top is my go-to. it actually tastes like real ice cream but very low cal.

Make sure you don't miss your chance with some of them - a long time ago (before my first surgery) I bought a cool jersey from the movie Slapshot, it's a Charlestown Chiefs jersey that has the name Hanson on the back. It was too small when I bought it so I stuck it in my closet and forgot about it. After my first surgery when I lost a lot of weight I found it and tried it on - TOO BIG! So I figured I missed my opportunity to wear it and put it back in the closet. Anyway, when I put back on the weight and started losing it again after revision surgery, I managed to start wearing it at the perfect time when it fit, and was able to wear it for about a month or so before it got too big again.

I love the clothing surprises. I recently found all the clothes that fit me well after my 2016 surgery before I relapsed and put most of the weight back on - now after my revision I'm close to where I was five years ago and all my old clothes are fitting again. I went from XXL shirts (which were starting to get snug), to XL, to L, and now even the L's are getting a little roomy.

I used to drink a decent amount of water but after the surgery I really can't stand it. Or at least not in large quantities. I was drinking Crystal Light lemonade which was pretty good but still tough to get down a lot of. Then I went on vacation out of state and found this stuff called Milo's Sweet Tea (zero calorie), it tastes amazing and I couldn't get enough of it. Unfortunately when I got home I discovered that they don't sell it near me. So I tried Crystal Light Sweet Tea and I think it tastes even better. I have 2-3 large glasses per day of that and could probably get more down if I wanted, but that plus the protein drink I have every morning gets me to over 64 oz per day.

I've often seen that to qualify you have to have a BMI of at least 40 OR a BMI of at least 35 with at least one comorbidity (Ie: Sleep Apnea, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.) It depends on your insurance requirements.

I'm constantly stalling. As long as it picks up again and the general trend over time is downward it's not a big deal.

NYBG is great! When I was considering surgery several years ago a friend of mine got the sleeve from Dr. Sekhar and I went to an information session he was running and I really like everything he had to say. When I signed up I was assigned a different surgeon, Dr. John Angstadt. I don't recall if it was an insurance issue or an availability issue but at first I was concerned but after I met Dr. Angstadt I was reassured and everything went great. When I needed my revision I went back to Dr. Angstadt and am very pleased with the results. The whole staff over there are wonderful.