SleeveToBypass2023

Actually, I found I can tolerate it better lol I never liked the taste of it, but I dealt with it. Now it doesn't bother me at all. Not gonna say it's yummy, but there's no aversion to it. And as for my stomach, no issues with it here. Maybe you just have a bad tummy week? Idk. I hope it gets better....otherwise just have a spit rag with you when you do the dirty 😂

I take all my other Vitamins and supplements, just not Calcium. I get so much from the almond milk, cheese, sour cream, and other foods that I have everyday that I haven't needed to take it. And my blood work always comes back good. Almond milk has a lot more calcium than cow's milk, so maybe that's why.

I did full liquids for 10 days (was supposed to be 2 weeks but I couldn't take it anymore). Then I went to mushy foods like hummus, avocado, etc... I did that for a week. Then I just went to soft foods for about 2 weeks and then went to regular foods. For both surgeries. My nutritionist said as long as I went really slow and listened to my body, it was fine. No 2 plans are the same, and no 2 bodies respond the same.

I honestly don't take an extra Calcium anymore. I take the bariatric Multivitamin w/ Iron in the morning and that's it. I was told once you hit 6 months out, you don't need it anymore because you'll get what you need from your food. Hmmm...I wonder if I should ask about it again.

I honestly don't take an extra Calcium anymore. I take the bariatric Multivitamin w/ Iron in the morning and that's it. I was told once you hit 6 months out, you don't need it anymore because you'll get what you need from your food. Hmmm...I wonder if I should ask about it again.

So when I had my revision, it was for complications. I was told to expect no more than 45-60 additional pounds of weight loss, because you only lose about 50% of your excess weight with a revision. Well, if you look at my signature, you can see I've lost more than that lol It wasn't easy, and the weight comes off slower and can be a bit harder to lose, but it's possible if you do the work.

So when I had my revision, it was for complications. I was told to expect no more than 45-60 additional pounds of weight loss, because you only lose about 50% of your excess weight with a revision. Well, if you look at my signature, you can see I've lost more than that lol It wasn't easy, and the weight comes off slower and can be a bit harder to lose, but it's possible if you do the work.

For those that are interested in this, is HSA and/or FSA accepted for payment? Is this compounded and not the commercially available stuff? How long after you have bariatric surgery do you have to wait before you can take this medication?Personally, I won't be partaking, but I've seen many posts on here from others who want to, so I was just thinking of questions that weren't mentioned in the original post.

When they do surgery often they tilt the table and it can put a lot of pressure on your lower spine/back. I've had multiple surgeries done and each time I have lower back pain for weeks because it pisses off the arthritis in my back when they tilt the table and I lay that way for hours. LOL I also got back pain as the weight started to come off at first. I don't know why it was worse then than now, but it was. I think it is because of the change in center of gravity, as noted above.
If you notice you are needing pain meds for it or it is worsening, definitely ping your doctor about it.
Oh and if you still have a uterus it could be cramping from that locale too. I used to feel that a LOT in my lower back before my hysterectomy.

You look AMAZING! really well done! I am so happy for you and I hear everything you say. I have increased my intake on the days I workout to a 1000, let's see how it goes ❤️

I’m not a doctor but a teacher who works with neurodivergent people. Many of the children walk on their toes and have “swayback.” It’s treatable with PT but NOT harmful so most places don’t treat it. It would take years, and would only help the appearance of the stomach. It doesn’t change the fat distribution, just helps lengthen the torso and help the walking gate, alleviates cramps in the legs too. I can’t diagnose you, it’s just a hunch about the swayback. There’s a PBS documentary called “The Faun” related to the intense body work involved. And, of course swayback can happen independently from any neurological issues! (I just find find neurological differences more interesting than us muggles lol.)

