Beadingnurse

Congratulations on your success! You have lost a lot of weight in 3 short months and definitely a lot of weight if you start with your beginning weight loss! Whoohoo! You may have answered a question for me in that in the past week or so I too have been having a lot of pain in the rhomboid muscle area but I wasn't sure what is causing it. I've never really had back pain before so this was a total surprise to me. What are you doing to relieve it? I started doing some exercises last night to strengthen my back but I am not sure if what I am doing will help. I also took an anti inflammatory med this morning and it is not as painful today. Congratulations again!

I am officially 35 lbs down from what I weighed the day that I had my first surgeon's pre-op appointment and less than 2 months from my surgery date! I lost about 8 lbs during my 2 week pre-op diet so it is really just a bit over 2 months but I am thrilled. I expected to lose more slowly since I had less total pounds to lose but I am very happy with the pace. At this rate I will be to my goal long before my next birthday (March) which was my BIG goal. I have been promising myself on my birthday every year for years that this would be the year that I would lose 50 lbs. Know what? This year I am really doing it! Doing the happy dance today..... :party4: How lucky are we to have access to this surgical procedure and the amazing amount of support available with this board?? Thanks everyone for answering my many questions before surgery and for being there for me when I had dozens more after the surgery! :thankyou:

I find my taste for foods have changed too. I used to have such a sweet tooth and now I feel physically sick if I take a bite of something very sweet. I tried some yogurt with caramel sauce on it (hubby's) and couldn't eat it. I can eat plain yogurt but it seems to be the sweet sauces that turn my stomach. I guess I shouldn't complain! You may find that your appetite for your chicken returns after awhile too...I've heard people say that their tastes sometimes returns.

Great idea...I am eating my cold lunch at work right now and I think I will see if I can find a warmer this weekend.

I don't think 75 lbs lost since January is slow at all! I think it is amazing and congratulations for all of your hard work! It would seem like you'd have more comments about your weight loss but honestly most people are so involved in their own lives that they don't pay as much attention to us as we think!! I will be seeing some family members later this month who haven't seen me in over a year and I have a bet with my hubby that several of them won't notice at all that I have lost weight. It isn't nearly as much as you but I've lost a lot in my abdomen and I FEEL like it is pretty dramatic. Congratulations again and sounds like it is time to post some pictures!

I don't have COPD but I do have asthma and I can't believe how much better it is. I am not short of breath walking like before the surgery and I don't cough as much. I think your COPD will improve after surgery. Good luck!

Yep...sounds very familiar! I don't think I ever throw up all the contents of my stomach; it feels like it is just the last few bites. I've thrown up twice at work and I agree that bathroom is a LONG way away! Oh well...we will learn from our mistakes.

I was only in the hospital overnight and my drain (a Jackson-Pratt) was removed before I left the hospital. It didn't hurt...just felt funny coming out.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! That is great news! The only thing I did other than my 2 week diet (which was a low carb one...not a liquid diet) was to read the posts on this board obsessively. It was very helpful because I felt like I was as prepared as I could possibly be. Good luck and congratulations again!

Hi Tamz, I just looked to see where Frisco, Texas is to see if I could go with you to surgery but darn sweetie...you are too far away from Austin! I totally agree with the posters that you have all of us and there is always someone available day or night on this forum who will answer your questions or offer support. Many folks on here go to Mexico and have the surgery totally alone. I am in awe of their courage in traveling to another country where they may not speak the language to have surgery alone. At least you will have cutie pie doctor looking out for you! You will be able to eat all of your favorite foods in the future but you won't be held hostage by them! You will be able to have a couple of bites and feel satisfied and that is amazing and wonderful. Good luck... I will send you good healing thoughts on the day of your surgery.

2 months for me but I also had a large hiatal hernia repair so the work on my diaphragm was more painful and extensive than the sleeve surgery. Check with your doctor and see what is recommended.

I did the same thing today...bought lunch in my work cafeteria and ended up throwing away 90% of it. Normally I bring my lunch but I forgot to pick it up this morning. It IS still a shock at how little food I can eat at one time. I am definitely not complaining!

I know it is hard to go through but this really is normal. Our bodies react in different ways to the dramatic reduction in calories and some go into stalls for a few weeks or longer. Continue working your plan and know that the weight loss will kick back in. You won't be the person the sleeve fails if you are eating according to your plan. Adding exercise may help break the stall and it certainly won't hurt if you have the time to get started exercising. Good luck! We will see you posting about your weight losses soon.

WhooHoo! Good for you Chickadee! :cheer2: You are making amazing progress....congratulations on all of your hard work. It is SO totally worth it!

I bought an assortments of soups from the grocery and blended them before eating (I have a VitaMix) to give me some variety. It made it a lot easier to stay on the food plan because I could have bean soups that tasted a lot better than the shakes did! I also like the Unjury products and the Atkins Dk Chocolate Royale shakes. Good luck!

