DougNichols

I'm good until I reach my goal. Then I don't have anything else to look forward to, and so I eat crap again.

Three Years Later - What I've Learned Here's my experiences from the sleeve process years ago. I wish I had this information before getting the sleeve, so I wanted to share it with all of you: GAINING WEIGHT Gaining weight is easy: you simply eat when you're emotional, lonely, or not hungry. Even though my stomach would barely fit a slice of pizza, I could still suck down an entire large meat Lover's Supreme by eating a single slice, waiting until my stomach could fit some more and then eating another. Until the pizza was all gone. You can also do this with ice cream, burgers, fries, and all the other miscellaneous crap food widely available via drive thrus. This is why you're required to see a counselor and nutritionist - to handle your eating issues. If these aren't handled, then DON'T BOTHER WITH THE SURGERY. You will simply get fat again by eating smaller portions more frequently. If however you only eat when you're hungry - and stick to good foods then you're golden. Now OBVIOUSLY if you did that in the first place you wouldn't be fat. So surgery is a booster shot to your weight loss, and new way of life. Think of it as waging a war, and surgery is a tank. Now a tank is a formidable weapon. Can run over enemies, shoot some big artillery but eventually if all you have is that one tank, you'll probably lose a prolonged battle. So you gather some strategy and military air support (diet changes), some recruits and soldiers (lifestyle changes) and NOW you have a master battle plan for your war. And ultimately a better thought out path to success. You invested a lot of money and pain into this - don't screw it up. FIRST FEW MONTHS The first six months your weight will drop amazingly fast, because you're out of surgery and can only eat Soup broth for a week. And then slowly mushy foods come in, followed by a few solids. You don't really need a blender, there are ample canned goods you can eat. Baby food, blending a steak and other shocking posts you read about aren't required: just shop for other things that qualify. Going out with friends during this period is depressing, since your diet is so restrictive, you're staring blankly at the menu for a long time and finally decide on Water. Get everything you need together before coming home. You'll be on some pretty loopy meds when arriving home, and won't be in any shape to hit the local WalMart. Nor will your family want to bother with it - so plan ahead. FOOD AND STRETCHING You can only eat maybe a half cup of food during the first couple months. Then a cup after about five months, then two cups after longer. You can hurry this process along by stuffing your face until your stomach hurts so bad you need to go lay down, or vomit. But if your eating problem is that severe then see my multi-faceted approach to surgery from above. Each person is obviously different, but stretching your stomach (to me at least) seems difficult and a venture of pain and suffering. I can feel my stomach naturally taking in more food over time, however I've cycled that back down by going a few days drinking only delicious fruit smoothies. This makes my tummy literally shrink back to where it was after surgery, or pretty close, dependent upon how many days I go. You can also accomplish this via more extreme methods like water or veggie juice fasting, however banana/stawberry/pineapple with some coconut water and ice in the blender tastes much better in my humble opinion. If you do continue to gorge like a tick on bad foods, then yes your stomach will stretch. I've met a few people who's stomach has returned to normal size. Again - everybody is different, I'm just telling you MY story. How much food you can eat varies by food type: RICE - I can eat maybe five spoonfuls of this before I feel sick. Stuffing in another three before my body registers that I'm full and it's a vomit party. You need to eat slowly - there's a point in which eating more means bending over the toilet. And once you've experienced that joy, you quickly learn where the limit resides. Rice expands so you gotta be careful. An average meal of fried rice and an egg roll is a full day's worth of food, that requires splitting up. SODAS - Equivalent to drinking battery acid. I've met some people who've acclimated back to it, but why bother? MEAT - Steak is bad, try like five or six bites before calling it quits. chicken is similar. Fish goes down a little easier, and you can eat more, maybe because it's flaky. SALADS and FRUIT - I can eat one banana. Two is painful. Ditto with grapes, strawberries, etc. These foods process through your stomach quicker, so you can eat a little more often compared to stuffing down a sirlion. PIZZA - Takes me about 12 hours to suck down a large thin crust. Regular or deep crust, I end up tossing half of it into the trash. Desserts - They hurt. Bad. And then make me sleepy, ticked off and depressed. I mostly stick with natural sugars now like fruits and veggies. RESTAURANT EATING Eating out with friends has a lot of rules tagging along. You must wait 30 minutes after drinking water before eating (which works out great, since that's how long food takes to arrive). I order an appetizer or split a full meal with a friend, so this is not a big deal. I see and hear lots of drama about this mingling around, but it's not THAT bad, and you can easily make it look perfectly normal without telling people you had surgery. You don't need a little happy note from your doctor saying you had surgery, just get a doggie bag or go halfsies with a buddy. CONCLUSION These are just my two cents, and I hope they help someone. I lost about 100lbs, then gained back 50. I'm in the process of losing again thanks to a diet change (I went 100% raw food) and exercise.

