JustWatchMe

Maybe the restaurant wasn't able or willing to negotiate a lower price, but possibly if you brought your receipt to the hotel desk or concierge prior to checkout, they could make a small adjustment/credit to your bill there. Oftentimes it's just the person you deal with, and how much power in the company they have to make exceptions. For instance, another server might have just "looked the other way" and not charged you personally at all if you were with your family... like not bothering to charge a toddler who only ate four bites of his mom's plate... You know?

With WLS, we've all taken such drastic lifesaving steps to change the physical actions of eating and overeating. But our minds are more powerful than any physical limitations from surgery. Wherever my head is, my eating is. If continue to let my feelings rule my head, it's a lost cause. I'll sabotage my band and my WLS will be useless, or worse, dangerous because I abuse it. If I instead work on the heart/mind/body connection and recognize and respect each component, it can be different. I'm so glad I read this upon waking up today. It's a reminder that my mental state is under my control, and I don't have to turn my thoughts over to my feelings. My feelings are valid, but obeying my feelings at the expense of my thoughts and body is a habit I can break with practice. Great article!

Unjury Chocolate Splendor protein powder, online. And Atkins Dark Chocolate shake, at CVS. I keep those in my desk at work.

I walk two miles on the treadmill every day. Takes about forty minutes.

Kisspooh, have you considered going back to your doctor and working toward a fill? I can't wait for my first fill to let this band start helping me feel satisfied on less food than I used to eat. Is there a reason you never got a fill before?

Kisspooh, good luck and I'll be thinking of you tomorrow. Check back in, okay? I'm a newbie here, and I get a lot of encouragement from posts by banders who are further down this bumpy road than I am. Yay for fresh starts!

Yep, normal. Here's the good news. Sticking to my post-op diet faithfully has actually decreased my hunger. I'm taking in about 800-1000 calories per day now, four weeks post-op and on liquids for two more weeks. When I don't have anything caloric between my liquid meals I actually have less hunger overall. When I snack, even Jello, I get hungrier during the day. I had to laugh today because I never in a million years would have thought I'd make it this far on such a restricted diet. My last solid food was 5-1/2 weeks ago! I'm just happy that it does get easier, and soon the band will be filled a little, I'll get solid food, and my band can start to help me lose weight instead of me doing it the white-knuckle way. Hang in there and before you know it you'll be in the next phase. P.S. I'm Catholic, and this was the easiest Lent ever. LOL

ddsweighin228, I'm right there with ya. Birthday and Easter on liquids this year. We'll get through this together. Good luck. I'm four weeks post-op and feel great!

HealthyNewMe, that's how I read it. Explains so much. Like how I've hovered at the same weight (up or down a pound) all week and never exceeded 1000 calories on any day (usually 800-850). So how does this info tie in to the 3500 calories equals one pound mantra? I do think my yo-yo-abused body does not lose the way it used to. Years ago if I had been on 800-900 calories for four weeks in a row, I'd have lost way more than the 8 pounds I've lost in the past four weeks post-op. Plus, I am exercising every flipping day! I have never been so compliant for so long and lost so little. Not complaining really, just observing. This all becomes the age-old dilemma of how do we shake it up and get the weight off and KEEP it off, when our adaptive bodies keep figuring out how to hold on to the fat!?

Reunions are so fun when you feel confident. I went to my high school ten-year reunion newly slim and totally loved it, WON a dance contest with the guy I secretly crushed on, and met my future husband on the way out the door. Then I got fat again, and skipped the 20 and 30 year reunions. My hubby went to the 20-year without me. I was too ashamed to go. There's always the 40-year reunion....

My first visit home from freshman year in college was Thanksgiving, and I had gained about 20 pounds. My grandfather greeted me with, "Well, I guess they're not starving you." When I was 28, I lost a great deal of weight, and when l was about a size 14 and exercising faithfully, I went out for a walk wearing shorts. Some guys sitting on a porch across the street whistled. I ignored them, and one loudly called out, "Fat a$$!". That hit hard, because I had started to feel normal and it just cut me to my core. My paternal grandmother, whom I visited twice a year, greeted me judgmentally every time during my preteen and teen years with, "Do you have a boyfriend yet?" It always made me feel ashamed. My husband told me the night before I was banded that it was "the quick fix". My mother and father were both fat when I was a kid, and "fat" was a common insult in our household. I don't remember one specific thing they said, but occasionally it was used as a weapon. My mother used the term "bimbo" to mean "fat", so until I was an adult I thought that is what "bimbo" meant. The high school registration person who weighed each freshman yelled the weight across the field house to another person. "150!" It was more than any other girl in line, of course, and devastated me. The nicest thing someone said to me was my late aunt who saw me every holiday season. The year I had lost over a hundred pounds and the other relatives were oohing and aahing over how "good I looked", she came up to me in the kitchen and said, "You're beautiful, and you have always been beautiful." That heartfelt lovely sentiment stuck with me.

