blackcatsandbaddecisions

Thanks all, I’ll keep on just drinking then. Every once in a while I take a huge drink and just sit there with a mouth full of Protein Drink like, are you stupid? What are you thinking? And slooooowly have to swallow the mouthful a little bit at a time. Love that.

Billho and Newyork lady, you guys are 100% in line with everything I’ve thought. It’s hard when you know that you are going to undertake surgery for something that is technically “fixable” without it...and yet evidence shows that it generally won’t be fixed without surgery. I’ve had a lot of stress over the fact that I did this to myself.

One thing I’ve tried to tell myself is that a lot of medical conditions are self inflicted, but those people deserve to have their conditions treated and receive medical care regardless. Some cancers, accidents, etc are very self inflicted, but I certainly don’t judge those people for seeking and getting care, so we need to be a bit kinder to ourselves.

Newyorklady, I was 100% sure that insurance was going to find some stupid loophole or change coverage or whatever and I would get denied. I had a gut instinct that would happen. Well, it actually went through with a next day approval first try, so maybe the part of my gut that knew it was going to be denied is the portion of my gut I’m removing. :)

My MD doesn’t even have a puree stage at all. It’s 4 weeks post op all liquid. I’m at day 15 post op and cottage cheese sounds amazing, but oh well.

I wouldn’t recommend picking and choosing different diet plans from different surgeons. I trusted my surgeon enough to let him surgically remove most of my stomach, I’ll trust his post op advice as well. Plus, I need all the boost I can get with weight loss as I still have 100 lbs left to lose, so liquid diets suck, but they sure do get rid of those lbs.

That was my day too! I was anxious to get it done but didn’t realize the amount of work it was after. I mean I was told and told but didn’t realize till there was no going back.

My biggest fears are:
1. Dying- I am the breadwinner for my family, have two young children, and two elderly parents with dementia I take care of. I need to be here because there are a lot of people counting on me for pretty much everything.
2. It not working- I feel like I hear so many horror stories of it not working, or people losing only a small amount of weight before nothing happening. I know it generally works, but you can’t help but be concerned that you might go through all this for nothing.
3. Regain. This is not my first rodeo with weight loss. Over 10 years ago I lost 150 lbs (without surgery) and had an amazing experience being “thin” for the first time in my life with all the accolades, pride, etc that comes with it. Only to gain it all back plus a lot more. I am doing everything I can to try to make this time different but I’ve done it to myself before and I’m terrified I’ll do it again.
4. My freaking insurance finding some dumb loophole to deny my surgery that they submitted for last week! Or Covid causing elective surgeries to be cancelled again and my husband losing his job that has the Bariatric coverage medical insurance before they resume surgery. Or basically some new reason that I get denied after so many years trying to make this work.
5. Complications: a leak, chronic issues, being nauseous forever, a clot, having to have the surgery revised later due to gerd, or any other issues that I can think of.

So basically what are my greatest fears? Everything, it looks like. Ha!

My biggest fears are:
1. Dying- I am the breadwinner for my family, have two young children, and two elderly parents with dementia I take care of. I need to be here because there are a lot of people counting on me for pretty much everything.
2. It not working- I feel like I hear so many horror stories of it not working, or people losing only a small amount of weight before nothing happening. I know it generally works, but you can’t help but be concerned that you might go through all this for nothing.
3. Regain. This is not my first rodeo with weight loss. Over 10 years ago I lost 150 lbs (without surgery) and had an amazing experience being “thin” for the first time in my life with all the accolades, pride, etc that comes with it. Only to gain it all back plus a lot more. I am doing everything I can to try to make this time different but I’ve done it to myself before and I’m terrified I’ll do it again.
4. My freaking insurance finding some dumb loophole to deny my surgery that they submitted for last week! Or Covid causing elective surgeries to be cancelled again and my husband losing his job that has the Bariatric coverage medical insurance before they resume surgery. Or basically some new reason that I get denied after so many years trying to make this work.
5. Complications: a leak, chronic issues, being nauseous forever, a clot, having to have the surgery revised later due to gerd, or any other issues that I can think of.

