The Greater Fool

Congratulations on all the hoop jumping and your upcoming surgery. Some advice you didn't ask for: The first weeks after surgery can be a pain, literally and figurately. Be prepared mentally, this too shall pass. You may have absolutely no issues, but be prepared for the worst. Follow your plan. I hope it is a rational plan and not a crash diet, but which ever it's the plan you signed up for, so follow through. Get off the scale. You don't need it messing with your mind. You know if you are following your plan. Just keep doing that. The scale will lie to you. Don't compare your loss to others. You will be losing weight faster than you ever have, yet it will feel slow. Celebrate your successes and forgive your failures. Good luck, Tek

First, congratulations on your surgery and your successes. Perfection as a goal is fine. I always say become a plan nazi. But it's important to understand that it is a goal. We are not perfect, dammit. This is hard to accept because you look at where you fell short and you just know you could have done it right. Can you tell this is an ongoing issue for me? In my OCD world, there is never an excuse for being less than perfect. What's more important is how you deal with the occasional diversion.- If you're going to go kick and berate yourself, then it's time work at giving yourself permission to live. Honestly, half a cracker is a good choice for breaking a liquid diet because it's just gonna melt anyhow. It's just not that big of a deal. Perhaps put minor diversions in your perfection. If you put it in your plan then it's OK. Once you've done something there is nothing you can do to undo it. So acceptance is something to work on. Be perfect at acceptance. Also, this 'mistake' is really standing out. It's like it written in big letters, highlighted, with a spotlight on it, and everyone around pointing at it. It's getting all the attention. Remember that you had a whole lot more successes, and they're all around you being ignored. Give yourself some credit. You may want to talk to a therapist, or read a couple books on how your mind works. It may help. Good luck, Tek

Congratulations on your success. Route 44 Slushie Lime Ade... a special treat we do about once a month, along which Church's chicken. :sigh: My surgeon approached the 30 minute thing as more of a suggestion than hard and fast rule. I drink when I'm thirsty, and I sip a bit during meals. It's not the end of the world to do your own thing if you are doing well. Anemia does seem to be a Gastric Bypass thing, at least it was for me a couple times over the years. Passing out is fun. I put a hole in the wall with my head once. Iron usually does the trick. I take slow-FE just once a week which seems to do the trick. Good luck, Tek

This is another place where the scale is just not helpful. Even considering a change to exercise routines or food plan levels because of a number on a scale is... well... self defeating. The exercise is healthy, it's making a healthier you. Your food plan is healthy(ish) and it's making a healthier you. But the scale is giving you the message something needs to change. Imagine not having the scale, you would be following your exercise plan and food plan knowing they are the appropriate course for you. You would be getting healthier. You would feel good about the habits you are building. No scale to make you crazy. Life is better without a scale. Good luck, Tek

On most things you strive for 'healthy' levels, just like non-ops. You'll find that 60g of Protein is what non-ops should get. The extra may be to compensate for malabsorption, but my plan called for 60g. Sodium, like non-ops, you want to reduce. 600 calories is a draconian crash diet in non-op life and like I said folks that do that have willpower that I don't have. For my plan from day 1 I was learning how to eat for the rest of my life. I basically ate to maintain my goal weight and lost weight down to that balance point. At any rate, for everyone losing all that weight is/was great positive reinforcement, telling our lizard brain "plan = good." All minerals, vitamins and other nutrients: you need what a non-op needs. Except you may need a bit more iron and calcium as our malabsorption seems to hit those hard. Again, fat is the same as for non-ops. Reduce it. Some Gastric Bypass folks (like me) dump on fat, so be careful. Just because we are eating less and consuming fewer calories, it doesn't mean we can reduce everything by 75% or 60% or whatever. Generally, we still need 100% of most vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Bottom line is you need everything a non-op needs to be healthy, you just have to do it in 600 calories. If your nutritionist shrugged on this question, well... Good luck, Tek