I can relate to being afraid of gaining weight after working so hard to lose it. We all deal with that here. But it's a fine line between being mindful about it and developing disordered eating habits. I can speak to this because it happened to me. I was dropping weight like a champ, then I hit stall after stall, and each one lasted longer than the previous one. And I would panic. And I would restrict the amount I ate, I would kick up the intensity and frequency of my work outs. I would have anger and confusion and fear anytime I either didn't lose or I gained a little (turns out, I'm one of the ones that gains 3-5 pounds during a stall and then just sits there for weeks and weeks. Then when the stall breaks, I drop like 6-7 pounds all at once). I had to actually go to a therapist that specializes in bariatric disordered eating (not easy to find, btw) to get my head on straight. And it's still a struggle sometimes. Especially since these last 11 pounds absolutely fight me tooth and nail and just don't want to come off.
I said all that to say just be very careful. I never started out intending to have these issues. I thought I'd have the surgery, lose the weight, get healthy, and bada-boom bada-bing, life would be great. But it's never that cut and dry, is it? We can become obsessed with losing the weight, seeing how low we can get the scale, getting into that lower size, looking thinner, never gaining weight again, getting that bmi just a little lower.....and before you know it, you have a whole new eating disorder that's even harder to get out of and we're doing even more damage to our bodies without even meaning to. And we can justify what we're doing because HEY, we got off our meds, we're getting healthier, we're losing the weight, we're EXTENDING OUR LIVES damn it!!! And that's harder to overcome and harder to recognize and going too far than being obese is. We knew we needed help. We knew we were doing wrong. That's why we had the surgery. But now? Now it gets harder to see what we're doing because HEALTH!! WEIGHT LOSS IS GOOD!!! NO MORE MEDS IS THE GOAL!!! JUST A LITTLE MORE WEIGHT OFF CAN'T POSSIBLY BE BAD!!! So please please just be really careful with where you're at now and where you're wanting to get to.
Lastly, on the days you're working out (especially the really hard weight days) increase your Protein and calories. Your body thinks it's starving, so you need to reassure it that you're not. The heavier the work out, the more your body needs. You can't run a car without gas and you can't run your body without food. So give it what it needs, in the amounts it needs, and it'll do what you want it to. Make sure you also have a larger amount of fluids than you normally would on those days, too. Dehydration can really do a number on the body, as well.

You're only 5 days post op, so it could be Constipation, gas from the surgery (it travels and causes A LOT of pain until it finally dissipates), your body recovering from the surgery, the weight starting to come off...any number of things. Make sure you're walking, getting your fluids in (especially fluids with Protein in it), and take Miralax in your drinks to help move things along.

I'm also just a year post-op, and I recently had some super weird severe shoulder pain (saw the Dr 😁) and I took a couple Advil/ibuprofen maybe 3x-4x in total over the course of a couple weeks. I ate first, and chewed a couple Tums. There was recently an episode of Dr. Weiner's podcast A Pound of Cure, where he addresses NSAIDs after bypass, and he touches on the spectrum of a very limited, careful taking of ibuprofen for a specific short term pain, vs someone who might have a chronic pain issue or injury that needs continuous dosing. Good luck and hope your jaw feels better soon!

Hi, welcome! I read the posts here a lot before my first post too and felt like I knew everyone even though they didn't know me! LOL It is a funny feeling...

My first thought is you aren't eating enough to be physically active. The body is pretty particular about how much energy it gets and after bariatric surgery our metabolism gets a nice reset (it is part of what helps us lose the weight) but to maintain that nice, new metabolism we need to EAT. And what is enough when you are mildly active isn't near enough when you are doing things that strain your heart, muscles, and burn a good bit of fuel. So I agree with the above, I'd eat more on days you work out. 65 grams of Protein isn't enough for working out, I'd add in at least a Protein Shake, a little healthy fat, and some complex carbs.
Second, it is normal to stall for a few weeks at any point, but it is especially normal if you start working out, or if you increase your workouts. This is because it changes the Fluid balance in our bodies and the body takes a bit to even out. Some people even see increases on their scale when they start adding in more workouts! So if that happens, don't panic. We can also stall when our food intake changes. This is commonly seen when you go from fluids to solid food, but it can also happen if you jump in calories at any point, even if it is a needed point. My stalls seem to last for 6 weeks at a time. It is super irritating.
At 4 months out you are not likely to be done losing weight yet. You may lose a little bit more. But weight loss slows WAY down the closer to goal we get and you are on the small end at this point so I wouldn't be surprised if it slows now. The most rapid weight loss is the first 3 months, then it tapers off slowly depending on how much you need to lose. Since you are used to being at the lower end of your BMI it is reasonable to expect you may drop a bit more to have the space you want if you rebound some. Just be careful not to starve yourself to get those extra lbs off, if it isn't sustainable for your body you'll really have to fight for it and it could damage that nice new metabolism in the process!
Oh, and weight redistributes after weight loss. So you may look a little thin now and it may balance out a bit in the next year. This happens especially around the face for some people.

