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You’re Starving, or Not For some WLS patients, hunger goes away. For others, hunger is reduced enough so that you can keep it in check, even if you were constantly hungry before WLS. Some patients, though, still need to fight hunger. It is still a struggle to pass up certain foods and to keep portions small. Your Head Gets Hungry “Head hunger” is when you think you are hungry, but you are really just bored, the food looks good, or you feel like eating for some other reason. It is important to learn to recognize head hunger so that you know when it is not time to eat, but it is also important to realize that it may not be time to eat every time you are physically hungry. That is because you are losing weight, which means you are eating less than you burn, which means…your body is hungry. Pizza and Ice Cream Taste Great Often, your sense of taste changes after weight loss surgery. You may be one of the lucky patients who stops loving junk food. Pizza and French fries may be too greasy and salty for your new taste buds, and ice cream and muffins may be too sweet. On the other hand, your taste buds may be just as enamored with the food groups of sweet, salty, starchy, and greasy. You may need to work just as hard as you did pre-op to keep pizza, ice cream, fried chicken, and bagels from overwhelming your diet. Salads May Not Work Your game plan for weight loss may include a huge salad once or twice a day. It is filling, healthy, and low-calorie – the perfect weight loss combo. The problem is that many weight loss surgery patients can no longer stomach salads for months or longer after surgery. Instead of lettuce, a protein, and some dressing, consider building your meals with cooked vegetables, a protein, and a small amount of healthy fat such as avocado or peanut butter. Creativity Is the Name of the Game Many other healthy foods may be off-limits because your tastes change or they are too stringy or they make you sick. You will have to be flexible to find healthy substitutes for them. Here are some common trouble foods and some alternatives. Popcorn: try Protein Cereal as a quick snack. Celery: opt for Bean Crisps Lean beef and poultry: try fish, veggie burgers and other soy and bean products, and lentils. Cheese: try peanut butter or hummus. The good news is that most WLS patients tend not to develop aversions to vegetables, so pile your plate high! What Happened to Water? Water is the one calorie-free and free from cost food that is actually a nutrient…and it may have tasted great before surgery. Afterwards, not so much. Some patients have trouble drinking plain water after surgery. It just does not taste good anymore. Now that diet soft drinks and carbonated flavored water are off limits, you have fewer choices for hydration – but they are there. Flavored water without bubbles. Decaffeinated low-acid coffee and tea. Ice water with lemon or lime. Malnutrition Happens Malnourishment may be far from your mind when your goal is weight loss, but it happens quite often. It can be a deficiency of protein, but also of vitamins and minerals. You will have to get enough protein every day and take your nutritional supplements every day, probably for life. Sit Near the Bathroom You just never know when you may need one when you sit down to eat a meal. Dumping syndrome strikes fast and without warning. By the way, you also cannot predict how full you will get and when you will be able to finish your entire plate. You can make your weight loss surgery journey a tad easier by aware of what to expect, and there may be a few things your doctor does not tell you about.

What’s Wrong with Away-from-Home? There is nothing wrong with eating outside the home – unless you are average. That is because the average restaurant meal has more calories, more fat, and more sugar than the average home-cooked meal. You can reverse this, though, with some awareness. Classic Breakfast Sandwiches The classic breakfast sandwich or burrito can have eggs, cheese, and meat. From there, the sandwich can vary widely. An egg white McMuffin from McDonald’s, for example, has 260 calories, while a Croissan‘wich with bacon and sausage from Burger King has 620 calories. Skip the butter and any fried potatoes, such as hash browns or shredded potatoes, and choose: Ham instead of bacon or sausage. An English muffin (or nothing) instead of a bagel, biscuit, croissant, or tortilla. Egg whites instead of whole eggs. Café Choices Coffee shops and bakery-café’s offer all kinds of fresh, tantalizing, and absolutely off-limits foods. Hint: you do not need a cinnamon roll with 50 grams of sugar to start your day. Stay away from the breakfast pastries and breakfast sandwiches on bagels. Instead, you may be best off with an “a la carte”-style breakfast. Look for items such as: Plain oatmeal or oatmeal with nuts as an add-in. Fruit cups or whole fruit. Low-fat cream cheese – you can spread it on half of a whole-grain bagel. Smart Suggestions Starbucks offers some hot breakfast options for under 300 calories – their egg white bites have only 170 calories – and Dunkin Donuts offers some DD Smart Wake Up Wraps for 160 to 240 calories. By the way, a Bismark donut has 490 calories. Subway offers egg whites, ham, and reduced-calorie cheese on 3-inch subs, so you can avoid too much bread. Lunch for Breakfast You may not need to depend on the breakfast menu if the restaurant serves lunch early in the morning. If that is the case, you may be able to get grilled chicken, turkey breast, and cheese on a salad. Bring Your Own There is a chance that you may not realize how easy and quick it can be to bring your own breakfast from home and avoid restaurants altogether. We understand if you have exactly zero seconds to dedicate to making your breakfast in the morning before you leave home. You can stash it in the car or fridge the night before. If you have access to hot water before you have breakfast, these options can work: Protein Oatmeal with an apple or some walnuts. Protein Muffins in flavors such as Blueberry, Double Chocolate, and Maple Pumpkin. Protein Hot Chocolate with milk for extra calcium or protein. If you are going to eat in the car or have no microwave at work, you’ll need something ready-to-eat. Consider: Protein Cereal in Honey Nut, Chocolate, or other favorite flavors. Oatmeal Raisin Protein Cookies. Fruit and cottage cheese or yogurt. A Protein Bar. You can have the best of both worlds: a meal as quick and easy as a fast food meal, with nutrition that fits into your meal plan like a home-cooked meal. Way to start the day right!