It's funny, I got chewed out by a member for posting in the Women's only forum, because I too mostly go by the recent threads and didn't look for where it was started. I pointed her to the Men's forum where virtually every post has responses by women. It's not the end of the world, IMHO. Your information was appropriate to the topic. Life goes on. And, to add confirmation to your original post, on meds where I can feel an effect, like pain meds, I noticed since surgery they don't last as long. I've noted it also on other meds. It is a consideration, though I wouldn't change surgeries over it myself. There are ways to compensate. Good luck, Tek

There are as many post-op plans as there are surgeons. Heck, there were 3 surgeons in the practice to which I went and each had a different program. Here on this site there are post-op plans of 500 calories per day, others have no restriction. My plan didn't count calories but I'd say it was about 1200 calories per day. I would never have been able to sustain 500 calories a day some plans require. Folks that can do this are superheroes in my book. I wouldn't have had surgery if the post-op diet wasn't rational. I should think you need to use caution taking a normal 2000 calorie diet. You are reducing calories but there are other things, like protein, that you are not reducing. Other things you need to keep volumes up while reducing other things. Your notes are likely more definitive on your plan than anything you will find on the internet. Don't trust strangers on the internet. We are often just plain wrong. Good luck, Tek

Which surgery are you having? The Sleeve doesn't change any digestive plumbing so if the T is in a pill form it shouldn't be an issue. Gastric Bypass does change the plumbing. The pyloric valve is bypassed and everything you eat or drink drops straight into your intestines, a small amount of which are bypassed. This creates a malabsorption of some things, like calories, and can impact how well some time-released meds work. My experience is some time-released meds work well enough and others not so much. It's largely trial and error. Some more critical meds my Doc doesn't take the chance and I take some pills multiple times per day. Things that are injected or are dermally absorbed wouldn't be affected by WLS at all. Early on most people can't eat a lot of calories and many post-op diets run a severe calorie deficit which will result in loss of fat and muscle. Us fatso's had extra bone and muscle to support all that fat. I imagine T and the gym could reduce the muscle loss. Your current knowledge would apply still post-op. I did dermally applied prescription T pre-op and asked about it when I was having surgery. Being dermally applied there was no issue, but pills follow the caution included above re: malabsorption and time-release. Good luck, Tek

I wonder... If part of the deal of losing the excess weight was that you would lose some hair, would you have made the deal? For me, it would be a no-brainer... I'd have gone bald. What would you have chosen? Brain teasers... Good luck, Tek

I don't have a favorite artificial sweetener based sauce because I use full leaded sauces. I just use so little of them, just to give a sense of the flavor. I don't do artificial versions because, it's weird, but I would go full leaded versions in old quantities eventually, which would be bad. So I do an appropriate quantity of full leaded (which is very little), and it works out just right. It tastes right and i don't need to do more. Good luck, Tek

What kind of pain, where? It makes a difference. I had an open surgery, so had staples and drains that where new experiences in pain, but perhaps not what you are talking about. I could go on and on (and on and no, ask anyone) about what I dealt with, but it wouldn't likely be useful for what you are talkin about. Good luck, Tek ETA: Yeah, you should contact your surgeon as @catwoman7 indicates. I should have started there.

You've been through surgery and since then you've barely had any food and if you were anything like me, relatively little activity. Of course your tired and lack energy. For me, at a month out this sort of outing was unthinkable. Walking from one part of the house to another was a challenge. You've gotten used to carrying a few hundred extra pounds. You have the skeleton and muscles to move it all around. In a short time all the muscle and bone will not have so many extra pounds to move around. It will almost feel like you are floating and you will have energy to spare. A little more patience. Then watch out. Good luck, Tek

This doesn't sound like dumping to me. More like your pouch asserting it's finnicky approach to food. There are days when even something that has been on my diet for weeks on end will suddenly just fail. It happens. Eventually you will become aware of the subtle signs (like throwing up) that indicate this meal is going to be a problem. I find my pouch is going to be most finnicky at breakfast. I don't know why particularly but I have theories which I won't delve into. You're welcome. Good luck, Tek

