Berry78

My family finally is willing to eat something better for them. Raisin Ezekial bread. So happy.
Tastes good to me too, but I'm not at goal yet.

The reality is the surgery DID get you where you are today.
It's sort of like a mechanic staring at a bunch of metal parts laid out on the ground that used to be a transmission. If someone comes up and says to the mechanic, " Did you do this? " He says "Yes" And then they point to the wrench, and say, "but you didn't do it by yourself". It would be ridiculous. Would the mechanic get all huffy? Maybe. but it would just be as productive for him to say, yes, I did use the wrench, and it sure helped!
The truth is, there is a 98% chance that indeed, without the surgery you would be 300lbs. Own it, be proud that you got the help you needed, and that gives them zero fuel against you.

Hmm.. yeah, you're right! Guess we tend to put people in our own shoes when trying to imagine their situation...
To the OP, sorry if I made assumptions...

Surgery will knock off 50+ pounds over the first year. But regain IS possible, so you would forever have to be vigilant as to your calories in/out post-op as well.
One thing most of us didn't know before starting this process.. (but we are learning now..):
Exercise has relatively little to do with weight loss.. it's all about what you eat. In fact, after a minimal level of exercise that is enough to make you strong and maintain your lean body mass (muscles and bones, etc)... exercise is actually counter-productive because it makes you HUNGRY (one of your biggest complaints).
If I could guarantee you would heal up from surgery without a problem, and live your life, forever healthy.. then I'd say it was a good option, and you should run out and do it tomorrow. The problem is that that isn't necessarily gonna be the case. Complications can and do happen, and some can be life altering, or even life-ending. It would be a shame for you to take that risk, when your body is likely just screaming for balance.
Go to the gym twice a week to do weights. Walk 3 miles every day. That's it. Any more exercise isn't really needed.
Check into getting your RMR/BMR tested, then use that information as a baseline for figuring out how many calories to eat.
The thing is, that these suggestions are the same as we all have to do after surgery anyway.. you should just try them first.

My MIL had this done. She had a HUGE flap that was removed.. 30lbs! They did remove her bellybutton, but either way the scar will be similar. It'll be horizontal (probably will curve up some), right above the pubic hair. Hip to hip.
The recovery is about 6 weeks, typically.

Excision means to be cut off
Subcutaneous tissue means stuff that's under the skin
Lipectomy means cutting out the fatty layer that is attached to the skin
Infraumbilical means below the belly button.
So basically they cut skin and fat, leaving the muscle underneath untouched. I assume your bellybutton won't be touched either.

So happy your incision healed so well! You look SOOO much more comfy! Did your fever ever go away?

If you click on the user's name, it takes you to their profile. There is an envelope picture, labelled "message". Click on that and you can send them a PM.

Ok, funny story. So my first boyfriend did just this. I had just met him, and we weren't going out, but somehow the fact that he had a "vienna sausage" came up in conversation. I was a virgin, so that was an appealing characteristic! Lol!

At some point you have to wonder, if it's such a great solution, why a surgeon would phase out a procedure that is relatively quick and easy...an absolute cash cow...
I respect your desire for the vegan lifestyle. Since you are still in the deciding phase, take a year to go vegan. You can still eat enough to meet your requirements, you can see how the lifestyle suits you... and if you steer clear of sugar and white flour, you'll find you drop a ton of weight.
A year isn't so long, and by the end of it, you'll likely have a better idea of what you should do.

Wow.. beef at 14 days out.. will wonders never cease. Lol. I was eating pureed split pea Soup and that was difficult at first! But, as long as it's in your plan and working...
Anyway, basically plan on eating 6 times a day, every 2-3 hours. In between you get your fluids.
Personally I kept doing full liquids for a lot of "meals" since you don't have to wait to drink around them.. and the milk or broth counts as Fluid too.
As I was able to drink more at once..around 6 weeks postop... I moved away from liquid meals.

Thank you for this. Several of these spoke to me, but especially #2.

I bet he was just calculating in his head about whether that should be a problem. He must have decided it was ok, or he would have said something. He may have been making a mental note to check more into it too. Feel free to ask him about it next time
On a personal note, my brother also had the condition as an infant, but it never gave him issues later in life. (He wasn't a wls patient though).
Does make a good story. Mom took him to the doctor's several times before they believed her..puke everywhere!

