HeatherS.

Thank you! I'm all aboard for friending and cheerleading! The proportions are pretty good, and I feel lucky there, but like you, I carry a LOT in my arms, some of which may not go away (thanks, grandmas!), but I find that's by this point post-surgery, I'm not as bothered by what I now recognize as relatively minor and non-health-affecting things. My boob surgeon, unfortunately, didn't take anything off the side boob, so I'm still camouflaging that with tight tanks under my clothing to cut down on the chafe. hopefully, some day, there will be lipo in the cards for that area. My one regret, looks-wise, is trying to keep the appearance of fullness in my cheeks. When I don't, it ages me a good 10 years. Not a great look with neon blue hair. I admit I had to look up the term xiphoid process (thank you - I love new words), and that seems to be a common place for things to go pear shaped. (Or literally apple shaped, I don't know!) I have noticed though that's there's a pattern to rapid loss and a lot of people first lose the weight they'd put on last. I had to pass 250 for my stomach and thighs to start going crazy out of down side to my shape Is that its so easy to think, around 200 or so, that I've lost enough weight. But I'm still classed as higher risk then and I need to keep going. Hopefully, that will be easier with the smaller stomach and accompanying nausea I get eating the wrong things. (Just had two beef gyoza for early dinner, and they were delicious.)

Has it surprised you in any way where the weight comes off of you first? I'm not completely sure what I was expecting, but having no children, and being able to feel that most of my stomach fat was on top of the muscle, I had a reasonable hope that my relatively small waist was still under there somewhere. What I wasn't expecting is for all the weight to start literally falling off my stomach and upper thighs quite like it did without touching my booty (hurrah!) So this rambling post is all leading up to one thing: a celebratory jump for joy that my waist is now 35" and heading down, putting me in the healthy waist range again for the first time in years. I went from 52-49-56, which blew my mind and made me want to cry when I saw it two and a half years ago to 45-35-46 now. 7 inches off my chest, most of them from my back I and under arms, and an acceptable amount from my boobs, which still look boob-shaped and lifted* My back isn't as "melty/bulgey" as it was before, and my ribs visibly go "in" under the bra, rather than my breasts sitting on top of my stomach. I do have more issues with slipping out of the bottom of my bra a little if the band isn't tight enough. 10 inches off my hips, whichever came mostly off the lower stomach area and saddlebags. My booty has always been muscular, and only lost a thin layer of fat, which my wife says just defined the muscles already there more. Losing fat along my back also re-revealed the top curve of my butt, which is nice. I feel cute in dresses again, but I've gone back to looking a little weird in floaty clothes, which is boo because I do like floaty Stevie Nicks Witchy Hippie Goth looks. I don't measure my thighs, but they have definitely gone down. My legs are more symmetrical, and the wife swears she can see muscle in the back through the cellulite. Which is never going away, i know, but I'm okay with that. I've made my peace. Then the big hurrah. I lost fourteen inches off of my waist. Some of it is from the stomach, some from the back, some from the flanks, so everyone chipped in, but I did not in my wildest dreams expect to recover my waist so quickly. I got married in a custom Victorian corset two years ago when my waist was almost at maximum size, and my corset maker, bless her, made the corset for tight lacing, getting me down somewhere around forty twoish at the wedding with more room to pull tight. I thought I'd never be able to wear the corset again, but I tried it on yesterday, and it just barely fits. The laces close all the way, and it just gently shapes my hips a bit and holds my waist in that particular corset shape, but it still fit, it was soooo comfortable, and it looked even better than it did on my wedding day. I should get a picture of that. Maybe the whole outfit, which was steampunk and had the corset on top, so that should hold it together. On the down side, when I was rushing to get dressed, I grabbed an old favorite retro dress that my wife wore to our ring ceremony (hers was a size smaller than mine, and mine was very tight at the time), pulled it over my head without unzipping, and looked down at what should have been a cute skull and roses dress, but was only shapeless skull and roses fabric gaping over my bra. I'm still debating whether to have it tailored in or make pillows. What changes and discoveries about your weight loss patterns and changing shape have taken you most by surprise or lit you up with celebratory joy? * This was a huge worry for me, as I'd had breast reduction in 2013, and while I'd be happy with smaller boobs, I really didn't want to go back to flat, shapeless boobs, which run in the family. Just not enough strong connective tissue in our lineage, plus that weird stretchy Celtic skin. Whew. I suspect I dodged it, because the surgeon removed as much non-glandular tissue as he could while trying to preserve nerves and glands, so that's may have left me with relatively de-fatted boobs, in case anyone was considering a breast reduction BEFORE gastric surgery. I was 42J+ at my most extreme, 38E at surgery, and now 36DD or DDD, possibly 34.. I haven't gone bra shopping in a while.

