Lifestyle Changer

Holy Moly it’s been a year this month! I have attached a photo and it’s actually hard to look at! I have some work to do yet and I have moved my goal weight around so I am not done yet but what a ride If I can do it at 50 anyone can !

You should setup an appointment with a nutritionist. The nutritionist can direct you to the proper foods which will help shrink your liver and losing weight. Good luck to you.

My therapist I’ve been seeing for about 2 years has helped me in various way to deal with the issues of my ptsd. She is also helping me to look at myself to figure out what is triggering my bad eating habits.
Finding a reputable a therapist that firsts helps sort out your emotional needs. Second check by asking if they can help you with your emotions that triggers your bad habits of eating. Insurance will pay for a therapist that treats for emotional issues. A therapist with the added help with eating is usually from emotional issues. You need to check your insurance of therapist that they cover. Then start researching and calling them with the questions along with helping clients with emotional issues do you also help clients learn to look at the emotions that trigger the bad eating habits.

Hi
Thanks for your advice. I'm actually under the tier 3 weight loss service and this is through them. I am following their paperwork. I will potentially seek out further advice very soon x

I’m a month a 2 days post op. I was just starting the purée foods and having cottage cheese and scrambled eggs. A few days ago I started getting nauseated all the time. It was continuing when I’d be doing things around the house. I called my doctor who got back to me with an hour. He told me to go back to the liquid diet. He also wanted me to continue to wear my binder. The reason I need to wear a binder is that I’ve been recovering from a pain hematoma that developed between the outer stomach and the muscle. The doctor believes that even if most of my pain has subsided, the muscles are still not completely healed. He mentioned that when I’m up and around doing things my system can’t handle it. Therefore it’s causing the nausea. My doctor said if I go back on the liquid diet and continue with bed rest for a bit longer my stomach will heal and I can start back to the phase of eating.

Hi everyone
i just wanted to check in say after three plus years maintain weight and activity level is through the roof staying very busy
i will start checking in more often hope all well with all of you cheers

Husky mama mentioned using the Baritastic app. I’ve been using this app since I started the required weight loss program prior to my surgery. BTW my gastric sleeve surgery was 11/01/21. I love using this app. I found out there is a timer. My nutritionist suggested that when eating there should be at least 20 seconds between each bite. That means put your fork down and chew your bites thoroughly then swallow. There are exceptions to the rule with foods such as scrambled eggs, yogurt etc. With that said this will help slow down your eating. The question is are you eating too fast and finishing your meals in less than 20 to 30 minutes. If you have a scale go back and start weighing your food again. Finally if your weighing yourself everyday day you’re not going to see changes. Pick a specific day and time to weigh yourself. Then weigh yourself once a week on the that specific day you chose and you may see some progress. I wish you the best and please don’t give up. You’ve gotten a lot of good advice and I hope you will read them use these to help you succeed with your weight loss. Keep us updated on your progress as all of us want to continue to support you. 🙏🙏🙏

Husky mama mentioned using the Baritastic app. I’ve been using this app since I started the required weight loss program prior to my surgery. BTW my gastric sleeve surgery was 11/01/21. I love using this app. I found out there is a timer. My nutritionist suggested that when eating there should be at least 20 seconds between each bite. That means put your fork down and chew your bites thoroughly then swallow. There are exceptions to the rule with foods such as scrambled eggs, yogurt etc. With that said this will help slow down your eating. The question is are you eating too fast and finishing your meals in less than 20 to 30 minutes. If you have a scale go back and start weighing your food again. Finally if your weighing yourself everyday day you’re not going to see changes. Pick a specific day and time to weigh yourself. Then weigh yourself once a week on the that specific day you chose and you may see some progress. I wish you the best and please don’t give up. You’ve gotten a lot of good advice and I hope you will read them use these to help you succeed with your weight loss. Keep us updated on your progress as all of us want to continue to support you. 🙏🙏🙏

My pain is finally starting to subside. It’s so boring having to bed rest most of the time. I’m able to walk around for 15 to 20 minutes before I start getting a some nausea. I think that is caused by pain. As long as I wear my binder everyday it gives me the support I need until the pain totally subsides. Hopefully after Thanksgiving I can do even more walking.

