PorkChopExpress

A good support group doesn't support you when you're screwing up, they call you on it. Most of the people here are trying to reform their behaviors and attitudes about food, they didn't think that getting operated on was going to fix their problem (it's not), because the problem is in their head. The surgery is just a tool to help enforce rules. The fact that you had a normal stomach wasn't what made you obese, and having a smaller stomach won't stop you from gaining weight. The internet and support groups are littered with people who regained the weight, or couldn't lose after surgery. A lot of them STILL not putting the blame where it needs to be - on themselves. To come on a WLS board and proudly post that you're gonna have some fried chicken, weeks after your surgery, and expect support for that just blows my flippin' mind...and it tells everyone here that you were NOT mentally ready to have this surgery, and are not mentally where you need to be in order to succeed long-term. So we're gonna call you on it, in the hopes that you'll actually do some soul-searching about whether you REALLY want to change, at all. It's not too late, but the fact is...right now, your attitude is not going to be conducive to success. "You're so judgmental. I just wanted some fried chicken, what's so wrong with that?" What's wrong with that is, if your mind was right, you'd be just as taken aback as all of us are that you even thought to eat that crap right now, so soon after surgery and so long before you've reached your goals.

It's interesting how easy it is to identify the people that are likely to be the WLS cautionary tale of the person who only lost 40 pounds after surgery and then regained it plus 20 more six months later, and say WLS "didn't work for me." Wash that fried chicken down with some Coke, and then when your stomach has a little room, have a cookie. You got this.

Excellent. My wife is also obese (she's right at 40bmi) and she's got three siblings, two of whom are sisters. She is the heaviest of them and she compares herself a lot...and it's no wonder, because her parents (especially her father) are BRUTAL toward her about it. They make the most insensitive comments, it blows my mind. I don't like my in-laws anyway, at all...but things like this make me really dislike them. It's hurtful to my wife and I see how it affects her. She is also planning on getting the surgery this coming summer, when she has time off from work (she's a teacher). She talks about remembering being cute in High School and wearing the kinds of clothes she liked, and she wants to get back to that. I don't ever have a memory where I wasn't being made fun of for my weight, all the way back to elementary school...so for me, it's wanting to have a life I never got to have, and to be a good example to my kids.

They make a lot of canned snack type stuff that you can take with you on the go. I've seen chicken salad, tuna salad, hummus, all that stuff with crackers in snack sizes that work perfect. I actually had a hummus one today, I only had two of the six crackers that came with it, just heaped on the hummus and ate the rest with the little spoon that came with it You're probably going to be at the "try anything" phase as of week 7 so you can also probably hit some restaurants. Have no fear, just be smart about what you're getting...this is your life now, so it's time to get used to it right? Someone told me that Subway will actually give you the meat from a sandwich in a cup and charge you less for it, so that's a good way to get Protein, in slabs of turkey. I'd get a little cup of spicy mustard and dip it, myself! Taco Bell has the refried bean option that works, I've had that a couple times now. You just have to find places where you can get smallish servings of things, since you can't store it. You could get a grilled chicken sandwich most places and just eat the breast meat with a little sauce, I would probably hunt down an Arby's and see how I did with some roast beef, myself. Just keep the carbs under control and focus on finding sources of protein...and take your shake stuff. You can do it! I've got an inter-state move coming up in late November (week before Thanksgiving) and I'm going to be week 8 post-op at that point, it'll take me a couple of days driving so I'm already planning what to do in my head, for food!

It sounds very much like pancreatitis, or a gall bladder attack. You need to get seen right away, don't wait.

This process is a serious education, but you've started. The one thing that bothers me is that you said you want to lose fast so that your Mom will stop making fun of you. One thing I'd suggest to your thinking is that you not make this about external factors. It's time to really do some soul-searching and figure out what has led you to this point, where you are going to pursue weight loss surgery...and to realize that you aren't doing this for anyone but yourself. It will be you that must brave the surgery, you who must undertake the recovery, and you who must modify their thoughts and behaviors to achieve the success you're looking for. Nobody is going to do any of it but you. And be prepared for the fact that you may discover you have some serious resentment toward your mom, when she starts treating you differently after you lose weight. Or anyone else in your life, for that matter. You're going to go through massive changes and people in your life won't necessarily fit "the new you" anymore. A lot of the success stories on this site and elsewhere attest to that fact. But if you make this choice, make it for yourself...and do the psychological part, because it's the most important. You need to really be dedicated to lifelong change. Good things will come, in time. But it's a fight. Also, you'll find that you get a lot more educated about nutrition, through this process. Your question about the Protein shakes? The answer is simple: Any diet in which you consume fewer calories than you burn every day is going to help you lose weight, and the greater the gap between how much you consume and how much you burn makes that weight loss speed up. But it may not be the healthiest way to do it. Your body has requirements that need to be met, in order to stay healthy and function optimally. I expect that your surgeon has a nutritionist and a program that you'll go through that will get you up to speed on everything. Go to them, and really invest in the process...so that by the time you reach your surgery date, you will be a "subject matter expert" on your nutrition and how to succeed It's time to cast off the old you and look forward to the new one, and that's more mental than physical. Good luck!

