Losing weight before surgery??

[Debbie S]

Hello everyone.

I have a question and I need your help so I can understand this a bit better. I have been watching what I eat, leave my plate at first start of feeling full, do not drink anything with dinner (or 30 min before or 1 hour after).. sometimes this is hard and I need a little sip but that is it. I have been walking daily at least 1 mile a day as well as many other things preparing my body for my upcoming surgery. There are plenty of days i will wake up and I do not eat because I am not hungry. I have gastroparesis which means whenever I do eat I feel like I could vomit, but I don't it just sort of feels like food is in my throat. I have also notice there were a few days I did not eat nothing all day except dinner which consists of only protein and fresh vegetables. I know this is bad, but what if you do not feel like eating or drinking anything? Usually i am drinking water and that seems to be fine for me. There have been a few days I forced a protein drink in me but then i get this "full feeling" and I do not like it. I have Lymphedema (in my feet and legs) which since I have done a lot of walking seems to be under control.

Anyways, I am not "losing" any weight? Well I seem to be stable, sometimes a pound or two loss but that is it. IS THIS NORMAL? I was really hoping on losing at least 20 pounds plus prior to surgery.

Needing help, any suggestions?

 

[Cheyenne]

Hello everyone.

I have a question and I need your help so I can understand this a bit better. I have been watching what I eat, leave my plate at first start of feeling full, do not drink anything with dinner (or 30 min before or 1 hour after).. sometimes this is hard and I need a little sip but that is it. I have been walking daily at least 1 mile a day as well as many other things preparing my body for my upcoming surgery. There are plenty of days i will wake up and I do not eat because I am not hungry. I have gastroparesis which means whenever I do eat I feel like I could vomit, but I don't it just sort of feels like food is in my throat. I have also notice there were a few days I did not eat nothing all day except dinner which consists of only protein and fresh vegetables. I know this is bad, but what if you do not feel like eating or drinking anything? Usually i am drinking water and that seems to be fine for me. There have been a few days I forced a protein drink in me but then i get this "full feeling" and I do not like it. I have Lymphedema (in my feet and legs) which since I have done a lot of walking seems to be under control.

Anyways, I am not "losing" any weight? Well I seem to be stable, sometimes a pound or two loss but that is it. IS THIS NORMAL? I was really hoping on losing at least 20 pounds plus prior to surgery.

Needing help, any suggestions?

Hi Debbie,

I also had trouble losing weight before my surgery. I did manage to lose 34 lb from my highest weight but it took me about a year and was very hard to do. I had a lot of fluid retention and water just seemed to replace the fat I lost, maybe you possibly have that problem too. Once I had my bariatric surgery (RNY) I lost weight pretty easy, especially for the first year. If you do have fluid retention then don't eat anything but home prepared food with no salt even after surgery. The minute I ate anything prepackaged or cooked out then I could taste the salt on my lips and my weight would go up. Talk to your surgeon or primary care doctor, you may need a diuretic.

Good Luck!!!


Cheyenne

 

[dancinbr]

Here is looking towards your surgery date.

Do the best you can.

What is important in pre-surgery discipline is not only losing weight, but cleansing the liver. By eating better and ultimately the 2 week liquid regimen immediately prior to surgery you give your liver a rest, shrink it and help to reduce the fatty deposits in it.

This helps make the actual surgery easier for your doctor.

Best wishes,

Ralph

 

[Debbie S]

Thank you! Well i made my last appointment now I am waiting to hear when my surgery will be scheduled. I am nervous yet excited. I am a bit frustrated because it seems like I cannot lose any weight. There are many days i realized I was not hungry and only drank water throughout the day and ended up only eating dinner. At that, I did not eat a lot. I do not know if my belly is shrinking or just I am not hungry. But you would think I would lose weight?

I do not know if my Lymphedema (water retention) has anything to do with me not losing but I am frustrated. I also have been going to the gym and walking on the treadmill, even doing an incline, and playing a full hour of basketball with my daughter. I am a big woman so for me to move is hard but i manage to keep up.

I am wondering if I should start now doing a full day of liquid regimen at least once a week until my pre-surgery date would help.

Any suggestions I would be grateful.

Thanks,
Debbie

 

[dancinbr]

Thank you! Well i made my last appointment now I am waiting to hear when my surgery will be scheduled. I am nervous yet excited. I am a bit frustrated because it seems like I cannot lose any weight. There are many days i realized I was not hungry and only drank water throughout the day and ended up only eating dinner. At that, I did not eat a lot. I do not know if my belly is shrinking or just I am not hungry. But you would think I would lose weight?

I do not know if my Lymphedema (water retention) has anything to do with me not losing but I am frustrated. I also have been going to the gym and walking on the treadmill, even doing an incline, and playing a full hour of basketball with my daughter. I am a big woman so for me to move is hard but i manage to keep up.

I am wondering if I should start now doing a full day of liquid regimen at least once a week until my pre-surgery date would help.

Any suggestions I would be grateful.

Thanks,
Debbie

Hi Debbie,

STOP STOP STOP!!!!

Stop putting so much pressure on yourself.