Perhaps I'm just being selfish here but if you could indulge my curiosity here I'd more than appreciate it. In fact, it seems rather required. It's your fault for such an achievement. A detailed account of the actual summitting experience would just be the bees knees. There's a lot of details here I can't even realistically even grasp the stuff to ask for. A detailed account of your training regimen. I know what training for marathons is like, but I can only believe such pails in comparison to your program. Your travel adventures getting there and back again must be a fantastic story in it's own right. Please, please, please! Thanks ever so... Tek

I'd want to do something that got me off the couch so perhaps that's a place to start? Who knew what losing a few pounds could lead to. Watch out for those plastics. Congratulations and good luck, Tek

Absorption for Sleeve folks should theoretically remain unchanged. Ultimately, your digestive system has not actually changed, you stomach has just been reduced in size. For Bypass folks, we no longer have a meaningful pyloric valve as a small part of our intestines have been bypassed including the Pyloric Valve. So, any meds drop straight through our stomach (pouch) directly into our intestines. Many time release mechanisms count on the medication sitting in the stomach, at least in part, for a time. Since these now don't sit in the stomach and go into and through the intestines before the time-release mechanisms can do their thing, some time released medications just don't do their thing as much. Initially it was trial and error: if time released works, great. If not, I can 'time release' them myself by taking normal release through the day. As I age I just don't bother with trial and error and assume time release won't work. For me there are some time release things that work such as slow-FE which is time released iron may not work optimally, but it works well enough to keep my iron levels in the green. I've been doing it for years and see no point in changing. Time released pain meds, on the other hand, just don't have any effect, so no time release pain meds for me. Then there are the important meds that one doesn't generally feel an effect. Generally my Docs don't want to take a chance, and since I already do my own time release with other meds they have no issue adding others to the morning, noon, and night routine I already have on meds. A lot of this stuff is personal experience. Good luck, Tek

You will get permission here to eat, drink, smoke, vape, inject, bath in, roll in any and every food or drink, as they've been doing it from the day of surgery forward because, sure, it's on their plan. Really. You have your plan and you know the rules. You should follow your rules. There, now that that is out of the way... But, and here is the rub, you're an adult... more or less... and you can do what you want. You don't need anyone's permission to break your rules. They're your rules after all and it's you, not us, that will face the consequences. Let's face it, no matter what we say, you're gonna do this bit of tuna. You've already talked yourself into it. You've rationalized why it should be OK, and how doing it a few days early really doesn't make much difference, so... Enjoy your tuna. Good luck, Tek

1. Stay off the scale. It's a tool of the devil to destroy your spirit and mess with your mind. Your plan will work without getting on a scale; 2. Stay on plan. Be a plan nazi. Follow the (hopefully rational) rules all the time. Make your rules your new normal where following your plan is as normal as breathing. In my opinion, this shouldn't be another crash diet, it should be learning a new way to eat for life; I had WLS to never be on a crash diet again and here I am having never been on a crash diet again; 3. Don't do what you can't sustain. For me, I know I couldn't sustain going to a gym, so I didn't do it. Of course, running is one of those things I wouldn't have thought I could sustain, but after I lost a few hundred pounds I challenged myself to complete the couch to 5K program. I enjoyed it so much it turned into binge running. So... 4. Be open to trying new things, but don't be a slave to them; I never thought I would get into binge running, but for me it was like meditating. I would listen to audio books and just let my mind go with the story. It set the tone for the day; Unfortunately, carrying 1/4 ton extra pounds around for a lot of years takes it's tolls on the knees; 5. Stay off the scale; Honest, read the posts here, easily half of them are people fussing about the scale; I only weighed at monthly Follow-ups and I never saw a stall. It helped that I was too large for a home scale. Eventually I could weigh at home and for a couple weeks I weighed at home! A few times a day, just because I could. Then I stopped. Even now I don't weigh at home, but only at annual physicals; 6. The first weeks may be painful and difficult in ways you haven't imagined. Or you may sail through without any issues at all. Or something between. Be resolved that you will not worry about them until they occur then deal with them knowing that this too shall pass. Just get through it with your natural style and grace; Good luck, Tek