So basically what are my greatest fears? Everything, it looks like. Ha!

Since my post decided to duplicate itself, My wife and I had our 2 week follow up today. We have lost just over 30lbs each since our Preop diet started on October 27th. Our journey now continues with the puree stage now.

Every morning. I’ve noticed that my large weight gains in the past are all this mysterious weigh-in free time. I literally have almost a decade of data on MyFitnessPal showing drops in weight then a missing 6 month period that then reappears like 50 lbs heavier...then weight loss for a while, missing time, huge weight gain, etc.

I try to stick my head in the sand about weight gain. I need to make it a daily habit or I just stop weighing in and I know where that leads.

Every morning. I’ve noticed that my large weight gains in the past are all this mysterious weigh-in free time. I literally have almost a decade of data on MyFitnessPal showing drops in weight then a missing 6 month period that then reappears like 50 lbs heavier...then weight loss for a while, missing time, huge weight gain, etc.

I try to stick my head in the sand about weight gain. I need to make it a daily habit or I just stop weighing in and I know where that leads.

I also have a Renpho and my wife and I hadn't weighed in at home for 1 year until our preop last month. I had a lot of doctors office weights that I was able to monitor my weight before. We are currently recording our weight daily as we drop after surgery.

Every morning, after peeing, naked! I know that if I let it go, I will stop weighing and that's when the pounds creep up! I don't let it get to me (although I have been known to crawl back in bed until I have to pee again)!

Since I got my scale (about a month before surgery) I weigh every morning after I use the bathroom. I am aware that there are fluctuations due to many things, so I don't freak out if it doesn't move or it goes up a smidge I am approaching 3 weeks post-op, so I anticipate a stall here soon...

I had a 4 week post-op liquid diet too but I lived through it. Glad to hear that you're doing well.

My weight loss surgery story actually started back in early 2019, but I chickened out before my first appointment because I was worried that I would have postop complications and the cost would go beyond the base rate. I gave up on the idea of weight loss surgery at that time, and decided that I would do it on my own. I think everybody here knows how well that went.
At the end of the year I found out my husband‘s job would be ending, and we took that as an opportunity to try to find a job where he would have insurance that I could go on that would cover weight loss surgery. He got a job that covered it, and I joined his insurance plan, and within the month I was set up with my first appointment.

my first appointment ended up being converted to telemedicine because of Covid, but that actually worked out great for me because my doctors office is two hours away. We had a six month waiting period, and for the first two months I will be honest I was working from home in quarantine, and I made absolutely no effort to lose weight and I did not make any progress. My third appointment was going to an in person appointment and the Bariatric class, and I was terrified that I would be up in weight and be disqualified. So for 2 weeks prior to that I went on a low carb low calorie diet. And I don’t know if it was me telling myself it was temporary or the realization that the surgery was coming helped, but I just kept extending and extending the date on my low carb diet. I ended up losing 48 lbs before the liquid diet which was greatly needed because I started at 339, and my surgery weight was 282. I’m 5’10 and my goal weight is 165.

The liquid diet was no big deal, maybe because my diet was already very low calorie. I think I ended up losing about 8 pounds or so on it. It was a full liquid diet, and I did not vary from the diet at all. I want this to be the part of my life where I’m not constantly having a “little extra” or “just this bite” and I figured it would be a good test of willpower.

surgery was a bit rough. I was in a fair amount of pain when I woke up, and I felt very nauseous. I could definitely feel my stomach, and it did not feel good. I wasn’t able to keep any Water down, and the pain meds made me very sick. I ended up throwing up the small amount of water I’d drank snd the pain meds up all over myself the first night. But the next day was a tiny bit better, and it got better every day until day 4 I felt great. I ended up being able to drink water totally fine, no problem with Protein or anything.

