gr8ful1

I'm also going (back) to Fitzer's office in 2 days! It's been 2 years since my surgery with him, and it's time for my annual follow-up. As @SampTheChamp said, Fitzer is the best. He may come across as a bit over-confident, but he is not wrong about how good he is and how relatively few complications his patients have. 😄 I had to work a bit to get him to recommend which type of surgery was best for me, but when I finally asked him if he were in my shoes, would he choose sleeve or bypass, he said bypass all the way. He explained why, and that's why I went with the bypass. Best decision I've made in a long time.

I'm also going (back) to Fitzer's office in 2 days! It's been 2 years since my surgery with him, and it's time for my annual follow-up. As @SampTheChamp said, Fitzer is the best. He may come across as a bit over-confident, but he is not wrong about how good he is and how relatively few complications his patients have. 😄 I had to work a bit to get him to recommend which type of surgery was best for me, but when I finally asked him if he were in my shoes, would he choose sleeve or bypass, he said bypass all the way. He explained why, and that's why I went with the bypass. Best decision I've made in a long time.

Well, hard to say. It "could" be something...but usually it's just a normal "small pouch day." Some of us get them more than others.
I personally think there is a strong correlation to a "small pouch day" and being dehydrated. It makes your new tool "stickier" and less forgiving IMHO. I also think you might eat something that disagrees with you and irritates either your pouch or esophagus or bowel and you get the same results.
Usually if it persists or is accompanied by acute or intense enduring pain, then it's something you need to call the doc about. But a stray day here or there where you eat less, is like a gift from God. But, you shouldn't have difficulty swallowing or keeping things down nor nausea with that...just my opinion.
I don't play a doc on the internet or tv.

I had no problem taking the huge Citracal pills when I got home after my bypass.

My surgeon's post-op dietary plan imposes no coffee restrictions on gastric bypass patients. And I am so thankful for that! 😁

My wife and I shared the same interest, and ironically, an old church friend of mine (he was actually on the board of elders) invited us to his swing club. It's called GottaSwing. What a fun way to get some exercise! Anyway, every night the group meets, everyone switches partners with everyone else. Many nights there are over 100 people in attendance, so it can get quite exhausting, but it's really a lot of fun. To tell you the truth, it was kind of intimidating at first, but each Friday night begins with a 30-minute beginner's dance lesson. There is always a live band, too!

Wow, you're doing great, @Roxine!

6 months! Surgery was on March 19th, HW 291, SW 285, CW 180, GW 140.

Sooooo thankful that when I tried chicken breast (on a Panera salad) yesterday, it went down well. I've also got chicken thighs at home. I have at least 2 more meals left from my leftover salad, but I'm tempted to eat a chicken thigh for lunch to see if it fills me up. I also want to know if 4 oz (by weight) of chicken thigh is anywhere near 1/2 cup by volume. @FluffyChix, I will chop up 4 oz of chicken, put it into a measuring cup, and report back with the results later! LOL

Sooooo thankful that when I tried chicken breast (on a Panera salad) yesterday, it went down well. I've also got chicken thighs at home. I have at least 2 more meals left from my leftover salad, but I'm tempted to eat a chicken thigh for lunch to see if it fills me up. I also want to know if 4 oz (by weight) of chicken thigh is anywhere near 1/2 cup by volume. @FluffyChix, I will chop up 4 oz of chicken, put it into a measuring cup, and report back with the results later! LOL

So I can eat much more than the "around a half-cup of solid food" that I was told I could at this point in my post-op journey. Not that I try to each and every time, but I noticed that I was not cognizant of any signs of fullness after eating the obligatory half cup of food per meal. I wanted to have an idea of the real capacity of my "egg-sized" pouch, as well as get an idea of my body's signs of fullness and how to recognize them. I was able to eat a full cup of meat sauce (mostly meat which was ground beef). I didn't feel any fuller at one cup that I feel at a half cup. For my next meal, I could eat an entire 500-calorie slice of lasagna. Again, no sensation of discomfort, fullness, hiccups, sneezing, flushing, or any of the other commonly-mentioned "bariatric fullness" signs. I did *not* test the capacity of my pouch. I stopped at a cup. But I expected to find my limit at somewhere between 1/2 and one cup.
Has anyone else experienced this? I don't doubt that my surgery is working well for me, and I am satisfied with half a cup of food, but I'm a bit concerned that I can eat much larger meals than I was led to believe I would be able to eat. I wonder if the surgeon sleeved me instead of bypassing me. I also have some acid reflux again now. He assured me that I received the bypass, however.
Please note that this question regards RNY gastric bypass only. I am looking for feedback from gastric bypass patients, not gastric sleeve patients.
Thanks!

