LivingFree!

Hi NavyMon2006--Glad you found us too! See you on Saturday 11/1!

Hi Danielle, Making the WLS decision is among one of the biggest decisions you will make in your lifetime--right up there with decisions about your career, your education, marriage, childen, buying a home, etc etc etc. THIS DECISION IS FOR LIFE. Those who succeed with weight loss surgery for the long-term (meaning the rest of your life) go into this knowing that the operation is just 10% of the process; the other 90% is your READINESS to truly change. That means being totally honest with yourself that you are READY to change your old, unhealthy habits and lifestyle FOREVER. This is SO not about just losing the weight. You must change your relationship with food, your attitude about ditching junk food and replacing it with REAL food (not processed and fast food) to give your body the fuel it needs. Committing to an overall healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise is what spells lifelong success. All of this does not happen overnight. It is a long and gradual process, but the rewards are hard to put into words on how it changes lives. It is NOT the easy way out to losing your weight. It is hard to let go of those old habits. You will get frustrated. That is when you remember -- It's not that you CAN'T have the old, unhealthy junk -- it's that you are CHOOSING not to eat it. Because telling yourself you CAN'T have something makes you want it all the more. When you tell yourself you are CHOOSING not to eat it, YOU ARE PUTTING YOURSELF IN CONTROL--ONLY YOU! When I think of myself 3-1/2 years ago, right where you are today, I could not imagine I was capable of making such drastic eating and lifestyle changes. Junk food was my very best friend. I ate fast food Breakfast, lunch, & dinner. The house was full of ice cream, cakes, pies, Cookies, chips, candy ALWAYS. I even mourned its loss; I felt so alone without it at first. After surgery, though, when I started feeding my body what it was designed to have put in it, neither my body nor my brain cared much anymore about the junk. It craved the healthy food, not the junk. Now I love looking at all the junk I have CHOSEN to eliminate from my life and just say to myself "I don't eat that anymore." None of that stuff lives in my house anymore, but I run across it constantly out in my world (it's everywhere, right???). I am so glad it does not have power over me any more. You asked what it is like living with the sleeve--it is freedom--especially when I think about all the time I wasted in my life over so many issues about food. I wish that same kind of freedom for you and anyone else just beginning to think about WLS. There are some people who have the surgery who WERE NOT REALLY READY to quit eating their junk and they go back to eating all the unhealthy stuff, and start regaining it all back a year or two or five years out. It does not have to happen that way! This works for life if you make the commitment. The sleeve helps you, but does not do the work for you. Sometimes you'll hear people say that their SLEEVE DIDN'T WORK. The sleeve surgeries work--it's just the OWNER of the sleeve that is responsible for MAKING IT WORK! Good luck with your decision!

Lisa, sorry to hear about your injury--hope you heal quickly! Take care. Sherry

CA-ONTARIO/CHINO & NEARBY (Western San Bernardino County) First Saturday of Every Month, 9:30-11:00 AM BARIATRIC PAL ONTARIO/CHINO COMMUNITY SUPPORT GROUP PLEASE SAVE THE DATE: ***NEXT SUPPORT GROUP IS Saturday, November 1, 2014, 9:30-11:00AM*** Hi Everyone! Looking forward to meeting this month as many of us are beginning to think about this year's holiday festivities, and the various ways that affects us in our WLS world. . . Our Mini-Topic of the Month for November will be: Part One: WLS & the Holidays--Keeping it Fun AND Healthful! The People. The Places. The Goodies. Hope you will be joining us! If you will be coming, PLEASE RSVP ON THIS THREAD NO LATER THAN THURSDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 30 OR TO: ontchinochapter@aol.com Thank you! See you on November 1st! Sherry BariatricPal Support Group Leader BARIATRIC PAL Ontario/Chino Community Support Group First Saturday of Every Month, 9:30-11:00 AM ontchinochapter@aol.com MEETING LOCATION: KAISER PERMANENTE ONTARIO/VINEYARD MEDICAL CENTER (Building A, 3rd Floor), 2295 S. Vineyard Ave., Ontario 91761 DIRECTIONS: From the 60 Fwy, take the Vineyard Ave exit. The Medical Center is on Vineyard Ave, just north of the 60 Fwy (NE corner Vineyard Exit & 60 Fwy). When you enter the short driveway from Vineyard Ave, you'll see a tall building just to your left. That is Building A. There will be ample parking in the lot in front of the building. Enter the building's double doors and you will see a large receptionist area. The elevators are just to your right of the receptionist area. (DO NOT CHECK IN at the reception desk; proceed directly to 3rd floor.) Standard Disclaimer: Any information provided at BariatricPal Community Support Groups is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not be substituted for regular consultation with your health care provider.

