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I don't have trouble with chicken. I just don't like it! Nasty... Many WLS folks have major taste changes post operatively. Every couple of weeks, try eating meat---tiny bits. Usually beef will be the last dense Protein to be tolerated. Don't give up the ship! I thought about becoming a vegetarian once, but am EXTREMELY allergic to all beans/legumes. Oh, bother...

I had surgery on 9/19. I've lost about 30 lbs... But the last 3 weeks I have went up and down 2-3 lbs, not really losing any. I tried drinking more Water, adding more Protein and nothing seems to be working. I am so discouraged! I hate to have done this for nothing. Could something be messed up? Sent from my 5054N using the BariatricPal App

Embrace the Stall http://BariatricPal.com/index.php?/topic/351046-Embrace-the-Stall

You don't have to push yourself into the pureed food stage. I had RNY gastric bypass 3 years ago. I was on Full liquids for the first 4 weeks, Pureed Foods for the next 4 and only in the 9th week did I transition to solids. So maybe your stomach is not quite ready and might need a little extra healing time. The three most important elements after gastric bypass surgery are meeting your Protein, Fluid and Vitamin daily requirements. Food is secondary because your body is converting store fat into the energy that drives your body. Thus you lose weight. Your fluid requirement is more than just Water. It includes the water in the protein shakes, milk, the water you take to take your Vitamins, the water component of Soups, drinks like crystal light, tea or decaf coffee, etc. It is important to meet this daily requirement to keep from becoming dehydrated. Also as your fat cells are eliminated they release chemicals and hormones that are stored inside. These need to be flushed from your system, through your kidneys and expelled in your urine. Your body needs fluids to make this happen. Not sure why you are feeling anemic. Your body needs two minerals: Calcium and Iron. But if you take these at the same time or near the same time, they will not allow your body to absorb them. So time separation is very important. For me I found that I took all my iron supplements at night just before bedtime. Whereas I took my calciums spread out throughout the day. That worked best for me. Without adequate iron, you will become anemic. A lack of B12 can also make you weak and tired. If you are taking B12 as a time release capsule instead of sublingual, that might cause the weakness.

I only go like once every three or four days so far!! Kinda freaks me out. I don't even feel constipated until it just hits me

I am almost 7 weeks and have only lost 17 pounds since surgery. I don't think it's humanly possible to lose 121 pounds in 7 weeks! Sent from my SM-G965U using BariatricPal mobile app

@@VSG_lauren this is EXACTLY how I feel! I thought that I was ready but boy was I in for a surprise!! I'm tired all the time, can't eat but two teaspoons of puréed anything, fatigued and a little miserable. It's unbelievable that you REALLY can't consume not even what nutritionist would say is a normal plate of something! 6 month old babies can eat more than me:(. I pray that 6 months from now that I can say it was worth it and I don't regret it either..... I'm two weeks two days post-op 9/26/14

I am one week out, and I Not been able to get my protein in yet. I have tried everything just makes me gag. This has been a slow recovery.

This is so normal, but I felt like I was the only one who felt so bad. Even the nurse at my doc's office said people go back to work with no problem after a week or two. I was out of work 4 weeks, and could have been out longer. I was very weak and tired, and just felt pretty bad in general for the first couple of weeks. It did start to improve slowly after that, and I never did just wake up one day and think - wow- I'm better now! It was gradual over months, but every day was a little better than the day before. In fact, I can remember posting early on that I wasn't sure I would do it again if I knew what I was in for. However, at almost 2 years out, I'm so happy I did! I am thrilled every day that I've been given this gift. Hang in there, drink your fluids and eat as you are supposed to, and it will get better!

Oh my gosh I feel like I’m reading my own thoughts in your post! I’m having surgery in a week, and I’m a week into pre-op diet. Struggling, but getting through. I keep second guessing myself just like you, and I also saw pictures of myself a few days ago that eliminated all doubt in my mind: I have to do this surgery. Thank you for sharing your thoughts - I have never related to something so much. I’m so glad I’m not alone in these thoughts and fears!