Oh wow. So 1/4 pound of chicken is really a lot of volume!

Sooooo thankful that when I tried chicken breast (on a Panera salad) yesterday, it went down well. I've also got chicken thighs at home. I have at least 2 more meals left from my leftover salad, but I'm tempted to eat a chicken thigh for lunch to see if it fills me up. I also want to know if 4 oz (by weight) of chicken thigh is anywhere near 1/2 cup by volume. @FluffyChix, I will chop up 4 oz of chicken, put it into a measuring cup, and report back with the results later! LOL

Oh, I also read somewhere about a study that found almost no correlation between pouch size and weight loss success after bariatric surgery. So consider your bigger pouch a gift! :-)

I’m not going to worry to much about it. Bottom line is that this surgery is helping me to control what and how much I shovel into my face, and so far it is working! I like the way you think with regard to the Vitamins. That is the reason I don’t take vitamins in pill form. I want to take my fat-soluble vitamins with food, and I don’t want to drink Water while eating. So I have my chewables with Breakfast.

The day after I got home from surgery. Everything from the tiny Protonix pills to the huge Citracal pills have been no physical problem to swallow for me.

6:00 p.m., Pavilion 2, 2nd floor, Classroom A. Hope you're doing well and hope to see you there!

Just got back from a 5 day vacation and I'm down 4 lbs! Nice to see the scale moving again. Hopefully it will keep moving for a while.
Thanks for the info and support!

Keep following your plan and you'll break out of it, as will I. Frustrating when I'm still above a 1-month goal I have in mind, but it is what it is.

Keep following your plan and you'll break out of it, as will I. Frustrating when I'm still above a 1-month goal I have in mind, but it is what it is.

I THOUGHT I had broken out of it yesterday with about a 3 lb weight drop, but somehow I gained 4 lbs so now I'm even higher! So basically I've been at 340-341 for over a week now. This is harsh after losing so steadily.
As I was gaining weight, I lingered on 340 for a very long time. This may be one of those things where my body is comfortable at this weight and I just need to wait it out. I'm only consuming 600-800 calories a day, and at three weeks out I haven't been cleared for vigorous exercise yet. (I could do more walking).
It was very frustrating to see that scale go back up after I thought I had broken through. We'll see what tomorrow brings!

How's it going now, @PopsFury? Have you broken out of that stall yet? If so, how much weight did you lose the day you broke out of it? I love seeing how @Russ D clearly broke out of his stalls with a 3# 1-day weight loss!
My bypass was on 7/25, which is 4 weeks ago today. I have weighed in at 277# each of the last six days. I go about a week or so between bowel movements, but don't notice a dramatic loss after them. In fact, I had one this morning and thought that would have helped me break out of the stall, but I still weighed in at 276.7. Frustrating. When I was on an 800 calorie per day Opti Fast diet a couple years ago, I lost almost a pound a day for 12 weeks. Now that I'm eating <500 calories per day, I'm losing slower and stalling. The body responds in mysterious ways to weight loss surgery!

My first one was two weeks post-op (surgery was 7/18). I may still be in it, I don't know.
If it helps you, here's my weight progression (composited together from the app I use to sync to my scale). You can clearly see the stalls in it. I didn't worry TOO much about them, but I did stay off the scales for a few days when I knew I was in one. I've been fighting Constipation pretty badly, so if you see a big drop...you probably know what caused it...

I'm going to be honest with you, not to scare you, but to prepare yourself for what might happen. Keep in mind that not everyone's experience is like mine.
My surgery was just a few weeks ago. I am no stranger to surgeries and anesthesia, as this is my fourth. I woke up in the recovery room in sheer panic. I didn't notice pain, but I felt like I couldn't expand my lungs enough to breathe and I said so with my first breath. A nurse standing over me said, "you are doing fine, your oxygen saturation level is 98%. We'll put you back to sleep to give you a bit more time before we take you up to your room." And just about the time she finished saying that, I was out again, and don't remember waking up again until they were wheeling me down the hall and into the elevator. And I could breathe much easier then, though I still couldn't take breaths that were as deep as I wanted to breathe. I felt *much* better as the hours went on. Nurses told me that pain meds could cause nausea, so I refused them. Never even had Tylenol. And honestly, the pain was never above 3 out of 10, so I didn't miss them.

I think she may have said, "we're going to give you something to help you sleep" or something like that. So I'm not sure I was given more propofol. More likely they put something milder in my IV.
Also, I could breathe, but I could only take very shallow breaths. I thought that my abdomen was over-inflated. I'm not sure if that was really the cause though, because when I woke up for the 2nd time, I could breathe a bit deeper, and I never really had any issues with gas pains that night or any other day after surgery.