No, the sleeve isn't more complicated. Either your surgeon misspoke or you misheard.
There IS risk of leaks during the first 2 months postop, but bypass also has its own set of risks. The complication rate during and right after surgery are about the same for sleeve and bypass. BUT, the further you get from surgery, the sleeve complications drop significantly lower than those of the bypass. (Pretty sure GERD is left out of this statistic).

If you type "obesity" and "malnutrition" into a search engine, it will return over a million results. The first few articles that show up are pretty much saying, hey! Obese people are actually malnourished! Who would have thought?!
Then you read the articles, and they start blaming the modern agricultural methods and processed foods, soda pop and high fructose corn Syrup. They could be right.
But I'm interested in following this in a different direction.. or perhaps just further along the same lines.
So, we'll take a person (we'll call her Cindy) that is eating the typical flour and shortening diet. She is gonna be short on Vitamin C. (And D, and chromium, and iron.. etc. etc but we'll pick on C). So, now the body says, HEY, we're missing something, yo!! But, it can only say it with a nagging hunger that sends Cindy searching through her cupboards. Her eye lands on some ice cream (in the cupboard.. I know, right?).. and she digs it out and starts eating. But since there isn't vit. C in the ice cream, a couple spoonfuls doesn't quell her hunger, so she eats until she's ready to pop.
Now she puts on some weight. 5'1 Cindy, who should weigh maybe 120lbs, now weighs 140. With the increase in weight, her body now has to work harder just to exist (the muscles have to carry the extra load, etc), so she needs MORE nutrients.. more Vitamin C, and Calcium, calories, etc. etc.
But, does Cindy increase her consumption? No, of course not! She sees her pants don't fit, the scale has the wrong number, and so what does she do? She goes on a diet! Slashes her calories. But if she just eats less of the same nutrient-poor food that caused her to gain weight in the first place, then she's eating fewer nutrients too! (Imagine she was eating a big plate of spaghetti that had 2 cups of Tomato sauce on it, and changes to a small plate of spaghetti with 1/2 cup sauce. The majority of the Vitamins in that spaghetti are in the sauce, and now she is eating 25% of the vit C. that she had been).
The pounds drop off, but so does her basic nutrition level. Eventually her body rebels and she can't keep to her diet anymore. She starts eating again, and her body is screaming for nutrients, but keeps getting fed junk, so the pounds just pile on. Now she's heavier than she was before!
People that are carrying too much weight need to be FED, not starved. But WHAT they are fed MUST CHANGE! We have all the energy we need (and more).. but it's the missing nutrients that we must find and replenish.
Bariatric surgery works because we are able to decrease our calories. The postop diet is designed to keep our Protein levels up, and we are to take vitamins to replace those we don't get from our food. But not every vitamin comes in pill form, and not every nutrient has a blood test. We HAVE to continue working to improve our food choices so that we can fill all those needs.
I have people at home that are trying to lose weight, and I'm watching my MIL grab about 1oz of pork loin to eat for dinner (with some corn). I'm like, what the *expletive* do you think you are doing? She's sooo.... clueless... when it comes to nutrition. But she won't let me formulate a plan for her.

I'm now a few days short of six months postop. Down a total of 86lbs. (305 to 219).
First photo was day of surgery. I had already lost 16lbs on preop diet.
Second photo is today.
Third photo is my face at highest weight before preop diet.
My pants are size 14 (brand runs large). Top vest is a large. Undershirt is a tight medium.

What you may be saying to yourself right now is: "but you don't understand! I lost 25 of those pounds during the first 2 weeks!"
The thing is, the body likes losing slow and steady. When you drop more than an average amount (say, 1-2lbs a week)... a LOT of your losses are Water. Water comes and goes, and can play havoc with the scale.
For example, let's say you DID see a 25 pound shift on the scale over the first 2 weeks. Sorry, it wasn't 25lbs of FAT. A good chunk of that was just water (probably 15-20 pounds of it). Over time, your body has cycled through water and fat, and by now, you probably HAVE lost about 37lbs of fat.
It looks like you are 11 weeks out. I had lost 36lbs during the first 11 weeks postop. (I started at 305lbs).
I'm now 8.5 months out and have lost 101lbs. You've just got to give it time. I figure it might take me another 8+ months to get to goal. But who cares? What else am I gonna do?