Sorry the reply is so late. Thins HS in life got a little crazy and I've been away. I haven't tried the psi bands. My doctor gave me scopolamine patches to use along with the Zofran, but they burned the skin behind my ear. It's too bad, because they worked pretty well. The good news is that now, 3 months out, I'm easing back into ginger, as it's starting to taste normal again. The weird thing is that in times when I would have reached for the ginger, now I prefer a handful of leaves from my herb garden (mostly various basils and mints).

Sure thing. I'll get it for you, though I warn you it's more of a method than a recipe. It's Tia's way of cooking, pretty straightforward, but you need to prep in advance because there's a long soak involved. I also can recommend requeson if you live near any Hispanic markets, or ricotta, which is the closest you'd find in a regular grocer. (The requeson is more flavorful). Homemade REAL Mexican food is so handy in the soft/mushy stage.

I'll come back later and try again to delete that last picture. WTF, BariatricPal?

The first month diet of soft foods has been smooth. Make sure you're following your doctor's plan, not my doctor's plan, because each plan is unique to our situations, including anything your doctor found or did during or before your surgery. It's also important to note that I am not diabetic and I do not have any signs of insulin resistance, before or after surgery, so my body has a healthy relationship with all of the food groups. Here's last night's family dinner, all made from scratch with my meal front and center and my wife's delectable tostada on the far right. I eat vicariously through others and cannot wait to be allowed something crunchy again. I miss crunch, but I know I'll be allowed to crunch again soon. Oh, how I pine for a sturdy lettuce leaf! Homemade refritos, a little bit of spiced ground beef, requeson, crema con sal (a type of sour cream), and two tomato salsas, one very mild and fresh and the other hot and cooked. SW: 275 CW: 244 So, a month out, I'm on "soft foods" which my doctor defines as foods that are soft BEFORE you put them in your mouth and that anything hard to digest like solid meats and veg needs to be taken down to more of an apple sauce/fine mince consistency. I've been on this regimen since my 10 day follow up and will continue until my 6 week follow up in two weeks. There was no intermittent "mushy" stage for me. I try to eat before I take my pills with very small sips of water. Pills taken on an empty stomach may come up. I'm eating 3-4 T at meals that go well for me (that is, no stress, which makes eating any more impossible and leaves me sick for an hour or two). I tend around 30-40g protein a day from a variety of sources: lactaid milk, yogurts, cheeses, finely ground beef, beans, meatballs cooked in soup, soft tofu, and egg. I do not avoid carbohydrates, as I feel better when I eat a balanced diet. I eat 5-6 very small meals a day (some as small as a tablespoon of yogurt or a small skim string cheese). I often add nutritional yeast to savory foods to increase protein and B-12. My carbohydrate intake tends to be slow-burning low glycemic index (oatmeal, berry, beans combined with high protein rice, fresh apple sauce with no additives, a bit of high protein pancake...) The exception is that I do occasionally eat some white rice, always combined with a protein, and I have had no crash and burn. I have also had ice cream and sorbet in very reasonable amounts that fit within my plan with no ill effects or delay in weight loss. With the restriction I've felt from my sleeve, I average 350 calories a day with my highest day just under 500 and my lowest day 0. I registered my greatest weight loss after the 500 calorie day and felt my best, so I'm working up to that as a second month goal. Here's what I won't be eating again for a while due to nausea and/or vomiting: Full fat dairy, lentils, ginger (go figure!), oral B vitamin, whey protein Here's what I won't be consuming again for a while ever due to migraine strong enough to punch through the botox*: Aspartame, sucralose Here's what I won't be eating again for a while due to changes in taste: Ginger, cheddar cheese, V8, melon (with the exception of watermelon) I haven't felt the kind of "hey, I'm kinda hungry" hunger I felt before surgery since then, but If I skip a meal or two, my stomach will gurgle, and if I've missed 3 or more meals, I tend to feel a bit dizzy, headachey, exhausted, and/or fuzzy-headed. Fair enough. If I don't eat a balanced diet (for me: too much protein or fat), I feel generally unwell, but I can power through. No dumping syndrome or anything related. Just lots and lots of water nausea that leaves me out of action for an hour or two when it hits. I've also had a couple of bouts of stress tummy which results in worse nausea, a fever, and, strangely, intolerance to light, so maybe migraine, too. It lasts about an hour. I've always had a stomach sensitive to stress, but the surgery has made that worse. Oh, and the best reason not to cheat? That's down to my doctor. who cheerfully told me all about some of his patients who had advanced too soon or cheated (fits through a straw on full liquid does NOT mean fits through a boba straw) and did rupture the staple line. It's fragile while it's healing the first month or so, especially. Will it happen to everyone? No. But it COULD happen to you. And then you spend a miserable (up to a) year in the hospital being operated on, in pain, possibly dying, and guaranteed not eating those tasty things you thought were ok just a little early and felt fine at the time. Was it tall tale hyperbole to keep me on the straight and narrow. Mmmmmmnnnnnnnpossibly. But I know he wasn't joking, and I'd rather not risk it. Would you? And last, but not least, here's a random picture of my dog discovering Bones Are A Thing That Exists In The World and elevating, on the spot, to a higher level of doggy existence: *I have incapacitating migraines that have been unsuccessfully controlled with medications. Botox was the next step, and it's working great as long as I avoid my worst triggers. (Bright sun, aspartame, sucralose, non-natural cleaning products) 10/10 would recommend.

