CrankyMagpie

For folks starting the liquid diet, or like @katiemarie22, in the first few days, you might find that it helps you to get some salt (or if your team is like "bleh bleh low sodium," bone broth and sugar-free drinks with electrolytes) and stay VERY SUPER DUPER hydrated. Rule of thumb: if the sports drink tastes sweet and not salty, you need the electrolytes. @aapb79Gmail.com, thank you for the update, and I hope your nursing team keeps the pain under control from here on out!

I have kind of gone back and forth, sometimes using sugar-free stuff and sometimes avoiding it. I had a bit of a diet soda habit over the past couple of years, so I guess I'm used to aspartame, at least. Though I do notice the flavor--I can tell it from sugary stuff by the aftertaste (or lack thereof, in the case of sugar). I don't notice an aftertaste with sugar-free Jello, the same way I do with a lot of the sf stuff. It just tastes like Jello to me. I hope you're as lucky, there! I haven't told anyone in my family, besides obviously my husband, who is ... worried, but really supportive, and trying not to burden me with his worry. (That's why I didn't tell my mom. I'd spend all my energy reassuring her, and she'd harass my husband all day on the surgery day.) Well, I told my younger brother, but he lives in another state, and his wife just had the sleeve, plus he's thinking of doing it early next year, so that conversation went well. It's safer than a gallbladder removal or a joint replacement, statistically speaking, and those are also considered to be safe surgeries! I hope that we are both on the right side of all of the statistics--safe, pretty easy recovery, no complications, etc. ❤️ I look forward to hearing how great you're doing when we both check in on the 4th!

No stress! I hope it goes really well, and you have an easy recovery!

I thought you were doing something other than the sleeve, though? I set myself the task of connecting all the sleevers, not connecting everyone getting a surgery at all. Which isn't to say I mind adding you (I don't! it's fine! I'm adding you now), just ... if I'm remembering right, you'll have a different experience. Obviously, if I'm remembering wrong, I apologize, profusely! (Part of why I tried to only add sleevers is that the list is already very long. Part of it is that the RNYers will, on average, be miserable a little longer at the outset than we are, but then their losses will be greater over time. "Don't compare yourself to others" is good advice, but it's hard to follow, because we're human, you know?)

How are our October 1 sleevers doing? Tomorrow's folks - @bmatt418, @cindy t, @Deanayeah, @Lizzieming, @Marla522, @nikoleroze, @Oct517 - are you ready? Best of luck to you all! Check in when you can! I'm one of the October 3 folks, and I won't do my post-surgery check-in before I get home on (here's hoping) the 4th--I use these forums through the browser, not the app. I also won't update the list of surgery buddies for a couple of days, so if someone else wants to, feel free? But I'll scroll back and add people, once I'm up to it, so no worries. Here's the list as it stands now, so you can all find and befriend your surgery buddies! ❤️ Oct 1: aapb79Gmail.com chicagogirl74 chuckwalsh clara1900 cw19147 irishgal21 JennieJuniper momofmjbm Red Alicia Yare_2018 Oct 2: bmatt418 cindy t Deanayeah Lizzieming Marla522 nikoleroze Oct517 Oct 3: boringtessa crankymagpie LosingLbs18 mamadownsizing sekud02 Oct 4: AriesMary25 btrfly kerbear1980 mspink702 rnchaveri1 sleevemebaby7781 swisskath Oct 5: rafc100 Suesloosinit Oct 8: Crystalmartin82 jhojho90 Oct 9: bigcurt emccomis mailchickie76 Oct 10: busyforever fandangle MeeAhhh oct102018 Oct 11: aussie Ange healthygirl05 kathy060464 UncleBeezy willowfinely Oct 12: afer0841 zpratt Oct 14: katiemarie22 Oct 15: allyb15 annaisbananas April1965 JessLess MegsNiko (or maybe the 17th?) recreating_courtney Tina6769 Oct 16: 2shea beccaconaty87 br3n Thisismytime Wincy Oct 17: Chello219 Grapefruit JustKeepSwimming OpsMatt Oct 18: shazz73 Oct 22: clb164 kimberlymi laceco marciamae3474 Oct 23: kdiddle31 mimi tahoegirl96118 Oct 24: Beachladee3 GirlShrinking tuttlemomma Oct 25: AndreaK. kiwiangel23 Oct 26: carebear38 shany1567 Oct 29: 1BigHeart jflower88 Kai91 kjallen nedawson1908 Rgiannos Oct 30: sleevegirl88 Oct 31: relaxrelaterelease

It's weird how the plans are all different. Today's my 6th day on full liquids, and tomorrow is clear liquids only. No bowel prep, which maybe I am grateful for? I don't think I'm allowed to have V8. (I didn't ask, since tomatoes settle badly for me, anyway.) Sugar free Jello has been the unsung hero of my week, and I think I might actually sing about it tomorrow, when it is the only "thick" thing I'm allowed to have. Anyway, I hear you about second thoughts. I am really full of them, myself. I'm mostly worried about the near-term, right now--getting through the next month or so--but I share some of your longer-term concerns, too. Anyway, I hope your surgery is quick and easy and your recovery goes well! Check in on the October 2018 Sleevers thread when you're able to, after surgery, OK? I'm on the 3rd, too, but I probably won't check in on these forums until I'm home on (fingers crossed) the 4th.

