joatsaint

I have found that bacon grease is the best liquid. And go ahead and toss in the bacon too!

Don't you mean "Oh shart!"

You can't trust them, especially the silent but deadly "one cheek sneak"!

Good to see we're all coming together as a team with a common enemy. Just remember, there is no "I" in team, but there is a "me". And once again, it's all about me. joatsaint - for the win!

Yep, I can see a big difference. But you're developing a bit of an accent.

That's good to know, cause when I become a zombie, I don't want to be a fat zombie! I'd hate to be sleeved and a zombie AND can't lose weight! But brains are a last resort - I can haz cheesburger?

And as we all know, glasses add 10 lbs, unless you wear those new ones with the helium filled frames. When I go into the doctor for post op weigh-ins, they ask me if I want to take my shoes off. I say no, but I do leave my cell phone in the car. That thing is heavy!

What she said! If the weight doesn't return in 2 days, I count it. A loss is a loss.

I would consider that a NSV!

I can always rely on you guys to make me feel soooooooooooooo much better about myself. And I don't count it because it's only temporary. I'll have another torpedo in the tube by the next day.

And she tried to eat my braaaaiiiinnnn!

If you have to tell them something, you can always just say your doctor is treating your for stomach problems and leave it at that. My aunt had gastric surgery for cancer, so there are lots of reasons for stomach surgery.

You for got the ZOMBIES! No thread is complete without a good zombie reference. And no thread is complete without a reference to: MAMA, TRAINS, TRUCKS, PRISON, AND GETTING’ DRUNK

I was back at work by week 2. I was tired and lethargic, but no pain or anything.

I believe you are just experiencing the post-op "Whoosh!" most people get when starting a low cal diet. I lost 10 lbs in the pre-op diet (7 days) and then another 11 in the week post-surgery. I'm sure things will slow down a little for you as you eat more food in the coming days.

I guess the only advice I can give is to tell you to try and figure out where your hunger is coming from. In my case, it wasn't emotional eating or stress eating. And it wasn't cravings for junk food or fast food. I was eating very big meals of healthy foods - baked chicken, pork loin, vegetables. I'd eat 2 or 3 times what a normal person eats. And I would get hungry about every 2 hours, no matter how much I had eaten at the last meal. It wasn't until I learned about the hormone ghrelin, that I realized where my hunger was coming from. With a smaller stomach, I produce less ghrelin and no longer have that nagging hunger sensation. If I were eating because of other issues, I would have to overcome them before the sleeve would have worked for me. So where does your hunger come from?

I thought this was another great article on how on one hand, we're being scolded and treated as outcasts for being fat, and at the same time, food companies are engineering foods that are designed to create cravings and make us fatter. I am all for taking personal responsibility, but at some point you have to realize they are targeting us and creating products that overwhelm our natural stopping point when eating and creating a craving for unhealthy foods. The only way to strike back at these companies is to quit buying their products! According to Michael Moss, the Pulitzer prizing-winning reporter and author of the new book Soups, tomato sauces and hundreds of other food products have put millions of individuals’ health at risk. But the Quest for bigger profits and a larger share of the consumer market has compelled the processed food industry to turn a blind eye to the dangers and consequences of eating those very products. How do the food giants trick consumers? Moss gives several examples: “At Cargill, scientists are altering the physical shape of salt, pulverizing it into a fine powder to hit the taste buds faster and harder, improving what the company calls its ‘flavor burst.’” “Scientists at Nestle are currently fiddling with the distribution and shape of fat globules to affect their absorption rate and, as it’s known in the industry, ‘their mouthfeel.’” “To make a new soda guaranteed to create a craving requires the high math of regression analysis and intricate charts to plot what industry insiders call the “bliss point,” or the precise amount of sugar or fat that will send consumers over the moon.” http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/food-companies-trick-consumers-eating-unhealthy-products-132949611.html

Oh, that's just wrong on so many levels! Your sick. I love that about you. :wub: P.S. Would a sudden rise in the zombie population count as an apocalypse?

I've thought about that and the only time I could ever see myself needing a bigger stomach is if I were to become a competitive athlete or bodybuilder (trust me, ain't gonna happen!) Then I might need to eat more than a normal person, but otherwise, I'd say "No."

I can only offer my own experience, pre-sleeve, I could lose weight in the short term, but would gain it right back as soon as I went back to normal eating. So I knew I could lose weight - I've even gone 5 days eating nothing but coffee and Crystal Light lemonade. But I knew that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life fighting the food cravings. So I'd give in. If I could be like my skinny friend, who can take or leave food and never think about it, I'd have never needed the sleeve. The sleeve has given me a mental rest from constantly thinking about food and what I'm going to eat next. It is an extraordinary feeling when I see a buffet or a spread of free food at work and I know I can eat just a little or none. I can eat less than the skinny women now! (You know those show offs that pick and eat little pieces off their doughnut and can walk away after 1) And I my head won't be constantly nagging me about how good it will taste and how wonderful it feels to have a full belly. That's what the sleeve did for me.

Congrats on your NSV. I got my 2nd NSV this week, had to buy a smaller belt. My old belt looks like Swiss cheese, it has so many holes in it.

At 3 weeks, I had tried ice cream, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. My stomach kinda grumbled over the tablespoon of ice cream, but no problems with peanuts or sunflower seeds. I haven't tried any of the others.

I had a few stomach grumblings for a few weeks when I tried to eat very very finely shredded chicken, but it was only with canned chicken. If I cooked and food processored my own chicken, no problems. And I had no problems with cheese or eggs.