Great story. I was picked on by kids my age growing up and teased for being bigger, and it can all really add up to demolish your self-esteem...and then weirdly, we end up becoming what they say we are. It just starts a vicious cycle that it is tremendously hard to get out of. We're doing it, though! You've achieved a lot, congratulations. I can't wait to join the ranks of those who've reached their goals, after suffering for so long.

Band always seemed really non-committal to me. I figured if I was going to do surgery and make a permanent change in my life, having something I could just get taken out wasn't going to help me get where I needed to go. Sent from my SM-N920V using the BariatricPal App

It was going to be sushi from my favorite place, but I spent about two weeks splurging and by that point, I had gotten it out of my system and realized that I had basically been celebrating the hold food had over me. So I just had a sandwich at subway and that was it. Sent from my SM-N920V using the BariatricPal App

I've got a desk job, I was back to work after a week (basically nine days, with the weekend). No problem.

Protein shakes. That is about the only way you're going to get what you need right now. Three meals and protein shakes, and you'll get in the neighborhood. I just BARELY get to about 600 calories right now, three weeks into it. Also, make darn sure you're getting all your vitamins as you should be. And you may want to see about a blood test to check your vitamin D. I take a supplement for that and it has helped my energy, as I did have a deficiency even pre-surgery.

@@OKCPirate Thanks for the info on lifting. I'll probably get going on that in another week or so...the abdomen is feeling pretty up to snuff recently, so I think it should handle some basic lifting. I won't get into a "real" program of strength training until I around 20-30 pounds from goal, I think. I recently bought some Nivea lotion for tightening/firming skin, so I'm trying to get into the habit of using that. I hadn't heard about the cool shower tip though, I'll try that too. Anything that'll help! I know that at 45 and after a lifetime of being obese, it's unlikely the skin's going to be too forgiving but anything I can do to aid in recovery is good.

Worst part of the whole process, I think! Aside from the mental hurdles you have to get past. But just keep remembering that there's a time limit on it, and you're setting the tone for the rest of your weight loss journey with that pre-op diet. It's important, do your best

What they're basically telling you is that the way you think about food pre-surgery cannot continue, post-surgery. The way you think about food is what has gotten you to the point where you NEED surgery, in the first place. So there needs to be a dedication to changing your thought process about it. After you've had weight loss surgery, your stomach real estate is VERY valuable...you can't put much in it, and your body requires certain things - above all, Protein. You will find that you start to value things with higher nutritional value, that meet the needs of your body to function, or to gain muscle. That doesn't mean you can't still want things to taste good, but your priorities have to change. Noodles have next to no nutritional value and they expand in your stomach...and when your stomach hardly holds anything, it's a wasted meal to eat a bunch of noodles. Could you? Sure you could. But if your mind is right about getting your life turned around and getting fit, you won't WANT to. That's what they're saying. Getting your mind right and changing your attitudes about food is probably at least 80% of succeeding with WLS. If your mindset is still, "Someday I will be able to eat like a normal person" then you're not there, yet...because after WLS, you will NEVER be able to eat like a normal person, again. Your priorities will be MUCH different than theirs.

Yeah, looks like we are on very similar trajectories then! I'm definitely going to avoid the scale, I'm probably only going to weigh at the doctor's office, but we'll see. The way I see it, my clothes tell me all I really need to know.

Good old-fashioned willpower? Aside from surgery, it's about the only weapon we have against the holidays. I was told not to even touch alcohol for a year post-surgery, so I won't be. I'll be staying away from sugary stuff because I don't want to get sick, and otherwise I think my stomach will enforce my portion control, so it'll just be about making good choices of what to eat, with a focus on protein.If you're not sure you can make good choices at these functions, my suggestion would be to eat just before you go.

