PorkChopExpress

I have started to realize that a lot of the things I "think" I want when I see them...I actually don't. There are always donuts and treats at work in the kitchen, but now when I see them, I realize what a waste they are for me. No nutritional value, and just basically a form of entertainment that made me obese. I don't actually want them, anymore.

If I detailed the nightmares I had, dealing with the exchanges as an intermediary managing my healthcare services for me as a go-between to my insurance company, it would make your head spin. Stereotypical government efficiency and ineptitude. There's no way on God's green earth I would want this government taking 100% control of my health care. No, and no. They can't even administrate social security without sending it into a black hole, never to be seen again. You want them in charge of your health care?

It's possible that you've got a case of pancreatitis, it does happen sometimes. You'll have to talk to your surgeon to get a real answer, probably some bloodwork - hard to diagnose these problems online.

It's most likely NOT hunger, you are probably mistaking the "bite" of acid in your stomach for hunger. I feel that too, but it isn't accompanied by growling and it doesn't feel quite the same. When you combine the mental "hunger" of missing things you liked eating, and the adjustments to tiny portion sizes, it can FEEL like hunger...but it's not quite the same. I don't feel anything like "traditional" hunger, right now. I get acid buildup a little on an empty stomach (getting better all the time) but no rumbling - the rumbling went away after about four weeks, it was just a symptom of my stomach recovery, I think (and it would happen after I ate, as well as before). Just stick to a schedule, eat when you're supposed to eat and don't eat when you're not. Surgery's not a turnkey solution, it does still require some self-discipline. If you get into the habit of "grazing" you're going to suffer calorie creep, and your weight loss will slow.

You will find that you get tired really quickly, and you will want to sit down a lot because your midsection will start to ache. You won't last too long, IMO...at least not for roughly a week or so after surgery. You definitely won't want to be carrying bags or anything.

I found it to be excellent mental preparation for what would come immediately following surgery, so I'm glad I did it, regardless of whether there was any real medical reason for it. It helped me get my mind in the game.

I'll be moving back the weekend of the 12th! Colorado native, moved to LA back in late 1998 to pursue my career. Had a family and kids, decided to move them back to Colorado - they went ahead seven months ago, and now I'm going to rejoin them finally. Wife wants to get surgery this summer, will be doing it via Kaiser. Looks like Denver's Kaiser bariatric program has a well-reviewed surgeon, so that's good. I'd like to know of any support groups too, particularly Northwest of Denver.

You've got your mind right Congratulations, that's 90% of the battle, right there...defeating these influences that have controlled us for so long. Taking away their power. I'm almost done with week 5 post-op and I feel good, and I don't desire crap food anymore, at all. I want QUALITY. I can have so little, that I want it to really count. The only fast food I have had has been pintos and cheese and a side of steak at Taco Bell, which was two meals' worth of food. That steak is good, though...even though I know it's a bit high in sodium. But we are on a journey and we have a destination in mind, and there are things that will get us there and things that will hold us back...so we jettison whatever won't get us there. We're gonna make it Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

It was pretty hard to get the Water down the first couple of days for me, too...in fact I don't think it was until day 6 or 7 that I was getting between 50-60oz down a day (that included Protein shakes). You've got a lot of inflammation, it sounds like. Overnight and release the next day is pretty standard with sleeve, unless they feel you have serious complications - but that means a leak in the staple line or something like that. The Protein shakes count toward water, so what I would focus on is just working on protein shakes all day long. Not straight water. Small sips and give yourself a break between them. SMALL sips. Like, 1/8th of your mouthful. Take a sip every couple minutes. If it makes your stomach hurt, you're doing it too often. You just have to take it real easy and real slow, because your stomach has suffered a HUGE trauma, during this surgery. You will heal MUCH more quickly if you are getting sufficient protein, so make that your focus with every single drink you take every day. That's THE MOST important thing, this week. Protein. Also...when you feel tired, sleep. That's when your body repairs itself. Also, if the Norco is bothering you, see if you can get a prescription for Tylenol with Codeine in liquid form, if you can. Might be easier for you to use. Other than all that...walk. Walk as much as you can, to get the surgical gas out. You'll feel a lot better.

Good luck! It'll be over and done with before you know it, and you will have finally crossed the threshold into your new life. Go get 'em.

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.