So three months into my six-month diet I had to change bariatric programs, which was a GREAT thing. Just started that this week and met my Surgeon, who is AWESOME, and am figuring things out regarding the changes in my diet regimen (going from dealing with the bariatric specialist to now just seeing my nutritionist once a month). Changing from one program to the other has been a change, as well as the health problems I'm going through, and a multitude of other things going on..... but in talking to the Suregon, I found out that because I'm doing the bypass and my job in very physical I will likely be out of work for at least three months. SO I need to start planning for that now, upping my short term disability (ensuring that will cover me... which it has a no questions asked clause and will pay out 60 percent of my income regardless of what it being done). I also need to get things paid off, caught up, and try to squirrel away as much as I can in the next three months so that things will be okay...... I guess I am just stressed, I don't stress eat and I don't use food as a mechanism, but I do forget to eat a lot and don't feel hungry quite often. I set alarms on my phone to remind me.

I am feeling a bit more pressure now to be sure I get all of this caught up and ready, I was wondering if anyone could offer advice as to better ways to manage stress to ensure staying on track with weight loss and remembering to eat 5-6 small meals a day? Seems hard enough to get 2-3 in sometimes.

On the bright side, I'm really low risk and I do still have a few more months to get all of this stuff settled and caught up so I can focus on relaxing and healing (and get some use out of my flight benefits too) post op!

Wow, that is a long time to be off work for this surgery. Do you mind if I ask what you do?

I hope that you are able to quickly get everything in order because this surgery is well worth it. I wish you all the best and if you need anything or have questions feel free to reach out.

Good luck!

I am a Crew Chief and do weight/balance for flights which means I get to throw 50-90lbs bags on a belt loader to my team/agents up in the bins in planes so they can stack them in whichever place I tell them to put 'em. It sounds a lot fancier than it is... but I'm a glorified baggage handler.

My surgeon said he would be pretty concerned about me going back to work within the first two months, likely re-evaluate after two months mainly because I have to lift such heavy loads and work with such heavy equipment and I'm in charge... so I've gotta be on top of things. I need to be at 100 percent on the tarmac otherwise I'd be unsafe and pretty useless, I (nor my surgeon) want to risk any internal damage from the healing of the bypass. Working the ramp is extremely physical... running up and down stairs, in and out of plane bins, loading luggage and heavy freight, in and out of epuiment all day, bending/lifting heavy stuff.... just too much possibility to cause some damage.

I'm hoping it won't be too long, but we'll see.