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I'm so excited! I received my approval today and completed my pre-admissions. My surgery is scheduled for April 25 at 8:00 am. I'm on day four of my liquid diet and so far, I've had no headaches, hunger pains nor have I been "hangry"!!!

Don't pick up a hog and you'll be just fine.

I picked 150 lbs because it seemed reasonable. So far I have not reached 150 and it has been 5 years. The 1st 2 years I stayed at 170. Then lost 10 and stayed at 160 for a couple more. Today I'm at 155, but prefer 152. All of that is in my mind though. My body wants 160 lbs or so. I may have to be content with 155 and just split the difference between mind and body. I have decided to lay off the candy bars and see if I can get to 152 this next week.

I am 8 weeks out of gastric sleeve surgery and have lost a great amount of weight, I’m happy with my progress. I just can’t believe how small my portions are. I knew of course they’d be small, but I can literally manage two bites before I feel really full. How long will it be until I can actually eat a fairly normal portion size and not look rude at meals? I don’t mean to sound stupid or ungrateful for my surgery, but once I hit my goal weight, I would like to be able to enjoy eating out and family meals like a “normal” person. At the moment, eating is not a good experience and I don’t like the feeling whilst eating or immediately after. Can anyone share their story with portion size?

Do not eat anything that tastes sweet. Period. It leads to the wrong gut bugs developing population in your gut and forcing you to crave what they want, which is sugar in some form. It’s the only craving you can’t satisfy with healthy food, so don’t ever eat sugar free popsicles, jellos, or fruit. At least no fruit for 6 months. Develop a taste for roasted root veggies, even potatoes - all gut bugs need carbs but the better populations love starchy vegetables. Make your treats be things like 85% or higher dark chocolate or potatoes or roasted other root veggies. Stay away from all sweets. Each time you eat, eat protein. Use veggies and beans or seeds as your bite or two of carbs after the protein each time you eat. When I get the munchies now I eat 90% dark chocolate which you can eat in small quantities, and it is no longer a candy. It’s got very little sugar so it’s more of a vegan antioxidant with a pick me up than a sweet. I kept fruit out of my diet as my nutritionist suggested for 6 months. Now I can have one strawberry a day or a handful of blueberries. I’m only 9 lbs from goal. I am so glad that now sweet things make me feel quite ill. I used to have a sweet tooth. I eat at least 50% fat every day, so I know for a fact ain’t fat making us fat. So if I want a triple cream cheese or full fat yogurt (plain) I go for it. Or a juicy steak. I never look for low fat or lean anything. Eat fat, plenty of protein, and some veggie carbs. It will really lower your cravings I promise. Those gut bugs are too powerful when they want something.

I think it was day 8 or 9 before I could comfortably lie flat. I don't even have a recliner so I had to grin it and bear it. Just remember that this will pass. You're going through one of the toughest stages of this journey but an end is in sight.

I eat normally now, and I love it. 1200 calories a day. I'm never hungry. My energy is awesome. But you know...there's a big difference between eating "normally" and eating the way we used to. I used to think it was "normal" to drink a 2 liter of Pepsi over the course of a day, and have...ya know....5 or 6 slices of bread in a day (what's a few PB and J sandwiches?)...maybe some fried chicken...and dessert? Booyah! Bring it on...big servings and seconds, please. And pass the Doritos, dammit....TV means snacks! Yeah, no. What I used to perceive as normal...and what I now realize is normal....are two very different things. My advice...(take it or leave it)... Really figure out what normal is gonna look like for you long term. Do some research. Talk to your nutritionist. Create a new healthy normal. Be very careful of extremes and extremist thinking. Eating the crazy number of calories I used to eat...ain't normal. But eating starvation level calories long term isn't normal either. (I realize for many folks this is a necessary step in the process) Avoid extremes and work toward sane moderation. "Normal" isn't that far away:)

NO! IT'S A TRAP! Seriously though, don't think this way. There is nothing rude about stopping when you're full. Eating to make other people happy is crazy and part of what got us here today. Wash that thought right out. Coping mechanisms: get smaller dishes. Eat with chopsticks. When going out for meals with friends, angle to make it a family-style restaurant or tapas place where everyone eats from communal dishes. If you do go to a meal-per-person place, aim for the soup. Ask the server if you can have their salad mains served as a side salad instead. And if all else fails, just don't care. Eat the five bites and when your colleague looks at your plate and asks if you didn't like the food, tell them you got hiccups halfway through the meal or got so focused on talking and now you're going to bring it home because you want to finish it later. They won't care past that unless you actually look sickly. The one exception I make for this rule is if a family member or friend is cooking for you in their house. In which case I make sure to tell them up front I'm not hungry/ate a lot beforehand/don't want to eat a lot, but that I do want one bite of the dish they slaved over. And when I eat that bite I make sure they know I loved it - most people don't care whether or not you ate in quantity, but that you appreciated the quality. So the compliment matters more than leaving a clean plate. If the other person is paying for your meal, tell them up front you plan to order lightly but deliciously and again, compliment and thank. I've also had a devious amount of success tasting something, saying "oh, this is so good! try some!" and then getting other people to snag bites off my plate. Magically disappearing food!

02/16/2018 two month out from surgery. Sounds about where I was in calories. Are you hitting your protein goal? Are you able to eat every two to three hours? Concentrate on your protein goal. Calories will increase as you get further out from surgery.

It’s from weight loss. Fatty cells hold onto estrogen too much estrogen = not enough progesterone & not enough progesterone = no period. With out without a hormonal birth control. So when you begin to lose weight shrinking those fatty cells you are depleting the estrogen, thus causing a balance between progesterone and estrogen resulting in a bleed. That is why many women who become obese and estrogen dominant, myself included, have WLS as a step to restore their fertility. Sooo, congrats!! You’re fertile again!! I can’t wait to be too [emoji322]