Lost 7 lbs in 6 days. Then I gained 1 lb back. Nah, not at all.

DAY 7 - 313.8 lbs Grats to me for making it a week! Three to go! Went up a pound, but not too concerned. In reality I should probably only be weighing once a week, but I want to document a solid month of fruits/veggies. I will however adjust a couple things, just to ensure I keep the loss going: 1) I need more food. It's funny how I was sucking down an entire pizza in 9 hours, and yet now I'm rarely hungry. Not only that, but I will literally eat 1 banana and then wait 4 hours until I eat another one. AMAZING how fresh fruits/veggies eliminate your constant hunger cravings. Processed foods suck. SO in that light, I wonder if I'm hitting starvation mode. My calorie consumption has gotta be way way down. Therefore, I'll drink another smoothie in the afternoons, and then add a snack somewhere. 2) Do a stressful workout once a week, twice later. I think working out 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week is fantastic, and makes me feel awesome. However I'd like to REALLY press myself occasionally, to get the fat burning. I may end up hiring a trainer once I'm not so out of shape. I DON'T want to waste money on a trainer when I can barely climb 2 stairs before getting winded. 3) If a full stall peeks its head in, I may do a 24 hour juice fast. And/or replace my coffee treat with something smaller.

1) Add more fruits 2) Adjust your existing fruits to be sweeter (peel your carrots for example) 3) Mix in some Low Sodium V8. Adjust amount to taste A 100% juice fast will cause some people to binge afterwards, as pointed out here: Obviously depends upon the person, but I'm PRETTY confident that I'd be a post-fast-binger, so I'm not going that route.

Nah, I've been juicing for a year so my taste buds are accustomed to anything. When I first started, it would have been really nasty but now I love it. I like celery and carrots because they are DIRT cheap. That whole table full of veggies costs like $2.50 for a full day of juice. For kale and spinach (which I love), I prefer to blend them into my fruit smoothies to make a "green smoothie". This keeps the Fiber in tact. I use A LOT of spinach, like 3+ handfuls.

DAY 6 - 312.9 lbs (those stupid green Beans messed up my losses) So I just spent the day chillin'. It's Sunday after all. I think those green beans from last night stalled me out. Can still feel them in my stomach, ewww. For breakfast I had my usual smoothie, lunch a banana + grapes and for dinner I'm having another banana. My food intake is WAY down from what it used to be. Before, I'd stuff my face any time my small tummy could fit food. Worked out for 40 minutes on the treadmill. I was really sore doing it the first three days, but now I'm golden. After my workout, I feel like working out again. juice today: Which made a good 5 glassfuls:

There are countless videos on YouTube showing hot women wearing a fat suit, and getting treated like crap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE1Z-si4skY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X031RoEZvw Funny how they instantly feel bad about themselves, just putting it on for a day. Many people just don't like fatties (men or women). Way it goes. I'm losing weight so I won't die of a heart attack at age 50, and can live to play with my grandchildren. Plus I can be comfortable in my own skin. If I get noticed by some women, then there's a bonus.

I went cold turkey on surgery day. Since I was already doped up on drugs from post-surgery, the withdrawals weren't an issue.

Take your time losing the last 20 lbs. I think you look hot right now.

1) Ride a normal, lightweight bicycle. Not a fat bicycle. 2) SkyDIVING! Always wanted to, never been thin enough 3) Join back into martial arts 4) Be hot enough that girls look at me / talk to me when I visit the gym. Right now they ignore me like I'm a disease

When you start typing it, the name should contain a dropdown with their name. Try altering their name a little, for example if I type "Doctor Nick" it doesn't work. But "Nick" does:

Coke is bad. It's like drinking battery acid. More a nightmare than a dream. I tried some about 4 months out, and ran around the room yelling OW OW OW sh*# sh*# sh*#! Don't want to go near it ever again.

