Fluffnomore

First, I plan to get through whatever time period my surgeon has set forward. I know they don't prohibit it completely, but it's at least 6 months and maybe a year. Then I plan to only have one drink in any situation for two reasons. It's been documented that our sleeve stomachs absorb alcohol really quickly and affect us differently after surgery. That alone should give any of us pause. (There are documented cases of people getting DUIs after having one drink.) The second is that as a woman in my 40s, with my friends one of our favorite things to do is kick back and have a couple of cocktails. I'm not saying I'll never have another drink but I do think that this social activity, for me anyway, needs to be completely reframed. Hey, I was just sleeved. But I'm looking at this from the standpoint of years of slippery slope behavior that got me to the point that I wanted/needed to be sleeved. I don't want to throw that away by not being very careful how I proceed.

I am NOT giving my unicorn back, people.

My goodness, Butter. You never even have to leave your house.

I've managed to move from my couch to my desk in my office today. For whatever reason I still don't want to open the pile of mail waiting for me right over there… <----- Time for a meeting of Procrastinators Anonymous. Maybe next week.

Random thought: hey, it turns out that 6 oz of soup is MORE than enough.

This may be completely inappropriate, but I am glad to hear that those were, um, enhanced. I know that I am worried about what kind of rigging I'm going to need to pull mine up from my ankles when I'm done.

This would be a great thing to know. I know that I'm still early in and probably tired from surgery, but my family has to avoid me after about 7:00 pm. I'm a witch after a certain point.

:-) I get that.

Fair enough. I'm willing to admit that I don't know. One thing I know I have in common with "addicts" is the "if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" thing. My habits quack. I don't know if it matters that I don't have physical dependence. In a sense, I have taken the AA first step…I have admitted that I did/do not have control and that my old behaviors are not working.

I went with my friends 5 days after surgery and had a venti iced unsweetened green tea to which I added a lemonade Protein powder. Took a while for it to mix in, LOL. And then sat and sipped it slowly for the hour and a half while we were there yukking it up. It was a little early to be out and about, but it was so good to see friends that it was worth it!

I crush mine and swallow it with a few sips of Water. I have to admit I probably do it wrong and take it with Vitamins, etc. But I'm going to wait until my bloodwork in a month or so to see if it's working well. It's easier for me to do it at once, and frankly, if putting all of them together helps me take my vitamins, that is what I'll do. You may not be able to manage it for the first few days after surgery. I didn't. You will want to ask your doctor, but mine basically said, "Just start as soon as you can."

Love this, and will join you as soon as I'm cleared. Even our coaches sort of gird their loins for FGB. They say it's similar to Murph in effort. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

I'm doing a lot of soul searching these days about this topic. I don't think of myself as a food addict, and yet here I am. I hope that my issues with food are more around habit and behavior than addiction. But I felt "done" enough with yo-yo dieting that the sleeve seemed like the best solution for me. I can liken it, in a way, to drinking…because I was a faithfully habitual drinker. Before the liquid diet phase kicked in, I had about two glasses of wine every night. I really wondered if I would crave or miss it, and the answer (at least right now) is that I don't. Not at all. So that means, to me, that I was not addicted per se. It wouldn't have been so easy to drop it. But is there such a thing as habitual addiction? I don't know. I have a lot of thin friends, and I think back to every time I went to lunch with them and they ordered the healthy meal and I rolled my eyes just a little. I am really thinking this through because somewhere in me my little voice told me that cold turkey and a complete paradigm shift was the only thing that would help me lose the weight. So maybe I'm in denial here, but I think that it is healthier at this point to call myself an addict and follow the steps to the letter. Really have been thinking about this a lot, based on the Enabling and Addict threads. But all joking aside, even though I don't have to contend with bingeing, I got here by consistently making poor food choices. And yes, I'm sure my metabolism has stopped working for me after I have abused and confused it for so many years. And now I'm at the point where a full re-set is in order. Raising my shaker bottle of strawberry unjury in a toast to all of you...

