ShoppGirl

A lady in my craft group just sent a message that says “365 New Days, 365 New Chances.” I just love that. Happy New Years Everyone, Let’s Make This One Great!!

Some people can just have a taste but I learned after my sleeve that I am not one of them. I can’t have one slice of pizza or one brownie. Even if I manage to have just one that day I will crave more unhealthy stuff the following days. At bedtime I have been doing the sugar free popsicles. That seems to be working. If you have actual hunger then something with protein would be a better option. Like a Greek yogurt maybe. Can you budget the calories so you can do that. I think the triple zero is only like 80 calories. That should keep you full through the night though.

I don’t know about you but pre WLS when I was eating bad I would not get on the scale and it spiraled way further out of control because I basically ignored my changes in eating as they gradually got worse and worse. You didn’t do that, though!! You got on that scale and took accountability. As females our bodies are designed to pack on pounds and hormones make things even harder. You are not the only one that has times of the month that their bodies make them want to eat more. I think all we can do is give ourselves a little forgiveness if we slip sometimes. Maybe try your free foods. Did you have those on your pre op diet. I had several on the list but the ones I recall were sugar free popsicles, pickles and lettuce. If I was hungry, I was told I was allowed to eat as many of those foods as I wanted. And to this day I still consider them to be free foods. Those are the only calories that I do not log on my calorie app. I allow myself to have them when I am hungry so I never feel like I am starving. Just maybe not getting what I would prefer to eat.

Exercise may end up being your “you time” if you find something that you enjoy doing. I never in a zillion years would’ve pictured myself exercising and I have not always been obese either. My issues began when I was like 25 so I was active And fit but never did actual exercise in my life until post revision. Well, no I absolutely love YOGA. That, and my crochet group are my time. I shut my phone off for both and I am just present for the entire time. The YOGA makes me feel so good for the entire day. I love it.

Ooh and Amazon has the core power shakes in chocolate which I am 99% sure are the same as fairlife. if not, they use fairlife milk and they are really good. People say that their kids will even ask for them because they are just like chocolate milk. According to google the fairlife is lower calorie and core power is a workout recovery drink but I found it comparable to premiere protein and it worked for me for weight loss. Maybe check it out to see how it compares to fairlife.

If you find some protein shakes are okay except they are too sweet try mixing them with coffee. This helps a great deal. Cold or hot. I mix iced coffee with a premiere protein caramel shake and it’s like an iced coffee. I actually kept this habit after all the others went out the window from my sleeve because I like them so much. Well that and the premiere protein caffe latte shake. I just prefer to mix my own now because I do decaf coffee and the caffe latte has caffeine. Both options are good but I’d say the caramel with coffee is less sweet of the two if sweetness is the issue. Also, the change in taste for sweet is often temporary so try again in a month or two and keep checking because this most likely will go away at some point.

https://bariatricbits.com/single-serve-baked-ricotta/ Thats the ricotta bake recipe

Wrong thread. Sorry

Are you measuring and logging everything that goes into your salad? Not all salads are created equal and it’s not uncommon to underestimate what goes into them. A salad can have over 800 calories pretty easily if you aren’t careful. The usual culprits are the dressing, cheese, crouton's, nuts/granola, avocado, bacon, etc. If you don’t use measuring tools at least for a while it’s pretty difficult to know if you are getting just one serving or more. And if you are getting more than one serving of a few of these things you may as well just have a cheeseburger calorie wise and you may not realize it. I hope this helps.

I was also allowed scrambled eggs and I made pureed egg salad (that wasn’t bad). My saving grace were refried beans with a little 2% cheese and the ricotta bake. Just be sure your tomato sauce doesn’t have chunks or that you puree it if so. I got a little kitchen aid food processor. Not cheap but cute enough to leave on the counter and I use it now to make pico and guacamole so it wasn’t a waste (they do make much cheaper ones though if you have room to store it I just have a tiny kitchen). I imagine you could use a blender or nutra bullet in retrospect in a pinch but it doesn’t give you as much control over the consistency. The nutra bullet comes in handy to make drinkable yogurts and smoothies later too. The drinkable yogurt you should be able to do during the puree phase as well (i just used yogurt, fruit and almond milk).