Hi everyone. Have been reading a lot about people getting scared and questioning their decision to have VSG and wanted to share. I’m scheduled for January 15th (a week away aghh!) and I’m currently starting week 2 of my pre-op liquid diet. The weekend was very hard because of going out with the family and them wanting to eat. But I stuck with it...but during that time, I started to freak out and question if my life was going to be like this, not being able to go out with family, friends, and never being able to eat again ( I was getting very dramatic-might have been the lack of calorie intake lol). I was really questioning my decision and even thought about calling the doctor today to postpone. I started to convince myself that I could do this on my own (especially since I’ve lost 11 lbs on the liquid diet). In the past, I’ve lost up to 70-75 lbs on my own and kept it off for over a year. So why not be able to do it again? By Sunday night I had pretty much convinced myself and was ready to call my doctor today. Then I remembered that I had never taken pictures of myself at the start of my liquid diet, which I had wanted to do to see if I saw a difference in the two weeks. So I took the pictures and had my epiphany....I hated what I saw and for a long time i had convinced myself that I looked and felt great when I didn’t. Body dysmorphia is real. When I would lose weight I still felt fat and ugly, when I wasn’t. And when I gained the weight back, I avoided mirrors and pictures and felt and imagined being smaller than I was. So I’m back on the wagon and even though I am still scared, I am excited again and will try to remember why I am doing this. Even though I’ve lost some pounds now, there is no way I could live off of protein drinks, jell-o, and broth for the rest of my life and I’m sure if I started eating again it would all come right back. Sharing because I hope other people can relate and for support bc I think we all need it, especially me. Now to finish this darn liquid diet! [emoji846]

Your body is most likely in a stall, which happens to us all. From what Ive read, its where your body is trying to catch up to your wt loss. The stall can last anywhere from couple days to months! Mine lasted 3 weeks. Try 'throwing in a wrench' in your daily food intake (as Tiff would say) up your calories couple hundred just one day, your body may be getting used to your same ol daily routine. mix it up a little, keep your body confused... hope this helps..

I'm actually supposed to do a South Beach type diet but I cheated for a whole week so I'm just going straight Protein shake diet the remainder of the time. I am to the point now where I'm not nervous about the surgery anymore and probably need to stay away from the post op boards until I'm postop. Lol. I beginning to wonder about pain and things but if I stay positive and have positive thoughts, I'll be that much more likely to have a positive experience.

My Dr suggested waiting a year after to lose weight and just be healthier. I think its just a good idea to be your healthiest before getting pregnant but that is my opinion. I waited 14 months and I was off any and all medications I was on, my blood pressure was down and my blood sugar was normal. If I would have gotten pregnant earlier, Im sure I would have been high risk. As of now I have no problems and have only gained 6 lbs in 22 weeks.

I just had the surgery on Dec 23rd and it says not to lift over 10-15 lbs for the first 6 weeks on mine. My port is up on my shoulder and not close to my abdomen. I have had no problems and it was much easier than i thought it would be. I have had no solid food for almost 4 days now and have not been hungry at all, even during Christmas dinner at my sisters.

It feels so good to know that I am not the only person who saw food as my "freind". I am 5 weeks post and struggling horribly with adjusting to my new lifestyle. Sometimes I feel like Im going through a form of with drawal because a familiar part of me is missing. My family can never understand where Im coming from or why I get soo upset when they order out or sit directly in front of me and stuff pizza in their mouths while I sip 1% milk and Protein. It gets so bad that I have to leave the room and spray lysol through out my home so that the tempting smells dont drive me absolutely crazy! I mourn my old friend all the time and I have difficulties eating and finding foods that work for me because deep down its not what Im used to.Then when I do find a healthy alternative I enjoy ,I cant enjoy it. I take 3 or 4 bites and Im completely full. any more and im on the verge of sickness. Food has gone from my best friend to that bully I avoid and am now afraid of. I have no clue how to get over this fear or where it even starts to get better. On top of that my fiance is taking to me vegas for our 6th anniversay at the end of this month and I am completely terrified I wont be able to enjoy my trip. I am technically now out of my 15-30 days puree stage but still not sure what foods I am allowed to eat or try or even if Im allowed a glass of wine on my anniversary. It all just scares me.

