PorkChopExpress

MyFitnessPal app for your smartphone, track everything you eat and figure out what your TDEE is with an online calculator, then create a calorie deficit through a combination of diet and exercise. One pound of fat is 3,500 calories...so if you create a 3,500 calorie deficit over the course of a week, you'll average 1 pound lost a week. Cut sugar and saturated fats, eliminate simple carbs like bread, Pasta and rice, focus on complex carbs. Consider a good Protein bar for Meal Replacement when you're on the go and need a meal. And get in the gym, start pumping some iron! That's the single best solution for calorie burning there is, other than diet...muscle mass

When I started on mushy foods (two weeks post-op, they advanced me past pureed), I was only eating around 1oz of meat (a meatball) and roughly 1 TBSP or so of mashed potatoes...and that filled me up. It was roughly 1/4 cup of food, I would guess. Don't mistake what is going on in your head for hunger. And also, be aware that you're only a few weeks out from surgery, your stomach is still healing and you will have some soreness associated with digestion, and rumbling associated with both gas and acid. It's easy to mistake that for hunger, especially when you combine it with the "head hunger," but that's not what it is. Those physical symptoms go away over time, as you heal. You have to deal with the mental hunger in other ways. I'm on week 5 now and rarely feel them. Stomach doesn't rumble around the way it used to and the acid has reduced a lot, as have the healing pains. The thing is, the only real way for you to identify the feelings in your stomach right now is to go VERY SLOWLY when you eat. Make a conscious effort to stretch your meal out to at least like 25 minutes. DO NOT DRINK with or after your meal (you'll flush things through too quickly, before they digest). Give yourself at least 30-40 minutes after you eat, before you drink anything. But most importantly, just be really mindful when you eat. Sit in a quiet spot without a bunch of distractions. Chew the food thoroughly and swallow, feel it go down and how it feels in the stomach. You will start to feel it when you're getting full and be really aware of it, because only one or two more bites will cause you to feel pain, or possibly throw up. You got the "nasty mouthful of spit" because your stomach wasn't ready for more. How long before that had you already eaten? This is part of the learning process with your sleeve, you have to totally re-learn what it will hold, how much is enough, how slowly you have to eat, the whole nine yards. Consider it like having hit a reset button back to when you were a baby. You have to learn how to regulate now. Eventually, you'll just know how much the stomach holds comfortably and you'll know visually how that portion looks, and can measure it out appropriately. I'm now at 1.5oz of meat and about a 1/4 cup of carbs after almost five weeks down...but I'm a guy so my volume is going to be more. But I just weigh and portion out my 1.5oz of meat and I use my ziplock 1/2 cup containers to portion out the carbs, and that's how I eat. Works perfectly every time.

The only thing I have that could be considered a snack are sugar-free Popsicles. Other than that, I don't do it. No reason to, I'm never hungry and mindless eating for entertainment is what I'm trying to cure myself of. I justify the Popsicles because they have no calories and it's a water source. I couldn't really justify anything else. But snacking and grazing is a huge source of calorie creep in the diet and I just want to get out of that habit.

I would personally only have resorted to Mexico if it were my last and only option...and I'd have had a lot of fears about it. No, Tijuana is not a particularly safe place. You can get a good operation there, they have the surgeons and facilities set up for it...but what about complications and after-care? The first weeks after surgery and all the way through the first month, there are ample opportunities to have issues arise, where you may need to get seen immediately. If you can't do that back home in the States, then that's a big problem. It could end up being a fatal problem. So you would need to make sure you have a way to address any post-op complications when you're back home, because you're only going to be in the hospital for a couple of days, and then you're out. I totally get why the family would be concerned about Mexico as a solution, but if you are not insured or can't get it otherwise, it doesn't leave you with a lot of options. You would just have to hope for the best possible outcome and follow every single instruction to the letter, to make sure you didn't do anything to jeopardize the outcome.

There actually ARE reasons they can't get better rates, but that's a much different topic. I would just say that you're fortunate, looking at the numbers...my wife's teaching job doesn't even subsidize half of our health insurance costs and our out of pocket for Kaiser (Kaiser, mind you...not a PPO or something nice) is over $650/month. But it's a hell of a lot better than the "great deal" the exchanges gave me, which covered my family for $1,500/month after I got laid off, because my "income" was based on my previous year's tax returns and so I didn't qualify for anything better, while unemployed. Talk about a grueling 15 months or so, until she got work. I'm a freelancer, so I don't have options. Also couldn't switch to MediCal because my stepson is on regular medication for ADHD and it wouldn't have been covered. Also would have struggled to get any help when it came to CPAP re-supplies and crap like that, not to mention having the worst selection of doctors. I was up a creek without a paddle. But no, I'm THRILLED with the way healthcare is right now. (Not to politicize this politically correct thread.) There's a reason people are flying to TJ to get surgeries.

