mherrera

Thanks. [fingers crossed] I'm hoping for the best! I accepted a conditional offer of employment in April 2016. Received my world-wide medical clearance in June 2016. Security Clearance interview in September 2016. Sleeve surgery in October 2016. Waiting to hear the final results on my security clearance...hoping to hear within the next month or so.

Thanks. [fingers crossed] I'm hoping for the best! I accepted a conditional offer of employment in April 2016. Received my world-wide medical clearance in June 2016. Security Clearance interview in September 2016. Sleeve surgery in October 2016. Waiting to hear the final results on my security clearance...hoping to hear within the next month or so.

9months out down 110lbs and I'm loving it! Still not eating much cuz my tummy just isn't having it most days. But went frm a size 48 to a 36 ????????
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It's been one year today since I had my sleeve done. My life has changed in every aspect.
My start weight was 333.1lbs
My weight this morning was 137.8lbs
That's a total loss of 195.3lbs!!
I've also lost a total of 95 inches...I'm a size 6 now...used to be a size 30.
I have accomplished this by being very focused and strict with my eating and exercise.
I eat very low carb, and always get in my Protein, Vitamins and Water every day.
For all of you just starting out, just know that anything is possible, and if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything!! 
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Mherrera-we will be going to Domenican Republic for 8 days beginning of April too. Although I will be 5 months post op I still worry about it., especially being out on excursions.
We go every year to an all inclusive either there or Mexico. Back then it was eating Mexican food, drinking beer, mixed drinks and Pina Coladas.
Oh this trip will be so different!! No more laying around on the beach sipping drinks all day!
Lilikchen- definitely go on a cruise! There's great healthy options on a cruise.
My friend just went on one and said there were so many Protein and fresh fruit options everywhere. She actually lost weight on the cruise!
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I truly doubt it would--I know you can't enlist in the military after bariatric surgery but that's a completely different kind of service.

I wondered the same thing early on. It definitely gets easier. I was sleeved on Oct 13. I felt like I had improvements with how things felt in my tummy between weeks 3-4 and 6-7. From week 3 to 4, I noticed that soft foods, like yogurt, didn't feel so yucky. From week 6 to 7, Water suddenly tasted refreshing to drink (prior to that, Water made me feel like gagging). ...hang in there.

