lizonaplane

I just made the rookie mistake of reheating soup I had added protein powder to... clumps for days... I guess I'm done with my breakfast. ?

I guess that's one more question on the list for my next visit with the surgeon. Thanks! Oral contraceptives do raise your risk of blood clots, especially in obese women, and also in women over 35, so I would be surprised if he did not make me stop, but who knows?

Damn. I don't have sex, so I don't care if it's effective as birth control, but maybe it will be time to get an IUD. I can't deal with my period again.

I agree. If you were going to have symptoms, they would have started by now most likely. Glad you're doing well and glad you're vaccinated!

I was wondering about this too. I take my birth control pill continuous cycling so I never get my period and I'm worried they'll make me go off of it for surgery and I will be a mess (the pill also helps with my migraines and moods which get a lot worse if I get my period). I haven't had my period in more than a decade and I really don't want to deal with it during recovery.

All of my visits with everyone at the surgery center have been over zoom, because here in Boston, they are serious about COVID precautions. But I had one meeting with the surgeon in February and he answered most of my questions and said we'd have further conversations down the road. I have another appointment next week because I have more questions about the type of surgery (I take medications that would not be great with mal-absorptive surgery, but also I may or may not have GERD/gastritis, so although he and my prescribing doc both recommended sleeve, I want to know what his plan is for resolving any worsening GERD that might develop after sleeve). I hadn't done much of my own research before calling the surgery center except watching their mandatory video (you have to watch the video before reaching out to them) but by the time they called me back the next week I had spent hours researching online and talking to my friend who had had WLS.

In addition to what others have said about what to say if a waiter is concerned (which in my experience going with my friend who had had WLS wasn't too common), you can say, "I ate a late lunch" or "I have a headache" or "I have a toothache" or any number of white lies that strike your fancy. I know many people choose to keep this surgery private from family and friends (and I probably wouldn't tell a waiter because that puts them in an awkward position), but I love @ms.sss's suggestion of using your dining companions as your disposal mechanisms (provided they don't have their own issues with food). I am usually going to be eating out alone as I will be on the road for work, so I plan to use the white lie strategy.

I don't know where you all are keeping all these different sizes of clothes... I had to get rid of all my old clothes each time they got too small or too big because I have just one moderately-sized closet in my bedroom. I don't even have that many clothes and they all fit about a 50lb range because they're all knitwear, since I travel all the time (er... until COIVD). This is what happens when you live alone in a high cost of living area. When I watch HGTV I feel like the kitchen in those houses could eat my apartment for an amuse bouche. As I was losing weight the last time, I signed up for a clothing rental service and rented clothes in progressively smaller sizes.

It might not work for you much longer, since the smallest size was 12, but gwinniebee.com has monthly rentals, like the old netflix, for clothes. You check out a few items then send them back when you want new things. There may be something like this for smaller sizes too. It's good quality stuff. I did it the last time I was losing weight and I enjoyed it. They provide the shippers and they wash the clothes.

You can't really get to zero sugar in anything that is milk based because lactose, which is naturally occurring in milk, is a sugar. Even though a lot of them are "lactose free" most still have some lactose and other ingredients (their ingredient lists are LOOOONG) that add a trivial amount of sugar; adding all those trivial amounts of sugar together gets one or two grams of sugar in the whole bottle. This is in contrast to a regular bottle of Nestle Quik, which would also give you protein, but probably has 20 or 40 grams of sugar or more, because it's using sugar or corn syrup to sweeten in, rather than sucralose or stevia or other artificial sweeteners.

Hope it's getting better! I haven't had surgery yet, but maybe you can reach out to someone from your treatment team? I'm mostly just commenting to support you and hope bumps your comment up.

I'm having some thoughts about food funerals. I had initially been told by my surgery center that my insurance would likely require me to lose weight between the first month of nutrition classes and the last, but I confirmed with my insurance company that they do not require this. I still would RATHER have less to lose after surgery, but I have already lost 26 lbs since I decided to have WLS, and I'm running out of steam right now from the strictness of what I've been doing. I'm not saying I want to have food funerals, per say, but like, my cousin is having family over in a few weeks and there's going to be a lot of people. She specifically asked me if it was okay if she ordered pizza since there will be so many people but she knows I'm trying not to eat a lot of carbs. I said it was fine; I'd eat a slice or too. She said she's going to make a salad too (I would have offered to make a salad but I will be out of town until that day). I know after the surgery I would have to bring something I could eat, or eat first, but for now, I just want to be like everyone else (only fatter hehehe). I am going to try to only have one slice and hopefully I'll manage that. The other tricky part is the family vacation the week before... eating at restaurants with my parents and dealing with time zones!

