Hello everyone!

I was approved a few days ago (after only waiting a week) and received my surgery date for December 12, 2018! I chose this date out of the few offered to me because I am currently in college and I will be able to finish up my classes prior to the surgery (which was a huge worry of mine.) It's about two weeks before my birthday too!

Anyone else scheduled out in December?

On 1/19/2019 at 5:04 AM, Lolo 2020 said:

We’ve all had the 2-3 week stall. U can eat again andnpurees go down easier and u can drink / eat more . It’s normal. I found that u can get through the stall if U kick up ur exercise and break a sweat with brisk walking or spinning or something that gets ur heart rate up. And just watch the calories, carbs and Protein grams . Keep to 600 calories and over 60 gnofnprotein and under 50g of carb. Get in ur 64 oz of liquid. It will break , only weigh urself once a week

Thank goodness for this forum or I wouldn't have learned about the dreaded Week 3 stall. I was going crazy trying to figure out how I could be eating so little and exercising and yet not dropping any weight. Thank goodness in Week 5 the numbers on the scale are starting to move again. I wish my bariatric office had forewarned me about the Week 3 stall so I'd have been prepared for it and not freaking out.

36 minutes ago, GradyCat said:

Thank goodness for this forum or I wouldn't have learned about the dreaded Week 3 stall. I was going crazy trying to figure out how I could be eating so little and exercising and yet not dropping any weight. Thank goodness in Week 5 the numbers on the scale are starting to move again. I wish my bariatric office had forewarned me about the Week 3 stall so I'd have been prepared for it and not freaking out.

Yea I’m glad too. But when I went to my 4 week appointment last week, my surgeon assistant told me usually stall at 3 weeks and again at 6 months. She said don’t panic. Just continue the plan but do something different like add more water or walk an extra 15 mins for example and the weight will start to drop again. Also my surgeon does not want me drinking protein drinks anymore. He would rather you eat the protein. So if I’m struggling that day to get my protein intake then I’ll drink 1 Premier protein or Syntrax.

Made my first goal a week early so Im excited hope everyone is meeting there goals.

Anyone having issues on the purée diet? I am just not wanting to eat anything, and I have to force myself to eat, and I am still not hitting enough calories for the day.

19 minutes ago, marismommy1 said:

Anyone having issues on the purée diet? I am just not wanting to eat anything, and I have to force myself to eat, and I am still not hitting enough calories for the day.

I don't know when your surgery was but this has been a major problem for me since day 1. Thursday will be five weeks since surgery and I struggle every day with getting calories in. I have just now had a couple days of 600 calories and I generally feel sick from eating too much. My primary care doctor and my surgeon just keep saying give it time. One suggestion is to try to eat high calorie foods. If you can cook with olive oil or add it in some way or try refried beans with cheese that will get your calories up. That was the advice my nutritionist gave me.

I am not sure what's wrong with me, but I still have my appetite. Obviously, the amount I can eat is restricted, but I am able to get in 800-1100 calories a day at this point. I am working out for 2+ hours every morning before work, so that probably has something to do with it. Still, I expected not to have any appetite, yet I do.

P.S.

I have been stuck in a stall between 208 and 209 for the last five days. I kind expected this to happen, but it is still kind of annoying!!!

Edited January 22, 20197 yr by SteveT74

2 hours a day working out is a lot and if you watch the videos of dr vuong he will say that exercise is not a way to lose weight. It will tone you up , and i find helps with mood, but also will make you hungrier. Its such a delicate balance, really annoying.

24 minutes ago, SteveT74 said:

I am not sure what's wrong with me, but I still have my appetite. Obviously, the amount I can eat is restricted, but I am able to get in 800-1100 calories a day at this point. I am working out for 2+ hours every morning before work, so that probably has something to do with it. Still, I expected not to have any appetite, yet I do.

P.S.

I have been stuck in a stall between 208 and 209 for the last five days. I kind expected this to happen, but it is still kind of annoying!!!

I don't have a big appetite, but I'm hungry about every 3 hours. And you hit that dreaded Week 3 Stall. Don't worry, we all apparently hit it and it's an expected thing. Mine started moving again in Week 5.

Same here every three hours I eat a few bites. I’m returning to work tomorrow hopefully I can stick close to my routine.

21 minutes ago, GradyCat said:

I don't have a big appetite, but I'm hungry about every 3 hours. And you hit that dreaded Week 3 Stall. Don't worry, we all apparently hit it and it's an expected thing. Mine started moving again in Week 5.

I get full quickly, but I do get hungry. I am not sure about how long it takes for me to get hungry after a meal--but it's usually in the evening when I feel particularly hungry. I had my week 3 stall for 5 days, now I think I am in week 6--so, it's another little stall. No big deal. I think this is just par for the course. I lost 6.5 pounds last week, so I expected a stall around now. I am sure the losing will start up again in a day or two. If not all do something to change up my diet a bit to get things going again. Probably adding more fiber to my diet would help!

30 minutes ago, Lolo 2020 said:

2 hours a day working out is a lot and if you watch the videos of dr vuong he will say that exercise is not a way to lose weight. It will tone you up , and i find helps with mood, but also will make you hungrier. Its such a delicate balance, really annoying.