I think that number one, the tone of a lot of posts from some newcomers is one of, "I didn't get any education about any of this prior to surgery and have no idea what I'm doing." Other than that, I see some that are clearly seeking to go off-program and are hoping to have ANYONE enable their decision. All it'll take is one or two people saying, "Go for it!" Even if there are 50 saying, "That's ridiculous." While it's true that different programs prescribe different plans, and there are variations (I was allowed to skip the pureed stage, for instance), the guidelines are more or less the same. Eliminate sugar as much as possible, cut down on the fat, prioritize Protein and eat complex carbs, avoiding simple ones like bread, Pasta and rice. That is pretty standard, across the board. So don't come and ask whether pizza or chicken wings are okay, one week post-surgery. You already know the answer. If you want to know if something is okay to eat, call your surgeon's office and ask the dietician who should be helping you. If you don't have one, read the litany of advice available via Google search, or trust the MAJORITY opinion that you get on a board like this one. The gist of the feedback is almost always going to be, "Take it slow, don't rush, and make much better decisions than you did pre-op."

Good luck! Walk the halls as much as you're able, it will help you start getting rid of the gas and feeling a lot better.

The calorie restriction is sudden and STEEP on the pre-op diet, so it's no wonder. Especially because you're going sugar-free, and there's a certain amount of "sugar detox" that you go through with it. Eventually, your energy will come back. Your body has to adjust.

Yeah if you want to know anything about maximizing your diet for gains, you go to bodybuilders and strength trainers. Unfortunately there is tons of conflicting information out there, because it's based on a combination of research and broscience. The guys who do intermittent fasting to add muscle while also cutting fat swear by it, and they get all of their day's nutrients in a narrow window of time...like six hours, in some cases. So that kind of conflicts with the notion of a "refractory period" with Protein, because they're getting a full day's worth in six hours and they still add muscle mass. (Thinking specifically of the LeanGains program.) Of course if they're eating over 60g of protein in a sitting, then I guess that also proves that the "you can only process 30g per meal) is a falsehood. But I got a long way to go before I can even think about adding any mass. Eating 500 calories a day ain't gonna cut it

Insurance companies take their sweet time, that's for sure.

Congratulations! You are on your way

Give yourself at least six weeks to be fully healed, that would be my suggestion. Then start easing into the weights and see how you feel. But they say it takes six weeks for the stomach to heal fully from this surgery, so give it the time it needs. I'll be starting in a little over a week or so, probably.

I didn't cheat at all. In fact I took the sample diet my nutritionist gave me and that's basically what I ate every day for two weeks. I took a lot of pride in not having screwed up, that two weeks...and the scales the morning of surgery made it worthwhile, when I saw I'd dropped over 30lbs before surgery.

It's just a disciplining of the mind, I guess...it's the same thing you'd have to do if you were trying to diet normally. We can't expect anyone around us to change, we're the ones who need the changing. Over time, our lives will become more normal and we'll be accustomed to eating far less than we once did, and our choices will start getting better, and our indulgences will be "once in a while" and not every day...and most important, we will never overeat again. It's a commitment, for sure...but you know, it's one meal. It only lasts for an hour or two, and it's over. You can get through an hour or two

If you can't get it paid through your insurance, you may want to consider going to Mexico for it. There are a lot of reputable surgeons and facilities there, and your out of pocket will be FAR cheaper. Look into it, because it's better than dropping $30,000 on it. You will probably find it difficult to raise money through a GoFundMe or similar crowdfunding type of site, but you'd have a better shot at finding $5,000 or so than you would $30k. It sounds like you're ready to get this done, so best of luck to you!

Crazy that they used staples instead of sutures or glue strips. Also...don't make what you're craving. That's kind of exactly the opposite of what you should be doing. Go ahead and ask your surgeon if they think it's a good idea to eat a bunch of sugar now. I mean, unless you're just eager to get your first case of dumping syndrome, and don't plan to change your habits and behaviors post-surgery, and just see how it goes.

Three weeks post-op, I was into clothes that I hadn't worn in over five years. I'm currently on my second new hole on my belt. I'm about to phase out some t-shirts because they just look way too baggy now. I lost a bunch on my pre-op diet, and I'm sure I've lost a lot post-op (don't know for sure because I don't weigh, unless I'm at the doctor's office).

Barely get to 500 calories, on my fifth week post-op. Add the 30 minutes of elliptical I've been doing and I'm at like a net intake of 300 calories. It's ridiculous, but there isn't really any way I could do more, unless I started putting a bunch of refined sugar in my body, which there's no way I'm doing again. I'm detoxed from it, so I'm not going back.

No. If you are averaging 5 pounds a week there is no reason at all to change anything that you're doing. That is an awesome pace.

Yeah, you really have to make a conscious decision to stay away from the foods that you know were triggers to overeating, and chips are one of them. Pure carb and fat calories, very little nutritional value and it's impossible to stop, once you start. So it's a little like being a recovering alcoholic...those things that you know have been triggers for you, you just have to give them up...because they will trigger relapses.