Hi Jan!!! Thanks for updating us so soon. So glad to hear you're doing well. And---congratulations! Take it slow and I hope you're feeling well enough to join us on Nov 1. Sherry

Hi CassandraChanel, See Post #45 on this thread for announcement of our last group (October's). We meet the first Saturday of each month from 9:30-11:00 AM at Kaiser Permanente Ontario Vineyard Ave (just north 60 Fwy). Watch this thread for group meeting announcements, usually about 10 days before next group. Once you attend our group, you are put on an email list. Please feel free to private message me here, or send email to me at ontchinochapter@aol.com if you have questions. Next group is Saturday Nov 1. RSVP to ontchinochapter@aol.com if you would like to attend. Would love to meet you! Thanks Debbie3sons--hope you can make it too! Sherry BariatricPal Ont/Chino Local Chapter Leader

Hi washda, Appreciate your letting me know. Hope you can save the dates for Nov & Dec--we all need that little extra self-care time JUST FOR US during these upcoming busy months. Saturday Nov 1 and Dec 6. Take care. Sherry

Thanks much for letting me know. Deep breaths, right? We're here every month--same time, same place. Come join us when you can. Keep taking good care of YOU. Sherry

Hi washda and Debbie3sons! Thanks for your RSVPs... see you Saturday. Sherry

Hi suekistar~ Hope to see you there!

BARIATRIC PAL COMMUNITY SUPPORT GROUP First Saturday of Every Month, 9:30-11:00 AM ***NEXT SUPPORT GROUP IS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 9:30-11:00 AM*** Hi BariatricPal Pals! We're celebrating our Super September Group!!! I am DELIGHTED that we were almost 30 STRONG. As you know, our Agenda had been planned based on 15 RSVPs, so of course that meant several of you did not have an opportunity to share what may have been very important for YOU. We have a great new plan for October's Group to better accommodate our exciting growth, so that everyone who wants to speak can do so. Please bear with us--thank you! October's Mini-Topic of the Month will be: Self-Care Tips & Tricks: Taming That S-T-R-E-S-S Monster! You can help A LOT to keep our support group productive and powerful by PLEASE RSVPing if you are coming, NO LATER THAN THURSDAY night, OCTOBER 2 TO: this thread -OR- ontchinochapter@aol.com Thank you! See you on the 4th! Sherry BariatricPal Support Group Leader BARIATRIC PAL Ontario/Chino Community Support Group First Saturday of Every Month, 9:30-11:00 AM ontchinochapter@aol.com http://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/1097-usa-bariatricpal-local-chapters/ MEETING LOCATION: KAISER PERMANENTE ONTARIO/VINEYARD MEDICAL CENTER (Building A, 3rd Floor), 2295 S. Vineyard Ave., Ontario 91761 DIRECTIONS: From the 60 Fwy, take the Vineyard Ave exit. The Medical Center is on Vineyard Ave, just north of the 60 Fwy (NE corner Vineyard Exit & 60 Fwy). When you enter the short driveway from Vineyard Ave, you'll see a tall building just to your left. That is Building A. There will be ample parking in the lot in front of the building. Enter the building's double doors and you will see a large receptionist area. The elevators are just to your right of the receptionist area. (DO NOT CHECK IN at the reception desk; proceed directly to 3rd floor.)

Hi BariatricPal Pals, September 6 Group: Many thanks to everyone who came to Saturday's Group! Great to see familiar faces and happy to see new ones! We VERY UNEXPECTEDLY had 29 in attendance!!! Only 15 had RSVP'd, so I had prepared my entire Agenda around that number. I hope that in spite of our spoiled Agenda, you were still able to get some valuable support and information you can use. I am sorry that our seating was messy, that the atmosphere had to seem so "rushed," and that some did not have an opportunity to talk. Those who are just beginning to explore WLS, and those who came for support to get back on track following some regain will take first priority at next meeting. I will be spending this month working on ideas for a different group format to better serve our increasing attendance. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Next group is Saturday, October 4, same time, same place. I'll send out a reminder notice about 10 days before. Thanks, everyone. Have a great month! Sherry

Thanks for starting this new forum. I think it will be a great resource for everyone struggling with stalls to help each other--all in one convenient spot!

Hi marfar7 & jols---looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow too! Sherry

Hi ya slikchk10, Thanks much for letting me know. We've grown by leaps and bounds this month! Are you coming? If not, see you some time soon. . .

Sorry you can't make it--maybe next month. We'll be here--Saturday, October 4. Good luck with those pearly whites!

Hi BariatricPal Pals~ Just friendly reminder-- SUPPORT GROUP IS THIS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 9:30-11:00 AM (see post #33 above). Hope to see you there!!!

Moonlitestarbrite--glad you found Elephant Journal. Love it for its practical, no-nonsense, and today's real world approaches to practicing mindful living. I admire you for your determination to "thrive" over merely surviving. Twelve years is a long time to just survive. You deserve that highest quality of life. Your hard work WILL pay off for you. Stay strong, especially on the days when you don't feel like it . . .