While I absolutely do not agree that it’s likely you will GAiN weight on 800 calories, 800 Calories can be a pretty good amount of food depending on what you eat. for example this is 757 calories and it’s 100 g of protein. breakfast: Caramel “Proffee” made from a premiere protein caramel shake with iced coffee mixed in. (It’s really good and filling with the protein btw). lunch: three eggs omelette with 2% cheese (1 ounce) and tomatoes and onion (1/2 cup). dinner: grilled chicken breast (3 ounce) and zucchini and onion (1/2 cup). snack: oikos triple zero yogurt I use the Baritastic app and I always have the same breakfast but then before I have lunch I plug in my plan and an idea for dinner to make certain it’s okay macro wise. I do pay some attention to calories but protein, added sugars and fat are more important. I also pay attention to my carbs because on some days my exercise is higher and I actually need to increase them a bit. If your dietician is not asking about your activity and your food choices and inky giving you a cookie cutter plan without real guidance I would be asking more questions. These plans need to be tailored to you specifically. if you are having a difficult time finding foods you like that meet the criteria you are definitely not alone. I had to do a ton of research and trial and error with recipes to find a couple weeks worth of meals that I enjoy and I was doing 900ish calories. I scoured the web and found low calorie recipes and also ways to cut calories from things I knew I enjoyed. Basically type “healthy” in front of anything you like and you should find ways to make a more bariatric friendly version. Some days you may need to reduce calories further by having two shakes or egg whites instead to budget for a higher calorie dinner. I don’t love to cook so I make double batches of things and freeze them in individual portions. this has been my lifesaver. For the 800 calories you may have to do a lot of lower calorie lean meat and veggie type dinners unless you cut calories during lunch. For instance instead of 3 eggs you could do five 5 whites and you could even omit the cheese if you need to cut calories further. i would imagine you could still lose on a little higher calorie budget and you have more flexibility in your menu but it may not be as fast as you would like. Either way, check out Baritastic (or another calorie tracking app). It’s very helpful to see exactly what’s in different food and to play around with these meal ideas on an app because you can add and delete and adjust the measurements to figure out how to make things work to fit your plan.

That’s a shame. I believe if you contact customer service they guarantee their products if you don’t like them (let you exchange it maybe). . I know they made me pay return shipping though, which I didn’t love and they require you to purchase insurance as well, but I guess you would get the difference back after that at least. I have been satisfied with the quest products and the vitamins I purchased on there but I admit that I haven’t tried many others. I ordered the oatmeal, chili and some other items for purée stage but they were delayed in shipping (not their fault) so by the time I got them I was done with that stage so they ended up at the bottom of the pantry ? I suppose some day I may have a craving for oatmeal but it’s not my favorite food so who knows. The chili just sounds gross now that I can make the real deal.

This is a very good point about having a different procedure. I went with the SADI because it was a revision to an existing sleeve and revision surgeries do not produce the same results in terms of weight loss and durability, but the SADI offered more. In terms of other medical issues, though you will constantly have to have your bariatric doctor in the loop with any issues that may even remotely have to do with your gastro system and this can be complicated because the doctors don’t want to step on one another’s toes. But in terms of family doctors or doctors of any other specialty, I have not met one since I started researching this surgery or since I’ve had it that I have even heard of it. If you do go with this one, you need to educate yourself so that you can explain that to them. And it is possible that you find yourself in a position where something could get messed because the doctor just hasn’t seen it before where it’s more likely if you had something as common as a bypass they will have seen it. I mean there’s pros and cons with everyone. There’s no perfect answer or they would only do one and we wouldn’t be here naming off a handful of surgeries that are sort of commonly done and in terms of revisions, they do even more. I think they just make up names for them as they go along, honestly. My best advice would be to educate yourself as much as you can and go back a couple of times to make sure you get all of your questions answered by the doctor. They usually only want to give you one appointment but if you say you’re not ready to choose, they should give you another appointment with the doctor or a PA or NP. But that is a very good point about having the less common procedure does present obstacles or potential ones down the road. I mean if you raised the fact that you have it to any good doctors attention, they know where to find the information and should be able to still provide you adequate care but in an emergency situation it’s better for the information to already be in the doctors head.

Yea I just keep thinking that I will do my best to not gain too much and when I get through the obvious priority my tool will still be there. It won’t be as easy as it was at 3-4 months out but I should be able to do it. Just have to keep my eye on the prize which is getting through this curveball but then get back on track to lose. It may be a bit harder but it can be done. I’ve seen people on here lose their regain several times. I’m sure I’m not the first one to have another major life event at the same time and I won’t be the last. I’ve got this!!

I don’t know much about the mini gastric bypass but the SADI is now covered by insurance and it has better stats thus far than then bypass and sleeve. Its weigh loss is statistically quicker, more weight lost and more durable than the bypass and it’s considered comparable in terms of safety. It is relatively new so not all surgeons do it and the research is still coming in but Maybe look into it. I have been very happy with it as a revision surgery. I have lost 75 pounds already. I have some other medical stuff that’s slowed my loss a bit because the doctors don’t want me to be at such as calorie deficit right now, but I feel like once I’m back at it I will lose the rest pretty steadily. Also, There was a guy on here that put a whole lot of information out there about the mini gastric bypass a while back. If you search for it you should find some of his posts and if you respond to one of them it should send notifications to the others who were active in the thread so hopefully someone who knows about it will get an email the thread is active and come back and read your questions. I just did a search and he must’ve deleted his account because now it’s listed as guest. His screen name was MiniGastricBypassDude but I guess he won’t receive the.notifications. Others who were active on the threads will though and there is lots of information there to read about the surgery that he posted In the past.

Sounds good.

