Dairymary

What are your daily macros looking like? Calories? Protein? Carbs? Water? What do you do all day? How active are you? Excercise? Walking?

PS. I reread my answer and realized I forgot to post the obvious answer....eating a healthy, bariatric friendly diet. 80+ grams Protein, lots of low glycemic veggies, some fruits and whole grains. Minimizing (but not completely eliminating) high cal/low nutritive stuff like Pasta and bread and simple carbs like Desserts, candy and alcohol. Those last three are for my mental health, not my physical health In the end, how you eat to lose your weight is more or less how you need to eat in order to maintain. This commitment is forever, folks!

1) my sleeve, of course. It does its job of providing restriction as long as I do my job of feeding it healthy, non slider foods. 2) kitchen scale. For the first 3 years I weighed, measured and tracked everything. This kept me accountable and on track. Lost all my excess weight and was easily maintaining. Then one day I was in the kitchen, preparing lunch for myself and my husband and my food scale wasn't working. I was talking about having to run right out and get a new one and my husband casually commented that if I don't know what 3ounces of tuna fish and 2 ounces of veggies looks like by now I have a serious learning disability. I laughed...he was right. I had been eating right for so long I really did know how to do it, so since then, no measuring and no tracking. I just eat like I had retrained myself to eat. 3) water container. I never go anywhere without something to drink. It's kind of an obsession. I drink when I drive, in the grocery store, at home on the couch, when visiting friends, at the movies, while working, etc. 4) activity. I live and work on a farm so my regular day to day chores are as good of a workout as any gym. I also walk as much as possible....Park the furthest away in the parking lots, take stairs instead if elevators, etc. 5) But the number one key to my success is my therapist. I wouldn't be where I am without her. Saw her regularly for over 2 years then kind of stopped. Revisited with her after a bad accident left me in the hospital then wheelchair and Walker for several months. I no longer have regular appointments, but she is my go to when things get tough and I need a refresher course on handling stress and emotions.

What does your gastroenterologist and/or surgeon suggest?

If you aren't taking PPIs already, definitely talk to your surgeon about it. I was told to take omeprazole 40mg daily for the first 2 months whether I had reflux or not. Lowering acid levels helps your stomach heal. If you are taking a PPI, ask about switching. Different ones can be more or less effective in different people. And are you experiencing actual acid reflux or more of a regurge of what you swallow? If it is the latter, it could be a motility issue. Regardless, you should still talk to your surgeon about your symptoms.

Recent studies suggest drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces for maximizing weight loss. Even more if you are working out a lot. This goes for everyone, not just WLS patients. So unless you weigh 128 pounds, the popular "64 ounces" is not nearly enough.

I was a little surprised to see the title of this post so I had to check it out. I agree with some of the others that this study is statistically Irrelevant. Too few participants to mean anything. I actually think any of the statistics surrounding WLS in general are meaningless when it comes to any one individual's chances at long term success. It's not like this is cancer or some other physical illness that we have no control over. Each and every one of us has the opportunity to be 100% successful. It may take more than just surgery....in my case, surgery + 3 years therapy + 6 years support group + diligent, mindful choices every single day....but it is doable. There are very very few cases where regain, or failure to lose to goal, were the result of anything but poor food choices and returning to the habits and behaviors that made us fat in the first place. The importance of creating a new lifestyle and learning new ways to deal with life ups and downs cannot be stressed enough. The mental changes you make are far more important than the physical changes from surgery when it comes to long term success. You don't have to settle for average results and the benefits of gastric sleeve only wane after 5 years if you let them. BTW, I'm six years out and am still maintaining over 100% EWL with the help of my sleeve.

I'm long past the Protein supplementation stage, but I asked my daughter about GENEPRO (she's a doctor). She could not find any clinical studies or nutritional analyses that support the company's claims. The science behind the product is based on insitu experiments (meaning in a test tube) and theories projected from studies of other products. She couldn't say if it was good or bad, just that there have never been any published trials that measures the actual bioavailability and absorbability of Genepro. These are very basic, simple studies that even dog and cat food have to go through for the nutritional profiles printed on the bags. It is not an FDA approved product and Until this company proves their claims with clinical trials, she considers it just snake oil. Seems to me the company could legitimize itself and its product by simply conducting these basic trials (if the product really is what they claim). But on the other hand, they've got millions of customers buying their products with no proof whatsoever that it's anything but a white powder that dissolves in Water, so I guess strategic marketing trumps science in this case.

Started eating creamy peanut butter during puréed stage....3 weeks postop. Ate it at least 3-4 days/week. Switched to super chunky at 6 months once I got brave enough to put whole nuts in my sleeve. Peanut butter and apple or banana slices have been a mainstay snack for the last 6 years.

