Creekimp13

There is no easy way out of significant obesity.

You are not alone. The real work begins after the honeymoon is over and you face your permenant future of new eating habits. How do I stay on the straight and narrow? Two things....a genuine commitment to staying healthy and active, and help from my bariatric therapist to understand why I had a lifelong history of self sabotage where food was concerned....so I can hopefully freaking avoid it! It's not easy. I have a 40 year history of food addiction. I have never had an emotion I couldn't eat. Chopping out your stomach doesn't fix your head. I talk about going to therapy a lot...in reality, these days I see the therapist maybe twice a year. But in the second year following surgery I really struggled with how to make healthy eating habits my norm...and how to stop obsessively living my life around my diet. All roads lead back to food....either obsessively wanting it, or obsessively denying it. Obsessive weighing, exercising, research, etc. God, it was exhausting. I needed to learn new strategies and reframe my accomplishments/struggles/needs/emotions....in other ways. My second year after surgery, I think I would have backslid and self sabotaged again if not for my bariatric therapist. Give as much attention to your past relationship with food....as you do the needs of your new stomach. To move forward, heal the past.

Have you tried a bariatric therapist? Getting to the root of my disordered eating habits was critical for me to reach goal and maintain. Are you tracking every crumb you eat? I know that sounds critical, but it isn't meant to be....I genuinely thought I was eating a LOT less than I was until I started measuring and tracking absolutely every calorie that went into my body. Yes, it's a hellish pain in the ass. And sadly, it's necessary. You have lost 215 pounds. That is a HUGE accomplishment! I'm crazy proud of you and you should be, too. Sometimes when your body loses a metric feck ton of weight in a short period of time....a starvation defense mechanism kicks in and it plateaus for a while. Be patient and stick to good lifelong habits, a good balanced diet. If you're tracking, measuring and mindfully watching what and why you eat....you'll get there. Hang in there!

I think Dr. Jason Fung is a quack, and so does my bariatric surgeon. Edit: Didn't mean this to sound so rude, but it's my heartfelt opinion. My doctor has met him, wasn't impressed.

Excellent progress!

Yes. This surgery will help you control disordered eating....but it won't fix why you have disordered eating. Cutting out your stomach doesn't fix your head, and yes, lots and lots of people never come anywhere near goal and lots of people will regain the weight. Not what anyone wants to hear...but it's the truth. Here's my version of "wisdom"... (lol) 1. Avoid extremes like the plague. Work on reaching a normal sustainable amount of calories eating healthy well-balanced foods. Crash diets and extremes don't work longterm. You probably already know this. Don't forget. 2. Losing weight at a breakneck pace is exciting and giddy....but can be crappy for your health and your longterm metabolism. You didn't gain it all in a year, you likely won't lose it all in a year. Work harder on making small meaningful permenant changes you can live with forever....than embracing extremes that will eventually burn you out. It's very easy to feel like post surgical extreme dieting is the new norm. Eventually, it catches up with you. The goal should always be a nutritious balanced diet with adequate (but not excessive) calories. 3. Find and see a bariatric therapist. Particulary, after surgery. Your disordered-eating brain still needs to be retrained. It has triggers you can identify and work through that will increase your success long term. Give your eating behavior history the care and consideration you give your new stomach. If depression and anxiety contribute to your disordered eating...address them. (This one is so important) And these are just my personal ones... 4. Wear a fitness tracker. You don't have to go to the gym to increase your exercise, but you do need to be aware of how much you move and how many calories you're burning. My exercise is just walking more. It has made a HUGE difference in my health, endurance, fitness. Even if you're someone who has limitied mobility, or who "hates exercise"...you can give your metabolism a terrific boost just by adding a couple hundred steps a week. 5. Invest time in supportive people. Avoid unsupportive people. At least until you've got a good handle on how to manage your eating behavior and triggers.

If vegetarians cut out refined sugar, white flour, and breaded/fried things...it's a lot harder to overeat. I'm not 100% vegetarian, but I eat meat maybe twice a week. I've found that eliminating those three things from my diet...refined sugar, white flour, and fried stuff.....makes controlling my calories a LOT easier. But oh yeah....you can be a very chunky vegetarian if you have an unquenchable love for fresh bread, desserts, unlimited nuts and dried fruit....easy ways to make calories skyrocket and your weight can easily get out of control. That said...fiber is your friend and vegetarians eat more fiber, generally. Fiber slows the natural sugar down and increases the good gut bug diversity.