Yes, about a week…so hang in there for 2 or 3 more days!

I work from home, and I was actually approving copy in the hospital from my bed the afternoon of the surgery. I'm 10 days out now, but had to go out to a meeting last Friday. That was a bit ambitious, between the drive, sitting up straight for 2 hours, etc. But I have a busy week this week so I am just trying to take it easy when I can.

I don't think this is offered online. I looked too.

The other thing that our kids have that we didn't have is 24/7 access to electronics…says the woman who has spent the last 10 days recovering on her couch with a laptop, iPhone and TV remote within reach. It is HARD but not impossible to sandblast them out of their complacency, particularly when my example (working from home) is that I'm usually hanging around using a laptop. That's one reason we signed up for CF together. I brought him to a kids' class and he turned to me and said, "Only if you do a class after me." Couldn't very well say no. And sure, some of this is genetic, maybe a lot. But that doesn't completely explain why one is thin/normal and the other is chubby. My daughter is not particularly more active than my son. And he is thisclose to puberty hitting, so some of this will likely straighten out as he grows (he's 11 and about my height, so he is going to grow a lot taller.) But that doesn't solve how he LOVES to eat fast, and until it hurts. (Thanks, Dad.) As a matter of fact, when I was pre-op I went out to dinner with the three of them (husband, daughter, son) and was almost sickened watching them shovel food down their gullets while I was eating broth. I am really interested to see how the sleeve changes my husband for this reason. And how, in turn, that might affect the way my kids approach food. Edited to add: It sounds like I am blaming my husband for everything and I'm not. I cook the meals, I run the household, and I was known for sitting on the couch in my (figurative) underpants with a glass or six of wine of an evening. There are lots of behaviors to modify here. If I'd been the goddess of health and good fortune, I'd still have that 85% of my stomach.

Interesting. I have an obese son, and I definitely DON'T do that with him. He has a series of food-related behaviors that we are working on, but I don't reward him with food. Plus we began CrossFit together in August and I've had a big talk with him about why I'm sleeving it. Now, my husband might. Because my husband had a similar experience early on with food=love. His family had a nanny/maid who used to bring him donuts…they called it "The Sneaky Donut Factory." Great message: let's get you junky stuff, and let's keep it a secret! Add that to his parents both being secretive binge eaters with a flair for public fat shaming, and you have a blueprint for disaster. My father is one of those blustery guys who says things like, "Food should hurt." And he is no lightweight. The truth is, when my son's diet was completely under my control (when he was younger) he was slightly overweight but not obese. This has developed over the last couple of years. Interesting, interesting.

But Laura, don't you think it would be okay if I had a cheeseburger? Just a small one?

You probably will be getting pre-op blood work, or instructions on when to get it. I felt like my last pre-op appointment was all about me signing waivers that said, "I understand that I could die." They'll probably go over the pre-op and post-op instructions again. Honestly I went from approval to surgery within just over a week so I know I had a lot to get accomplished in about 5 business days. And as many have pointed out, every office is slightly different. Good luck!

This whole process feels like that moment when you're about to jump into a lake and you know it's going to be cold. Just psyching yourself up to jump is in some ways the hardest part. Before this turns into a long, drawn-out metaphor about treading Water and drowning and swimming and all those good things…I hope as you feel physically better you'll feel mentally better about it. I'm still cooking for my family and because I love to cook, and try new recipes I know that at different points I will have some resentment about this. I'm just hoping that I can re-channel my interest positively. Hang in there.

I would just call. What can it hurt?

I got nothing and liked it. Okay, honestly they gave me about 4 oz of Water after my leak test. And then I was more or less sent home to clear liquid land. No purees until week 4.

Have you done any measurements with a tape? It's the strangest thing…my hips are down 1 inch, bust is the same, but my waist is down 3 inches. So no real difference in clothes despite 20 lbs lost.

My dad always used a compliment he picked up growing up in the Bronx: For a fat girl, you don't sweat much. Note: he never said it to me, it was more of a general line when I was growing up and neither I nor my sister were even slightly overweight.