Gail
Gail, I’m glad you want to use your pouch to lose the weight you’ve
regained. I have several suggestions for you: You might want to
join the Graduate-OSSG group, it’s for people who are over one year
post-op and they spend lots of time talking about the issues you’re
wondering about. OSSG-Off Track is another good group. You might
want to join obesityhelp.com and check out all the information on
vitamins there, plus you can get in contact with people from your
area.
One good thing for you to do would be to take the cottage cheese test
(Use a full container of cottage cheese, eat fairly quickly until you
are just full, then add water to the cottage cheese container back up
to the full line, then pour off and measure the water to find the
volume of your pouch) Hopefully you’ll find it’s still usable. If
it’s a large volume you probably should check with a surgeon to see
if there’s a problem with your staples. If it’s a workable volume
then check out “Pouch Rules for Dummies” — a good site to read them
at is http:/digitalhorsewoman.com/pouchrules.htm The rules help you
understand how your pouch works and how to lose weight once you’re
past the initial healing stages (which you obviously are!)
Let us know how you’re doing. Laura