One more thing, I slept with a king size pillow over my stomach due to furballs, and it's been a life-saver while healing. 4 weeks out, I can tolerate being jumped on once more.

Wonderfully detailed post! I didn't experience the cold thing, and I'm still struggling with heat intolerance. It got up to 95 today, and it's been so hard to make myself get out of the house and into my hot car. Ugh. The hunger thing varies person to person. I had your experience in the early days and my appetite and hunger have returned just enough to ensure I eat, and even enjoy what I'm eating, but not enough to change the fact that I'm full after 2-3 tablespoons and want no more. That's a good place to be for me.

Thank you! It looks like both of us had surgeons who used The Really Good Antibiotics(tm) in our IVs. I'm glad yours is almost gone, too. That was pretty unpleasant.

@ldyvenus I'd like to know what those labs look like, too. A lot of people on HPLC diets on here like to mention frequently that their labs are "perfect" but I haven't seen specifics yet. Most of the studies I've read so far find no difference in the short term, but concerns in the long term due to cutting out the source of many beneficial micronutrients and an increase in adverse cardiovascular findings. I'll be sure to post about my labs when I next have them, following the LPHC hypothesis.

I found it at my local library! Thank you again for the recommendation. I suspect that within 5 years, this will probably be common knowledge, based on where the peer reviewed studies are and the fact that there's now one mainstream book on it. I've been eating this way (and no artificial sweeteners) since 2 weeks out (once I got into the swing of soft foods) and my weight loss has been steady. I'll blog about any findings around my 6 week post-op, but I have plenty of energy, no unreasonable hunger (only if I forget to eat ALL DAY), and a reduction in nausea.