This is an amazing article! Pretty much everything you have laid out is new to me... or at least presented in a new way.
Fabulous!

This is an amazing article! Pretty much everything you have laid out is new to me... or at least presented in a new way.
Fabulous!

This board is full of people that surpass the averages. Fingers crossed that we can join them, Fluff. I like to have a solid, realistic goal.. and when I get there, then move the bar lower. Who knows.. maybe we'll be thrilled with 170 or 180! Lol.
What I don't want to do is convince myself that 150 will come easily, then beat myself up if I don't get there.
Keep in mind, the nadir weights on that chart are at 28 months postop on average.. so weight can continue coming off for well over a year postop.

Apple, thank you so much for this! This is AWESOME!
The chart is results after gastric bypass, and basically proves that % excess weight loss is not applicable across the board, that % starting weight lost is much more applicable.
Essentially, those who have a BMI over 40 can expect to lose approximately 38-41% of their starting body weight. 40% makes for a nice round number.
So for me, I started at 305lbs, so 305 x .6 = 183lbs (goal weight)
Now, I had the sleeve, not bypass, so this may be underestimating my final weight by a little bit. But it gives a ballpark, and I'm comfortable with that.
People that start at less than 40bmi only lose about 33% of their starting weights. But, ultimately, they pretty much lose all their excess weight. THIS fact is especially exciting, because it is more similar to what happens with bariatric rats. Rats are only just so obese, and when they get bypassed, they tend to lose all their excess weight. Now we see that it's a function of not having rats fat enough to mimic our morbidly and super morbidly obese humans.
Thanks again for posting this!!!

Hey y'all, long time no see!
I'm 14 months postop, and have lost 111lbs. The losses pretty much stopped at 10 months postop.
Nowadays I can eat any and everything. My taste changes weren't terribly long-lived. I can eat 2 cups of food at a time, so basically everything feels like I never even had surgery!
I still don't drink with my meals, but I do drink right up until I start eating.
About 11 months postop I started having problems from my Vitamins. My toes swelled up and were painful. I don't know what I was getting too much of, so I just quit them. I still am taking B12 and A and D, but no more multis.
Oops, got to go!

Do you mean the bariatric patient is jealous of someone, or that someone is jealous of the patient?
If you mean the latter, absolutely! (The former.. not so much.. )
My MIL lives with me, (was 100 pounds overweight herself), and when I started losing enough to "show".. boy did those green eyes come out! Now she's working on losing, herself, and has done well so far. Jealousy isn't always bad, if it motivates change for the better...

I try to restrain myself.. I'm not always updating her on my weight loss (I try to avoid that conversation!) But.. I couldn't help showing her the label on my new pair of pants when she guessed I was in an 18 (it's a 12! A TWELVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).. can't let that one slide!!!! Lol. (Too bad today's 12 was size 16 only 20 years ago.. so it's not all THAT great.. but still, even for 20 years ago, I'm still not an 18! See, I can get excited a bit.. mostly since last March I was in a 24 (What would THAT have been 20 years ago??). So, yeah.. I'm excited!)
But for all the excitement I show here.. I just showed her the label (that at first she read as "1x".. no glasses. WHAT THE HECK! I brought her a magnifying glass, waited for her to exclaim "TWELVE?!" and then went on my way.) You should be proud.
Ok, but after 7 months, and that was the first time my clothing size was brought up.. so I guess it was due.
Anyhoo.. the problem with jealousy is that even though she's now wanting to watch what she eats, it's undertaken under duress, so she's, like, frantic. No plan, just an after-the-fact, counting (guessing) of caloric intake for the day. Woo hoo.. I only ate 700 calories today.. sheesh. That isn't the goal. She's not thinking about counting Protein or Vitamin requirements or any of the parts of postop life that make limited caloric intake work.
I have a lot of work to do with her to get her to tackle this thing in a healthy way. Her problem is she's so independent that my advice falls on deaf ears. (For years, she has had chronic low potassium or magnesium that results in debilitating muscle cramps. When she drinks low sodium v8, she doesn't get them. So.. drink that stuff every day, right? Nope.. just after the fact). Sigh.