You can do this!! You are a beast woman!! If you need any support after the hysterectomy feel free to message, I've lived that recovery. Honestly with all the other surgeries you've had, I hope this one will be par for the course and you'll be back on your feet in no time, feeling better than ever.
I highly recommend you get the disposable mesh postpartum underwear from Amazon, they are the only thing I could tolerate on my abdomen for weeks. Also, yoga blocks or something to prop your feet up a bit on when you go to the bathroom will make those bowel movements easier post op when you aren't supposed to bear down at all. I lived on prunes for 12 weeks because for me they work gentler than laxatives! But you are probably an old hand at the post surgery bowel game by now...
For me the hardest thing was to stay down and REST!! You wear out much faster than you'd expect for the first few months, and honestly it was pretty close to a year before I felt back to a normal normal. All the changes in the body are weird. Feeling my bowel drop into the space when I rolled over one night was VERY strange! LOL But I'm sure you know all this. I'll be sending you tons of good juju! You will be amazed and delighted at how light your pelvis feels once those fibroids are out of there! I am still amazed at how light my lower abdomen feels. I didn't realize how accustomed I had become to feeling that boggy heaviness in that area all the time...

Wow. Ten surgeries in a life time seems a lot, never mind two years, that’s a lot of recovery time!! I am really happy for you that this is your last and wish you the best of luck on your upcoming surgery.

Having my total hysterectomy on May 7th. They can't go in laparoscopically, so it'll be an abdominal hysterectomy. Taking out everything: uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix. I have 3 VERY large uterine fibroids that have made my uterus (and stomach now) the size of someone who is 5 or 5 1/2 months pregnant. I may, in the next couple of years, get skin surgery but I'm still thinking about it. Let's see if I have any cardiac issues with this surgery (like I did with the hernia repair surgery) before I make anymore decisions about elective surgeries. I can't wait for this to be done and over with and I can finally just live my dang life!!!
From my initial sleeve surgery in May 2022 to the hysterotomy in May 2024, I will have had 10 surgeries in 2 years (thanks to all the complications from the sleeve surgery). The uterine fibroids were actually discovered while doing tests for the other issues caused by the sleeve, so it still counts as the reason for the surgery being caused by the sleeve lol Anyway, so happy to finally be at the last chapter of this book!!!

You might want to find another doctor. Not doing an ultrasound, not mentioning even the possibility of pcos, not entertaining the idea that cysts and/or fibroids could be the problem....not good.

I have pcos, and this is what I experience all the time. Before and after my surgery. An ultrasound should have been one of the first things they did. I would insist on it before they put you through more invasive testing.

Having my total hysterectomy on May 7th. They can't go in laparoscopically, so it'll be an abdominal hysterectomy. Taking out everything: uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix. I have 3 VERY large uterine fibroids that have made my uterus (and stomach now) the size of someone who is 5 or 5 1/2 months pregnant. I may, in the next couple of years, get skin surgery but I'm still thinking about it. Let's see if I have any cardiac issues with this surgery (like I did with the hernia repair surgery) before I make anymore decisions about elective surgeries. I can't wait for this to be done and over with and I can finally just live my dang life!!!
From my initial sleeve surgery in May 2022 to the hysterotomy in May 2024, I will have had 10 surgeries in 2 years (thanks to all the complications from the sleeve surgery). The uterine fibroids were actually discovered while doing tests for the other issues caused by the sleeve, so it still counts as the reason for the surgery being caused by the sleeve lol Anyway, so happy to finally be at the last chapter of this book!!!

You're only 5 days post op, so it could be Constipation, gas from the surgery (it travels and causes A LOT of pain until it finally dissipates), your body recovering from the surgery, the weight starting to come off...any number of things. Make sure you're walking, getting your fluids in (especially fluids with Protein in it), and take Miralax in your drinks to help move things along.

Having my total hysterectomy on May 7th. They can't go in laparoscopically, so it'll be an abdominal hysterectomy. Taking out everything: uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix. I have 3 VERY large uterine fibroids that have made my uterus (and stomach now) the size of someone who is 5 or 5 1/2 months pregnant. I may, in the next couple of years, get skin surgery but I'm still thinking about it. Let's see if I have any cardiac issues with this surgery (like I did with the hernia repair surgery) before I make anymore decisions about elective surgeries. I can't wait for this to be done and over with and I can finally just live my dang life!!!
From my initial sleeve surgery in May 2022 to the hysterotomy in May 2024, I will have had 10 surgeries in 2 years (thanks to all the complications from the sleeve surgery). The uterine fibroids were actually discovered while doing tests for the other issues caused by the sleeve, so it still counts as the reason for the surgery being caused by the sleeve lol Anyway, so happy to finally be at the last chapter of this book!!!

