Not Worth It - Angry Rant about crappy sleeve

 I'll ask again

you say you eat 600-700 cals a day at two weeks out, what are you eating??

How many carbs? Grams of protein? Ounces of water??

If you truly want help, give us some more info so we can help

 I am sorry you are struggling. Have you spoken to yur surgeon about all the concerns you have expressed here? 

 Do you know the size of your bougie? This can sometimes come into play too. The amount of post op swelling can also affect the amount we are able to consume early out. Some have more swelling than others. I was only able to drink 16 oz of liquids early out, while others could drink 64 right off the bat. Everyone heals and functions differently. Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones.

Mushies is classified as a slider as well for most people. It is good that you are keeping yourself from over eating, and sticking between the 600-800 calories a day. It is an important skill to learn early out, to control your portions. We also don't really want to feel full restriction. For most, if we do, that means we will vomit, or feel terrible pain. We have to learn to know our limit though measuring and under eating our sleeve and stay under it at all times, even if we think we can eat more. This is why me measure everything until we can judge our portions by eye.  At this point, you don't want to feel true restriction, to prevent rupturing your incisions. Believe me when you do, you will know it. 

My stomach makes all kinds of noises all day long. Only means that my digestive juices are working, but doesn't mean I am hungry. It talks the most and loudest after I just ate, so I can't possibly still be hungry at that point. Perhaps increasing the strength of your PPI may help with that. Our bodies hormone that naturally produces our stomach acid hasn't been altered so that is why we need the PPI. It stops or slows down the production of acid, to help our stomachs with the healing process. For many the acid mimics the feeling of hunger. Once the dosage was increased this feeling stops. Once we are weaned off of our PPI's it still takes several weeks after for our hormones to properly calculate how much acid it needs to produce. In time, it will self regulate, but the grumble sounds are usually air pockets slowly dissipating. 

You may be also dealing with a hormonal rush, also known as buyers remorse. Perhaps some false ideals too. You have had 5 years to mentally prepare, but no one really knows how they will emotionally handle the new life style. Perhaps you got so hyped by other peoples rapid weight loss, that you felt that is the norm for everyone. Lightweights like us tend to lose at a slower pace, and many hit the dreaded plateau within the first few weeks out. I also had my surgery weight at 216 lbs. I didn't lose any weight in my first week of pre-op. In fact I gained 3lbs of water weight. Week 2, I lost 8lbs whi*****luded the 3 I had gained, so in reality I had only officially lost 5lbs. After that point, I only lost anywhere between 2-4lbs average a week, with a 2 week stall hitting at week 5. So 17lbs is something to be proud of. Try not to weigh yourself daily. I found that my weight fluctuates daily, and even gain 1-2lbs each day. I go with a particular day a week, as my official weight. I like Saturdays, as my day to record and measure. You can still be losing inches when the lbs are not dropping. I heard once that our bodies can not lose inches and lbs at the same time, so it is important to not get too concentrated on the lbs, but focus on the over all changes. I find that my clothes get looser even when the lbs remain the same. Also our bodies need time to adjust, so losing slower isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just plays with our heads more, that's all.

I firmly believe that once you start dense proteins, and center your life around them, you will become more familiar with the feelings of satiety and not focus on the feelings of restriction as your guide to feeling full. We all have to learn how to under eat our sleeve capacity, and truly listen to our bodies natural signals, something we all learned to ignore before. Once we feel full or restricted, we have already eaten too much. This is for everyone, not just us post-ops. So controlling the amounts now, is the key to maintaining success in the future. You say your self-control is how you are losing. It is really working for you, so don't look at in a negative way. You took the step to fix your stomach for success. You may not feel so now, but you will experience it soon enough. Now you have to work on fixing the way you perceive and emotionally handle it. No one said it would be easy, and our bodies all react the same way. Everyone's path is different. You came to the right place for support and information. How you handle it is your choice. 

Thank you. Well said.

If you are eating meat/2 veggies this soon after surgery then you are on a pretty messed up plan.....or aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Who is your doc.....you don't have it listed.  You really should be ranting to them.

I have only felt "restriction" maybe 6-7 times since I was sleeved.  The rest of the time I measure what I am supposed to eat and that is it.  Self control is 75% of it for me......the big difference is a marked lack of physical hunger.  The mental hunger is still there and its a daily task....not a struggle....but something I must do to control it.

Not sure what you expected out of this surgery. 

Then again....maybe you got a monster sleeve.  In that case....you should have picked your surgeon better.  Sorry.

 it will get better,,,adjust your attitude, be positive it helps

I have felt like this a few times in the last few months. I have friends who have said the "weight just falls off" while I had to work for every pound after the first 10. I was pissed and felt cheated and wondered why it had to be different for me. I felt the EXACT same way when I hit 3 months and had only lost 20some pounds since surgery and my friend was down 60 pounds from his surgery a month before me and ate whatever he felt like (in small quantities of course). I felt like "I could have done this on my own!!"