I either split something with my husband, order just an appetizer, or get a whole entree for myself and ask for a to go box right up front. That way no one is surprised when I don't eat much. My friends actually love going out to eat and splitting an entree with me because they feel like they are "eating light" but they actually get 3/4 of the meal.

Sounds like a good plan. Make sure you are getting 60-80g Protein and at least 110oz of Water every day. Try and keep your carbs under 50g...some folks need to go even lower, but you may need more depending on how intense your workouts are. I've heard the 5 day pouch test can help clear out carb cravings and reinforce your mental commitment. Good luck.

What does your diet look like.....Calories? Protein? Carbs? Fluids? Excercise routine? Are you measuring your portions and not grazing?

I guess I don't understand how you think losing 100 pounds could possibly be disappointing? Took me 18 months to reach my goal, and I thought that was outstanding. What were you told to expect? If you want to reach goal, you need to keep eating on plan and it will happen. And in order to maintain that loss you STILL have to keep eating on plan. Unfortunately nothing glamorous or magical about it. Like Tim Gunn says, "make it work".

I had surgery in TJ six years ago. Surgery Monday afternoon. Discharged Tuesday morning. Returned Wednesday morning to have drain and incisions checked.....then went shopping. Thursday morning they removed the drain and I flew home that afternoon. No appointments with surgeon after that. Just Followed up with my regular doctor for bloodwork at 3 months, 6 months and then annually.

Taking my grandkids to the corn maze and then trick or treating and gonna steal some of their candy like I always do. A couple mini chocolate bars and Peanut Butter cups certainly aren't going to do any irreparable harm. Typical Halloween before surgery wasn't nearly as much fun. My husband wasn't much on dressing up and going to parties, so we usually just stayed at home and passed out candy.

You sought the help of a surgeon to "fix" the physical part of portion control, why not seek the help of a psych professional to address the mental parts? Some people can fix this part on their own through self imposed will power, excercise, self help books, addiction recovery programs, etc. If you have tried all of these options without success, I strongly recommend you seek personal counseling. You are an addict and need to figure out what drives you to do the things you do so you can address those issues and devise a plan to change those addictive behaviors. My sleeve, diligently sticking to my diet plan and tracking/measuring everything helped me lose weight initially, but I give full credit to my therapist for helping me to keep losing to goal and staying there. What I learned over 3 years with her has helped improve ALL aspects of my live, not just the parts involving food. It took a long time, hard work, and a lot of commitment, but 6 years later my new behaviors and skinny lifestyle are just normal for me now.

Are you seeing a therapist? I couldn't have accomplished what I have without mine. More important than surgery itself, IMHO.

I'm a female and over 60 and I haven't been under 1000 calories since I was 4 months postop. As a young, active man, I would think under 1000 calories would be way too low for you. Actually sounds like you are doing really well.

I don't know what size I was at a year out, but I went from a 26 to 5/6 in 18 months. You will be swimming in that size 10 dress before you know it!

I wouldn't know. I only weighed once/month....at the recommendation of my therapist and the veterans in my support group. "Not losing fast enough" is one of the biggest complaints early on. Newbies were actually banned from whining about it in group. the scale usually just distracts from the more important aspects and creates too much emotional drama. Getting in your protein, fluids, working on changing old behaviors and establishing a new lifestyle is all you should be concerned with for the first several months.

I was 295 the day I started my preop diet. 18 months later I was 135 (down 160 pounds). 6 years later I typically run around 132-136.

Cold sores are caused by a herpes virus. More than likely your body and immune system is stressed from surgery and weightloss and is having a hard time keeping the virus suppressed. A good part of our immune system is located in our GI tract which was just violently disrupted, to say the least. Good nutrition will help get you back on track. You may try taking lysine for awhile....500mg/day. It can help slow the replication of the herpes virus. There are also OTC topicals that won't necessarily get rid of them, but will help with the discomfort until they are gone.

Actually it was my "gut" instincts that got me into so much trouble with my weight in the first place . It was trusting my surgeon, doctor's and therapist's advice that got me where I am today. That, along with the comraderie and encouragement (not medical advice) from my support group.

But who's fault is that? So many posters come on here, asking questions that they should be asking their surgeons. They are the ones seeking medical advice from strangers on an Internet forum. It's fine to ask about other people's experiences and opinions but they should not be asking what THEY should be doing. Unfortunately they do. I completely agree that post WLS is not a one size fits all formula. Everyone needs to find what works for them, under their doctor's supervision. In my responses I try to stick with describing my own experience, but make it clear that it may not work for everyone. No one on here is qualified to tell any other patient how to proceed with their diet and excercise programs so it's the people asking for advice that need to realize the responses are indeed, opinions and individual anecdotes, not medical facts.

Love your attitude, Lisa. Be sure to print out your post and save it for a rainy day. Your own advice will be your inspiration. They are things we all need to tell ourselves every day.