Soo I confirmed at least part of my theory about all this to myself: I split a can of low-sodium Campbell's chicken noodle soup with my spouse last night (he got the solids; I got the broth) and this morning my weight is up, despite staying true to the liquid diet. Some of the noodle starches definitely get into the broth, and that appears to lead to water weight. Even the "low sodium" broth tasted salty. ... OK, friends, I won't lie to you: it tasted like heaven. But I really don't think it was the salt, in this case. And it had calories, but nowhere near enough to get me within shouting distance of my BMR, let alone enough for me to gain anything. It's water weight from switching (at least partially) back to glycolysis! I bet I'll be hungrier today than I was in previous days, too. ? Guess it's good I did that experiment with one more day of full liquids to go, instead of doing it tonight, when I'm on clear liquids all day tomorrow. (I'm going to eat so much sugar-free jello. So much.)

I can't believe it's October tomorrow! Good luck, @aapb79Gmail.com, @chicagogirl74, @chuckwalsh, @clara1900, @cw19147, @irishgal21, @JennieJuniper, @momofmjbm, @Red Alicia, @Yare_2018, and any other October 1 sleevers I may have missed! Check in when you can, and let us know how you're doing! ❤️

My surgeon doesn't want us to take any vitamins until our post-op appointment, 10(ish) days after surgery, and then the nutritionists really suggest chewables for the first few months. He does expect us to take Prilosec, even the first day after surgery, but I think that's the only one. (Well, and he gave me a prescription for some anti-nausea pills, but those mess with serotonin, so I'll do my best not to take those at all.)

Yeah, that's what it is! Our directions say to mix a can of cream of [whatever] up with milk, prepare according to directions, and then strain out all the bits and eat what's left. We're also allowed to go to a restaurant and get their chicken noodle soup, strained. (Apparently the restaurant is fine with doing that?)

By the clear light of day, I can tell you with certainty: those posts will still make me angry, even when I'm feeling better. They made me angry when I was eating real food. They'll make me angry when I'm eating real food again. I might find it easier to brush them off, then? But these aren't new emotions. My being willing to say "feminist rage" on this forum is the only new thing, this week. @GreenTealael is right: it's better to be alone than to be with some of the partners I've read about on here. If my partner were half as awful to me, about all of this, as some of the stories I've read, I'd be single again. (I love him. I'm committed to him. But I expect him to treat me as an equal partner and someone worthy of respect. Happily, he does, which is no doubt a large part of why I love him.)

Oh hey, just in case anyone else is feeling the chill in the air (northern hemisphere :)) and wanting some hot chocolate, you can do it with chocolate protein powder: https://www.foodcoach.me/recipe/protein-hot-chocolate/ I used Fairlife milk instead of almond milk. (Nut allergy. Also almond milk has crappy environmental and protein profiles, so I probably wouldn't use it even if I could.) I also threw in some cinnamon and (shh, I don't know if this is 100% OK on the pre-op liquid diet) a splash of vanilla extract.