Just remember that you still have adipose fat in your skin, concentrated in that area...that's why it looks the way it does right now. The lower your bodyfat percentage goes, the less pronounced it's going to be. As you get closer to goal, it'll require fine-tuning your diet to hit that last stubborn fat, and zeroing in on your exercise. Weight training can really help a lot, in that regard. When you see people who have lost all of their fat and get really lean, the skin just looks wrinkly around the abdomen, loose but not thick. So don't get discouraged, just realize that this is where you start to zero in on that perfect balance of protein, carbs and fats, and your exercise regimen, to get the bodyfat percentage down. It's exactly what people have to do in order to get their abs to start showing, too. They only show when you get the BF% down.

I went to a local Thai place and picked up an order of chicken satay today, now that I have finally graduated to "whole pieces of meat." It's one of my favorites. I chopped it up into small pieces, tossed it in the peanut sauce and then separated it out into 1.5oz servings with my little ziplock containers. What came with the satay was fried rice with shrimp in it, which I didn't realize (I should have just ordered it alone, but apparently they misunderstood and gave me the dinner order). First of all, looking at that giant portion of fried rice and then the 8 skewers of chicken, I found myself going, "This is a dinner...for how many frickin' people?" As it is, the chicken alone is going to last me three days. My how times have changed. So I decided I'd eat the shrimp and the egg in the fried rice, which was good. Shrimp seems to be agreeable. I took a couple small bites of the rice, and realized that I wasn't very interested in it. Another change...because I really used to like fried rice! I just knew that it was only going to swell up in my stomach and rob me of space for "the good stuff." It's weird how bread, Pasta and rice have all sort of fallen into this category of "pointless foods" to me, now. It's great, it feels like I'm adapting, but it's a strange feeling. Or being at the stores and knowing that in the checkout aisle pre-surgery, I'd have been tempted by a candy bar or something...and now I look at them and think, "What is the point of these things?" I'm surrounded now by stuff that makes me realize how much food = entertainment in our culture, now. Go to the movies and you HAVE to have treats, right? Candy and goodies, and wash it all down with a sugary soda or a slushie. But for what reason? It's not for fuel, it's not to feed your body...it's just to entertain yourself. I'm realizing that I'm not just the product of my youth and low self-esteem, but I'm also a product of conditioning...social behaviors and marketing have helped create an environment where you will really struggle to succeed without help, as an obese person. Now that my eyes are wide open, I can see how we're doing all of this to ourselves in American society...the messaging and the culture are all creating an environment that encourages obesity. It's hard to fight against that machine.

I didn't, actually...I had chosen the RNY. The problem is, the surgeon who had repaired my umbilical hernia years before used a mesh that allowed the intestine to grow into it, creating adhesions that made the RNY impossible. So the surgeon opted for the sleeve, with me. In my reading post-surgery and discussing it with a few people who had RNY, I feel like I might have ultimately gotten the better procedure, at least in terms of long-term health. One of my mom's friends who had RNY about 10 years ago said the malabsorbtion aspect is only really a positive for the first couple years, while you get to goal. After that, it's a hinderance and she said she actually developed celiac disease as a result of it. She wishes she could have had the sleeve, but at the time apparently it was not covered by her insurance. I feel like, for me, the combination of the restriction and the lack of hunger are enabling me to get my mind right and start establishing better habits, and that's really what I needed from the surgery...I needed it to enforce the portion control, and ease the impact of hunger pangs so that I could focus on the task at hand. It was the combination of the mental and physical issues that made it so hard for me to lose weight, long-term. I've taken the physical part off the table, to a large extent...so now I can just focus on the mental. So I would say, as someone who got unintentionally switched to a sleeve, I now think it may be a better option, long-term.

You're going to miss some things. That's just part of giving something up...but do a list of pros and cons, when it comes to having "whatever you want." I think you'll find the "cons" far outnumber the "pros". None of what you will miss is anything you can't live without.

You will wade into it, don't worry. You'll start on liquids only for a couple weeks, then they'll gradually work you into more solid food, until after about 6 or 8 weeks (varies by surgeon and patient) you'll be left to your own devices. But in that six week period, you'll start seeing where your priorities need to be with the food, and how small your stomach's capacity is. So you'll be better equipped to make appropriate choices. Basically, you're going to discover that breads, rice and Pasta are not a priority because they swell up in your stomach and don't leave room for Protein...and protein is your biggest priority. You focus on that first, every meal. You'll probably focus on complex carbohydrates that aren't super filling, like the breads are. Beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc... Let's just say that if you've got yourself squared away mentally, you won't be thinking it's time for a burger and fries. You don't have the space in your stomach, and you will have new priorities when it comes to food. These are good changes. Don't panic, it doesn't happen all at once. Let yourself get used to the changes. Also, you probably aren't going to have to worry too terribly much about calories until you get closer to your goal weight. The sleeve is so restrictive that you probably will struggle to exceed 500 calories a day for quite a while...and that means if you are doing a reasonable amount of cardio, you're going to be in a steep calorie deficit. Unless you start drinking a bunch of sugar drinks all day and whatnot.