If so you might be an EMPATH. An empath is a person with the ability to sense the mental or emotional state of another individual. An empath can psychically feel the emotions, feelings, energy and even thoughts of others. A few common traits of an empath: Highly intuitive Emotionally sensitive (often labeled by others as “overly sensitive” or “too emotional”) Can feel in their own bodies the emotions of others Often absorb other people’s energy Frequently feels overwhelmed in crowds Typically have accurate initial gut feelings about people/situations Need a lot of alone time Have big hearts and can be taken advantage of Because they can see and sense problems (and what needs to be done to resolve them) in other people’s lives they often feel responsible to fix them. What’s all this got to do with food? If you are an empath there is a good chance you are not using food to manage YOUR energy but to manage OTHER PEOPLE’s energy. It’s like you are psychic/energy sponge who absorbs other people’s energy throughout the day, whether it be the co-worker who is cranky, the happy giggly girl in line at Target, your good friend who is going through a break up, or the heated political debates on television. When you unknowingly absorb these energies you can be left feeling anxious, drained, depressed, overwhelmed, and even confused by the end of what seemed to be a normal, productive ‘uneventful’ day. Such feelings can be a trigger to overeat. If you are familiar with emotional eating you KNOW that overeating is a good way to escape or calm such emotions. So what’s an empath to do to stop from picking up and taking on everyone else’s emotions? Start to notice energy. Notice how you feel in different situations, around various people. Connect to your body: does your body feel calm and relaxed around this person or uptight and anxious, do you have a knot in your stomach, are your shoulders scrunched, do you feel the need to be defensive, or do you feel calm and safe? Notice how you feel in a cluttered room vs. a bare room, how you feel listening to different music, how you feel when you wear certain colors, etc. Protect your energy; before you leave the house in the morning imagine yourself being protected by a sparkly white or golden bubble and the only thing that can penetrate this bubble is love and healing energy, no negative energy can get through this beautiful circle of light. If you’ve been around someone who’s uptight anxious or angry literally brush their energy off your body with your hand. Hold your hands about and inch away from your body and brush around your head, down your opposite arms, down your chest stomach and legs. Or even just shaking your hands down by your side with the intent of shaking off their energy can help. If you are in a conversation with someone who is angry or anxious you can imagine you are behind a one way mirror and everything they say just bounces right back to them, or imagine you are wearing a suit of teflon and everything they say just slides right off. Stretch your body (we hold emotions in our muscles… when you stretch it helps release stored emotions). Spend time in nature. Walk barefoot in the grass. Take a bath in epsom salt. Create a transition ritual for when come home from an event, or work, or school, etc. It can be something like deciding to change your shirt and while changing your shirt ask that any energies that you've absorbed that are not yours be released saying ”I now release any energies that I may have absorbed that are not mine. I send them to be transmuted to light and love and sent back to their rightful owner!” Spend time near water. Meditate. I am seeing this more and more in my practice that energy sensitive people often struggle with food or some other addiction as a way to manage all the intense emotions of the world these days. If this article resonates with you it is important to understand that this is very real and that you begin to truly honor your intuition and energy sensitivities. Then set out to learn positive self nurturing rituals to protect and heal you own energy. I will be offering Zoom groups to discuss emotional eating, eating as a reflection of self love and respect, and learning to notice and protect your energy. If you have any questions or comments do not hesitate to contact me!