Orchids&Dragons

Welcome to the site! I have found this to be a very friendly and supportive community and I'm sure you will find others in a similar situation who can offer advice and support.

Did you try adjusting the amount of Miralax or splitting it into 2 doses, one in the morning, one at night?

Wow! Congrats on your success! Very inspiring! None of my kids are seriously dating right now, but eventually being the "momma of the xxxxx" was one of the reasons I wanted the surgery. I couldn't bear the thought of having to find a dress and be in all those "forever" photos at the size I was. Congrats to your daughter, too, may they have a lifetime of happiness!

Since I lost first from my face, the first sagging was jowls and under my chin. It seems to be tightening up a bit now. The back of my thighs are downright hilarious! Fortunately, they don't get shown off too often. Of course, the boobies will never be the same. I'm not even sure where to take my bust measurement now! As for baby bump skin - my last pregnancy was twins and they weighed in at 15.5 pounds total. I don't think that amount of stretch is ever going away.

Well, that's still amazing dedication. All your choices were healthy and lo-cal. I think the overwhelming % of folks on this site would consider this a very successful day. I understand that you have your own goals and timeline, but that will definitely make your path more difficult than the one the rest of us travel. And the working from home part is really tough. At least at work I only have a few options to choose from.

Good Lord, woman! That is dedication!

That sounds interesting. What is it called and who makes it, please?

Welcome to the site, JessieGrace. This is a very friendly, supportive community and I'm sure you'll get a lot of help here. I would advise you to use this time before your surgery to prepare. If you smoke, stop. If you drink caffeine, wean yourself off. You really don't want caffeine headaches while you recover from surgery. Research bariatric recipes and give them a try. Have a set of recipes ready to go for the different food phases. Make some healthy soups and put them in the freezer. Start exercising now so that you're already in the routine before surgery. Good luck, I hope all goes well for you!

Actually, I'm the opposite. If the hunger is gone in 30 minutes from an "inadequate" meal, I know it was head hunger. If I'm still hungry after ingesting just a few calories, then it is real hunger and I can eat a bit more. However, since I can't eat almonds yet, I don't actually know how much of a meal 1/2 oz. is. I actually do all my hunger testing with soft cooked veggies, so only about 20 calories. I don't even know why I used almonds as an example!

My take-away from the article is that the pre-surgery psychological screening needs to be more in depth. It seems like the norm for people to have only one meeting with a therapist ahead of the surgery. That's probably not sufficient to catch eating disorders unless the patient is exceedingly honest.

It was an interesting article, but the statistics are unclear. 8% of their eating disordered patients had had bariatric surgery. What they left out, and I think this is the significant point, is what % of the 8% had an eating disorder to begin with and what % developed it after surgery. Right now, from the article, they are only showing correlation, not causation.

In this sense, my esophagus issue is a blessing in disguise. I can't swallow most of the things I'm tempted to eat. Unfortunately, the freezer-ful of ice cream would go down just fine. Although, I really miss hard cheese, jerky and raw veggies!

Is your head-hunger negotiable? i.e. can you tell yourself, ok, I'm hungry. I'll eat 1/2 oz. of almonds. If I'm still hungry in half an hour, then I'll get something else. I often use a chai latte as my negotiating tool.

I also believe head hunger is real. The "hunger" we feel is our brain recognizing some sort of stimulus. People shouldn't feel defensive about head hunger, but they should recognize that it needs to be "treated" differently. Just like phantom pain for an amputee is real pain, but putting ice on the missing foot won't make them feel any better. I really don't have a good way to avoid head hunger, my house is chock full of triggers. I just try to keep really low-calorie stuff around as an option when I'm "head-starving", like sf popsicles. I haven't found that distracting myself works at all. But I won't eat anything substantial if I'm not due for "food". I'm not the "just tough it out" kind of girl.

What a wonderful discovery!

Ever since I had issues with the stabililty of artificial sweeteners in the heat, I'm pretty leery of liquids. Crystals seem to be more heat stable. But, if stevia is stable, I'd love to use the liquid. I won't even keep stuff like Mio in my purse because it stays in the car when I'm home and the car gets pretty hot.

Since there are a lot of smoothie aficionados out there, I've got questions: When you make a smoothie, how much do you drink as one "meal"? And, how do you save leftovers? This is confusing for me since smoothies are sliders, so I'd appreciate your input. Thanks!

Happy Birthday!

Very pretty! I could never commit to a tattoo. A week later, I'd wish it was a green dragon instead of a red one, or Tweety instead of Sylvester, or whatever. Commitment issues! Amazing I've been married nearly 29 years

Congrats!

What is the advantage of liquid Stevia?

McDonald's has egg McMuffins all day. I order it with no cheese, then just eat the egg and ham.

OK, this is helpful. I've been keeping smoothies to the same 30-30-30 time period and also trying to limit them to 8 oz. Neither option was very successful. Since pretty much everything I eat are sliders, I limit both time and amount or I could be "sliding" all day. But if you are all successful sipping on these for a longer time period, I'll give that a try. Thanks!

Probably depends on whether you do a lot of lifting at work. Your surgeon can tell you how long he/she recommends.

Absolutely. Maybe not 8 oz, but 2-3 anyway for starters.