Moonlight. . . I think you've greatly narrowed down your challenge--what do you need to GIVE YOURSELF so you can keep making good choices every day... Although of course it's great to have loving and caring people in our lives, people come and people go--the only one we can ALWAYS rely on is OURSELVES. As long as we keep searching for "someone" to "hold our hand care about us," we will continue to live in that state of feeling let down. You CAN be your own BEST FRIEND when there's "no one else." For me, letting go of the past was significant. Yep, it's unfair there's no one to hold my hand, but I made the decision to let go of all that past junk and live in the NOW and rely on ME. Staying present remains hard for me, but has helped immensely. You've probably already explored these things, but in terms of discovering what you need to GIVE YOURSELF, have you tried actually crafting a meaningful bulleted list? Sometimes the visual impact can be powerful to work off a written list. I was a big "I CAN'T" person. I also needed BIG LESSONS in extreme self-care. I didn't know how to be good to myself. Author Cheryl Richardson has written some great books on this subject.

There's something to be said about driving ourselves batty over finding our "exact answers" to our emotional eating--as I initially commented about Roth's deep soul-searching approach. Just way too deep for some of us. May I offer some excerpts from Alexander's great book "The Emotional First+Aid Kit" that might offer a perspective that just maybe you don't HAVE TO know WHY. QUOTE: It is very common to hear, "If I could just find out why I eat this way, it would be so easy to stop." Some people want to figure out why they eat for emotional reasons. The fact is, you don't need to know why in order to change. Even if you are able to get to the root of your emotional eating, that information will not usually automatically lead to change. It may be helpful to know why, and you may be very curious, but that knowledge is not of key importance to your weight loss. For most people it makes sense to skip this Quest, and proceed directly to the step of changing the habit. It is important to look at the emotions you experience when feeling out of control, but it may not be necessary to find the root of the problem in the past. It is not just how the habit started, but the repetition over many years that makes it hard to break. . . .Expect to always feel conflict about eating. Except for the first few months after surgery, you will probably want to go back to eating your favorite foods. If you EXPECT the conflict, you can plan to deal with it and win the battle of recreational and emotional eating. ...The hard truth is that if you use food for comfort or other emotional reasons, those thoughts and cravings will probably always be there. ... Once the connections have been established between food and emotions they wiill not easily go away. They may diminish in intensity with time, but will likely be a part of your life for a very long time. You will gain confidence and control with experience, but expect to have cravings to some degree. UNQUOTE CGJ put it best-- learning to LIVE and ACT differently--creating day-to-day new, healthy choices is where change begins to take hold.

Sorry you're struggling right now, but congrats on your great success so far! This is just a temporary setback. Not a catastrophe. You DO have control--you never lost it--it is TOTALLY in your hands!!! What you are dealing with though is what most of us have the toughest time with--those processed carbs that we always run to when times get tough. It takes lots and lots of work to conquer that demon and it doesn't happen over night but you CAN do it. You've taken a huge first step by recognizing that you do this when you are super stressed. Going back to our old default eating habits that got us into trouble in the first place is what we know and what we are comfortable with and what makes us feel good. But we have to get real with ourselves--that way of thinking is NOT what we want for our future. For me, a good place to start in gaining control over my emotional eating was to do some educating myself on mindful eating. Slowing down my eating, using self-talk (affirmations to myself over and over like "I choose not to eat these unhealthy carbs," "I choose to nourish my body with REAL food," etc etc), deep-breathing. . .Reminding myself WHY I made the decision to have the surgery, and most of all, reminding myself that I am a WLS patient for the rest of my life and that I need to treat my body much more SPECIAL than most people, not just for a little while, but FOREVER. You are strong or you would never have been able to have this surgery in the first place. You'll get past this. You, me, none of us are EVER going to be perfect at this, so don't waste your energy trying. Be good to yourself.

Hi moonlitestarbrite, Sorry I've been MIA from this thread for awhile, and haven't answered your question until now. Geneen Roth was the first author I read, probably over twenty+ years ago when I was desperately searching for why my life was in such a shambles (at that time still undiagnosed major depression). I suffered from EXTREMELY low self-esteem due in large part to my obesity and early childhood parental death. The seedlings Roth helped me plant in my brain all those years ago were that: 1) I AM "good enough" and 2) in my cocoon of profound lonliness, I used food as my only true comfort, friend, and healer. Food was always there for me, no matter what. At the time, those were really major awakenings for me because I had no clue why I felt so different from everyone else and so out of control. It took me many years and much painful work--both with psychiatrists and therapists, and utilizing self-help reading of many well-respected professionals in the field of emotional/compulsive eating, to get to where I am today. Food is just food. It is not good or bad. And its job is NOT to be a comfort or a friend--it is to fuel and nourish my body. Period. Finding those emotional substitutes for the old famliar go-to foods when we're stressed, bored, tired, angry, etc. is a HUGE JOB that doesn't happen over night, but when you consistently do the hard work, the end result is SO WORTH THE EFFORT. Hope this helps, at least a little. Keep up your great work!