Sorry for how long this is- I know that I always appreciate reading detailed posts about the process, so I’m hoping other will find it helpful. I’m just starting the process of getting a VSG. I’ve thought about WLS for a long time, but have always been scared off because of the possible complications. I’m not sure what exactly changed, but, about three weeks ago, I was driving to work and the thought of getting the surgery popped into my head and suddenly I knew it was what I needed to do. Looking at the hard road ahead, I wish I had started this journey earlier in life (I’m 37), but I know I wasn’t ready for it until now. I’m in the DC area, and there are lots of hospitals and surgeons to choose from. I finally settled on Inova Fair Oaks, which is a Bariatric Center of Excellence, has great stats, and has an up-to-date website which let me register for the seminar online. (GWU never contacted me after I filled out their form. Other hospitals had outdated calendars on their websites, or no way to register online, or the websites themselves were unfinished, which I felt didn’t bode well for their programs.) I went to a seminar about two weeks ago, which was mostly basic stuff that I already knew. I had my first visit with the surgeon a few days after the seminar. The surgeon, Rajev Nain, was the same surgeon who did the seminar. He seemed a bit stiff at first, but after a while he seemed to get more comfortable and I felt like we had a good connection. He definitely didn’t come across as the a**hole surgeon stereotype you hear so much about. We first talked about my basic health history, medications, that sort of thing. I don’t have many co-morbidities yet- just hypertension and edema in my left leg. We talked about the various surgeries, and he was fine with me getting the VSG, he didn’t push for the RNY. I’m 5’1” and 355lbs. He said that he could get me to around 205 lbs with the sleeve. He was clearly just basing that on the average amount of excess weight lost with the sleeve, not anything specific to me. I would be overjoyed with 205, even though that would still leave me 100 lbs over my ideal weight. However, I also know that each individual is different, and I feel like I have it in me to go lower. I may not make it to 105, but I think I am determined enough to get myself in the mid-100s. I asked him about his experience- he’s done several hundred VSGs, and even more RNYs. He also has lots of experience with other GI surgeries. While I would have liked him to have done thousands instead of hundreds of VSGs, it is still enough that I feel safe with him. I asked about major complications, and he said that <1% of his VSG patients had had major complications. He has had no mortalities with the VSG, and one mortality with the RNY (the patient died of a pulmonary embolism the day after surgery, even though she was on blood thinners and had had her legs compressed during surgery.) Having lurked on this board for a while, the variance in different surgeons’ pre-op and post-op diet instructions has been a bit puzzling to me, and the materials from the presentation I attended were very authoritative. I will happily follow rules if I understand the reasoning behind them, but I tend to do my own research and come up with my own rules for myself if I feel like the rules I am given aren’t well supported. I was nervous to do it (because of that whole surgeon stereotype), but I told this to my surgeon, noted that his post-op diet (2 weeks Clear liquids, 2 weeks full liquids, 2 weeks purees, 2 weeks mushed-up real food, then finally real food 8 weeks after surgery) was one of the more conservative ones that I had seen, and I asked him what research had gone into making it. He laughed at that, and said that the priority for him and the other surgeons in the group was to have consistent instructions that everyone involved in the practice could refer to, so they just flipped a coin when making them. He said that the part he cared about was that he didn’t want patients going to full liquids until after he examined them at the first post-op appointment. Other than that, I could work with the NUT to come up with a post-op diet plan that worked for me. I then asked him about the 2-week pre-op liquid diet. The pre-op diet that he requires is 900 calories of Protein shakes a day. I told him that I totally understood the reason for the diet (to shrink the liver to make surgery safer), but that I didn’t understand why it had to be all liquid. Why not just 900 calories of low-carb food per day? Again, he laughed and said that there was nothing magical about the liquid part of it, it was just easier for people to stick to the diet when they didn’t have a choice about what to eat. He said that he was fine with me subbing low-carb, high-protein food into the pre-op diet, as long as the NUT approved my substitutions. He seemed to get a kick out of me and my questions. He said he could tell that I took this very seriously and had done my research. I thanked him for not treating me like an idiot, and not having a “do what I say because I am the surgeon” attitude. I have to do 6 months of “nutrition classes” to satisfy my insurance requirements, so surgery won’t be until next spring some time. I’m disappointed to have to wait so long, but I am trying to make the best of the time by really making sure I am ready for this change, and by trying to lose as much weight as I can before the surgery. I started myself on a low-carb diet of my own design, and am doing great on it so far. I’ve done low-carb diets before, and it has always been a struggle with craving carbs while on them, but I haven’t had a carb-craving yet on this one. I’ve cut out all grazing and it has helped immensely. I’m eating 1300-1500 calories a day and not feeling hungry. I know it will get harder, but right now, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