You had your surgery on 5/20. So, 22 days ago, correct? I had my sugery on December 5th and remember that I ate little teenie bits of everything at Christmas dinner 20 days after my surgery. Mostly, I had minced little bits of turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy. Had no issues. I will say one of the ONLY foods that still bothers me 3.5 years out...is corn. But typically only when I eat crunchy corn off the cob and don't chew enough. Corn is worthy of caution...but if it was just a few kernels and you chewed it really well, I wouldn't worry. At 24 hours, if you had an obstruction, you'd likely be puking. I think you'll make it:)

I lived on carbs. Still do. The trick is avoiding overly refined carbs. Avoid processed sugar and white flour like the plague. Avoid white rice. Carbs that are huge in my diet include Oatmeal, potatoes both white and sweet, brown rice, black beans, beans of any kind really, eat beans they're nutritionally wonderful, chickpeas, whole fruit. I count calories, get my protien and fiber, but I never count carbs. A lot of my protien comes from plant based sources like potatoes and beans, so limiting unrefined carbs would never work for me. Lot of different paths up the mountain.

When I hear people talking about going out of country, or working with a single physician who isn't part of a group, I really wonder about who is doing follow up care. Particularly concerning are nutrient deficiencies that can take a while to develop, sometimes years. I hope people do their follow up care, particularly their labs...even if they're just rolling them into their annual with their GP if they are not following up with their surgeon/group. General practicianers can and will order the labs for you if you don't have a group to follow up with.

Constipation is very common. Ask your surgeon's office for remedies that are safe for you. As far as fears, anticipation, etc... It really doesn't hurt to see a bariatric therapist during this time of transition. It's the one thing I don't see mentioned enough. The surgery doesn't fix your head and the issues that caused the disordered eating...and it's essential to work on a strategy to deal with them. Wishing you the very best. Congrats on your surgery!

It's different for everyone. You might talk to your group about the level of difficulty you're experiencing and see if they think it's normal. 4 weeks out, I could eat most things, but the stuff with a tough texture needed lots and lots of chewing and teenie tiny bites. Everyone is so different. How your body reacts is different. Surgeon's choice of how much to remove, how fast you heal, how much you swell....lot of variables.

We had unlimited...but they wanted it to be decaffienated the first year.

I had sleeve, I love sugar. I can eat about 200 calories of pure sugar an hour without any issues. If I try to eat more than 200 calories of sugar in an hour, I will feel kinda gross and nauseated. But there are a lot of hours in a day. It's very easy to eat yourself fat on sugar with a sleeve if you don't address the issues behind your disordered eating and get control of it. While weight loss surgery DOES help you slow down and have more reaction time to your bad habits....Weight loss surgery doesn't fix your head. Fixing your eating habits will still be up to you.