Well, I didn't cancel quite as dramatically as you did.
In 2013, I started down the path, doing pre-op visits, etc. At the same time, I started Tim Ferriss's slow carb diet. I did great, had a ton of weight coming off. I realize now that his plan re-inforced my binge eating habits in a way that made it impossible for me to maintain once I went off the diet. But at the time, I had this confidence that I could do anything.
The nutritionist asked me what I was doing to lose weight and I explained the diet. She told me that I needed to realize that once I had the surgery I couldn't eat like that any more. Now that I am post-surgery, I see that she was absolutely right. But at the time, it offended me. I was losing weight like crazy (ended up losing 150 pounds in 13 months) and she had the audacity to tell me that I couldn't keep doing it? I cancelled the rest of my appointments. It was another 8 years before I re-started the process and went through with the surgery in August 2021.
Before my actual surgery, I had a lot of the same fears you did. RNY is a pretty freaking permanent and I had no clue what awaited on the other side of surgery. Laying alone on the gurney during pre-op, not knowing what life would hold when I awoke...that was tough. I had always seen VSG/RNY as my last resort. What I realized was that I had come to my last resort. The next diet was very likely to turn out like all of the others: works for a little while, but the weight comes back. I didn't want to do that to my body (and mind) any more. I have a wife and four kids and they deserved to have me around for a while longer. So I went through with it not because I had confidence that everything would be roses and rainbows on the other side, but because it was the best (and probably only) option for me to turn around my health. Bariatric surgery is a bet on yourself. It's a bet that you have more discipline than you realize (or that your body shape shows) and that if given a real opportunity, you can turn this around permanently. Are you ready to bet on yourself?

My medical team told us 1 year!

I had my surgery 11/01. It’s interesting how your psych evaluation lasted only about 5 minutes. I don’t how they can determine anything with that. However, I’m sure you’re ready to handle your surgery as they wouldn’t have passed you through. When I had my telehealth psych evaluation at lasted the whole entire hour. Plus they asked me if I have an outside therapist that works with me due to history of mental health. I told them I do. The psychiatrist also asked me if my therapist can work with me about what triggers me to eat the bad foods. I told her yes and that my therapist has been working with me since I started the program. So I was lucky to have my outside therapist that works with me on my mental health issues and helps me figure out what triggers I need to deal with so I don’t end up back to eating the bad foods. I will be having a second psych evaluation after my 3 month follow up with my doctor. Best wishes with your upcoming surgery.

I had my surgery on the 24th and the surgeon used the DaVinci robot. Some things I didn’t realize before:

* they tie up your arms over your head to get them out of the way
* I had a small bruise on my wrist from the restraint
* My shoulders hurt, not just from gas, but also that position. The muscles are seriously mad at me. Every time I try to lower myself into a chair, or get out of bed it makes my shoulders hurt super bad.
* I have a mystery cut on my upper arm that I haven’t had a chance to ask the surgeon about. Looks like they fixed it up for me. I’m guessing my skin got pinched (I have loose skin there from losing weight and it’s paper thin and tears easily).

All of my incisions are incredibly small, maybe less than 1”. None of the incision sites hurt, or are bruised or swollen. There ended up being 5 incisions. One just under my chest, another next to my belly button, then three on my lower abdomen.

The surgery took 2 hours for a SADI.

I was in terrible pain post op, it took several days to get a handle on it. Luckily they were fine with giving me whatever I needed to make the pain stop, as often as needed. I have stage IV endometriosis so some of the pain was probably from my adhesions too.

So I’m not really sure if the robot made it better than normal surgery? It made some things worse and others better.

I just had my Psych Evaluation, what a joke. The email said to prepare a quiet area for 1 hour. The teleconference was not more than 5 minutes. The therapist said they need the other 55 minutes to write up your report. All she did was ask me questions. I guess it's just a formality.

I got my surgery date for the sleeve for December 22, 2021 in Sebastian, Florida. Let's get through the pre stuff together.

