Jump to content
Γ—
Are you looking for the BariatricPal Store? Go now!

Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

Gastric Bypass Patients
  • Content Count

    698
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

  1. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Low-fat, low-sugar desserts? I'M CRAVING SO BADLY!

    Can I ask, are you doing sweetener stuff - Coke Zero, stevia in cooking etc? We have gone sugar cold turkey, but also β€˜sweetness’ cold turkey - so quit the artificial sweeteners too. And it took a month, 6 weeks but the cravings have stopped. Seems to be some thinking that if you keep using sweeteners, you keep your β€˜sweet tooth’ alive, so sweet cravings persist... Didn’t answer your question, but you might be interested to ponder it...
  2. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    One more thing @FluffyChix Your low carb diet. Tell me more? Are you aiming for under 50g carbs (total) or under 50g sugars (short chain)? Myfitnesspal food tracker gives you both figures. I try and stay under 50g carbs, and 7nder 20g sugar, but I get no ketone breath so think I am not in ketosis... Also, was just reading a great article on the BBC news app about the neurological link between low sugar/hunger and rage/irritability - being hangry. Basically being low sugar and being hangry are linked through brain neuropeptide receptor mechanisms - which is interesting because since the RNY, I think I am more irritatable. I really notice it at work with one of my (badly behaved, nasty, bullying) board of governors. I have always been able to bite my tongue but at the moment, I am finding it harder - even snapped at him a couple of times. Do you (my resident low carb expert) get this??
  3. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Food-based Celebrations

    Don’t know if it helps but I have found holding a plate with a bit of food on it helps - I sort of move it about (initially I picked something I didn’t like, to reduce temptation) and no-one notices you aren’t eating - mostly people are engaged with their own food, and with chatter. They really do notice if you have no plate at all, so I fake it!
  4. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Trying Again...

    You might like to msg @numinousvessel - also open and closed with no surgery (in their case, due to intestinal adhesions). Messes with your head - might be nice to chat to someone else in your boat....
  5. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    Not bloody likely!! How could I maintain my anonymity when I acquiesce as you start demanding piccys body-part by body-part! Are people commenting on your weight loss? I had four people tell me I looked β€˜healthy’ yesterday. I wondered if this is a thing - you say healthy instead of thinner, so as to not offend. One guy added I looked really hot, and giggled, which was sweet (in a room full of people - nothing inappropriate.....) 😁😏
  6. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Dumping syndrome

    My understanding is, dumping happens to about 25% of bypass folk. It happens because on our surgery, the new small stomach outlet is reconnected into the intestine maybe 70-80cm down the small intestine - in a sleeve it remains connected at the top (start) of the small intestine. That difference is why a bypass is β€˜malabsorbtive’ - you restrict both the stomach volume capacity AND the intestine absorbing capability. So in a bypass sugar goes through the small tummy and β€˜dumps’ into a spot well down the intestine - in a sleeve, this doesn’t happen. I have had it twice and it is awful - sweating, bad nausea, then diarrhoea - 45 minutes to pass. If I have a smaller volume of sugar, I can have β€˜dumping lite’ - I feel very sleepy and yawn a lot and maybe fall asleep for 20 mins. But - I am never tempted to try a chocolate bar!!
  7. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    Haiku to weight loss Hail! When I look down My baggy thighs delight me My muscle shows through!
  8. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    2nd visit with my surgeon and need some advice.

    Your actions sound damned near ideal! One idea - track your food on an app like myfitnesspal - be scrupulously honest, weigh your food and track your calories. After surgery you might be 550-70 calories a day until things settle, and the weight drops off - see if you can do that by yourself, for a fixed period - for same result... hard without the surgery though! I wish you all the best...
  9. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Solid food already?