Here are some products I've discovered recently that I really like: Aldi has Keto buns. Awesome ones. I'm not a keto person, but I love these cause of the dietary (oat) fiber they pump them up with to make them keto. For 60 little calories....you get 8g of Protien, and a whopping 19g of Dietary fiber!!!! They've got 21g of carbs, but with the fiber, net carbs of only 2g. They're a small size, so not overwhelming for the small stomach crowd. Throw 2 ounces of Aldi Chicken Breast on there with some lettuce and tomato, and you've got an excellent little sandwich with 18g of Protien and 19g of Dietary Fiber....for only 135 calories! Diet Orange Julius smoothy. This hits the spot when I'm having a desert craving. Here's the recipe...roughly...adjust to taste. Three one inch pieces frozen banana, two large frozen strawberries, half cup of orange juice, splash of vanilla, half a cup 30 calorie almond milk (or skim cow milk), sweetener of choice (I use splenda and monkfruit). Blend this in your smoothie maker, sit on the porch and enjoy this drink that'll make you think of the mall in the late 80's / early90's. Good stuff! Monkfruit, but not the commercial brands, they suck. Go on Amazon and get real concentrated monkfruit drops with no added ingredients. (I like Monk Drops). For some people, Monkfruit has an aftertaste, for some it tastes incredibly close to real sugar with no aftertaste. I'm one of the lucky ones. I never had luck with Stevia because Stevia has a horrific aftertaste for me, but Monkfruit tastes terrific. If you're one of the people that gets an aftertaste from Monkfruit I apologize in advance. But I could drink the stuff straight and find it delicious. Maple Grove Farms Sugar Free Maple Syrup. I hate most sugar free maple syrups. This one has Excellent taste. 20 calories in HALF A CUP. If you like protien oatmeal pancakes...you need this. I also pour this on my steal cut oats. Homemade fried chicken! I have never made fried chicken in my life. Recently attended a healthy cooking class where we made keto fried chicken! Again, I'm not a huge keto fan, but this chicken was so good, I'd make it anyway. To start with, only the coating is fried...the chicken itself is boiled. We boiled the chicken until it was completely cooked in salty seasoned water...think bay leaves, sage, salt and pepper, thyme. Then we cooled the chicken and put cashews through the blender to make cashew flour. Wet your chicken with milk/egg wash and roll it in cashew flour with spices and about two tablespoons of flour fry mix mixed in. Coat it a couple times if you want. Then, flash fry it in 350 degree oil. You could probably do this in the air fryer, too? (I have not tried this) I actually submerged mine in oil....only for about a minute to make it nice golden brown. Yep, you've got some fat content and calories from the oil....but it's NOT greasy. The outside is crispy crunchy and the inside is moist and flavorful. A large chicken leg prepared this way only has about 150 calories, lots of protien, and hits the spot for summer picnics. Chickpea pasta salad. Love this. Everyone has a favorite pasta salad recipe. Mine goes sorta like this... Chickpea pasta, cherry tomatos, kalamata olives, reduced fat salami, English cukes, red onion, tiny diced swiss, diced bananna pepper....Dressing is Good Seasoning Italian dressing packet with balsamic vinegar, splenda, water, extra light olive oil. My beloved Chocolate Fudge Yasso frozen yogurt bars. 80 calories of "you'll never want icecream again". 6g of protien, too. I'll admit it. When I hit that incredibly horrible day when I want to eat a half gallon of ice cream.....I've been known to get a box of fudge Yassos and eat them all. But here's the difference. A four pack of Yassos is 320 calories and 24g of protien. Even feeling like I'm drowning my sorrows in ice cream....it's not a completely horrible nutritional choice. A little high in sugar, but not world ending. It is my emotional tantrum junkfood of choice. And while I try NOT to do this kinda maniac disordered eating anymore....it's nice to have a plan for when my brain slips once in a blue moon. (and it's a hell of a lot better than eating a half gallon of blue moon for instance) LOL A shot of Mio in iced tea can be superb! Crockpot sweet carrots with spenda instead of honey. They taste terrific. Black beans with salt and pepper, corn on the cob, and a plate of tomato slices with fresh basil, olive oil and a slice of fresh mozerella. And watermelon, of course:) OH! And another favorite....this one is slightly naughty. Strawberries mashed with splenda, chunks of mango, and a splash of ameretto liqueur. Eat this like strawberry shortcake, only use oat protien pancakes instead of shortcake. Happy Summer, Folks! If you've found some especially good diet-ey foods or products, be sure to mention them to the rest of us!

I'm in and out, KC. I think, for the most part, the bariatric surgery forums frustrate me anymore....but once in a while I feel like stopping in. Congrats on your awesome results! Woot!

I eat half an Impossible Whopper about twice a month. (in two servings and give the other half away) I love Impossible burgers.

Mine gew back crazy thick. Got kinda scary for a while though! This, too, shall pass:)

Hiatal* "hi anal" made me giggle.

Too much sugar makes me feel crappy. If you still have your gallbladder, you might want to have it checked. Gallbladder disease will present with evening nausea for many people, and it's very common after rapid weight loss.

