I have my sleeve procedure next month in about 3 weeks. Getting nervous!

I want to hear from others like me so I know what to expect, part of me is nervous I won’t lose any weight and the other part of me is scared of getting so skinny my husband or I won’t recognize myself.

I have a BMI of 35.5 and qualified through insurance due to pre-existing conditions. I’m 5 foot 2 inches and weigh 199 and would consider myself as having a larger natural frame.

When I diet hard, I can drop about 20-25 pounds in 3 months or so, but it always just shoots back up. I have read that I could get down into the 140s or 130s even and I can’t remember the last time I weighed that. Even in high school I was in the low 150s when I played field hockey.

I am VERY ready to get healthy after my mom had a major health scare recently. If I continue on this path I get afraid I may not live to see my own kids get married or even see my own grandkids someday.

Still, while I know everyone’s body is different, I would like to know what I can expect, because it seems like what I read on forums vs the official medical representation is different.

How fast did everyone lose weight in my category? What weight did you end up at the 6 month mark and the 12 month mark?

According to my doctor, I have 70-75 pounds of excess weight. I don’t plan to start working out other than walks or bike riding until I am fully healed.

Thanks everyone! Hopefully this will help my nerves!

Congratulations on your upcoming surgery! I had the gastric sleeve on 3/15/21 and also started with a "lower" BMI (40). On the day of my surgery, I weighed 217.2 lbs and as of yesterday, I was 204.4 lbs. I had the same concerns you are having with not losing weight, but it seems to be melting off. I also had a considerably healthy lifestyle before surgery - I just overate on foods that weren't terrible for me. I also struggle with hypothyroidism which has made it hard to lose and keep weight off for the majority of my life. I can't speak long term as I am only 2 weeks post op, but I hope this helps!

I can't answer from my own personal experience because I started with a BMI over 60 and had gastric bypass. But I can offer you a link to a calculator that will tell you the average weight loss at 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years:

https://mbsc.arbormetrix.com/Registry/public/calculator/uiCalculator/7?menuId=1013

Enter your data and click the disk icon on the top right of the page to see your expected weight loss. Note that the numbers they give are averages, so your personal results could be significantly higher or lower, but I still think it's useful information to get a ballpark estimate.

2 hours ago, BigSue said:

I can't answer from my own personal experience because I started with a BMI over 60 and had gastric bypass. But I can offer you a link to a calculator that will tell you the average weight loss at 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years:

https://mbsc.arbormetrix.com/Registry/public/calculator/uiCalculator/7?menuId=1013

Enter your data and click the disk icon on the top right of the page to see your expected weight loss. Note that the numbers they give are averages, so your personal results could be significantly higher or lower, but I still think it's useful information to get a ballpark estimate.

This is really interesting, thanks for posting it. It was super accurate for me at Year 1, I did weigh very close to the prediction. Year 2 is where I started to diverge, in reality I kept losing but the prediction was essentially that I would stay the same. I switched it to Lap RnY to see how it would affect the prediction - my projected weight loss went up by 15 pounds and my probability of complications went up 10% (to 20% total). With open RnY, the projected weight loss didn't change but the probability of any complications was 30%. I would love to see the model this is based on, it's pretty fascinating.

So I lost a lot of weight on my own before I consulted with the surgeon for the first time (around 50 lbs). Between my consult and the day of surgery (about 10 or 11 weeks later) I lost another 20 lbs. My BMI the day of surgery was around 37. I’ve lost over 40 lbs since surgery 10 weeks ago and my BMI is currently a 29. I did go to that calculator and it estimated my weight at 1 year to be about 17 lbs less than where I am today - so know that is just an estimate and dependent on many other factors.

Perfectly usual to have questions & to start feeling nervous when you’re close to your surgery date.

My bmi was 35 when I met with my surgeon. No pre existing conditions, except for sore feet, but they likely wouldn’t have been far away.

By 6 months I was at my goal of 60kg & a bmi of 23. At 12 months I was 50kgs. At almost 2 years, I fluctuate between 48.5 & 49.5kgs (bmi 19). I struggled to find my sweet spot in maintenance. I just couldn’t seem to consume enough to balance what I was burning. My metabolism has slowed a little & I’ve been pretty stable this year & I’m eating less than in the first 12 months of maintenance - about 1200 calories.

And no, I’m not all bony. I was always told I had a medium/large frame but I actually have a small/medium frame. And I look like me. People I haven’t seen in years & only knew me as obese, still recognise me. It’s still my face just with a lot less fat. I have cheekbones & only one chin now. ?

This is my story. You’ll find some have similar stories & experiences & others quite different. It sounds like you’re motivated to find success on this program which is a big part of the battle.

The doctors will give you the average results. Like in years 2 & 3 many have bounce back weight of about 10lbs & most only lose 60-65% of the weight they have to lose. But with all averages, the stats include those who do better & those who don’t do as well. They also include those who chose not to lose as much to better fit the lifestyle they want or don’t lose as much for other reasons like physiological issues, medications, etc. But all have lost weight which is a win.

Good luck on your journey.

1 hour ago, Crick said:

so know that is just an estimate and dependent on many other factors.

...yeah the three year estimate for my starting stats on that calculator was my weight at 3 months post op.

You'll know where you fall on the spectrum after you lose your weight.

