anyone had the laproscopic gastric sleeve?

I am hoping to find out information leading up to surgery & post op.  what changes do you have to make to your diet?  What mental preparations should you make?  Anything & everything I can find out would help...Anybody?  thanks,  Michelle

u should go the gastric sleeve forum.

sorry.  Will do.

Here is a link to the VSG forum, they have great advice
http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/vsg/a,messageboard/board_i d,5463/
 Good luck!

thank you very much!

That's okay---you can talk about it here on the Main Board, too. (*grin*)

I had the full DS, so I have a Sleeve stomach. I'm happy to say it works just like my pre-op stomach did, and I've had no food intolerances at ALL. And at six years post-op, I still have significant restriction---not in the sense that I feel like I can't eat all I want, but in the sense that others tell me I eat amazingly little.

Awesome!  Congratulations on that!  Thank you

Ask whatever you want in this melting pot - but you'll get several responses from the VSg's out on their own specific board (go to Forums > Surgical > VSG).  I, too, had an open DS, and my stomach is a sleeve, and it's very easy to live with.  For diet, remember that the VSG will make you feel satisfied sooner when you eat less, but all the common sense about eating the right foods applies.

I had the sleeve done laproscopically and it has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.  Like many people on these boards, I tried every diet out there and was constantly changing up my eating habit.  I dropped tons of cash on personal trainers and felt like there was somethign seriously wrong with me when I crashed and burned....and then gained more weight. 

I chose the sleeve for my own reasons - bariatric surgery in general (all types) will help you save your life.  You can make your own personal decisions on which one to pursue, each of them have their benefits and quirks. With regards to the sleeve though - I, personally, have had NO food intolerances.  I can eat everythign I want, just in much smaller portions.  That is sometimes a dangerous thing if you're a food addict (as a large portion of us are) but the bonus about it is...it's not stretching out or going anywhere - so unless you can find a way to jam 1800+ calories in your piehole every day (I typically end up eating around 700) then you're not going to be sent back to square one.

I was fortunate in that I had already made many changes to my diet just for lifestyle purposes for the 6 months before I'd even HEARD of this surgery  - I only ate whole grains, brown pastas and rice and switched to soy milk and creamer because dairy made me break out and used only stevia or honey as sweetner.  I didn't drink pop or juices and only let myself near a bag a chips once a month.  It felt like torture. 

Now, post-op, those eating tactics that I'd forced myself into are habits - so I don't have too many cravings for some of the junk that I had before my six month "clean" eating stint.  I can still eat cookies, chocolate, cake, chips etc and not get sick but I find that so long as I drink a glass of water first, one or two bites is more than enough to satisfy the craving and I kind of use the reward as a way to make sure I'm hydrated enough.

You'll find post-op that using smaller plates and utensils sometimes helps you to visually stop before your body tells you to but no worries...your little jellybean will tell you when to stop.  I was on a liquids-only diet for 2 weeks, then went to mushies for another week and straight into foods from there and I found that I could eat just about everything I wanted without problems but it was also because I didn't really WANT much of the bad stuff. 

As far as mental preparations - I didn't do much before hand, though I did find it interesting afterward that I'd be watching tv with my husband and during EVERY commercial break, he'd either comment how hungry he was, what he was craving or get up and go to the kitchen to grab something.  It was totally freeing to realize that I didn't feel that way at all...and kind of a neat experiment to watch *lol*  I find now, when I get stressed out or bored, I get up and wander to the kitchen but then realize that I'm not hungry and get myself a glass of water or make myself a tea. 
The first few weeks I felt relieved that I wasn't controlled by food and then sometimes I would miss being able to go to an all-you-can-eat and just...eat!  But that feeling went away pretty quickly once the pounds started melting off.  Yknow that weigh****chers quote that says "nothing tastes as good as thin feels" - I used to want to punch the people that said that quote because frankly...I was hungry and I couldn't EAT thin....but now...NOW I get it!

You have a great group of people to rely on for all the answers to any question you could think of -  don't know how I could have gotten through it all without them!

Hope that started the ball rolling for you!
Lighter dayz are just ahead!

Ezimmer,

Thank you.  Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with me.  I am beginning to see what kind of wonderful people I am surrounding myself with by joining this site. 

I love your quotes!!!  Looking forward to joining all the "losers' here!