I never lost all my weight. My personal goal was 150, I got down to 169. I lost 86 pounds in 4 months, then without changing a thing I didn't lose another pound. I stayed around the same for 3 years then , of course I was eating wrong all along, then I gained about 20 pounds the next year , then the next year I gained 30 pounds.  The first day of 2010 I weighed the same thing I did the first day of 2009, I had gained and lost the same 15 pounds over and over. I have a lot of pain and I know the weight causes it. My feet and back hurt so bad and I went to a pain managerment doctor today for the first time ever and he didn't mention my weight, but he said he can help me. I hope he is right. Maybe if my feet didn't hurt so bad I would exercise. I am allergic to all kinds of pain medicine and I can take asprin or anything with asprin in it , but he has given me a new kind of medicine made for a plant base and it's suppost to help with joint pain and swelling.
Thanks Pammy and Maureen for caring!!  Love y'all.

Hi Judy,

I know how you feel.

Each of us is working very hard at trying to not only lose but just stay the same weight. None of us wants to gain.

we know that this surgery helped us to lose a lot of weight. We do not want to feel like we have failed. All of us knows that we are not bad people! So do not beat yourself up over this.

what we have to do now is to work at finding what works for us. I don't think the doctors have a cure. the surgeons did the surgery part and feel thats done for them. We need an after surgery doctor for long term. when someone finds out who let me know cause I'll travel to get to the info!

So we all come on here and share what we do know. If it makes sense to us then we use it or look into more info to find out what works for us.

I know that I've gone back to the water load 30 minutes before eating. I've not been a water drinker during meals or for a whiles after but now I'm watchign to make sure i'm keeping my water drinking at least 1 & 1/2 hours after eating. If we drink during or right after we eat what food that we have eaten gets pushed right out of our tummys. We need to keep it in there as long as possible. and with all that we've read its not staying in there for one reason or another.

We also need to eat dense protein. this is a hard one for alot of us cause it still can upset us.

I love cottage cheese. its got great protein low sugar and i get it with no fat. but it doens't last for me. So while i don't want to give it up its my nighttime snack. sometimes during the day but i know its not going to make it past 30 minutes. its not going to satisfy me and i'm going to be hungry. If i eat it with a cheese stick it lasts longer. the cottage cheese is too soft it floats right through. the cheese stick is denser so it stays longer.

cause of my low blood sugar i'm also having fruit not alot and not high sugar ones with my protein. i'm finding it is satisfying some of my sweet creavings! seedless grapes are a good one. they also aid in digestion.

if i do eat bread i stick to a whole wheat. i found one that is low calorie and doen'st mess with my different food allergies. never do white bread.

vegis have always been hard for me to eat. dont like em. never did never will. but we all need them. so i have those littel baby carrot sticks. i gag them down inbetween cheese sticks. and i also cut up fresh broccoli to have with my eggs in the morning. i also roll up broccoli with some onions inside of 2 to 3 slices of lo salt turkey, or roast beef or ham then put it in one of the whole wheat pitas or sliced whole wheat bread thats what i'll have for lunch along with 10 to 20 seedless red grapes. its filling for me. if it doesn't feel like i've filled up the bottomless pit i'll have a slice of cheese. i eat alot of cheese. that lasts me about 2 to 3 hours then i have to eat again not so much cause i'm starving its casues with the LBS i am not to go over 3 hours for eating.
at night i have chicken, or beef. and a vegi i do not do white potatoes they set my sugar off but i've gotten a taste for yams.

i'm holding my weight and the endo i go to actually said i lost a pound! so he was happy. i would have been thrilled it if was 10! hahaha my thyroid is out of wack it runs in my family and is not because of the surgery.

i liked it that i didn't feel hungry for years after the surgery. that was nice.

one thing the surgery did not do is take away the addiction to food. for me it always was and always will be an addiction. i'm not eating the sugar and bad foods that i use to mainly caus eit makes me feel so misrable and sick. that i can thank the LBS! I remember when i went to my docctor before sugery i said to him that i had LBS (but let me tell you it was nothing like it is now!) I said will i have this after surgery. and he said yes. i know tht there are many who have developed this after surgery for me it wasn't the case. I had it before then it got very bad after I abused laxatives daily for a summer. I have no one to blame on that but me. but i do not beat myself up over it. Its a fact its done I dont' do it anymore and now am healthy again. I have to work to keep it that way.

I have lived my whole life thinking about food and weight. from a kid to an adult i've always looked for a way to lose it. thinner is better and i loved being at my lowest. but healthy is best.

do yhou know what bothered you and made you feel sick?