Okay so my first year was phenomenal! I did so good! And this past year? Well... not so much. My loss slowed around the end of last year and continued to be slow/creeping for the first couple of months. Chalk it up to holidays, the stress after a move, poor planning, it wasn't a great time. And I should have followed that up with renewed vigor, but instead I re-introduced two things into my life that has made this year, frankly?, a complete waste!
1. Carbs! I started re-introducing them back in February. Just a little at first. But what was an occasional thing turned into an every day thing, turned into an (almost) every meal thing, turned into an (almost) every meal/every snack thing. It's a slippery slope. And the worst part about this is that I don't even enjoy them that much! They're just convenient and EVERYWHERE.
2. Snacking. Before I was mostly doing the strict 5-6 meals/snacks per day. It would occasionally deviate, but for the most part, that was my mainstay. After introducing carbs, the desire to snack became so much stronger. The more carbs I ate, the more I snacked, the more I snacked, the more I ate carbs. It was just a gross gigantic avalanche of snacking/carbing.
3. Facebook! Can I blame the fact that I re-introduced Facebook on this? I recently read (a real article, though I can't remember the name of the publication at the moment! I THINK it was NYT.) that surveys suggest that Facebook takes up more of our time than exercising, reading, and socializing per day COMBINED. COMBINED. That's... INSANE. To know that I've wasted good quality exercising (and reading!) time on Facebook (which I don't even really LIKE, which is why I avoided it for SO LONG.) is mind boggling to me. I haven't deleted the app from my phone yet, but I'm doing it tonight! I'll keep messenger because for some reason people prefer that to texting these days. STILL. This is unacceptable in my world view. How did I allow this to happen?
I have not technically gained weight this year because I looked back and I'm around the same I was this time last year. So that's... something? But with gains and losses, I did gain back about 25 lbs. You could say ALMOST 30, but the only reason I ever dipped that low was because I had mycoplasma pneumonia (the one with gastrointestinal symptoms) for 2 weeks in the middle of the year. Apart from that one week period where I had lost weight because of Illness, I'd been hovering at about 255 for a pretty long time this year. Then, when I stepped on the scale one week ago I was shocked to discover that I was weighing in at 278.5. 23 and half pounds higher than my (non-pnuemonia-induced) lowest weight!
The little progress that I did make this year, just kept being erased by my poor choices! I hadn't stepped on a scale since I'd been sick. I was in deep denial!
I immediately joined a dietbet (which I'm going to lose because I'm losing too quickly!) and started eating right again. No carbs, veggies, Protein (at least 70/day), getting in my fluids, only eating 5/6 times/day. I began losing weight so rapidly that I couldn't believe it. Still can't. That was Dec 1st. When I weighed myself this morning. I'd already lost 12 lbs! This is TWO YEARS out from surgery. I haven't had ANY TIME this week to exercise (though I do babysit after work so I usually get all my steps in.) This tool still works! It still does EXACTLY what it's designed to do! And the REALLY remarkable part of this? Half way into this week, my dentist had to prescribe me an antibiotic AND a steroid. A steroid! Yet I still managed to lose 12 lbs. I feel like I JUST had surgery. These are astonishing numbers even if it's mostly Water weight. Even if I'd just lost 6/5 lbs this week I would have been astounded. 12 is beyond anything I ever expected.
Some things I've noticed this week:
1. I still don't miss carbs (much!)
It's hard to step away. But honestly? I just feel so dissatisfied with what I'm eating when I'm eating carbs. I've always been more of a meat and veggie girl. Carbs are just so abundant, so easily accessible and convenient, and so weirdly addictive even if you don't really love them, that it's just a habit I fall into that is almost exclusively environmental. I just need to REMEMBER that I control my own "food environment" if I make the time to plan!
2. I have to remember to take my Vitamins.
I still have them, I just have lapsed in taking them. Now that I really need them again, it's more important to remember!
3. I am going to the bathroom very infrequently, much like I did the first year post-surgery.
4. My capacity really is not as high as I feared.
When you nibble, stretch out your meals into long social affairs, snack frequently, eat slider foods, it can really be a bit of a mind trick. You start to believe that you can still eat like you used to. But you can't, you're just adapting what you CAN do, to what you WANT to do. If you want to eat more, you'll make it happen. You have to MAKE YOURSELF use your tool the way it was intended.
If I eat good quality veggies and protein, eat from start to finish (no stopping to chat OR BROWSE FACEBOOK for ten minutes in between bites!), I can still only eat ABOUT a solid cup of food before I'm comfortably full. Might take a few extra bites to make me UNCOMFORTABLY full depending on what the food is. I made a double-batch of Skinnytaste's Stuffed Pepper Soup (without rice) last week. Which is not very brothy and more like a stew. Yesterday I had a cup of that for lunch. (my ladle measures exactly one cup). By the time I finished the cup, I was UNCOMFORTABLY full. I actually should have stopped a few bites before I finished. Because it was stew-like, it was way more dense. For dinner today I had about 2 ounces of roasted chicken breast (which doesn't equal a half cup if you cut it up in chunks), about a half a cup of sauteed brussels sprouts, and a little less than a tablespoon full of homemade pimento cheese melted over the top. I was perfectly full by the time I was done. Not too full. Not still hungry. Just right.
5. I'm worried this will not last. I don't mean I'm worried I will fail again. I'm sure I will and I have a plan for that. (Get back on that horse, not 10 months later, but two minutes later!, etc.) I'm worried that I'll somehow do the same thing I did this week and for some reason I won't lose. I think I told myself for a long time this year that it wasn't ME and MY CHOICES that were causing me not to lose. It was something else. So I just have to remember that I am in control and I think these worries will go away. I'm really excited to get back to the gym too. Babysteps!
I'm so thrilled at this NEW START. I wonder if anyone else is in the same boat I am, or is in the same boat I was a week ago? Has anyone had long-term success with a re-start? After a period of not losing or a period of slight re-gain? What are you doing? What's working? What's not? How did you "re-boot?" Did you do the pouch test? What warnings do you have? Etc?
I feel like a newbie. It feels kind of good!

Many people feel similar to how you're feeling, so yes, it is very normal... Including the doubts whether the surgery worked or not. For what I've read and what I've personally experienced, a healing stomach (a swollen stomach), excess acid mimics hunger. I was never told this... And from day 2, I was confused like you were. I didn't know until I did research. My best advice is this: Make sure you take your antacid as directed, make sure you work hard to get your Water and Protein in as your program directs. My hunger dropped off big time on day 16 or 17, some people takes a little longer and others are even faster. Hang in there. Congrats on your surgery!

Stalls happen. Do your best not to let them get you down. Keep getting in your Protein and liquids. Are you incorporating exercise? Even a short walk every day can make a huge difference.
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Stalls happen. Do your best not to let them get you down. Keep getting in your Protein and liquids. Are you incorporating exercise? Even a short walk every day can make a huge difference.
Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Stalls happen. Do your best not to let them get you down. Keep getting in your Protein and liquids. Are you incorporating exercise? Even a short walk every day can make a huge difference.
Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I have UHC. I had been doing weight watchers online for many months before I made the decision to have surgery. When I decided to have vsg, i was able to get approved with 2 dietitian visits along with sending in my weight watcher payment and online weigh-in history. I was sleeved in Oct 2016. I started the process in June 2016, with first visit to Bariatric program and dietician.
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