The big difference is that the sleeve is newer and has less research associated with it, and the RNY has been around for 30+ years and has a ton of research. So they keep marketing the RNY as the "gold standard" but the fact is, no matter what surgery you opt for, the vast majority of change has to happen in your head and in your behavior, to be successful. I initially went in for RNY but due to scar tissue from prior surgery, they couldn't do it...so they gave me the sleeve. A week after I had surgery, I spoke to a friend of my mom's who'd had RNY 10 years ago and she said she wishes she'd have been able to have the sleeve...because she said she developed celiac disease as a result of the RNY and also came to realize that the malabsorbtion aspect of the surgery was only really useful for the first couple of years, and after that it became a pain in the butt. So I actually came away feeling like maybe I'd dodged a bit of a bullet. My wife wants to get surgery and is planning on it next summer, and she's still in the "gold standard" mindset, but I'm hopeful that my results with the sleeve will convince her to change her mind. I'm now of the opinion that the sleeve might be a better long-term choice. But it will be what I make of it, that's for sure.

I got lucky, apparently my surgeon thought I was progressing and healing well enough to start soft/mushy after only two weeks. After four weeks of nothing but liquids, holy cow was it great to be able to chew and get some flavor again, even if the portions are tiny. You sure enjoy eating more, this way

It's more mental than physical...so just be prepared for that fact. The surgery is the easy part. The process of giving up who you used to be, in a very large part, is the challenge. You simply will not succeed if your behaviors and opinions about food stay the same, after this surgery...or if you expect to go back to how you used to behave, once you get some weight off. It's very possible to fail even with surgery, and the web is littered with cautionary tales of people who didn't succeed, because they didn't make the mental changes they needed to. The surgery will enforce behavior, but it won't change your MIND...and that's what has to change, more than anything else. So be sure you're dedicated to going through that process, because it isn't easy. I'm still going through some of it, three weeks post-surgery...and I'm sure I'll continue to face challenges in the months to come, as I heal up and can eat more. The surgery makes it easier than trying to do it while you're starving to death and still have the stomach to eat anything you want to, but if you don't change your mindset, you'll find ways to get excessive calories in and gain weight back. Just start getting in touch with your feelings about things and where they are coming from. Get at the core of why you overeat and why you gained your weight. Those are the things you'll have to solve.

Sugar free is probably okay, but after surgery they want you to stay away from it because it ends up putting a bunch of air in your stomach.

A good trainer will help you immeasurably and push you just enough, a bad one will just discourage you and make you want to quit. Not all of them know where the line is with each client, it's a skill they have to develop. In terms of nutrition, the good ones know that it isn't "one size fits all." Particularly for bariatric patients! To insinuate that all we needed to do was control our portions and we didn't need surgery for that...this is usually coming from guys who have never been more than 20 pounds overweight in their lives, and don't understand the metabolic adaptations that obese people have developed that fight against weight loss, screw up our hunger and fullness signals, etc...etc... Nor do they, a lot of times, have any awareness that certain things we are simply too heavy to even DO, without risking injury. It sounds like ultimately, you found a good one. So that's awesome, because it'll help keep you on the right track. The nutrition part, your nutritionist has handled and you aren't going to need to do a lot to it until you start to creep up on your goal. That's when you'll have to start tweaking macros and see what works to get that last stubborn fat off. Bodybuilders are actually pretty good at that, they're very familiar with the bulking/cutting cycle and how to tweak your intake so you are cutting as much fat as possible, while sacrificing as little muscle as possible. I'm also a big advocate of weight training, because the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you'll burn all day, whether exercising or at rest. But nobody should be recommending weight training at six weeks post-surgery, it's too early. Three months maybe, and not aggressively. Just to try to maintain the muscle mass you do have, to keep that burn going every day. Because with extreme calorie deficits, you will lose muscle as well as fat, and that hurts your calorie burning over time. So there's some truth in what the meatheads were saying, but they just don't have the whole picture. If someone's never been obese, I don't want to hear them tell me "All you need to do is..." Because they've never been there.

I can feel that my stomach's capacity at mealtime has increased just a touch, since I started on mushy foods. Seems my stomach is recovering, the swelling must be going down now. I was driving to work tonight and was just sitting there thinking, "I feel pretty darn good right now." I'm really not feeling much of any aches now, stomach incisions are healing up well, I'm doing my normal stuff with no ill effects. The only difference is, I eat like my 9 month old! Although I'm more accurate with my spoon

Wow man, you're killing it. I started at 385lbs and by the morning of surgery after two weeks of liquid diet, I was at 351.8 - then about 1 1/2 weeks post-op at the surgeon's office I was 341.5lbs. So 51lbs right now is killer. I haven't weighed in about a week, and I'm planning on holding off until my next doctor checkup. I just don't want to step on the scales too much, it's always been my enemy