Hey Lolo, I agree that weight is lost in the kitchen, not the gym (technically the gym helps with weight loss too, but only if you stick to a solid diet plan). I am at the gym for 2 hours a day (because I take a 20 minute warm up on the elliptical or treadmill (moderate intensity), take a 45min-1 hour spin class (high intensity), then probably 30 minutes of weight training (4-5x a week) (I do cardio everyday, but only 4-5 times a week of weight training). There is a few minutes of down time between each activity, so the total minutes adds up. This is my "ME" time (the only ME time I get in the day). I feel great and I am starting to get some muscle tone and definition. I am also definitely improving my strength and endurance, which is important to me and is definitely a health benefit.

I have watched Dr. Vuong's videos, including his video on why WLS patients shouldn't exercise for at least 6 months. To be honest, I am not a big fan of Dr. V. He might be a great surgeon, but he's also a full of himself and a big self-promoter. He puts out videos with controversial topics just to get his YouTube views up (IMHO). A prime example is his video entitled "Real Talk: Why You Should Not Exercise After WLS". Seriously, tell me that title isn't begging for views when every other bariatric surgeon in the world encourages their patients to exercise, including Dr. Matthew Weiner (another YouTube surgeon that I respect).

Frankly, Dr. V has some good advice on nutrition and post-op dieting (that I largely agree with), but he is also full of crap half the time and much of his advice is based on broad assumptions and generalizations about WLS patients and how he believes we think and feel. His primary reason why WLS patients should not exercise is because he believes that for us, exercise (particularly) is a form of punishment that we inflict on ourselves or something we feel we have to do because that's what society expects. For some weight loss patients, maybe this view is true, but it certainly does NOT apply to many of us (yourself included!!). He also assumes that we have no idea what we are doing in the gym and we should not start working out in a gym until we can afford to work with a personal trainer. I think this might be a good advise for any person (WLS patient or not) that has never worked out before and has no idea what they are going to do when they get to the gym besides walk on a treadmill for 15 minutes. However, to suggest this should be a rule that applies to WLS patients in general is total BS. Clearly, Dr. V incorrectly assumes that all we did as obese people was sit on a couch and eat all day. That may be true for some WLS patients, but many of us had active lives even when we were at our heaviest and even went to the gym (we just couldn't lose weight and keep it off effectively). We are not all people that could have been cast on "My 600 Pound Life". Anyway, I can keep going when it comes to Dr. V--but I won't.

34 minutes ago, ColeSimone said:

Same here every three hours I eat a few bites. I’m returning to work tomorrow hopefully I can stick close to my routine.

Pretty typical right after surgery--particularly before you're approved for solids. However, watch out for that between meal snacking as you advance in your post-op diet. Even with the sleeve you need to have a solid dietary lifestyle in place or one that you work on with your nutritionist. One or two planned snacks a day may work, but if you snack to often when you feel an urge or craving, you can easily lose track of how much you consumed and end up on the path to regain down the road. This is the time for us all to work on adopting healthy lifestyles.

Ha! I have heard some flack on dr v, so no surprise there. My view is that exercise keeps me sane, so i am doing it. I do worry when they talk about it spiking hunger, god knows I don’t need that!

58 minutes ago, Lolo 2020 said:

Ha! I have heard some flack on dr v, so no surprise there. My view is that exercise keeps me sane, so i am doing it. I do worry when they talk about it spiking hunger, god knows I don’t need that!

I asked my surgeon about that and he said it's to be expected if you're active. It's normal to feel any hunger and grehlin is only one of many hormones that can trigger hunger (although it's a big one). Your hunger should be reduced by the surgery, not entirely eliminated. If you're working out and following the post-op diet, you should be ok. I think I am eating between 800-1100 calories a day, but I am burning between 3700 and 4000 a day. Even with such a huge deficit, I am not ravenously hungry. I just feel hungry if I haven't eaten in a while and I am able to resist temptation during the day until meal time. Then I have a 250-350 calorie meal (350 or so lately, since I have been eating more good fats in my diet). The hard part for me is in the evening. I still feel like snacking at night, but I think that's a behavioral pattern from my past that I really need to work on. I succumb to it on occasion--but keep it healthy. I need to stick to a firm rule about not eating after 7:30 or 8pm (I would make it earlier, but my work schedule would make that difficult). Rome wasn't built in a day I guess.

I had my surgery 12/20 so I am almost 5 weeks since surgery. I have been struggling to get more than 400 calories a day since I switched to puree. When I was on liquids it seemed to get easier over time but with puree I have been having trouble. I have tried beans and cheese, or making soups and then put them in the blender. I also just went back to work part time and it is hard to keep track of water intake while there. Thanks for the advice!

Sounds like u r doing great ! Ru really down to 200? I am stalled at 208 but have been in florida at my parents and no spin , just walking ..think it makes a difference, no intense exercise and eating only 650 calories a day , but just puttering along

Edited January 22, 20197 yr by Lolo 2020