Thanks! my hubby was advising me to postpone the op until after the holiday but that takes me to Aug and I am already a bag of nerves waiting for May. I just hope that by week 7 I am able to eat and drink reasonably well with no nausea. We are going all inclusive so I am planning on having lots of protein (fingers crossed my new belly likes chicken and meat) and soups. I think there will be lots of options and I am hoping that this will be the first holiday I actually feel good about myself on. Usually I dread holidays and all the summer wear. Another reason for me not to delay wls, hopefully by the time I go in week 7 I will have shed some weight and be more focused on how I feel rather than the food etc!

Yeah, Niki! There is no ONLY about 30 pounds lost. That's terrific at six weeks! I'm glad to see that everyone is having so much success!!!

So I got approved today by Anthem BC/BS then I get a call from my gastroenterologist that I have H-Pylori...yay me Well, I had H-Pylori 7 years ago when I got my lapband and had to take 2 kinds of medicines beside an acid reducer for 2 weeks. I'm wondering if I got it again -or- if it never went away. So my surgery is 21 days away so I'm hoping he won't postpone if I start the meds tomorrow after I see him. I've been researching this bacteria a lot today and it seems the concensus is that to get rid of it completely, it would be good idea to take Probiotics too. I'll discuss this tomorrow with my doctor. Is anyone familiar with this?

Met with the surgeon today. He wants me to do a 3 week liquid pre-op diet. 3 weeks! That will be absolutely brutal. Also, he mentioned that I can't use my bi-pap for a few days after surgery so I don't swallow too much air. But my AHI is 137 so that seems dangerous and I literally can't fall asleep without it anymore. These things are making me nervous so I'll review more with the office but is this very common?

I was the same way but I am 3 weeks post op tomorrow and I am drinking my water just fine. I too like really cold water and pre op I drank water like it was nothing. So I think if you are a regular water drinker you will not have many problems after about 2 weeks post op

I’ve been thinking about having wls for years but only started pursuing it in the last few months. I was approved yesterday for a gastric sleeve! I’m paying out of pocket so it was easier for me to qualify but I didn’t expect this process to be so quick. I was originally hoping to get it done this summer but my doctor was shocked I wanted to wait so long and we decided to have it done spring break (I’m a teacher so I wanted a time I wouldn’t have to take any sick days). The nurse is supposed to call me this week for sure to book it and set up the payment plan. It’s kind of scary that it’s going so fast. I was expecting at least a 6 month process between asking my doctor and getting it done but it’s zipping on by. Sorry for the rant, I’m excited and nervous!

Hi Fellow one weekers! Had my post op appt today and all is well. I am still a bit sore at the incision sites especially after they took off the steri stips today. Otherwise, I feel really good, have had a couple of days of diarrhea but started on a probiotic today and also got my diet advanced to pureed so that should help. I am trying to walk at least 30 min. per day and of course just moving around the house as usual with chores, etc. Has anyone had any issues with numbness mid thigh? They told me today that is has to do with the way I was positioned during the surgery and should resolve in a few weeks. Including the two week pre-op diet I have lost 18lbs! So, happy with that and now just have to get used to watching all of the labels, carbs, proteins, etc and figuring out when/if I am hungry and how to manage all of the "have to's". Hope all is going well for the rest of you!

Chips! I've had my run in with those this week! They are everywhere in my house right now! (Lots of teenagers hanging out here) they are tasty and I can eat without a feeling of fullness. I must gain control but also request that they not be brought in so much... I'm glad you are posting again, and following the 5:2 group. They are a great bunch of woman and provide great support Blupee, Thank you And I know lots of woman that don't want to lose their "curves" so no offense taken here.