Evaluation of Clinical Outcomes for Gastric Bypass Surgery: Results from a Comprehensive Follow-up Study.

Welch G, Wesolowski C, Zagarins S, Kuhn J, Romanelli J, Garb J, Allen N.

Behavioral Medicine Research, Baystate Medical Center, 140 High Street, Room 2104, Springfield, MA, 01199, USA, [email protected].

BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic gastric bypass (LGB) surgery markedly increases percent excess weight loss (%EWL) and obesity-related co-morbidities. However, poor study quality and minimal exploration of clinical, behavioral, and psychosocial mechanisms of weight loss have characterized research to date. METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive assessment of n=100 LGB patients surveyed 2-3 years following surgery using standardized measures.

RESULTS: Mean %EWL at follow-up was 59.1+/-17.2%. This high level of weight loss was associated with a low rate of metabolic syndrome (10.6%), although medications were commonly used to achieve control. Mean adherence to daily vitamin and mineral supplements important to the management of LGB was only 57.6%, and suboptimal blood chemistry levels were found for ferritin (32% of patients), hematocrit (27%), thiamine (25%), and vitamin D (19%).

Aerobic exercise level (R (2)=0.08) and pre-surgical weight (R (2)=0.04) were significantly associated with %EWL, but recommended eating style, fluid intake, clinic follow-up, and support group attendance were not. Psychosocial adjustment results showed an absence of symptomatic depression (0%), common use of antidepressant medications (32.0%), low emotional distress related to the post-surgical lifestyle (19.8+/-14.0; scale range 0-100), a high level of perceived benefit from weight loss in terms of functioning and emotional well-being (82.7+/-17.9; scale range 0-100), and a change in marital status for 26% of patients.

CONCLUSIONS: At 2-3 years following LGB surgery aerobic exercise, but not diet, fluid intake, or attendance at clinic visits or support groups, is associated with %EWL. Depression is symptomatically controlled by medications, lifestyle related distress is low, and marital status is significantly impacted.

It's interesting that you ask about people who had the surgery a long time ago; at the meeting last night there were two women who each had 'stomache stapling' in the 1980s! Both of them had revision surgery (open RNY) within the last 4 years. It's a pretty good meeting, Pam, but only once a month - always the 3rd Wednesday of the month at L&M - I would be happy to join you next month. Dr. Ehrlich spoke last night - reminded me so much of Dr. A. - egocentric, sort of dodged me when I said (in my typical fashion) "I don't think bariatric surgeons are paying enough attention to what's happening to us many years post-operatively..." He said he didn't believe that was true - but otherwise would not support his position. I tried to keep him on task in addressing our issues - both in terms of health consequences due to malabsorpotion, and the weight regain - he basically reiterated Dr. A's position that if people are regaining (IF???? - take a look at the statistics, Good Doctor!) - it's because we are grazing and not doing what we are suppose to do.  I believe this to be true to some extent (I fully own my M&M's compulsion), however, there are other factors that MUST be considered.  The DS surgery is one of the two options available to RNYers in terms of revisions - the other is to band your pouch, which Dr. Ehrlich highly recommends. In layman's terms, the DS basically re-routes what's already been re-routed but because so much more of the intestine is bypassed, malabsorption is more severe - to the extent that only 20% of what you eat is absorbed. This means that the DS post-op MUST eat copious amounts of high fat, high calorie foods to sustain health - in other words, if a DS post-op eats 3,000 calories in a day, a full 80% will pass right through the system. So they  MUST eat a ton of food to stay healthy. This is the Calling Card of the militant DSer - they say they get to eat "normally" - well, maybe by U.S. standards - which is why America has become so fat! I'm up to 166 this a.m. and I feel terrible. I begin anew... take care, and let me know if you want to meet up at L&m next month, that would be Wednesday, February 17 from 6-8. M.

Hi Reenie,

I didn't get your message until after work almost 8pm I would have gone too. Are the meetings there each week? i'd like to go just to be around some more people who have had the surgry.
there isn't anyone that i know anymore who lives near me or works with me. its nice to have a connecton with someone else who has had the surgry.
I'm not thrilled with Dr A for different reasons. maybe not so much Dr A but the office and the staff.
I dont' beleive that any of them give peolple or knew the extent of wht happens many years out. I know that we are not the first people to have had this done. Its been around for 30 years so where are those 30 year out people? thats who I'd liek to talk to!
And their surgery was different than ours just liek the people coming after us.
Whats this D surgery I hear and have read about doen'st sound like its too healthy when I've googled it.