I feel the exact same way about when I don’t eat clean. I don’t sleep as well and I feel fatigued all day. It’s weird I didn’t realize how good I was supposed to feel until after this revision and now I know when I eat poorly because I feel like crap. Oh sugar free popsicles. I forgot about them. I am pretty sure I’ve got some in the freezer. Them will help at night. I wake up at night, several times a night, when I am off the wagon with carbs. That’s when I usually give in just so I can go back to sleep.

You have to let me know some of your protein recipes. I tried the pancakes with protein powder and they were not fave but I need a few new recipes to shake things up so if you find any real good ones please share.

Yea since I was a revision to SADI they did not operate on my stomach. My portions are the same as they were years out from my sleeve which was about a single serving of most things. The weight I have lost is really just from eating 100% clean and exercising quite a bit. I really don’t worry too much about portions (although I still can’t eat a ton at once). I truly do believe that I am a carb addict though. It’s hard every single time I eat a lot of them to get back off of them. My plan is just to allow myself to have as much fruits and veggies as I want until the cravings ease up and then go back to my normal portions. We celebrate on Christmas eve and just have breakfast on Christmas while we watch the parade so I started yesterday and my plan worked, but I still ate a lot of calories because of eating all day long and I still want carbs just as bad today. My body just screams out for them. And for a while too. It’s really almost not worth it.

Yea since I was a revision to SADI they did not operate on my stomach. My portions are the same as they were years out from my sleeve which was about a single serving of most things. The weight I have lost is really just from eating 100% clean and exercising quite a bit. I really don’t worry too much about portions (although I still can’t eat a ton at once). I truly do believe that I am a carb addict though. It’s hard every single time I eat a lot of them to get back off of them. My plan is just to allow myself to have as much fruits and veggies as I want until the cravings ease up and then go back to my normal portions. We celebrate on Christmas eve and just have breakfast on Christmas while we watch the parade so I started yesterday and my plan worked, but I still ate a lot of calories because of eating all day long and I still want carbs just as bad today. My body just screams out for them. And for a while too. It’s really almost not worth it.

also, your surgeon may not want to do a re-sleeve. Some still do but many consider it to be too risky and it yields too little reward (the weight loss for a second sleeve is statistically less than a virgin sleeve which is already less than the other surgeries). The typical surgery for revision is usually the bypass although a newer alternative to that is to revise to a surgery called the SADI which is what I just did and it is a little more aggressive so it yields faster loss and so far the research shows more durable loss as well. I have lost quite a bit rather quickly with it. You don’t need to know any of this yet. Your doctor of course will know if any of the options apply to you and explain them at that point but just know that it may be a little different surgery if you do go with a revision. One that alters your intestines this time which is a bit riskier.

Not sure what your coverage is for them but I strongly suggest you talk to your doctor about the GLP-1 if eating different is the cause for regain. Your tool is still there, you most likely just need help switching your diet back and the GLP-1 should take your appetite away almost completely making that a great deal easier. I have a friend that lost all of her weight and was actually losing too much and had to back off of them because she wasn’t getting enough nutrition. I had to keep reminding her to get in her protein and fluids. She has great coverage for them through her work insurance (she pays $25). I actually wanted to do them when I did my revision this year but I didn’t have adequate coverage for them and financially they just weren’t an option so I went for the revision. I talked to my doctor about waiting but she thought it would be a couple years before anything changed in terms of coverage and my labs were creeping up so waiting wasn’t a good idea. I am doing great in terms of weight loss but faced with another medical issue now, the gastro changes I’ve had aren’t making things any easier for me. Losing the weight is for sure the goal but if you can do it without surgery that’s always better. As far as I know revision is for people who gain without any real known reason. You are saying that you’re eating different for an emotional reason so you probably just need help changing back to your better habits both mentally and physically. Honestly, I think the GLP-1 will be the first option for many people in the very near future. They are considered safer at this point. It’s just a matter of them becoming more accessible for people. Take it with a grain of salt but it’s something I would at least consider before jumping to the surgery option.

i know how you feel about never sticking to resolutions. One year my resolution was to quit trying to quit everything just because of feeling a failures so many times. Small goals are far more realistic than huge resolutions and because they are more attainable we can do more than one a year and achieve more in the long run than the huge goal that overwhelms and we give up. I think you will do great!!

Anyone have a trick to detoxing from carbs. I swear they are like a drug to me and I have a little bit of processed carbs and I crave them for weeks. I will do it somehow but it’s not easy for me. I can do healthy carbs without issues. It the processed ones that I’m addicted to.

I don’t think a surgeon will ever assure you of your loss or your ability to sustain the loss because the surgery are not always a perfect fit for everyone nor is everyone compliant in doing their part to make the surgery successful. I had the gastric sleeve several years ago and that was not a good fit for me. I lost weight a pretty significant amount, but I gained it back. Recently, I had a revision surgery and the difference has been night and day in terms of how it has helped with my metabolism this time. I have energy that I never had before and I am exercising like I never have and healthy food still isn’t preferred over pizza, but it isn’t awful like it was before, which makes the choices to have good nutrition and fitness a bit easier. Nothing is going to make them easy. I’m sure but the surgery does make them easier if it’s a successful fit for you.