Good Luck! ❤️

I got the site to work. It provided a similar estimate to what my surgeon predicted, except that I've lost almost 20 lbs since I first saw the surgeon. Still a few months out from my surgery; hopefully I can lose a few pounds more

Edited March 31, 20215 yr by lizonaplane
fixed

It's the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative Outcomes Calculator. Not sure why the link wouldn't work for you. Maybe try a different browser? The web page says to use Chrome or Firefox for best performance.

1 minute ago, BigSue said:

It's the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative Outcomes Calculator. Not sure why the link wouldn't work for you. Maybe try a different browser? The web page says to use Chrome or Firefox for best performance.

Yeah, I was using chrome. I tried again a few minutes later and it worked!

On 3/30/2021 at 4:23 PM, H2P2007 said:

I have my sleeve procedure next month in about 3 weeks. Getting nervous!

I want to hear from others like me so I know what to expect, part of me is nervous I won’t lose any weight and the other part of me is scared of getting so skinny my husband or I won’t recognize myself.

I have a BMI of 35.5 and qualified through insurance due to pre-existing conditions. I’m 5 foot 2 inches and weigh 199 and would consider myself as having a larger natural frame.

When I diet hard, I can drop about 20-25 pounds in 3 months or so, but it always just shoots back up. I have read that I could get down into the 140s or 130s even and I can’t remember the last time I weighed that. Even in high school I was in the low 150s when I played field hockey.

I am VERY ready to get healthy after my mom had a major health scare recently. If I continue on this path I get afraid I may not live to see my own kids get married or even see my own grandkids someday.

Still, while I know everyone’s body is different, I would like to know what I can expect, because it seems like what I read on forums vs the official medical representation is different.

How fast did everyone lose weight in my category? What weight did you end up at the 6 month mark and the 12 month mark?

According to my doctor, I have 70-75 pounds of excess weight. I don’t plan to start working out other than walks or bike riding until I am fully healed.

Thanks everyone! Hopefully this will help my nerves!

When I asked my dr what weight he expected me to get down to he asked what I weighed in high school and said a weight 20 pounds higher than that without exercise and same as high school with exercise. Based on that conversation I don’t think you will get smaller than high school. At least that’s not the norm for my doctors patients. If that makes sense.

1 hour ago, ShoppGirl said:

When I asked my dr what weight he expected me to get down to he asked what I weighed in high school and said a weight 20 pounds higher than that without exercise and same as high school with exercise. Based on that conversation I don’t think you will get smaller than high school. At least that’s not the norm for my doctors patients. If that makes sense.

That is a very specific prediction!

Most will find that predictions are just that: guesses based on statistics. So many factors are in play that aren't considered in these predictions, so I wouldn't put too much weight on it. Only way to know for sure is to go through it.

P.S. I may not be the standard, but I weight less today than I did when I graduated high school (but more than when I started high school)

5 minutes ago, ms.sss said:

That is a very specific prediction!

Most will find that predictions are just that: guesses based on statistics. So many factors are in play that aren't considered in these predictions, so I wouldn't put too much weight on it. Only way to know for sure is to go through it.

P.S. I may not be the standard, but I weight less today than I did when I graduated high school (but more than when I started high school)

I weigh less than I did when starting high school. I haven’t been at this weight since I about 10. That’s why it’s so surreal.

21 hours ago, ms.sss said:

...yeah the three year estimate for my starting stats on that calculator was my weight at 3 months post op.

You'll know where you fall on the spectrum after you lose your weight.

Good Luck! ❤️

Yeah the averages thing can be a mess. When I had my 2 month post-op virtual check-in with the nurse a couple of weeks ago, I got really frustrated because the nurse said I shouldn’t set a goal in the normal BMI range. Their goal is to get you below a 35 BMI. Well, hell, at that point my BMI was around 30 already so a 35 BMI would be a failure for me, since my BMI at surgery was 37. I fully expect to get to a normal BMI range and I was actually a bit taken aback by her insistence multiple times that I shouldn’t set my goal that low even after I gave her my stats. I know she was going by the averages but given where I am at this point at 2.5 months post-op, I don’t see why a normal BMI shouldn’t be my goal.

Edited April 1, 20215 yr by Crick

17 minutes ago, Jaelzion said:

I weigh less than I did when starting high school. I haven’t been at this weight since I about 10. That’s why it’s so surreal.

whoa. You must have been feeling twilight-zone-y when you reached goal! Are you used to it yet?

I have no idea how much I weighed at 10 years old but it was probably less than 60lbs. I wonder what that would like on me now. Probably not very good!

Edited April 1, 20215 yr by ms.sss

2 minutes ago, Crick said:

Yeah the averages thing can be a mess. When I had my 2 month post-op virtual check-in with the nurse a couple of weeks ago, I got really frustrated because the nurse said I shouldn’t set a goal in the normal BMI range. Their goal is to get you below a 35 BMI. Well, hell, at that point my BMI was around 30 already so a 35 BMI would be a failure for me, since my BMI at surgery was 37. I fully expect to get to a normal BMI range and I was actually a bit taken aback by her insistence multiple times that I shouldn’t set my goal that low even after I gave her my stats. I know she was going by the averages but given where I am at this point at 2.5 months post-op, I don’t see why a normal BMI shouldn’t be my goal.

I liked my surgeon's approach. He gave me the stats on how few people get to a normal BMI and said he would be happy if I lost half my excess weight. But he went on to say that the statistics are just averages and some people lose more and some less. And there was nothing stopping me from being one of those who lose more, so we would see! And so I did. It's good to understand the statistics but you don't have to assume you'll be average.