DAY 5 - 313.4 lbs (actually was 312 something this evening, but we'll count the 313.4 since that was early morning) Had my usual smoothie for Breakfast, and then a banana/coffee a little later. For lunch I was in a hurry, so had a banana + handful of peanuts. And then for dinner I went to a barbeque restaurant to attend a hypnosis lecture (don't ask). Not a lot of raw food at a barbeque restaurant, I just want to point that out now. So I had a choice of a salad, some sides of green Beans (no doubt laced with sugar), and finally a raw baked potato. The salad was HORRIBLE. Filled with chicken, all sort of cheeses and everything I didn't want to jam into my body. Plus they used the cheapest possible lettuce you could find (the nasty big sections of iceberg lettuce that you never eat). Baked potato looked rotten, like it was sitting under a heat lamp for the past 3 hours. Ewww. I tried to take a picture so I could post here, but the guy gave me a dirty look. So green beans it was! I got a double serving but only ate half, which filled me up for a long, long time. Not 100% raw but at 91 calories and 5g of fat, MUCH better than that nasty (FIVE HUNDRED calorie) salad for dinner choice. Plus it's natural food so hey - what can you do. And then the guy sitting next to me kept sucking the rather startling amount of excess snot in his nose loudly into my mouth/esophogus, which rapidly reduced my appetite. The creepy part was this girl carrying around a basket of rolls and bread. When people were exiting the line, with a roll already on their plate, she was offering an EXTRA roll. And people were TAKING IT. Zomg. Next time I go out to eat, gonna just get some Water and take a couple bananas with me. Hey girl, hey! Actually went out into public tonight, so was late.

Woah dude, you look like a completely different person. Grats on returning to a normal life.

Thanks! Breakfast: banana, 5 strawberries, slice of pineapple, 3 handfuls of organic spinach, 30 calories worth of coconut Water into a blender snackie: banana and my coffee. later I'll drink my veggie juice Lunch: handful of grapes or an apple. maybe a handful of peanuts snackie: banana, my veggie juice after 30 mins Dinner: small bowl of salad or a banana. Or an apple. I avoid my huge smoothie this late, cause it's a ton of food. Late night: banana if needed. Normally I don't. But sometimes I'm just very hungry. Yeah I'm reading a book on how processed foods have been bio-engineered to be maximum addicting. Screw that crap. I have an addictive personality, so those things start my bad habits going strong. Best to avoid all of them. And before fire and cooking, what did mankind eat? FRUITS AND VEGGIES!

It's not your fault, nor a carb monster. Processed foods have been genetically engineered to be the most addictive possible, so you'll eat more of their product. Many good books detailing what they've done. Gotta get off the crazy food train.

I'm not diabetic, and I get the same sugar/sweets reaction (sleepy, feel terrible, heart races). NO WAY your heart racing that fast is good for you. I figured if I kept eating that sugary crap, I'd end up in the hospital getting some emergency heart surgery. So I'm off it. For good.

DAY 4 - 314.6 lbs Almost lost 6 lbs in 4 days. I'm very pleased thusfar. So today I skipped working out, since my feet and ankles kinda hurt from going from NO workout to 3 solid days in a row. Gonna recover and relax, play me some video games. Look at today's stash from Sam's Club, only cost me $30: That's a full week of food for $30! They were serving blueberry samples. Lady asked if I wanted one. Of course, I'll take 2! Lady and I had a great conversation about weight loss, and natural foods. Some people have asked about my juicing. Here's the stuff I juice: Using my Breville juicer: And it makes about this much. Three big glassfuls:

There is no "honeymoon phase". During the first month or two you're only sipping Soup broth and getting very little calories in, so naturally you'll drop weight faster. The real challenge comes when you begin sucking down regular food. If you start eating pizza and crap food again, then yeah you'll gain it all back. You must change your diet, your outlook on food to achieve your goals.

I'll get voted down for this, but do you really NEED a nutritionist? Mine didn't do squat for me. I learned more on YouTube and nutrition sites in an hour than I did with my nut in 5 visits.

I used Dr. Nick. Awesome guy, VERY helpful staff who answered a lot of my stupid questions. I asked him to make mine extra tight, and he did lol. I never went to any follow-up appointments, though (my choice, since I had zero issues).

THIS WAS MY BREAKFAST! I'm so full, I couldn't eat it all. Got 7 slices in, and had to stop.

Yeah definitely a question for your doctor, during the sleeving process. Well as you probably know, natural and organic food like bananas, grapes get processed much more quickly than something more dense like steak. So you can eat more often. It's not processed food, so close enough. A little fat makes me feel more full. Plus I'm still having coffee every day from the gas station down the street. Old habits die hard.