Wow. Just.... Wow!!! Thanks for posting this. And congratulations!

Just the boost you needed right now. Way to go!

Thanks for your honesty. Your posts have helped me a lot.

Others have recently recommended switching up your routine. If you exercise at a certain time of day, temporarily change the time, or the type of exercise. Or switch your meals around a bit, staying within the guidelines. I tend to get into food and exercise ruts. It's actually my way of staying on track, because when things are too interesting, I may overindulge. But I see how my "bored" body could land in a plateau due to the same old, same old, every day. Like HealthyNewMe, my past habit was to give up at the first stall or gain. No more. I'm learning so much about how the body works from this forum. Thanks for the great article.

Very inspiring!

How many butts have you collected? Is it a drag having to dust them every week?

Cccv, thanks for the update and good luck tomorrow. I'm sure you're right on track, and surgery will be here before you know it. I'm in week 5 of a total of 7 weeks of liquids, one preop and 6 post-op. It's getting OLD, but I was doing fine with my boring Soups until yesterday. My husband brought home turkey chili, with pieces of turkey meat, and I thought, hey, it's close to a Soup, so I'll just chew it real well. Guess what. Not a liquid. I had two cups of it and followed it with a big glass of milk a half hour later, and it just SAT right under my breastbone forever. Okay, not forever, maybe 45 minutes. But I felt like crap the rest of the night and woke up today still feeling "off". Mind you, I have no fill yet. I figured what must have happened is a bunch of factors. I'm still not eating slowly enough. I have to learn to slow this down big time, but with soups, it hasn't mattered so far. Well, those pieces of turkey, even well-chewed, are not liquid. They need time to pass through the pouch. I didn't give it time. And I ate double what I should have. My goal for the next two weeks is to treat my creamy soups (no more chili) like a real meal, and slow it down, and wait between spoonfuls. It was the first time I could really tell I had a band. And if that's what happened with no fill, I'd better learn to respect the rules of band eating before I go on solids, and then four days later, get my first fill. This is sure a learning process.

Congratulations!

I agree with Bandista. Knowing ahead of time will help you gather supplies when you have the energy for it. Good luck and keep us posted!

Lapper, stop kicking yourself. Each day has its challenges. You've come amazingly far already, and it's a process. We're human. Thank God. We're gonna do this!

Gowalking, WAY! TO! GO!

2muchfun, I have to laugh at your "chicken friend steak". Don't fix the spelling. It's perfect as it is. B-)

Here's something nobody on the planet knows, except now, you thousands of BP posters... LOL... I began my WLS process in September 2013 and gave up tv eating in October. That was about the only change I made back then, waiting for the medical and psychological clearances before my case was submitted to insurance. Then came Thanksgiving. I always make the turkey for the extended family, and I do it the night before. Every year when I carve the turkey, I make sure nobody's around, and I eat all the crispy skin off the turkey. It's my favorite thing about Thanksgiving. As I did it this past Thanksgiving, I was actually crying. I knew it was the last time I would do it, and I was so sad. For some reason, even before I saw this thread, I thought of that turkey again today and got sad again. Maybe because Easter is coming up and I'm still going to be on liquids then. And still on liquids for my birthday next week too. I was having myself a little pity party this morning. But you know what? I didn't cave in to it. I was banded 3-1/2 weeks ago and have been totally compliant with my food protocol and my exercise. I've lost 36 pounds between pre- and post-op dieting. It sucks sometimes, but the payoff is incredible. I have energy, I exercise each day, I'm not moody and headachey, my feet don't swell, I've gone off three different medications already with two left to go, and I'm becoming a former overeater one day at a time. In September I had NO idea it would be so much work being successful at WLS. But I keep reminding myself that, unlike every other diet I've done in my 52 years, this one will get easier once I have my first band fill, and I won't be suffering through deprivation like I always did before. I have no regrets, and every day I get more excited about my future. Good luck. This will change you.

I have switched to liquid acetaminophen for my arthritis. I order it from my pharmacist. I was getting tired of crushing my blood pressure pill and cholesterol pill, and opening my Prevacid capsule. This week it dawned on me that I don't need the Prevacid any more, so I stopped taking it. I then attempted to chew the other two. They taste yucky, but if I chew them along with my Flintstones chewable vitamins, it masks the taste. I was banded March 13. Hope this helps.