BARIATRIC PAL ONTARIO/CHINO COMMUNITY SUPPORT GROUP ***SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 9:30 - 11:00 am*** Hi Everyone! A BIG thank you to everyone who came for our very first August Group! It was my pleasure to meet all of you and spend time with you. I hope you felt welcome, comfortable, and supported and will choose to make BariatricPal Ont/Chino YOUR bari support group! Please join us for September's group! We will be starting our Mini-Topic of the Month, where we will spend 15-20 minutes educating on a topic that is particularly challenging for most of us. September's topic is those (processed/refined/junk food) carbs. If this will be your first time at Ont/Chino, we meet the FIRST SATURDAY OF EVERY MONTH from 9:30-11:00 am at KAISER PERMANENTE ONTARIO/VINEYARD MEDICAL CENTER (Building A, 3rd Floor), 2295 S. Vineyard Ave., Ontario 91761. DIRECTIONS: From the 60 Fwy, take the Vineyard Ave exit. The Medical Center is on Vineyard Ave, just north of the 60 Fwy (NE corner Vineyard Exit & 60 Fwy). When you enter the short driveway from Vineyard Ave, you'll see a tall building just to your left. That is Building A. There will be ample parking in the lot in front of the building. Enter the building's double doors and you will see a large receptionist area. The elevators are just to your right of the receptionist area. (DO NOT CHECK IN at the reception desk; proceed directly to 3rd floor.) PLEASE RSVP: If you have not already RSVP'd for Sept's group that you WILL be attending, please do so to ontchinochapter@aol.com no later than Friday, September 5 so we have enough copies of materials for all. Thank you. See you on the 6th! Sherry Standard Disclaimer: Any information provided at BariatricPal Community Support Groups is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not be substituted for regular consultation with your health care provider.

Hi haleytrim, My pleasure! My surgery has been such an amazing life gift, and my gratitude for that will forever be "paying it forward" in any and every way I possibly can. Glad my words helped you make the connection you needed to bolster your confidence that you CAN do this! All your other attempts at weight loss all your life were just that--DIETS. The difference now is that this is a LIFESTYLE, not a diet. You will be successful at keeping the weight off because you won't be "dieting" anymore--you will get up every day and make healthy decisions that will have become automatic (with a lot of hard work changing old habits in your first 6-12 months) because you remember each day that you are a WLS patient for life. We have the disease of obesity for life, but now we have the best tool to treat it that we never had before. I am so happy for you that you have made the decision at this stage of your life to improve your quality of life with the sleeve. It is never too late. Your magic shoes will walk (run) hand-in-hand with your sleeve, and you have so much to look forward to. Congratulations on your decision--November will be here before you know it!

Hi there crunchy things chewer: That, by far, was my BIGGEST WLS challenge from the get-go. But there IS one crunchy protein--it's an acquired taste for most--I had to learn to love it, but offering the suggestion. KMart's Smart Sense brand of Healthy Energy Blend (soy nuts, cranberries, almonds, pumpkin kernels) = 7g protein, 150 cal, 13 carb, 8g fat poly&mono, per 1/4c serving. One of my favorites is 1T crunchy natural Peanut Butter and apple wedges and a cheese stick as a protein snack. I cut it up in small pieces because I like finger food and it makes me feel like I'm eating MORE when there's lots of pieces!!! Forgive me--don't know much about lap-band--but why do you HAVE TO graze? Why can you not eat 3 meals + 2 Snacks per day = eating nutritiously about every 3 hours? One more suggestion--I came across this wonder product (for me at least) in one of my bari support groups. It's like a giant rice cake but way better for us. It satisfies the crunch thing and there's lots you can do to doctor it up (with healthy things, keeping it very low cal but satisfying). They're round and about 5" in diameter, and called CocoLite Pop Cakes. One piece has 16 cal, 0 fat, 4g carb, 1g protein. Available online at cocofoods.com. Minimum order is 6 packs. cost is about $20, free shipping. I've heard tat they carry them at Whole Foods if you have a store where you live. The only other crunchy processed carby thing I still allow myself is dry Cereal (either choc Cheerios or Fiber One 80 Choc). I have to keep it pre-portioned in baggies so I don't overeat it. Eating straight from the box was a big problem for me 'til I put a stop to that. Anyhow, for me, knowing I have these GO-TO crunchy things has really helped tame my CRUNCH MONSTER a lot. Hope this helps, at least at a little . . .