VSGAnn2014

Weight loss isn't your only concern: Repairing your poor shredded new tummy is a big concern. Your body needs Protein to heal and repair your tummy and to feed the body's most important organs -- heart, lungs, brain, etc. If you don't eat protein, your body is eating your muscles to heal your tummy and to do daily repair of your body organs. Figure out a way to get that protein down pronto! Good luck!

There are occasional posts here that just freak me out. I can't find the post now, but the one that just floored me was posted by a guy who was about 3-4 months post-op. His big advice to those who, like him, were members of wine-drinking societies went like this: If you have to drink a couple of bottles of wine at a party, take an anxiety-reducing Rx medication like Xanax or Ativan beforehand. The medication will reduce your stomach's rejection of that much alcohol drunk so soon after surgery. What the f**k!?

Funny stuff! Thanks!

@ ... if you're hungry, eat. But eat what will assuage your physical hunger. Protein is great for assuaging our physical hunger. But highly processed carbs (slider foods) just make us crave more of them. Before I had surgery, I heard this a lot from my surgeon, his team, and online: The sleeve will not fix all your eating / weight / health problems. The sleeve is not the only tool you will have to use to lose all your weight and maintain your weight forever. Other tools available to you include: Nutrition education; meal planning; food tracking; exercise; counseling / therapy (for a variety of reasons -- you don't have to be "crazy" to benefit from counseling); patience; a positive attitude; personal discipline and accountability; etc. As my surgeon said: "The sleeve isn't magic. There is no magic." BTW, "head hunger" is a general term used around here that means a number of things, including: emotional eating; self-medicating uncomfortable feelings with food; eating out of habit; eating in response to environmental cues. Not every impulse to eat comes from unpleasant feelings either: Some people have learned that they are cued to eat when they are happy or in a celebrating mood. A lot of people (me included) learned very, very well to eat when we "deserved" a treat. Food = rewards for a lot of us. Yeah ... no.

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P.S. I also don't want to worry for the rest of my life about eating a very small amount. For example, if my goal were 130 pounds, I bet I would have to eat a few hundred calories less a day to maintain my weight. I would like to have more variety in my menus than I fear I could have at 1200-1300 daily for the rest of my life. I want to be healthy and normal-sized, but I also want to enjoy all foods and live a joyful life (not saying I want to pig out or be irresponsible at all!).

I chose 150 pounds (I'm 5'5" tall and 69 years old) on my own -- my surgeon and those on his team have never suggested a specific goal for me. I liked 150 because it was a nice round number, is a little higher than I used to feel great at and look great at in my 20s and 30s, and I wanted a little more flesh on my bones so if I fall down and hit the deck I can bounce and won't break any bones. I figured I'd wind up losing a little more than 150 (I was right -- have already lost 2 extra pounds) and finally hit the "normal weight" range again. But I don't care about BMI so much as I do about feeling good and looking good. And at my age I thought I might need some extra lbs to avoid looking haggard. So far I look great. At this weight / height / age I am wearing mostly 10s, a few 9/10s, and in the designer sections of department stores the sales ladies promise me I could wear 8s. I haven't bought any of those yet. Mostly, I've been buying clothes (10s, mediums) in high-end consignment clothing stores. I've found some amazing buys there! Hope that helps.

I'm 9 months post-op and have reached my weight loss goal. I lost my weight in a way that worked for me -- ate lots of Protein, ate protein first, ate lots of "healthy" carbs (veggies, some fruits, occasional whole grains), minimized my intake of "slider foods" (highly processed carbs), and waited until 5 months post-op before I started drinking wine again and then only 4 oz. a day and not every day. But occasionally I had a a few bites of dessert or some bread or some fast food or something else I didn't eat very often. The key word there is occasionally. And I didn't eat a lot of those "not recommended foods." I also planned my daily menus and tracked my food intake during the weight loss phase on www.myfitnesspal.com, so I'd know what I was really doing. I tracked everything I ate, whether protein or Pringle's potato chips. It worked for me. But there are a lot of people who don't do it this way. The "eat until I'm satiated" way works for some people. But there's quite a range of people in the "eat until I'm satiated" department. Some follow the protein rules and don't overeat. Others seem to suffer badly from the conviction that "Nobody can tell me what to do, and I don't have to follow the rules because I'm a special snowflake and I don't feel like doing it, so fukkit and pass the ribs and potato salad now! If I wanna cheat, I'll cheat, so get off my back." All kinds of people get WLS. Some of 'em are smart. And some of 'em are really not. The ones who seem to do the worst with WLS are those who are have very little impulse control and can't delay gratification at all. It takes a lot of commitment to change a lifetime of giving in to one's desires of the moment to conquer those bad habits. Very tough.

Aaahhh ... thank you, Alex.

Congratulations on your new bathroom and its many benefits for you both. That's very cool of your friend to do that for you. What a nice person!

Glad you mentioned that part. It's good to know. One more thing for the dr to use to get Medicare to approve WLS. And the good news is that after losing all my excess weight (I hit goal a few weeks ago), I no longer pee on my way to the bathroom. That comorbidity has gone bye-bye.

