You're doing great! It took me about 50 lbs. to lose a size. I was also told that I was on track. I think there's such a lot between 400 to 299 to 199 and then some that the period between those '99's can become overwhelming. But the feeling of hitting a new '99 is the best feeling in the world!
I keep two pieces of motivation in the bathroom by the scale. It's all fun and games until your jeans don't fit; and, Small progress is still progress.
Also seen in internet travels: I can't lose 100 lbs. But I can lose 10 lbs. 10 times.
Hi! I'm three days from being released from hospital, and day 6 of post-op. After having the hardest medical year last year and dealing with multiple co-morbidities, I started looking into which weight loss solution was right for me. I could afford the surgery locally and while visiting my parents in Mexico, after they recently retired here, they took me to a battery of doctors to get second opinions about my co-morbidities and came across a family friend and relative who is a general surgeon and has been a god send.
Her son is a surgeon as well, and know for laparoscopic procedures. Her daughter is a registered dietician, who has monitored ny weight, nutrition plans and needs for six months and I'm being cared for by my family while I recover through the soft foods phase.
When I'm back home, I've told a few close friends about my surgery, and have a sympathetic support system, but I feel that connecting with others going through my same experience can only enhance my recovery, help me get through rough Patches and I look forward to hopefully proving the same to others!
P.S., I didn't know how to edit a few things on my profile. I had gastric bypass on 12/3/16. I weighed 273 lbs prior to surgery. This summer when I became a pre-op candidate, my starting weight was 305 lbs. The lightest I have ever been in my life was 177 lbs when I was 14 years old. I'll turn 40 in January.
Had my surgery December 7, 2016. Doing well a little sore, had a hiatal hernia repaired also. I am so excited about this new journey in my life.
Sent from my XT1254 using the BariatricPal App
Does anyone have any recommendations or tips for the first egg? I had rny 2 weeks ago and I can have my first egg tomorrow! Any thing would be great!
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Over the last few weeks, I've seen a number of posts about "cheating" on the diet plan in the days and weeks immediately following surgery, and I am very concerned about this trend.
I am not a doctor, I do not play one on TV, and I am not dispensing medical advice.
However.
I am a registered nurse, and what I'm about to say is an informed and educated opinion.
Surgeons tend to give VERY detailed instructions about what to eat after a stomach surgery, and for VERY good reason.
Even when the surgery is arthroscopic and looks to be a very tiny surgery on the outside, it's a VERY BIG surgery on the inside. The VSG surgery leaves a staple/suture line the entire length of the stomach. That incision has to heal, and if you could see it, it would look like raw beef. If the incision were on the outside, we would be very careful with it, keeping it clean and bandaged while it healed. Of course, it's on the inside, so we can't do that. But we need to keep in mind that it needs to heal in the same way.
We have to eat, and that food will be against that raw incision. At the same time that we have to protect the healing stomach, we also have to get in plenty of fluids and nutrients, specifically Protein, in order to support healing. Protein is the primary building block for tissue, so it's critical to healing. Carbs are mainly just energy sources, so they're not as important, especially given that people having bariatric surgery have plenty of energy in their fat stores. This is why protein is stressed so heavily over carbs in the diets.
Additionally, the stomach is now in a new shape, and it basically has to learn how to function as a slender tube instead of a big bag. There's a learning curve. Kinda like a newborn baby's stomach. We don't dump steak and salad into a newborn's stomach for good reason - it doesn't know how to deal with it. Similarly, we don't want to do that to our new sleeve. We start off with stuff that's easy on the suture line and easy to digest, and as the suture line heals and the sleeve learns its job, start working our way up to "real" food.
So over the years, doctors have learned what foods are best for a healing stomach, and that translates into the post-op diet progression instructions.
Typically, that looks like this: Clear liquids, then full liquids, then pureed foods, then soft foods, then slowly move into a "full" diet beginning with high moisture content foods first. When moving from one stage to the next, it's typically advised to add just one food at a time, in small amounts, and see how it's tolerated. A food that's not tolerated well can be tried later on as well. If an entire stage is not being tolerated, back up to the previous stage for a while, and then try again more slowly.
Surgeons tend to specify how long to stay in each of these stages, what types of food make up each stage, and how to transition to the next stage. Every surgeon's instructions are a little different, and it's based on their experience and sometimes changes based on the patient's specific medical case.
The general idea in the very early weeks is to eat foods that will not stress the healing suture line, and do not have particles that are known to cut into the raw tissue or get embedded into the suture line. If a cut or embedded food particle gets infected, it can become an abscess and develop into a leak. A leak can be life threatening, and at the very least cause the patient to have to be hospitalized and possibly have more surgery to correct it. Foods that are particularly known to cause issues are those that swell up like rice, have seeds like strawberries, or have rough hard edges or hard to digest fibers like wheat crackers or raw vegetables.
There are people who eat all sorts of things against their doctor's orders and have suffered no ill effects, but this should not be used as an argument that the doctor's orders are not important. Similarly, you will find some people who smoke a pack of cigarettes every day and drink a pint of whiskey every day but live to 100. They are not representative of most people, and should not be used as the example other people follow.
The reality is that some people will develop abscesses and leaks because they ate things before they were cleared to by their doctors, and there is no way to predict who will have the complications and who will not. And the consequences can be as severe as death. It's not common, but that's how bad it can get. That's why the doctors give the instructions they do. They're not just testing you or trying to make your life hard. They are giving you the best information they have to keep you safe.
Violating these orders is not "cheating" on a diet. It's risking your life. I am not being overly dramatic with this statement, it is a fact that it has happened. You are risking your safety and your health if you violate these orders. It's not about "being human", it's not about "food addiction". It's about your safety and your health. It's hard to be on liquids only for 2 weeks (or more). Some people have huge cravings, or "head hunger" as we tend to call it here. Or just want desperately to chew something. No one is saying it's easy. But it's necessary. Distract yourself. Eat/drink anything that's allowed on your plan - freeze it, heat it up, try something that's opposite of what you've been having to shake it up. Walk around the house or the block. Suck on an ice cube. Count to ten or a hundred. Post about how hard it is, and ask people to help you get through it. But muscle through. It's nothing less than your health and safety.
As for why one surgeon will have his patients on Clear Liquids for 2 weeks while another only does 2 days? Or why one will skip a phase entirely? Each surgeon has different experiences that inform his practices. One is not right and the other wrong. They are each operating out of what they were taught and what they have seen in their own patient groups. They may have even modified the plan because of a specific health concern in your specific case. As a patient, you need to fully understand what your surgeon expects, and if you have a problem with the protocols get it straight with your surgeon and team BEFORE you go under the knife.
If you don't trust your surgeon and his protocols, find another surgeon. I personally would question a surgeon who doesn't allow any Protein drinks including the clear ones for 2 full weeks post op (saw that in one patient's instructions on this site) and likely wouldn't work with that surgeon, given what I know about the needs of protein for healing. But after surgery is not the time to be questioning the surgeon's protocols. Get those questions asked and answered to your satisfaction well before the surgery date.
If you are having surgery, and you have not been given your post-op instructions, at the very least for the first 2 weeks post-op, do not proceed with the surgery until you have that information. We have people posting here stating that they were sent home without clear instructions as to what they were supposed to eat or drink, just a vague statement about "full liquids". That is not sufficient information, and instructions should be given WELL BEFORE the surgery, not after. You should fully understand what will be expected in the weeks after the surgery before consenting to the surgery, or your team is not doing their job.
(This ends my sorta rant about post-op diets and "cheating")
susieq222 got a reaction from FDclerical in Any December surgeries ? Need some buddies.