    I had a bypass and open surgery and was in hospital for 4 days - and was on solids before I left. It was shredded chicken, and then shredded fish. That said, while my surgeon let me β€˜resume normal food’ immediately, unlike so many others, I could eat maybe 1/4 cup max and I was 3 meals a day (the only rule, really). He wasn’t too worried about protein levels etc, but I have been happier following some of the recommendations I have found on people’s posts here. I start each day with a coffee/vanilla protein/ice slushy ice shake. Pretty much from the start, I decided to I start each meal with protein, then eat the veggies etc. Now, 4 months in, I am up to 3/4-1 cup per meals - still start each with protein. I never ear rice, pasta, potatoes - many of us find limiting carbs is a good long-term strategy. Seems surgeons all have different beliefs around food. If your instructions are as vague as they sound, like mine were - then gently and cautiously explore what works for you. And - if you try a new food, do it at home, until the random β€˜react with diarrhoea’ reactions are over - that took a couple of months for me! All the best, it is a great journey.
  10. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    I wouldn’t presume to presume!! But you seem to me to have your head screwed on!! I may get to Houston (there is a direct Air New Zealand flight to Houston now!) - I am just about to be made Vice President of an international oversight organisation in my field, so will be in the USA 4 times a year for 3 years - if I come your way, I will give you a shout. We could get together for peanut-butter-cheese heaven. My surgeon is very lose on food. He sets no calorie limits, and post surgery I was on solids before I left hospital. He tracks his patients’ food - 1700 of them. A year after surgery, they typically were around 800-900 calories a day. And they don’t get sick. So for me - secretly delighted when I have a 500 cal day but knowing that DOESN’T mean big weight loss tomorrow, committing to over 700 is sensible, 800-900 is normal. I do need to slow the weight loss a bit - my chest is downright bony!
  11. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    I so envy you all the food choices that we don’t have here. BUT - I am coming to the USA in September, Baltimore. So, once I know the hotel I will be sleeping in, I think I can place some orders and have them delivered to me there to bring home! I have been thinking about your calories post, a lot. I am still losing a kilo a week, I am below my best gastric band weight - which was my goal but I have revised the goal downward to the top of the BMI β€˜not overweight’ range. I know I should, by surgeon’s predictions, be losing at half this rate by now. But I find myself loathe to let my calories go over 700. I have been considering that it might well be very easy for me to simply replace one eating disorder (overeating to deal with any emotion whatsoever) with another (caloric limitation and obsession)... So - thanks for raising this thinking for me, too. Will my relationship with food ever be normal?
  12. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Tonight’s dinner pic!

    If I didn’t live quite so far away, i’d Come on over!!
  13. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    Hey Fluff i am just back from China - yay to have easy internet again! I checked out your photos above - the thing I notice most is the way your arms lie closer to your body. I see it in my pics too. I don’t know if it is shrinkage of side-boob, or upper arms (is it only New Zealanders and Aussies who refer to a ladies’ loose upper arm as her flubbadah or her flubberdubber? Anyway, smaller that! Your rate of weight loss - maybe slowed by how much you lost BEFORE surgery, @FluffyChix?
  14. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Post surgery weight gain options

    β€œShrinking your stomach” - my lap band surgeon offered weekend retreats he called pouch training - basically, you shrink it by eating less, and it shrinks. The weekends were mostly psychological - the why and what of your recent eating patterns. Remember, your good tool is still there - could you do your own β€œpouch training” by going back to the start, and doing liquid/mush/soft/solid progression? Fixating? Maybe reframe it as being mindful of your eating again... you did it once, you can do it again, hey?
  15. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Gall Bladder

    Yep, mine said 20% too. He checked mine during surgery, nothing gritty in there - if there was he might’ve removed it, but mine was a keeper.
  16. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Tattoo before surgery?