This is all rough. I was on medication for weight loss too, but my insurance said I didn't lose enough for them to refill it. I also have bipolar disorder and anxiety and I agree that it's hard to focus on your weight when your mental health is acting up. I am sticking with the first surgery center I went to because it's where my GP referred me and they're a large academic medical center in my area that has an excellent reputation for high volume. What you want in any surgery is for the surgeon to do a lot of your type of surgeries - practice makes perfect (I'm serious about this - I work in clinical research and all the studies show that surgeons who operate more have better outcomes, assuming the same level of complexity and that they are up to date in technique/safety protocols). I don't worry so much about the surgeon having the best bedside manner. I just want them to be technically excellent.

I loved Australia btw, we had a wonderful time. Amazing wildlife and friendly, funny people. We were in Sydney, Brisbane, and Cairns. I know it's a huge country, so we could only see a few places in two weeks. It's like people expecting to see all of the US in one vacation! We just barely made it home before COVID shut down the whole world two weeks later. I hope you don't have to pay a million dollars for shipping on these things! I live in a good sized city so now that I've been vaccinated I don't mind going to the stores to buy things and it's so much cheaper than having things delivered.

I don't have this issue but maybe you could focus on savory items? Like bone broth? I know some people have their tastes change a lot after surgery and don't like the taste of sweets/artificial sweeteners so there are definitely savory options. It will be harder though because a lot of low-carb stuff is artificially sweetened. There are also unflavored protein powders - I've heard Genepro is good. I haven't had my surgery yet so I don't have too many suggestions. What about plain greek yogurt with just berries in it (I like frozen blueberries because they're sweeter and cheaper than fresh berries and last longer). Hint water is not sweetened and you could probably make some popsicles out of it instead of the sugar free kind. PB2 - I think some kinds don't have sweetener in it. OH... just saw you're in Australia. Not sure of the brands they have there. I was in Australia Feb 2020 and I ate a lot of junk food. Maybe you could google the brands I mentioned so you know what it is and then see you have there that's similar?

I totally get that and I wouldn't judge. I love finding out how much people in my WLS FB group weigh when they post pix of themselves because I have no sense of my size. When I was abotu 13-14 I was too thin and thought was the size I am now (morbidly obese) and it's really hard for me to be realistic.

I had a somewhat similar experience, except I have not had any visits in person due to COVID - everything has been on zoom. The NP visit was a group visit and they just talked about the program and surgery in general and obesity information. I met with the surgeon who took a general medical/surgical history and asked about what surgery I was considering, but told me his recommendation was for a different surgery (I am in agreement with him). I met with the nutritionist who asked me about history of disordered eating, what I eat, if I had any things I couldn't/wouldn't eat, binging, meal skipping, night eating, use of medications for weight loss, previous weight loss attempts, etc. I met with the psychologist who took a psychological history (this was long because I have bipolar disorder and anxiety) and asked about eating disorder behaviors in detail (like restricted eating, purging, over exercising, etc). She talked about my concerns about the surgery and support systems and my expectations. I was told my insurance required 4 monthly group nutrition classes. I have gone to the first one and the second is this week. The first one was so dumb. It just covered general nutrition, what is a calorie, healthy eating, carbs, fats, etc but it doesn't talk about how to eat after surgery. Like they were showing portions that are way too big for post surgery. I tried to ask the weight center team about what tests I will need and they keep saying I won't need any (endoscopy, sleep tests, ECG, chest X-ray etc). I was surprised, but I don't have many co-morbidities other than high LDL cholesterol and mental health issues and migraines. I may or may not have GERD; there is some disagreement about that. I have some symptoms but not the standard ones. Oh, I called the surgery center the end of January and I'm told I might be able to have surgery in August!!!! This is partly insurance hoops to jump through but also COVID delays as surgeries were stopped a lot last year and also Dec-Apr this year. I hope the info @DoodlesMom and I provided is helpful for someone thinking about surgery and curious about the process.