Yes, I feel hungry too. I’m on purées right now. Couldn’t wait for purées and now can’t wait for the next phase.

You made my day, thank you so much! Be waiting for the solid food phase!

Monday is the day!!!

We made it through the 2 week full liquid pre op diet and are both very anxious about Monday. Mine is at 1145 and my wife’s is at 145. Hoping for a good and speedy recovery!

As of today (7 days pre op) I’m officially down 21 lbs

Mine is Protein Shakes for Breakfast and lunch
fruit snack
Protein snack (2 oz of cheese, yogurt, or 2 boiled eggs)
1 sensible dinner and I can choose a protein, vegetable, starch)

My gastric sleeve surgery was about was just over 3 weeks ago. I’m still on bariatric III which is the liquid and some full liquid diet. This is my first Thanksgiving. My husband, sister and brother-in-law had all the traditional turkey fixings and Desserts. I had Progresso Tomato Soup. Then a couple hours later I had some Sugar Free Chocolate pudding. I guess you can say I had a non traditional turkey dinner. Happy Thanksgiving to you all

I’m sorry for what you are going through. It’s concerning that your team isn’t even willing to bring you in for an exam to actually make sure things are medically ok. It appears the only person on your side is your therapist. Maybe you can setup an appointment with your PCP to be checked out. Also instead of therapy once a week maybe for a few weeks or until the holidays are over having therapy two times a week. Try to journaling your thoughts. You don’t have to organize them just keep writing down them. This might help you find what could be triggering your desire to eating. You can bring this to your therapist. I do journaling i don’t do it everyday. Those days I do journal I find it helps me what triggers my bad eating habits. I’m able to bring my journal to my therapist and that’s when the hard work happens to work on turning the bad habits around to something more constructive and positive. I wish you the best and I hope you can get things resolved soon.

I’m still on the bariatric diet 3 which is full liquids. My nutritionist has me starting on cottage cheese, scrambled and other soft textured foods. I love cottage cheese with chives. I had a bit of that the other day. I tasted so good. It was nice to have something to eat that had texture instead of liquids. About an hour after I had it I ended up having a real bad case of diarrhea. I waited a few days later to try eating the cottage cheese again. I had gotten the same problem. Apparently my system at this time can’t handle cottage cheese. However I’m able to use Simply Smart milk with my shakes.

I’m sorry for what you are going through. It’s concerning that your team isn’t even willing to bring you in for an exam to actually make sure things are medically ok. It appears the only person on your side is your therapist. Maybe you can setup an appointment with your PCP to be checked out. Also instead of therapy once a week maybe for a few weeks or until the holidays are over having therapy two times a week. Try to journaling your thoughts. You don’t have to organize them just keep writing down them. This might help you find what could be triggering your desire to eating. You can bring this to your therapist. I do journaling i don’t do it everyday. Those days I do journal I find it helps me what triggers my bad eating habits. I’m able to bring my journal to my therapist and that’s when the hard work happens to work on turning the bad habits around to something more constructive and positive. I wish you the best and I hope you can get things resolved soon.

Hello Everyone,
I am having the gastric sleeve done at 10:30 tomorrow morning. This forum has been a big help as to what to expect after surgery. I am claiming a safe and successful surgery with minimal to no pain and the ability to get liquids down without a problem. Best Wishes to each and everyone of us.

So I had the sleeve surgery October of 2014, day of surgery I was 343.6 pounds. I'm 6'1. At the bottom weight I was 166 (way to small). I'm gaining weight to the point that where I'm back up at the 250 area. I dont want to be a failure, I dont want to be the unsuccessful stories you hear about, but I just can find the proper mindset to get back on track. I'm only 30-40 pounds over the goal weight which I know is achievable with a little work. But I just get get back there mentally. If there is anyone out there that can relate, that has any ideas that could help me that would be grand. I'm so scared right now it's the WORSE time of year, days from Thanksgiving and Christmas.
My mind set is all over the place, im disappointed that I've allowed myself back here, im scared what the holidays will bring....... I just dont know how to do it.
If you read this and have a helpful opinion please leave it. You don't have to suger coat it, I cant take it blunt.