I wish I'd know that not everyone pukes after surgery. LOL. I DREADED the idea of vomiting so much. I hate it, and everything I read seemed to indicate that it was pretty much a normal learning curve thing to puke a few times after surgery while adjusting to your new gastric limits. Because of my horror and dread about puking...I put off my surgery for nearly a decade. Reality....the anti-puke meds they have now are absolutely amazing. Since having surgery 3.5 years ago, I have never been severely nauseated. I have never puked. Not once. I was not nauseated after surgery. Felt great, walked, drank every bit of water I was allowed with no issues (other than it taking a long time at first with the little bity sips) If I'd known what a good job they do preventing vomiting these days......it might have been a gamechanger. Yes, it's possible you'll puke. But it's also possible to have a super easy time of it and never feel sick at all. I didn't. I'm so grateful for that.

What you are describing...(in my opinion) is a bariatric surgeon who uses his patients as advertisements to get business. People saw you shrink overnight and it made them believers...so now he's got more business. Here's the problem... No one should ever be on a 600 calorie diet for any long period of time. It's unsustainable, unhealthy, and screws your metabolism to high heaven. It also exacerbates eating disorders and disordered thinking about food...which most of us have. (so says my bariatric therapist, dietician and surgeon) My surgeon was part of a research project that examined post operative metabolic changes and diet long term. I'm still part of his study and will be ten years out. We were encouraged to eat 1200 calories a day as soon as possible after surgery. I did this at three weeks post op. We were encouraged to eat lots of protien and few refined carbs. However...unrefined carbs with lots of fiber were encouraged. I ate oatmeal, potatoes, whole grain toast, nuts, brown rice, etc. The only carbs we actively avoided were sugar, white flour refined stuff, and fruit juice (much better to get it in whole fruit which we were encouraged to eat). I lost slowly, but I lost to goal. Have been at goal 3 years with the occasional 5 pound backslide...that I promptly address with the bariatric therapist, and lose back to goal. Never takes long...and a little gain is usually a cue that something is stressing me out and I'm regressing to old habits. My program emphasised addressing disordered eating and working on food addiction behavior with new coping behaviors. A bariatric therapist is integral. Don't be without one. Fixing your stomach doesn't fix your head. I eat 1400-1600 calories a day and maintain well. I walk 10,000+ steps each day and try to get 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day. I can eat absolutely anything I want now. I do have to plan for indulgent foods and make sure to balance the calories in my day...but after a while, it's getting to be second nature. I eat at events and special occasions and cut back a little for a couple days before or after. It works. I think my gut bugs have changed (another goal of my program....to change the gut microbiota to resemble the diversity of a healthy weight person). I prefer whole grains, lean protien (lots coming from plant sources), love beans, mushrooms and potatoes, I shop the produce section more than any other section of the store...love my fruits and veggies. One HUGE change....I pay attention to dietary fiber. I eat at least 25g of Dietary Fiber every day. Most of my fats are plant fats. I do eat meat, but not like most people on here. Meat for me is a special occasion thing, not a staple in my diet. Junk food doesn't taste like it used to. Very honestly. I don't like the taste as much as I used to. If anyone had told me that I would find french fries a turn-off...EVER...I'd have said they were a liar. Loved them. Have no interest in them now....go figure! Everyone will have a hugely different experience and opinion....and that's ok. People should do what works for them. But my feeling is that my success is down to three things... Learning to balance and be aware of every damned calorie I eat. Eating a high fiber diet with tons of plant protien. Seeing my bariatric therapist PROMPTLY when I know I'm regressing to food addict behavior. Wishing you the very best. I hope you find a sustainable diet you can tolerate and feel your best eating. Good Luck.

See a therapist.

"One of the most famous examples of the flaws in the Body Mass Index system is Arnold Schwarzenegger. When the former California Governor was in the prime of his bodybuilding career, he was 6'0” and weighed 235 pounds. This gave him a BMI of 31, putting him in the obese range." BMI is flawed. It doesn't differentiate muscle from fat. Human anatomy is weirdly individual. Like most things in life... one-size-fits-all isn't always accurate. You can be a fine boned person with a lot of extra chub...and still have a normal BMI. You can have low body fat and be running marathons...and have an overweight BMI. It's a flawed scale. Why is this important to remember? Guess what I'm saying here...is that no one knows your body like you do. No one knows at what point in your weight loss you feel mean and lean and healthy. The numbers are a good rough guideline, but leave room for individual anatomy. Lot of different body types out there. (I'm also not saying....ignore your BMI if it's 31 and you're NOT a body builder...lol) Ya'll know what I'm saying. I don't have to explain.