I can relate to being afraid of gaining weight after working so hard to lose it. We all deal with that here. But it's a fine line between being mindful about it and developing disordered eating habits. I can speak to this because it happened to me. I was dropping weight like a champ, then I hit stall after stall, and each one lasted longer than the previous one. And I would panic. And I would restrict the amount I ate, I would kick up the intensity and frequency of my work outs. I would have anger and confusion and fear anytime I either didn't lose or I gained a little (turns out, I'm one of the ones that gains 3-5 pounds during a stall and then just sits there for weeks and weeks. Then when the stall breaks, I drop like 6-7 pounds all at once). I had to actually go to a therapist that specializes in bariatric disordered eating (not easy to find, btw) to get my head on straight. And it's still a struggle sometimes. Especially since these last 11 pounds absolutely fight me tooth and nail and just don't want to come off.
I said all that to say just be very careful. I never started out intending to have these issues. I thought I'd have the surgery, lose the weight, get healthy, and bada-boom bada-bing, life would be great. But it's never that cut and dry, is it? We can become obsessed with losing the weight, seeing how low we can get the scale, getting into that lower size, looking thinner, never gaining weight again, getting that bmi just a little lower.....and before you know it, you have a whole new eating disorder that's even harder to get out of and we're doing even more damage to our bodies without even meaning to. And we can justify what we're doing because HEY, we got off our meds, we're getting healthier, we're losing the weight, we're EXTENDING OUR LIVES damn it!!! And that's harder to overcome and harder to recognize and going too far than being obese is. We knew we needed help. We knew we were doing wrong. That's why we had the surgery. But now? Now it gets harder to see what we're doing because HEALTH!! WEIGHT LOSS IS GOOD!!! NO MORE MEDS IS THE GOAL!!! JUST A LITTLE MORE WEIGHT OFF CAN'T POSSIBLY BE BAD!!! So please please just be really careful with where you're at now and where you're wanting to get to.
Lastly, on the days you're working out (especially the really hard weight days) increase your Protein and calories. Your body thinks it's starving, so you need to reassure it that you're not. The heavier the work out, the more your body needs. You can't run a car without gas and you can't run your body without food. So give it what it needs, in the amounts it needs, and it'll do what you want it to. Make sure you also have a larger amount of fluids than you normally would on those days, too. Dehydration can really do a number on the body, as well.

So...I'm struggling with how to answer this because I want to give you helpful information, but I still have questions. I guess I'll jump right in and see how it goes.

1) You started off at a lower weight to begin with, so your body is likely at the point now where it's at it's healthiest. As of right now, you're 5'5" and 136 pounds with a bmi of 22. You're exactly where you should be. If you lose 15 more pounds, you'll weight 121 pounds and have a bmi of 20. On paper, that's still healthy. But my concern is you're becoming addicted to losing the weight and even though you're exactly where you should be (and could even gain 10 pounds and still be where you should to be) you'll panic and possibly go about things in an unhealthy way to drop those pounds.
2) Were there other reasons besides your weight that led you to getting the surgery? Did you have any comorbidities such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, etc? You didn't mention that. My fear is, if you only wanted to drop weight and your bmi was 33 to begin with, and now you're wanting to continue to drop even though you're being told you look "stick thin" (and you're in the healthy range now but still want to go lower), that this might have more to do with the number on the scale than getting healthy.
3) Stalls are normal, and happen all the time. The fact that you haven't had one until 4 months out is actually kind of surprising. They do break on their own, but honestly, you may lose little weight going forward (and what you DO lose will likely come off slowly) since you're already well within the healthy and normal range and your body feels it's happy at its new set point.
4) Your body likely thinks it's in starvation mode, based on how you're working out and lifting and what you're eating. The harder the workouts, the more calories you need. Prioritize Protein first above all else, then veggies, then carbs and healthy fats. But you definitely need to increase your calorie intake. This isn't necessarily advice for dropping more weight (although that tends to happen when things like this go on) but for healthy purposes. If your body thinks it's starving, it'll hold on to every single calorie and bit of fat. And it'll eat away at muscle before fat just to make sure you survive. So my suggestion is to increase your calories. I don't do heavy lifting, but I DO do weight training, and on those days, I go up to 1400 calories. Core and strength training, I go up to 1300 calories. Cardio I go up to 1200 calories. Non work out days I eat around 1000 calories.
5) You didn't mention what surgery you had, but I'm assuming it's the sleeve. If I may ask, what made you choose having surgery versus doing anything else for weight loss? Have you tried changing your eating habits before, did you try medication, or did you go right to surgery? How have you changed the way you eat, and what you eat, since the surgery? How much Fluid are you taking in every day? How much protein and carbs are you taking in each day? Are you taking your Vitamins every day? How many days per week are you working out (should give yourself 2 days off ideally, but for sure at least 1).