I was 45 when I had Gastric Bypass. I weighed about 1/4 ton over what I should. I lost all my excess weight and then some. My proudest achievements are that I've run 5 marathons. I got to run across the Golden Gate Bridge, with a broken rib but that's a story of it's own. I've gone horseback riding on vacation which was a dream of my spouse's. I've kayaked on vacation also. All things I never even dreamt of doing. My dreams pre-op were more basic: Bathing in a bathtub. With my spouse. Rolling over in bed without the 3 step roll. Not breaking chairs. Going from 6x to no x's. I'm able to buy clothes off the shelf. From not flying to flying in coach. To having to choose restaurants that had strong chairs, to sitting anywhere including booths, chairs, folding chairs. At this point it's hard to remember everything. I would have thought this impossible and would think anyone saying this was simply boasting, but here I am. Don't get me wrong, there have been downsides... They don't come to mind, but they've been there Good luck, Tek

People talk about stalls, the famous week 3 stall, then the 3 week stall. I actually am one of the few people that never saw a stall. My secret was being too large to weigh on home scales. For about the first year I could only weigh at my surgeon's office at monthly follow-ups. So, when your weigh-ins are a month apart, you don't see stalls. I can't express what a joy this was. I was never tempted to change anything in response to a stall. I just stayed with my program. My surgeon was never overly concerned with my weight loss. He asked how I was doing on the plan, how I felt, did I have any concerns. Weight never came up unless I brought it up. He was a cool Doc. Once I was able to weigh at home, I did it for a couple weeks, several times a day. Then I abandoned the whole concept and went back to just weighing at follow-ups. Who needs the angst? Even now, all these years later, I don't weigh at home, but only at my annual physicals at the Doctor's. One does not need a scale for success at WLS. Just trust your plan. My plan was also pretty straightforward. I didn't count calories, nor much of anything else. I counted meals of which there were 3 per day. I counted protein of where there were 3-4 oz each meal. That was basically my plan. That is still basically my plan. Good luck, Tek

I was never faced with a multi course tasting menu until I was well into living with Gastric Bypass long-term. Pre-op it never appealed as my family was about volume over quality. I've since faced down the multi-course tasting menu with style and aplomb, generally by not worrying about my rules. No matter what happened volume would sooner or later become an issue. Sipping during meals has always been something I was more than willing to do. I usually took a taste of most courses unless it simply did not appeal. Unless a course was just the bees knees I didn't take more than two or three bites, I'm not gonna waste that all important space on something that was not worthy of it. There was usually one or two courses that were just that good to merit in depth exploration. Often it came down to "Let's make a deal"... Would you like to finish this course, or wait for the next course which has a cream sauce your sure to love, or this course that has lobster just the way you love it, or this later mystery dish later that will be something new? At any rate, we all have our approaches and our deals with ourselves and the devil. I just don't dance with the devil that often. Good luck, Tek

50% of post-op regain their weight. They're not doing it by eating too little. Good luck, Tek

Unless you ate the ice cream and chocolate to purposely harm yourself, or harm your surgery (and thereby yourself) then this was NOT self-sabotage. It was giving in to an old habit. It was a mistake. Oops. This mistake, unfortunately (or fortunately, if you take my outlook) caused you some discomfort. This is a teaching moment, and it appears you are learning the lesson. Unfortunately, it may take learning this lesson more than once. No matter how many times you must learn this lesson, it is still not self-sabotage. You put yourself through surgery so that your body and your mind can work together. Now your body is telling you in no uncertain terms that this is not something you want to do. Hopefully will will learn and grow through the experience. Good luck, Tek

I could never have sustained so few calories. I don't know how y'all do it. Talk about strength of will! Very admirable. Good luck, Tek

Listen to your medical team. They know your medical situation while no one else does. If you don't trust them then change them. This applies to your medical team, your friends, and your strangers. My doc allowed NSAIDs for me. Acetaphetamine (Tylenol) was to be avoided. My doc was more adamant that internet med lists, supplement lists, and plan rules were to be ignored. His rules, meds, supplement were based on my needs and to ignore the rest. I suggest you do the same with your medical team. Good luck, Tek