What's a TMI post you (might) be asking. It's a post about those things I'm finding a part of VSG life that people don't talk about in polite company or usually admit to in any company, but that I really wanted to know about before getting myself into this! (Don't worry, still no regrets). So if you are polite company or do not want to hear about blood, bodily functions, and the vagaries of animal existence, you might want to skip this one. To those of you who are still with me, this edition will cover Underwear woes, scabs, itches, surgical leftovers, bowel movements, vomiting, periods, and a special surprise guest appearance by Yeast. Underwear woes: Your surgeon will tell you not to bother buying new clothes, because you'll only wear them a couple of times before they no longer fit. Your surgeon will not warn you that your boobs will soon be falling out of the bottom of your bra, and your oversized underwear will twist in new and exciting ways on your body. As a woman, I can honestly say I have never needed to "adjust myself" so many times in a day as I have since surgery. I started out wearing size 10/Torrid size 1/2 underwear that were all either snug (the 10s) or fit perfectly (Torrid, of course). Now, they're all a nightmare of chafing, twisting, falling down, and creeping up my butt. I would seriously recommend considering the purchase of an inexpensive package of underwear every few weeks or so. Scabs, itches, and surgical leftovers: Let's put all of the skin stuff together. We'll start with itching, since it has been a constant since surgery. There are two types of itching, though. There's a deep, crazy, going-insane itch that happens inside with the healing tissues. I hate that one. That seems to have faded around week 3. The other itch has been ongoing and is stopped only by Eucerin for eczema lotion. It's a combination of healing and difficulty fully hydrating. When I came home from the hospital, all of my incisions were covered in purple surgical glue with the instruction to shower carefully and avoid getting "much" water on them for "long." I followed this to the letter, and when I saw Dr. Zane again for the 10 day follow up, he was surprised the glue was all there, and he said go ahead and peel it off. This is where the blood comes in. The incision above my belly button had glue that had lifted by a good centimeter, so I figured I'd go with his advice. I got half way across when, blood! I stopped there, and was seeping blood for the next 12-16 hours, and now, two and a half weeks later, that incision is a bit deeper and more tender than the others. That also happens to be the incision with a stitch in it. The stitch is still there almost a month later, and it is black with blood I can't get out of the knot. I may just be slow to dissolve the last part, though a week ago, a 1" piece of filament poked out of my skin next to it and slid out when I scratched at it. No pain for that one, just "weird." As tempting as it is to peel after approval, go slow, and if there's any tenderness, maybe wait. The others that I peeled the last of the glue off of were no longer tender and looked sealed underneath, and that's what I found. The only raised scar I seem to be developing is the bigger scar where my stomach was pulled out to the left of the belly button. That one is raised on the edges where it was (I assume) stretched during removal. Other surgical leftovers not to stress over: I came home with iodine on my sides, no big deal, but a bit itchy. It looks like they washed the area where surgery actually happened (good to know!). I found serious gunk in my belly button once everything was un-swollen and de-tenderized enough for a thorough wash in there. I can only describe it as goo. I do not know what it was, but it didn't do me any harm, and I assume it was from the surgery, since I've never seen anything like that in there before. There was a lot of it, though! I also had a big bruise on my tailbone along with a painful abraded area about 2" long and 1" wide. Silly me, I put an antibiotic ointment on the rash. DO NOT DO THIS. I woke up the next morning to pustules all along the abraded area. The doctor I saw for that diagnosed it as a reaction to the ointment, and said to just use petroleum jelly or a steroid cream because (something something - sorry) antibiotic ointments can cause reactions after all those IV antibiotics of another type. Following those instructions, the area cleared up within a week after shedding the entire top layer of skin. I found out from my surgeon's office that the bruising is because they sit you up during surgery. Mystery solved. Bowel movements: I had to gird myself for this one, since I'm not really the type who usually talks about bathroom habits in public, but if this helps one person not feel so weird or at least feel better knowing what to potentially expect, it's worth it. Bowel movements since surgery have been consistently weird. The first was about three days after surgery (which they say is good), and very very little actually came out of me in a thin, strangely orange, stream. In spite of how little there was, I still felt the same cue from my body as I did pre-surgery that it's time to find solitude and a toilet. Since then, BMs have been increasing slowly in bulk, but they remain orange, soft-to-runny, and low-velocity enough that as soon as I feel that cue, I'm also planning a shower. Aside from week 3, in which velocity was so slow, I spent all day close to the house, it hasn't been awful. It's not fun, but it's also not often. Once a week or so at a month out from surgery. I should also mention that it's one of the things that can cause that "my heart is racing" feeling, because there's an enormous blood vessel that runs right next to your sphincter. I may only notice it so much because BMs are no longer a daily occurrence. As far as I understand it, the phenomenon is harmless; drink more water. I'll also add that urinating is fairly normal, though for the first week after surgery (or longer if you're slow to clear anaesthesia) prepare for some stop/start and give yourself a little more time. Vomiting: There has been more vomiting than I'm accustomed to after surgery, and I've pinpointed a few things that tend to cause it and others that don't. Triggers: Vitamins, unless buffered with a lot of food, are coming right back up. Even the ones I don't need in chewable form. I'm looking into the vitamin patches for this reason. Even before surgery, my stomach has been iffy with multis and B vitamins. Juice without water. Even a tiny sip. Too cold water on an empty stomach Water without additive (I had a serious case of water nausea which is starting to resolve just this week) Stress (I had to ask my family to please not talk about anything remotely stressful around meal times) Not a trigger: Fat Protein Carbohydrates Fruit Dairy Physical activity I do find that sometimes I need to lie down after a meal or taking medicine until the nausea goes away. Lying on my side seems to help. Periods: Depending on your rate of recovery and when it falls, prepare to be more exhausted than ever on your period. That hit me hard. Otherwise, totally normal. Yeast: I found out at my 10 day checkup that I had a mighty yeast overgrowth on my tongue from the IV antibiotics. I was first prescribed the slimiest mouthwash in the world (which belongs on my vomiting triggers list, probably), then 5x/day tablets to suck on which left my tongue raw and painful but tasted like nothing at all, and finally a single pill, take it once and you're done oral treatment. (Why not that one first? I don't get it!) It's almost gone now at 4 weeks out, but while it was active, the entire back 2/3 of my tongue were slimy and thick, and a lot of foods tasted very strange. So, keep an eye out for that. This concludes the first month TMI post. I expect any future posts to be shorter. My top recommendations really are to watch out for yeast and make sure you always carry Eucerin (or similar thick lotion for SUPER dry skin that works for you).

Making a list and an implementation timeline is a fantastic idea! If I were the betting type, my money would be on you to succeed.

@Ms. Brightside Thank you for the recommendation. I'll look for it at my library. The many studies on LPHC and the growing understanding of the long term risks of HPLC are very convincing when you read the actual studies and their findings.