storyboy

Most of the commercial shakes taste disgusting and so fake, so for me the best thing has been making my own smoothies with fresh strawberries, frozen blueberries, baby spinach or kale, skim milk or almond milk and unflavoured whey protein powder. I hated the fake banana and fake strawberry flavours, and the chocolate flavoured shakes didn't taste 'real' to me. Almost two years after my bypass I do still get cravings, and occasionally I eat something from the bad ol' days - switching your head around is harder than anything! But I get back on the wagon the next day, I don't stress out about it and feel guilty, and also watching the scale every day can be a bit demoralising. Some days I seem to have gone up slightly, and some days down - and the time of day influences it. But I am never going back to where I was before I started this journey. Hang in there! On the whole this is one of the best moves I have made in my life!

April 30 2015 and the best decision I could have made. Nearly one year later I just want to get rid of the last 10 pounds but it's proving to be the most difficult. (I could help by going back to the gym, of course...)

I could only handle half a cup of puree. Even now after 8 months I'm lucky if I can eat a cupful of whatever the food is. (To me, cup measurements were more useful than weighing the food on a scale. I learned to estimate visually how much I could eat - which is harder when it's ounces or grams! I guess the best advice I was given was to listen to my body and feel free not to finish the meal if I had had enough. I love leaving food uneaten on the plate now. Perverse, isn't it! (The old hardwiring of 'You have to eat everything that is put in front of you' takes a while to displace!) I found that if the meal was soup or 'wet' enough (stews, casseroles, sauces), I didn't feel the urge to drink straight after it, but now I do have a couple of sips of water straight after some meals. Mainly to balance the strong flavours of say, Mexican, or Italian. I have found that a little bit of strong flavoured food is a great strategy. I have always preferred milder or even blander flavoured foods, but I now think the subtler flavours encouraged me to eat bigger portions. So maybe prepare stronger flavoured foods and you will find you want to eat less of them, and eat them more slowly. We're all different, but this seems to have worked for me. It is a very hot summer in Australia right now and I once made the mistake of gulping down the water like I used to do. My body soon let me know that this was not the way to go. I felt terrible.

WOW - the doctor's response is as good as picking a standard size off the rack and finding that it fits for once. Good on you! Woohoo!

The only thing that worries me about sharing on this forum is that I don't see progress as competitive. I watched that show 'My 600 lb life' and the woman there is not typical and I feel sad for her, because she is not being honest with herself. But that is an exceptional example. I think 23 pounds in pre-op is fantastic and 82 pounds overall a cause for celebration. I was really cranky with myself this morning when my weight went up by a pound - but I know exactly why it did. Yesterday was a big drop, it was also a stressful work afternoon and I foolishly went back to 'oh it won't matter if I snack on this'. Boom. There's the result today. I even knew I was doing the wrong thing, but I let myself get trapped into old thinking. So all I'm saying is that each of us progresses differently due to individual metabolism. You've done an amazing job. I think I have too, and everyone else who is posting on here. Even to get to the point of acting to change your life at all is a big step. I guess I'm going back to the concept of doing my 'personal best'. Only I can know if I am truly doing that. Same for you - but from where I'm looking, you seem to be doing just great!

105 pounds down in 6 months: very fast at first but slow now. I notice if I occasionally eat more than usual due to work stress it shows up within the next couple of days, so daily weighing helps me to monitor my progress. The best things about losing the weight are feeling more energetic, having lots of clothing choices when I shop (wearing less black now!), and the occasional compliments. I think there would be more comments from my friends, but I'm guessing that they think there might be a health problem: gay man, weight loss...One friend said 'Did you want to lose the weight?' Huh? When you've been 100 pounds heavier and obviously not happy, who wouldn't want to?

April 30 2015 and the best decision I've ever made. More energy, lots of clothes options when I shop and lots of compliments. I don't miss most of the bad old foods but eating out is still a challenge. The portions are way too big.

I found that protein shakes were easier to take if I made them up myself. I got sick of the fake tasting packaged ones. Now I can add a few frozen blueberries or any other kind of berries, some spinach leaves, a few almonds and the vanilla protein powder to skim milk and it tastes great. Plus I can vary it a bit each time, so it tastes real and never gets boring. This might help anyone who finds it hard to get the protein shakes down. I hope so: it works for me.

Even though the pre-op liver shrinking included sweet shakes and bars, I am 6 weeks post-op and only occasionally feel a little pull towards cake, chocolate, pie, dessert. Mostly I can walk right past shop displays and can even watch those close-up food-porn shots on TV cooking shows without wanting to join in. A couple of spoonfuls of slightly sweet yogurt or maybe a couple of dried apple chips fix any desire for sweet food after dinner. For snacking, lite milk is sweet enough and has the Protein to get rid of hunger pangs. Four weeks post-op I was feeling over-confident because everything had gone smoothly, so I resumed my weekly trip to the farmers market and while I was there I bought a slice of quiche and ate half the filling. I thought it was only egg and milk or cream, and wouldn't be a problem. But I had eaten lunch only half an hour before. Whoa! The reaction was so extreme and awful - sweating, dizziness, needing to vomit, couldn't sit down, couldn't stand up, had difficulty catching my breath - for about 15 minutes that it put me right back on track. If that was dumping I never want to go there again!