    I can’t imagine why not... Just a thought about tattoo - if you loose lots of weight, and your skin stretches a bit... Well, a picture of your mum on your boob may make her look very long-faced in 6 months, if you get my drift!!!
  17. Hi team I have been quiet this week - I am in China and the Internet is ... patchy. Great visit - managed my official banquet lunches and dinners with dignity, a bite of every dish (there are usually 12-20 different items, all circulation on a lazy Susan - you never know how many will come and are constantly exhorted to eat more, try another signature dish. Lucky the food is healthy, proteinous. And I have dropped a couple more pounds this week 😁) Just before I left I went scuba diving and as I was training, lifting tanks on and off my dive buddy, I felt like I pulled a wee muscle, off to the left side of my breastbone to navel RNY scar - right where my gastric band port used to be, in fact. So it just seemed to get worse, until it stabbed when I sneezed, or coughed. And THEN I noticed (when stretching and admiring my new curvy waist in the mirror!) a lump, right there in the sore spot... β€œThink it is a hernia out through the port scar, you have split those muscles. Fly business class to China” said the Dr (fat chance!!) Off for an ultrasound when I get home Tuesday. If it is, does anyone know if it can be repaired WITHOUT that gastric mesh? My port was on mesh and it made mayhem. I don’t want new mesh!! [By the way, my weight loss surgery buddies, I would repeat this even if I knew I would get an annual hernia. This whole experience has been so so easy, smooth, empowering...]
  18. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Four months out- what’s your volume?

    Hi there i am 4 months out but unlike @Creekimp13, my surgeon is a β€œstrictly three meals a day” guy. I can eat about 3/4 cup per serving. I start with protein, get 50-60g a day (not quite enough, but we do make some of our own) and usually 700-800 calories. I am never hungry. I have been in China all week, with many official banquet lunches and dinners. They are much more modest than they used to be 10 years ago, but still the food is placed, dish by dish on a lazy Susan, and it comes and comes for an hour or so. I definitely felt a bit obliged to eat more than I would have, a bite or two of many dishes. I think I ate a little more volume this way, spread out (usually I eat pretty quick). Good healthy food though - so still dropped a couple of pound!
  19. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    NSV- wearing color

    Looking at my wardrobe, as I pull out the bags with stored clothes in 10lb weight ranges (I store when I grow, knowing I will get thin again. I throw out or give away when I shrink, knowing I will never get fat again. Expensive!) I notice that my clothes are pretty much all black or grey. Fat girls don’t show off, right? So, yesterday I bought this, and today I am wearing it... SO many comments.
  20. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Out With the Old--In With the New!

    I call it my daily consti-poo-tional.
  21. I had open surgery - 7 inch scar from great bone to navel. But the pain relief was magic! As they sewed me up, they sewed a thin perforated tube along the incision. This was connected to a wee pump and reservoir, on a waist belt. This pumped tiny bits of xylocaine into the wound for three days - so the incision was totally pain free! I has tramadol available on self med - only did one dose but realised I didn’t need it. I didn’t even know they made such a thing. After the 3 days the reservoir was empty, and the tube just slid out painlessly. Aren’t our med professionals wonderful?!
  22. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Lapband removal and RNY in May

    Hi there I had my 10 year old band taken out and replaced with RNY 17 weeks ago today. I am now at my best ever band weight, and still easily losing a pound a week. The RNY is an utter breeze compared to a band, seriously! Wish i’d’ve Had the courage to switch years ago! Fingers crossed for your journey...
  23. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    Please don't be disappointed

    Oh man, you are a star - I see your numbers - if she cried on the phone, she’ll be inconsolable in person!! Those who love us are proud - many have been wishing thinner, healthier on us for years! Please let us know how it goes?
  24. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    NSV- wearing color

    Thanks! While I am pretty happy with the weight loss, my tummy above the belly button is still bigger than I like, and sort of β€˜catches’ clothes. So yes, it is a comfy fit in other places. But I know how to find the shop - this tummy too shall pass, and then there will be no stopping the shopping!
  25. Biddy zz 🏳️🌈

    eek-just ate bag of ruffles potato chips/helluva good dip

    Sorry - I am a bypass...

PatchAid Vitamin Patches

Γ—