I haven't had surgery yet, but I lost 100 lbs through diet and exercise 5 years ago (gained it all back). When I was 190 I thought I would be so happy to be in onederland, but I still saw the rolls in my stomach. I didn't know how much more I'd have to lose to be happy... then I went out with someone who dumped me because I was too fat. ?That's my second biggest fear, after regaining all the weight after surgery. I'm sorry you're struggling. I can commiserate.

I also was referred by my doctor years ago and thought about it but was too scared. I lost 100 lbs on my own then gained almost all of it back over 5 years, the last 30 lbs during COVID; that was the final straw I guess. Calling the surgeon isn't a commitment. You will still have a long time to decide assuming you have to jump through all the insurance hoops most people do. And you will need that time to prepare yourself for all the dietary and mental changes.

I will be eating out a lot after surgery as I will be traveling for work every week (assuming COVID ever ends). I plan to just eat what I want and leave the rest, or take it back to my room if I have a fridge and microwave. I had a coworker who had had VSG and that's what she did. I didn't know till later that's why she did it and I never thought twice about it. I thought she just didn't eat much. I doubt the waiters even noticed. I am in agreement with not ordering from the kids' menu. I don't even like chicken fingers and mac and cheese, and it's horrific for your new stomach. Also, I can't think of the last time I went to a restaurant and they had a senior menu, and lunch menus are pretty rare too.

I told my line manager (who has never met me - I work from home when I'm not on the road which was every week pre-covid) and she said, oh, I'm thinking about doing that! I also told one of the project managers and she asked me how much I weighed LOL! I will have to take a month off from traveling so I felt like I had to tell people something, and I'm an open book. If you don't want to be so direct, try saying you have to have abdominal surgery and it will require you not to lift anything for one month?

I tried it. Was not impressed. It was dry and gritty. But that might have just been the location we were at, as I've heard that other people really liked it.

So, I use myfitnesspal.com and you can set that up pretty easily, but it does sometimes feel overwhelming because they have such a huge database so when you look up "boneless skinless chicken thigh" there might be 30 options. They're all about the same, just different brands, but if it's a single ingredient, the differences are so small it doesn't really matter. Just enter in the ingredient by weight in grams or ounces, or if it's like a banana or a cucumber, it might say "1 medium banana" or "1 8 inch cucumber". You can also enter that you eight 1/2 or .25 of the banana or cucumber. If you have a brand name ingredient, like you bought " Dannon light and fit greek yogurt" you can just type that in and up it comes! And it usually doesn't matter what flavor you chose, because almost always all the flavors have the same nutrition. However if you actually got Chobani greek yogurt, that might have twice as many calories/carbs because that's sweetened with sugar instead of artificial sugar. Hope that helps!

I am not surprised by the confusion, but it will come up for sure in the required psych evaluation. I had some issues with restrictive eating in my early teen years but they were of limited duration and were more about other things. However, the psychologist really went into the details and also about the few times I had used purging. I don't know whether you would be denied for surgery or whether you would simply be required to have more ongoing therapy; it wasn't an issue for me. I have bipolar disorder and they are requiring that my psychopharmacologist sign off on my having surgery. So, I would at least assume they would want any current therapist you are working with to be in agreement with you having surgery. I am also not surprised that recovering from anorexia nervosa has caused your weight to increase drastically. It's pretty common, although I don't know of anyone else who has had WLS after having any eating disorders other than binge eating. How many years have you been in recovery? It seems like for me personally even the prep work I've had to do to change my eating habits to prepare for surgery has brought up some of the issues I had with restrictive eating, like trying to be "perfect" in my diet, and feeling like no foods are truly healthy enough. It's a real struggle. Good luck!

There is a clothing site called gwinnie bee that does plus size clothing rental. You can have a few pieces out at one time depending on the cost of the plan. https://closet.gwynniebee.com/pages/join I joined years ago when I was losing weight the last time. They have sizes 12+ I think. You can order things to wear at one size, wear them once or a few times then return them for something new or in a smaller size. They are totally great for business casual as long as you're willing to wear dresses and/or fancy shirts. It's essentially clothing rental. I didn't think I'd like it but the quality is quite good. They wash the pieces when you send them back in pre-paid bags. I might have changed since I did it years ago.