First off, let me say that you should always listen to your doctor and nutritionist...rather than crazy people on the internet, myself included. But here's my rant today. And for what it's worth....this is just MY feelings on this nonsense. I'm no expert. Ya'll need to eat. Not overeat. But also NOT UNDER-EAT. Eat healthy food you enjoy. I know how it happens. Your weight loss gets sluggish and stuck and you think OMG, this isn't working, I'm Failing at this! You start to panic. And what does a lifelong self-destructive dieter DO when they start to panic? They go exteme. They go...ok, my doctor said it was ok to eat this much.....so I'm gonna try to eat HALF of that to speed up my weight loss! I'm going to work harder than anyone! I'm going to eat less! I'm going to force this weight off of my body...because this is my last chance and I'm freaking out and I can't fail at this, so I NEED to do better and cut back! Only, here's the thing. You don't need to cut back. You need to stay the course, nourish your healing body, have good energy to boost your metabolism and lose weight sensibly. Why do people do VLCDs? (very low calorie diets....1000 or less calories a day)....they do them because they show results in a hurry. And there is nothing people like better than a lower number on the scale...regardless of how they're achieving it. Or how harmfully they are achieving it. When you eat less than 1000 calories a day, did you know you lose more muscle than fat...even if you are eating tons of protien grams? When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism, endanger your organs that have muscle (heart anyone?), and decrease your bone density. None of this is a good idea. And when you're eating starvation level calories, your body tries like hell to keep you from dying....by, you guessed it, slowing your metabolism even further. And the carb thing...can we talk about that a minute? You DO want to avoid carbs that are metabolized to sugar really fast, like sugary foods and refined white flour items because they can cause your pancrease to over-react and send too much insulin and you'll end up with rebound hunger....but other carbs, particularly ones that have good fiber content to slow the sugar can also have good protien content...and they don't do the rebound hunger thing. They give you great available energy. Why do we lose so much weight so rapidly when we do keto? We don't really....but the first five pounds is so quick and shocking that it MUST work! (except you're not losing fat, you're losing the water that your liver stores extra glucose in.....and you've stripped your liver of its emergency reserve of energy. And yeah...you can make the sugar you need from other things through gluconeogenesis....but it takes amino acids that your body is typically harvesting from your muscles.) Don't do that thing where you lose the five pounds eating keto....then eat a few carbs and go OMG, look at the weight I've gained!....and go keto again and lose the same five pounds of water. It's an illusion. (Not saying keto people can't lose weight...they do lose weight fast...but they also have about five pounds in lost water from glucose storage, no emergency stores, and their bodies may be consuming their muscles) Food for thought (literally!) Guess what organ runs exclusively on sugar? Pure glucose. Your brain. Your brain burns over 300 calories of glucose every day. At just 2% of our body weight....our brains burn about 20% of the calories we use each day! The CPU needs fuel. Lots of people lose weight rapidly with Very Low Calorie Diets after bariatric surgery. They have these amazing results that other people notice and are in awe of. They lose to goal eating very little and feel very accomplished about their self discipline and their amazing fast results. And then guess what happens? At goal...they are still people who have never learned how to eat sustainably for life. All they know is starvation and self deprivation. And starvation doesn't work long term. Please learn to eat sustainable amounts of calories. Do it early so you don't fudge your metabolism into starvation level calorie requirements. One of the best ways to have a robust metabolism...is to do exercise every day. It doesn't have to be the gym or something you find tedious. Do things you enjoy....but keep moving. It's hard to build your robust metabolism.....when you're too tired to do anything but go to work and go to bed...because you're starving yourself. Please eat. Don't overeat. But eat. Learn to eat right, not starve. Starving is not the cure and in many cases sets the stage for significant regain. Do it right, even it it's slower than other people. Do it sustainably. Learn to coexist with food, not avoid it. (easier said than done) Don't get discouraged by small losses. Just keep losing to goal with small sensible tweeks. You don't have to suffer extremes to have success. Learning to control your diet moderately...is the best skill to have when facing a lifetime of sustaining a significant weight loss. This end my rant. Totally ok if you think I'm nuts/wrong/whatever. Take what you like and leave the rest. Peace and best wishes to everyone on this crazy road.