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Dealing with Water Retention after Off-Diet Days



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I'm 10 1/2 months post-sleeve, and I've had what I KNOW is a lot of success--HW of 406 exactly one year ago, 368 on surgery date, and I'm 228 today. Though...I was 221 only five days ago, but dear friends in town equaled two days of fantastic wine and eating all day as we played tourists in my hometown...aaaand I found myself at 231 on Tuesday morning. And now I want to scream: How did I screw up my own great progress, after a January of doggedly trying to break a stall, finally succeeding...and now I have to re-lose these ten pounds before getting back to it?? What's making it so anxiety producing is, I know this "weight gain" is mostly water--I mean, I can clearly see that my wrists and my feet especially are swollen, but the Water weight is being pretty stubborn these past two days in coming off. This might be a fight. Dang it! How did I set myself back like this!!

I have two questions, then: First, any tips on how to shed off the excess water? I am hydrating throughout the day, since a friend said that it's good to keep flushing your system (or something, it sounded believable). Tomorrow, I'm cutting way way back on salt (though I have to have some sodium or else I get light-headed)...any other tips?

Second, anyone else go off-diet and yet found themself get back into the groove?? I have had some off-days before--just a couple over almost an entire year, and never more than two days in a row, but this feels different. Scarier. Like I derailed myself and there's no correcting it--maybe because I felt SO CLOSE when I saw that 221 on Friday morning. Like I could actually do it--my surgeon set a goal of 180 which I always thought was ridiculously impossible but when I saw the 221, yeah, suddenly I thought I really COULD get to the 180, let alone the 200 I had dreamed of when I thought of a "goal weight" pre-surgery. And now I've just slid so far back. Any experiences that you've had successfully coming back on the tracks, I'd love to hear--or even just bald reassurance, because I'll take any encouragement you have!

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One thing I know can help is drinking more Water, which will pull the excess from you. Another thing I read was to add a magnesium supplement. I googled it and here are the results: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+deal+with+water+retention&oq=how+to+deal+with+water+retention&aqs=chrome..69i57j35i39l2j69i65l2j69i60l3.6987j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Hope this helps!

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there's pretty much no way you could gain 10 lbs in a week unless it was mostly Water. You're doing what you need to do to get rid of it - cut back on sodium and drink lots of fluids.

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. LeighaTR

        I hope your surgery on Wednesday goes well. You will be able to do all sorts of new things as you find your new normal after surgery. I don't know this from experience yet, but I am seeing a lot of positive things from people who have had it done. Best of luck!

    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

        I don't know at what point my life expanded, was it when I lost 100 pounds? Was it when I left my walking stick at home ? Was it when I said yes to an outing instead of finding an excuse to stay home ? i look back at my last five years and wonder how loosing weight has made such a difference. Be ready to amaze yourself.

        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

    • CaseyP1011

      Officially here for a long time, not just a good time💪
      · 0 replies
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