Then in retrospect I began to realize that if I were honest with myself (and this was me, not saying it's you) I hadn't been exercising consistently, hadn't been following the plan consistently and was allowing myself to get WAY stressed and not dealing with the mental/head things that motivated my eating in the first place. True, my sleeve is bigger than other people's for some reason. Maybe it's the 40ff bougie, maybe it's the surgeon's methods, maybe it's just how I healed. Regardless, for 5 weeks I followed the plan, lost slowly and then made a mental choice to start making bad food choices. I remember talking to my girlfriend who has lots of restriction (used the same doctor too) and she was barely able to eat much when we went to lunch. I am months later than her on surgery and I could eat a lot more. We just healed/are built differently. I got pissed at first, too. It felt so unfair. THEN I realized that I was still looking for that magic bullet that would do the work FOR me. For whatever reason, I tend to think it was divine meddling, I have had to walk a tough road based on my own head issues and/or the size of my resulting sleeve. So my anger wasn't REALLY at the sleeve or its effectiveness, my anger was really with myself and my seeming failure at yet another weight management mechanism.

I remember my doctor saying "You need to exercise more and cut your calories." I said "OMG! I could have dieted and exercised without cutting out 80% of my stomach!" He said "Oh really? Then why didn't you?" It was true. If we COULD have done it without the sleeve, we DIDN'T. Could have, would have, should have doesn't really get us fit and healthy. The sleeve, at a minimum, has caused me to realize I have a food addiction and that pissed me off extremely. I threw lots of tantrums. Then I realized I could keep crying or I could come read and ask questions and do the best that I could. Do I get hungry? YES Do my friends who have the sleeve? Not so much. Is it my head or body? Sometimes that's hard to tell. So what do I do? I plan and I stay after it. I screw up sometimes and I get back after it.

I share all of that hoping you will relate to something in there. There's a phrase I have taped all over my house "If you think you can, you might. If you think you can't, you're right." I don't want to offend you but I relate to what you are saying so I thought I'd share my outcome a few months later in the journey.
 

 wow - great insight and self awareness! it's been amazing for me to see the difference in my approach to this new way of life after i finally came to the realization that the weight loss wouldn't be as effortless as i had imagined. what was even more bizzare, for me, was i had read so much about how it likely wouldn't - how it would be necessary for me to develop a good/consistent exercise program and plan my healthy meals and measure my intake, etc. but deep down i wanted to believe this was THE answer. that all the other things i've tried failed because they were flawed. that the sleeve was my salvation. but the truth is it was me all along - any dietary change that decreases calories while increases activity to burn calories is going to produce weight loss. what i'm most grateful for with the sleeve is it has forced me to look at me - to stop making excuses - to accept responsibilty for my decisions. even to learn to deal with those emotions that come after i know i've done my best and it still doesn't result in the pleasure of a pound lost. the old me would have quit - hit the closest mcd's and pigged out and been cosumed with guilt that would keep pushing further into this destructive behavior.

i don't know altogether how it does it - how it manages to help me deal with not only the physical side of this journey, but the messy mental side of it too - but i believe it can if you let it. i've had those thoughts - why couldn't i have done this on my own without he surgery - and i don't know why. but i'm glad this option was there for me. everyday i wake up more confident i will make this time.

thank you so much for sharing. i know your post was meant for the originator - but it really blessed me :-)

:) The mental side is tough tough tough for some of us. I think that's why these forums can make the difference. I often think that the mental stuff is not the exception but more the rule but the people *****ally struggle, wander off and stop posting. I think we see mostly success and fast weight loss on the forum because the people posting are the ones who are working it and makiing it happen. Out of 1000's of members, it seems the same 30 to 40 that post primarily the most. The person who posted this thread may be more than norm than we realize in their response. Most people don't want to post that they feel all those negative feelings.

 i agree - it can be hard to deal with so many battles on so many fronts. it would be so much easier if ALL we had to do was eat less, exercise and lose weight. but the truth is we each come to the surgeons table with so much baggage and it has to be dealt with too. tackling the physical, mental and emotional issues that brought us to where we are is no small task - and definitely not for the faint of heart. i'm careful to be gentle with myself - and i encourage the same in others. life is hard enough without me adding to it. so i search things to recognize as an accomplishment and i make a conscious effort not to dwell on my failures - that's part of what got me here in the first place.

hopefully by hearing the good, bad, ugly, miraculous, fantastic and amazing more people will stay connected and stay engaged until they reach their goal. thanks for sharing - i really appreciate it.