I'm sure you've read and read and read (on these forums) that when you eat sweets and other unnutritious carbs you just crave more of them. So get ready -- it's time to go cold turkey. If you stop eating them, you'll stop craving them. It's not the end of the world -- just time to go back to work.

And serendipitously, my hubby is retired P.D. And yes, re the cops being (mostly) good guys. Law enforcement is such a tough gig!

Right after surgery, for a week or two or three (depending on your doc's instructions), you won't be *eating* anything. Just sip-sip-sipping Water and other liquids to try to meet your 64-ounces / day minimum of liquids.

I'm not a man, so I don't really *know* what all the issues are, but I do see some men on WLS forums and in youtube v-blogs complaining that after they lost weight they feel they get less respect from other men since they lost weight, compared to when they were heavier. I bet there isn't one woman in 100 who's lost weight who feels that way. Dominance. It's a bitch. j/k

Aaahhh ... my true weight loss goal? To be healthy and strong enough to work toward and achieve any goals I set. That includes physical goals, lifestyle goals, career goals, avocational goals, life with family and friends, and (as they say about people going through physical rehab) just plain old activities of daily living. I've already reached my weight loss goal and, in a lot of ways, feel like I'm going through physical rehab. Now I have a new body I'm working on making stronger and more able.

That's pretty much how I felt a year ago pre-op. I was determined to finally lick this monkey on my back. Now, nearly 9 months post-op, I'm below goal and feeling astonishingly normal. And I'm not even close to finishing all the changes in my life I want and need to make. My goal now is to become stronger and stronger. BTW, it's never too late to change your life. I'm 69 years old.

Hmmm ... a good topic. I honestly think that how "monklike" we need to be during maintenance depends on our individual needs. All over WLS boards I see many people posting messages that translate into: "Your challenges must be exactly like mine, so your solutions must also be exactly like mine!" Yeah, no ... I doubt that. So in your shoes, @@IcanMakeit -- wanting control, but wanting to eat across a broader spectrum of normalcy -- I'd probably plan out (write down) what "eating more normally" would look like for me. I might also write down what "eating out of control" would look like -- and probably some other menus and behaviors in between. Personally, I don't think that one drink (e.g., 3-4 ounces of wine) and a 2" x 2" piece of birthday cake one night a year, or even monthly, or even weekly would be out of control for me. But you have to figure out how much control YOU need to exercise to avoid the risks you're concerned about. Control and spontaneity -- it's an interesting tension. There's the potential of joy in each behavior. And there's the potential of danger in each, too. FYI, I reached goal a few weeks ago, so these issues are foremost in my mind, too. P.S. @@Queen of Crop ... you're one of my long-time heroines here and on your blog. Thanks for weighing in on this topic.

I'll offer from our experience -- the several weeks it will probably (?) take to complete your husband's diagnosis (second opinions, biopsies, more scans, consultations and the treatment decisions you will have to make) may be the worst part of the journey for you both. Once my husband finally started treatment, it felt like we were finally had a plan and were making progress. Up to that point, it was just exhausting! I meditate sporadically (not the right way, eh?), but I made a point during those early months to do so more regularly. Breathing deeply and slowly, if you don't meditate, can help tremendously. The tension in your body will just wear you out if you don't unwind it. In ... out ... in ... out ....

I think it starts with wanting normalcy really bad. This is hard. So if you don't want it that bad, it's hard to do the work you have to do to lose and maintain your weight loss. In your shoes, I'd ponder very seriously what I wanted the rest of my life to be like and to be about. (That's just me.)

Hmm ... why are my tickers suddenly missing?

That's not a lot of information to go on, if you're asking for suggestions. What is a typical day's eating and drinking for you -- specific foods and amounts? What about your Water? Your exercise? What do you think is causing the problem(s)?

I'm 2 pounds below goal (and still losing about a pound a week), but eating close to 1,400 calories most days. My nutritionist, my exercise consultant and I have all estimated (independently) that at my current metabolic rate and exercise level my maintenance calorie budget should be 1,600 - 1,700 calories a day.

@tamelntre The only things you can control are what you eat and drink and how much you exercise and what kind of exercise you do. You cannot control the scales. Of course, your weight will be affected by the above things you CAN control, but the scale will also fluctuate due to other things -- your monthly cycle, illnesses, how much muscle you're building at the moment, how much muscle you've already built, the sodium in your food, whether and how much you're constipated, etc. But to answer your question, in the 2-1/2 months prior to surgery I lost 20 pounds (thanks to my own 2-month diet and the surgeon's 2-week diet). On surgery day, August 18, 2014, I weighed 216 pounds. About 8-1/2 months post-op I hit my goal of 150 pounds. In the last week I've lost another couple of pounds. So I've lost a total of 87 pounds in 11 months. BTW, you should consider posting a weight ticker here. It'll help you and others follow your own weight loss progress.

I am hoping for strength and peace for you and your family. Very best wishes to you all. Ann