I think my surgeon is a bit old school because I have a 4 week post op liquid diet too. No mush or purée stage here. I’m currently finishing up week 2 of the post op liquid diet, and like the preop diet I’m not going to cheat or go off plan. It was a long road to get here and I am going to do everything in my power to make this work.

So far I am down about 10 lbs post surgery, so I don’t think I’m going to get the dramatic 30 lbs weight loss in the first month or anything but that’s fine. I’m down close to 70 lbs from my high weight, and it feels great. I’ll try to follow up every month or so with progress.

HW:339
SW: 282
CW:271
GW: 165

Congratulations! I agree that your weight loss prior is probably impacting your post weight loss! BUT excellent job!

we started out at a similar weight and I lost 16 lbs the first month. I would say (and this is based only on my observations from hanging out on a handful of bariatric sites for the last six or so years) that most of us tend to lose in the 15-25 lb range that first month. Of course there are outliers on either side of that, but it seems like most are within that range. Well, unless you're talking about people who start out at much higher BMI's than most of us do (like people on those reality shows like "My 600 lb Life"). So you're doing fine!

Day 4 felt pretty ok, day five felt really good. And we just won’t talk about day one or two, it’s over now and I won’t have to do it again.

we were told to wait a year. I waited three years. I only have maybe three or four glasses of wine a year. Transfer addiction unfortunately is not uncommon after surgery.

It’s my one week sleeve-aversary! How I can go from laying in bed in severe pain, throwing up on myself, miserable, convinced I had made a huge mistake, to happily cleaning the house, easily drinking my Protein and Water, and feeling great is crazy. What a difference a week makes.

I have lost 8 lbs since surgery, and 65.8 lbs overall!

It’s my one week sleeve-aversary! How I can go from laying in bed in severe pain, throwing up on myself, miserable, convinced I had made a huge mistake, to happily cleaning the house, easily drinking my Protein and Water, and feeling great is crazy. What a difference a week makes.

I have lost 8 lbs since surgery, and 65.8 lbs overall!

Day 4 felt pretty ok, day five felt really good. And we just won’t talk about day one or two, it’s over now and I won’t have to do it again.

You don't really feel it much while still on liquids. Trust me, when you start eating more bulky stuff, you'll know. I'm 11 days out now, and on softs. Had 3/4 of a scrambled egg this morning and could eat NO MORE.

Day 4 felt pretty ok, day five felt really good. And we just won’t talk about day one or two, it’s over now and I won’t have to do it again.

I see that you are going to give the Snacks away, but here is my experience anyway 🙂
After a mere 13 weeks postop my cheat day turned into a cheat week, just like it used to in the old days. Or to put it another way, I ate around my sleeve for a week.... and got the expected results, I gained 1kg.
For some reason I have no ill effects from eating chocolate or chips, the only difference is it takes me a day to eat a pkt of lollies instead of 1 sitting.
So after a good cry, I quickly got back to measuring food and tracking nutritional info, and dropped that regain in 2 days. Plus I joined the gym that same day for the first time in 3 years.
I think it is irresponsible of your nutritionist to advise you that it's OK for a cheat day. We only have the 'sleeve magic' for a limited time, why encourage people to cheat in the peak efficacy time, it just seems counterproductive.

I think that's for the best. While I do allow myself the occasional treat, I don't think of it as "cheating" because it's planned and doesn't happen often. Everyone is different, but for me, if I allowed myself a cheat day every week, it would be no time at all before I was falling back into my old eating habits. Exposing myself to sugar and refined carbs that often would just be a recipe for disaster. If my very occasional treats end up causing me a problem, I'll cut those out too, but so far I've been okay. I figure we've gone through so much trouble, risk, pain and in some cases expense to have surgery - why should we undermine our efforts by deliberately making unhelpful food choices? It just doesn't make sense to undergo all that and then wilfully self-sabotage. Of course, everyone is different and there may be people who can have a weekly cheat day and still do well. But I'm guessing there are a lot of people like me too, who can't.