Believe me. Follow the program and you will succeed. Whatever you can lose pre-surgery; great. Post surgery you will lose as long as you follow the guidelines provided to you by your surgeon's team.

I lost 93 pounds between 11/4/2013 to 7/23/2014. It happens!

Also, it will not be a steady loss. You will have plateaus, even weight increases and then weight drops.

See my weight chart as I lost weight during this time http://www.americanbariatrics.org/album.php?albumid=9791&attachmentid=840

 

[Debbie S]

Thank you Dancinbr... seeing your chart helps give me the visual I needed. I guess a big part of me not only wants to be healthy but also be thinner. Let me share with you a bit of how I got so heavy. Maybe if I share my story my history of weight will make more sense.

I used to weight only 105 while in high school, then I got married (age 22) I was about 125 -- I was okay with this even though my doctor told me I was overweight. Well I went on all sorts of crazy diets, exercised like crazy, ate healthier, and then I got pregnant. Shortly after our daughter was born I lost almost all the baby weight except 15 pounds (i was 144). However, the nurse was speaking to me of prevention and without my consent she just gave me a shot and said its the new birth control Deprovera (however it is spelled)... anyways I bled for 6 months straight, gained 20 pounds in first week, and kept gaining an average of 7 pounds a week. Needless to say I lost my confidence and was extremely fatigue.

Well we wanted to try for another baby. I tried Clomid (not sure on spelling) for months, no goal. So we went to a fertility specialists and did weekly visits traveling in some instances as far as 2 hours away. Did invetro-fertilization, took those expensive shots, you name it we did it. Oh I got pregnant, but could never carry past 5-6 weeks. So we gave up. At this point I was probably around 220 pounds.

Throughout the years of seeing doctors and trying to figure out why I cannot lose weight I finally seen a metabolic doctor who told me that Deprovera shot actually "dormant" my metabolic. He put me on a very strict diet and it worked I lost 70 pounds in 5 months and felt amazing, but I was 315 when i started with him and got down to 250. Then my string of health issues started and I regained all the weight that was lost.

As you can see I am desperate to feel alive again. I am ready to live a life without restrictions of being obese. I am only 5' 3-1/2" tall so being this heavy is giving me a major complex.

I guess after sharing my story I can see that I am putting too much on myself. It shouldn't matter how much I lose prior to surgery (even though it would help) but as to how well I do after the surgery and getting through those plateaus.

Thank you all for helping me through this.

 

[Cheyenne]

Thank you Dancinbr... seeing your chart helps give me the visual I needed. I guess a big part of me not only wants to be healthy but also be thinner. Let me share with you a bit of how I got so heavy. Maybe if I share my story my history of weight will make more sense.

I used to weight only 105 while in high school, then I got married (age 22) I was about 125 -- I was okay with this even though my doctor told me I was overweight. Well I went on all sorts of crazy diets, exercised like crazy, ate healthier, and then I got pregnant. Shortly after our daughter was born I lost almost all the baby weight except 15 pounds (i was 144). However, the nurse was speaking to me of prevention and without my consent she just gave me a shot and said its the new birth control Deprovera (however it is spelled)... anyways I bled for 6 months straight, gained 20 pounds in first week, and kept gaining an average of 7 pounds a week. Needless to say I lost my confidence and was extremely fatigue.

Well we wanted to try for another baby. I tried Clomid (not sure on spelling) for months, no goal. So we went to a fertility specialists and did weekly visits traveling in some instances as far as 2 hours away. Did invetro-fertilization, took those expensive shots, you name it we did it. Oh I got pregnant, but could never carry past 5-6 weeks. So we gave up. At this point I was probably around 220 pounds.

Throughout the years of seeing doctors and trying to figure out why I cannot lose weight I finally seen a metabolic doctor who told me that Deprovera shot actually "dormant" my metabolic. He put me on a very strict diet and it worked I lost 70 pounds in 5 months and felt amazing, but I was 315 when i started with him and got down to 250. Then my string of health issues started and I regained all the weight that was lost.

As you can see I am desperate to feel alive again. I am ready to live a life without restrictions of being obese. I am only 5' 3-1/2" tall so being this heavy is giving me a major complex.

I guess after sharing my story I can see that I am putting too much on myself. It shouldn't matter how much I lose prior to surgery (even though it would help) but as to how well I do after the surgery and getting through those plateaus.

Thank you all for helping me through this.

Debbie, I also had fertility problems after the birth of my son. I was at normal weight as a teen, married young, got pregnant and gained 50 lb during my pregnancy but lost most of it after the birth. Soon after I started gaining weight, more and more over the years. Yoyo dieted but never could keep the weight off after I lost it. I wanted more babies, went to fertility specialists. Took Clomid. Never could get pregnant again. We adopted 2 daughters. I was a relatively healthy person except for female problems. I never used birth control so that wasn't my cause of infertility, but I believe whatever caused my infertility also contributed to my weight gain. I had problems with cysts on my ovaries, and I did read that those hormones produced by those cysts could have a direct affect on weight gain. Anyway up until I had weight loss surgery, I couldn't lose weight and keep it off. My gastric bypass made it possible to lose weight and not be hungry. Of course I'm old now but wish I would have had this done a long time ago.


Cheyenne