This is a rant, not a rave, and it's worth noting that I'm angrier than usual, right now, because the news (in the US) has me rubbed raw, and I don't imagine being on the pre-op liquid diet is exactly helping my mood. Anyway... I always have this very strong set of emotions for everyone in these forums whose partners aren't supportive. A little of it is that I'm impressed at their fortitude--I just wouldn't put up with some of the behavior I read about, and I admire their patience. (I don't think they should put up with most of those behaviors, to be clear; I'm just impressed that they can.) Some of it is bafflement, that they do put up with it and don't leave, or react negatively enough to prevent the behavior from recurring. Some of it is, you know, specific anger at the partners' lack of support, and some of it is just a deepening of this constant underlying feminist rage that so many of us have been feeling in recent years, because gender roles so often play such a huge part in all of this, and it's infuriating, in 2018, when we should all know better. (There are, on occasion, unsupportive wives, sure, absolutely. But that is not what the bulk of the stories we see here are. Please don't @ me with stories of unsupportive wives. All of this post applies to them, too, besides the part right before the parentheses.) We just see so much bad behavior. "This is extra hard because I have to cook for my partner and kids." Have to? "My partner keeps bringing my specific trigger food into the house after I've asked him not to. There are any number of snacks he'd enjoy as much, foods that wouldn't be problems for me, but he brings that." "My partner told me not to have the surgery, even though all of my doctors support it, even though I have educated him about the benefits and about how minimal the risks are, and even though insurance covers most of it." It makes me furious. And there isn't a thing I, or anyone else on these forums, can do about it. Encouraging people to leave their partners when they aren't ready to do so is rarely helpful. (And I do recognize we're only getting part of the story. Maybe not every single one of these people we hear about deserves a breakup/divorce, though a few of them... whew.) The kind of bad behavior we see some partners exhibiting is probably not a good indicator that they'd be up for couples' counseling, so there's not a ton of value in suggesting that. I guess we can encourage the person coming to us on the forums to seek their own therapy; that's how a lot of folks learn to set good boundaries and to see the patterns that are constructive, versus those that are destructive. But it's infuriating, right? Like, we can tell people how to change their own behavior, how to work around sabotage, but we know they're going to have this constant battle, for as long as their partner refuses to change--or to allow them to change, which is more the point. I guess, for my own part, I could do a better job of avoiding those threads. If I can't help (at least not much), then there's not a lot of sense in getting on that emotional rollercoaster in the first place. But now I know how widespread this is, and I'm ... just ... so ... angry!

This is me sharing how I'm lucky in my housemate, which isn't going to make anyone who is frustrated feel better, probably. Feel free to skip. ❤️ My spouse isn't into the sugar substitutes, so "my" stuff is safe. He will also--I say this having done Ideal Protein (meat and low-carb veggies), Weight Watchers (low carb, low saturated fat), and Paleo-but-with-beans, but not having done purees for a month or more--generally eat whatever I cook. This week (liquid pre-op diet) has been a little hard. I nearly had to leave the room when he had an apple this afternoon. But we've got lots of foods I won't eat anymore for him to work through, and he is apparently perfectly happy to make himself a bowl of pasta and pour undoctored (uggghhhh) spaghetti sauce on it for dinner. Or to add frozen fruit to some yogurt and granola. So. I'm hoping that, once I'm back off of liquids, maybe he'll be OK with eating the ricotta bake on pasta, or with refried beans in a whole grain wrap--stuff to bulk up my meals and make them more like "normal" food, and also to let us eat together. I know he's happy with eggs/omelettes for dinner, so that's an easy one. He is not a super picky eater, and on the occasions when I make something he doesn't like (like a tuna salad or something with too much zucchini) he is capable of taking care of himself. He's not perfect--I married a human, after all--but he's good and supportive, and I appreciate him.

If you aren't already, I'd grab a sharpie and start labeling all of the stuff that is yours with your name. It might not stop them, but at least they won't have plausible deniability, "oh, I didn't know that was just for you." And maybe they'll feel a tinge of guilt when they do it.

@Spellbound a lot of us are liquid-only for the week before surgery. That's the boat I'm in and it sounds like where @sleevemebaby7781 hopefully is, now, too. Mine's 3-4 protein shakes per day, and I can swap one out with a strained cream soup, plus unlimited clear liquids (broth, sugar free jello, sugar free popsicles, protein water). Nothing solid. So, yeah, big salads and bunless burgers sound amazing right now. I would punch someone to have one of those.

I'm on day 4 of liquids and have lost 6ish pounds. (I mean, on top of the three months of dieting.) If I can keep losing at this rate, I'll have hit my surgeon's "10% of starting body weight lost before surgery" goal before my surgery next Wednesday. I got him to let me slide in at the beginning of flu season, whether I hit the goal or not, because I work in public service and get bronchitis every winter. Bronchitis would push my surgery back to ... like, April, maybe, by the time I got better and they got me back on the schedule. But hitting the goal would still feel good.

Meetup is nice, and you don't have to use it through the app unless you want to. It works equally well through the browser. Also, in a lot of places there are Meetups especially for singles, if you're feeling bold.