Good topic! Sounds like many of us have some of the same themes. I was actually slender until my mid-thirties and but then I had to have my thyroid removed. Even though I am on replacement thyroid medications my metabolism was never the same and I began to gradually add weight until I ended up at age 56 ranging between 190 and 200 lbs. I have a lot of diabetes in my family and like Applesaucy...deaths from the complications. My younger, slim brother was diagnosed with diabetes about 5 years ago and became insulin dependent within 2 years. His life will undoubtedly be cut short by this disease and he does all of the right things and gets superb Medical care. So...in February of 2010 my PCP told me I that need to lose 60+ lbs and that I was diabetic too. He suggested WLS. I was actually MAD...I wasn't "THAT" fat! Oh denial...what a friend you are! I was truly angry and knew I could lose the weight on my own. I joined Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time and lost 14 lbs over about 6 months. Then I spent the next 6 months gaining that back with additional weight. In February of THIS year when I went back for my annual physical weighing more than I had the previous year I had to face the fact that I couldn't do it alone. My choice was to let my diabetes progress and die from complications or I could find another way to lose the weight. I went to the my first weight loss seminar intending to have the lap band but the more I listened to the details of that surgery I knew it wasn't for me. I knew nothing about the sleeve until that night but walked away knowing that it was a better choice. My BIG goal is to achieve my weight loss goal by my birthday on March 6 of next year!

Purdy...Foxgirl is absolutely correct! The Protein is just not important right now but fluids are. None of us will starve over missing a few days or even weeks of protein! It will take awhile for the swelling to subside and your nausea to go away so be gentle with yourself. I drank a lot of just plain tap Water, Vitamin water, hot tea and chicken broth initially when I couldn't tolerate much else. For some reason I lost my taste for icy cold drinks and prefer things now at room temperature or warm. Experiment with your drinks and don't drink or try eat anything that doesn't appeal to you just to get your protein in. Good luck

Kelly, I bought several different types of Soups at the grocery and pureed them when I was at your stage of eating and that got me though. I didn't care for many of the sweet drinks either but the pureed soups gave me more of a food taste but were liquid enough to go down easily. I also felt like it took my swelling a long time to go down. I definitely progressed more slowly through the food stages than my doctor required. I was sleeved on April 12 and I still am very careful about the texture of what I eat as I feel I have a lot of restriction. Meg...you are a hoot! I'd love to see the look on the faces of the staff at your doctor's office when you line up all of your scales to weigh on! They have probably seen stranger things though. My husband tells me I should adjust my weight down by 4 lbs because my home scales seem to weigh more than the docs but I am at the doctor's so infrequently that I just can't do that. It makes more sense to me to just pick a scale and go with that one. Hope you are able to decide on a winner in the scale contest!!

I think your doctor is interested in "his" statistics rather than yours! He may want to be able say that "his" patients lose X amount of weight in X amount of time. Don't fall for it. You got some great advice here from the other posters so take care of yourself Starry. Our weight WILL come off and it is probably kinder to our bodies to do it a bit more slowly than 7 or 8 lbs a week!

I ABSOLUTELY meant to say Dogg should jump on this like a chicken on a june bug! Glad you read between the lines!

Dogg...consider calling your insurance company yourself....get the name and phone number of the insurance case manager from your coordinator at the doctor's office. A person to person conversation might help so you can explain that while these bowel issues are part of your medical history, they are not active and are not causing you problems now. I used to work in case management for an insurance company and part of what I did was pre-authorizations for surgeries and other procedures. I KNOW that it made a difference when I spoke with the patient versus a coordinator in the doctor's office who may or may not be presenting your case in the best possible way. Be pleasant and friendly but persistent and ask for a medical re-review. I don't know about HealthNet but I know if a patient requested a re-review we were required to go up another level (to the medical director usually) and look at the case again. Remind him/her of what your BMI is, how much work you have done to prepare for this surgery and how you expect the results to positively affect your health. Good luck....let this be just be a rock in the road and not a roadblock!

Maybe there are other options? Going to a very good doc in Mexico will be a lot less money. I am not familiar with the care credit offerings mentioned above but they would be worth checking out. You can also try to get a conventional loan to pay for it although I realize that it a longer shot. How about a family member? Anyone there you would feel comfortable borrowing from? If none of these work...maybe you will find a job soon that has insurance! Don't give up your dream! I am sorry that you are going through this and I hope it works out for you. Please keep us posted on how you are.

Wow...congratulations! That is a huge amount of weight to lose just since February....way to go! Next you will have to post pictures!

Congratulations!! You look like a different person and you look great! Isn't it amazing how much your body can change in as little as 4 weeks? Thanks so much for sharing!

My intake is very much like Foxbins. My doc prefers that we eat only 3 meals a day and nothing with calories in between but I can't eat enough during just 3 meals a day so I am splitting my calories up over 4 or 5 mini meals. A typical lunch for me at work is to take about 1/3 of a can of tuna fish w/fat free mayo, have a greek yogurt or cottage cheese as a snack. Breakfast might be a protein shake or a piece of deli meat with a bit of cheese. Maybe over time I will be able to reduce my eating to traditional meal times but that feels a long way away right now. I don't really have hunger but the appetite is still going strong!