The American Diabetes Association has pretty good information. Here's a short article: http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/treatment-and-care/bariatric-surgery.html I also read their book: https://www.amazon.com/Things-About-Diabetes-Weight-Loss-Surgery/dp/1580406149 The American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery has a longer article: https://asmbs.org/patients/surgery-for-diabetes If you're interested in wading through medical studies, I'm happy to point you at some. I know that isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I didn't want to start there. The short version of what studies are finding is that many people (above a BMI of 35) experience a very fast improvement, so quickly after surgery that the drop in body weight can't possibly be the cause. There are a lot of theories about what the cause is, but there are enough pieces of evidence both in favor of and against each of them that it seems like the best answer is "it's a variety of mechanisms." No matter the reason, because of the speed of the change in people's diabetes after surgery, you might find that your current need for 100 grams of carbohydrates per day to keep your numbers stable may not be the case after surgery--almost certainly won't, in fact. (I'm not saying you will definitely be able to control your diabetes with diet alone -- it happens for some people, but some others are merely able to decrease their reliance on medications. Just, the things you know about your body will change.) Someone posted the Kaiser Permanente list of post-surgery foods on here, not long ago, which I only remember because they were throwing carbs in there right away, where my surgeon's nutritionists are very focused on protein, then vegetables and fruits, and only much later carbs. So different places will have different rules, and if you want a look at that particular set, to see how it matches up with your needs (keeping in mind that those may change!), that might be worthwhile! Anyway, best of luck in making your decision!

350 degrees until soft, or ... ? Do you take off the skin (from either)? I had never considered combining apples and pumpkin, and I am intrigued! Thanks for sharing!

Updated list for people to find their surgery buddies! (Please don't quote this whole post to get added or removed; just @ me to get my attention. But also, I'm following this thread, so I'll probably see it. ) Oct 1: aapb79Gmail.com chicagogirl74 chuckwalsh clara1900 cw19147 irishgal21 JennieJuniper momofmjbm Red Alicia Yare_2018 Oct 2: cindy t Deanayeah Lizzieming Marla522 nikoleroze Oct517 Oct 3: boringtessa crankymagpie mamadownsizing sekud02 Oct 4: AriesMary25 btrfly kerbear1980 mspink702 rnchaveri1 sleevemebaby7781 swisskath Oct 5: rafc100 Suesloosinit Oct 8: Crystalmartin82 jhojho90 Oct 9: bigcurt mailchickie76 Oct 10: busyforever fandangle MeeAhhh oct102018 Oct 11: aussie Ange healthygirl05 kathy060464 UncleBeezy willowfinely Oct 12: afer0841 zpratt Oct 14: katiemarie22 Oct 15: allyb15 annaisbananas JessLess MegsNiko (or maybe the 17th?) recreating_courtney Oct 16: 2shea beccaconaty87 br3n Thisismytime Oct 17: Chello219 Grapefruit JustKeepSwimming OpsMatt Oct 18: shazz73 Oct 22: clb164 kimberlymi laceco marciamae3474 Oct 23: kdiddle31 mimi tahoegirl96118 Oct 24: Beachladee3 GirlShrinking tuttlemomma Oct 25: AndreaK. kiwiangel23 Oct 26: carebear38 shany1567 Oct 29: 1BigHeart jflower88 kjallen nedawson1908 Rgiannos Oct 30: sleevegirl88 Oct 31: relaxrelaterelease

My surgeon's clear liquids list looks similar to @MargoCL's, but I asked, and protein waters are also OK for us. They also listed Powerade Zero and watered-down G-2 (or the new zero sugar Gatorade!). Also, we are allowed to have caffeine. It's weird how different all the programs are. (I mean. It isn't. There haven't been enough studies done for a common set of best practices to have emerged, yet.)

Just protein shakes, for more than a week, seems cruel. Broth is a nice change from sweetness, and you do get some protein from that... but it's not exactly a meal substitute. And it's such a weird rule, when appropriate soups are available. I guess people aren't awesome at following directions, though, so the worry is that people will sub in Campbell's when they should be having one of those high-protein diet soups. Anyway, that stinks, and I'm sorry.

@JennieJuniper I'm only on day 2, but I will say the high-protein cream of broccoli soup mix I had yesterday really saved the day for me. I'm going to do that every day. It was not sweet, and I could eat it with a spoon--delightful! (Though I'm going to have to strain it, because the brand I bought has tiny pieces of broccoli in it, alas.)

My advice is to figure out what you want from it. If having a semi-accurate heart rate monitor with you all the time is important, that'll drive you one way. If having something that doesn't get in your way and maybe isn't even obviously a tracker is important, that'll drive you another way. Do you need it to serve as a watch? How important is sleep tracking? How many other things do you need it to interact with--a scale or your smart lightbulbs or something? (Look, I don't judge.) The apps vary in quality, but most of the big names integrate with MyFitnessPal, if that's important to you. I'm pretty into my Misfit Ray which I can wear with a bracelet on the same wrist. It seems accurate enough on the step counts. The app is OK? It's not as fully featured as, say, the Fitbit app, but it works well enough for me. I can't get the swimming functionality to work right, but that might just be that I'm a crappy swimmer, with bad form. ? It talks to MyFitnessPal and Baritastic. It seems to give me a decent read on sleep time and quality. I've tried out several, so depending what you need I might be able to point you in the right direction, if the Ray isn't the right tracker for you.