ms.sss

i love that i had my surgery. it has changed my life exponentially for the better in more ways than a hundred. i have ZERO regrets having it and would not change any aspect of it that i endured (both good AND bad) because that road got me to where i am today. anything i did not know beforehand and/or had to learn or be surprised by during the actual process were non-issues in the grand scheme of things. just teaching moments really. sometimes i think its better to internalize a lesson when you when you find out the consequences of being on the other side of it, vs just being TOLD. BUT. i will say i do wish i had known 5-6 years earlier than when i first started looking into WLS that i would have qualified for it at a BMI of 35 with 2 co-morbidities. Instead i had waited until i got to BMI 40, because i did not know about the lower qualification. But whatevs. Better late than never!

todays brunch was leftovers from yesterday's brunch, ha! ordered a smoked salmon benedict and shared one of the "benedicts" with the Kid and brought the other one home (i asked for another plate to put the extra one on before we dug in to keep it pretty lol). anyway, wasn't sure how a smoked salmon eggs benny would hold up after 24 hours, but i ate what i ate today and im still alive and have no stomach issues (so far!)..so its all good (i think!) 435 calories for the before pic (including the tsp of pesto i put on the side) ate all the egg, about 2/3 of the english muffin, and about 1/2 of everything else, looks like. no one wanted the rest so its in the bin.

there were/are times when i spend i good amount of time making something to eat for myself, or basically 1/2 a day preparing a multi-layered/multi-course meal for the fam, or painstakingly pour over a menu to choose something to order, and be all excited to eat it then...nah. and end up putting the food in the fridge and/or watch whomever's with me eat it. i have been known to take a bite out of something i thought would be delicious only spit it out in a napkin...because it wasn't. it all evens out though, with my hungry days.

Day 2 when I got home. I had a heck of a time trying to swallow my giant horse-pill like calcium pill. after about 1-2 weeks (i can't remember exactly) of struggling (had to take 3 a day!) i moved to a calcium chew. at first i still hated them cuz they were too sweet and i actually hated to chew at that time, but after a couple. months i started to actually like them. then i would only buy the chews when they were on sale (they have short expiry date), and take the pill form other times. (i had no issues with my multivitamin, nor the other ones i used to take...Vit B and Vit A i think...) P.S. full disclosure, i stopped taking all my vitamins around the 1.5 year post op mark. my labs were all satisfactory up until that point and stayed way throughout all my labs since then, so me and doc are not concerned. P.P.S. also i'm a sleeve

i went through stages. 1st month: looking or thinking about food and eating made me sick. i was like REPULSED. month 2-3: didnt want to eat (but no longer REPULSED) though i forced myself to eat because i was getting weak. i had a very strong restriction so wasn't able to eat much anyway. month 4-7: there would be days that i wanted to eat and days that i didn't. i stopped forcing myself to eat on no-hungry days at this point and just ate when i wanted to because i started to develop this thing where i felt like eating was WORK and i didn't like that. my restriction was still doing its job though, so i still couldn't eat much anyway. month 7-12: struggled to up my calories to ease into maintenance and i think my not-wanting-to-eat phases during this time period had more to do with a mental block than anything else. i had a bit of a time when i had a challenge "allowing" myself to eat higher calorie foods and carbs, ha. fear of weight gain and all that. though in hindsight i needn't have worried, as my restriction kept me in check. 1 year and onwards: i still get the odd don't-want-to-eat or oops-i-forgot-to-eat days here and there. not as often and regluar as before, but they show up every once in a while. i don't sweat it, as i know there will be hungry days too. my restriction is still very much in play, even at 5 years out, and i have learned over the years what foods and what amounts i can consume before i hit my full mark. i was/am a regular food tracker so its second nature. i tend to only eat things that i really want because, why fill my valuable limited real estate with something meh? luckily the list of things i want does not comprise of just junk. while i do enjoy a bite of dessert and a bowl of chips, i love me a salad just as much. though personally, my fave kind of meal is when there are an abundance of different things to take a bite or two of (like hors d'ourves at a cocktail party, or a tasting menu, or dim sum/tapas/izakaya, or when i go to a restaurant with a large group and get to have a bit of everyone's meal!) anyway, i think i may have gone on a tangent there, lol. but yeah, you are not the only one that gets the food aversions, and while you will get differing advice on this topic, i would say go what works for you. if you are getting worsening physical symptoms from not eating, or if your labs are not coming back satisfactorily, of course, please speak to a medical professional. otherwise, if you are losing weight, AND suffer little to no angst, then in my non-medical opinion, you're golden.

i'm almost 5 yrs post op, but at the time of my surgery I was 5'2", 46 yrs old and 235 lbs. got to goal (127 lbs) around 7 months post op and somehow managed to stay below goal ever since (weighed 120 lbs this morning) i was one of the lucky/unlucky ones (depends who you ask) that had vice-like restriction the first 9-10 months. it loosened up more and more over the years, but not to the level of "normal" eaters...i still don't seem to eat us much as those around me. I hit my max volume for a sitting at about the equivalent of 1 cup of solid food. more if its salad, less if its dense protein or fluffy bread. you didn't ask, but I'll put this here anyway: i can drink as much liquids at whatever speed, so long as i have no food in my stomach....but once there is food in there, I need to wait AT LEAST 1/2 an hour to digest a bit before I drink, otherwise i'll barf.

dupe post

mark me down as another who doesn't mind getting a picture taken after the weight loss....BUT i still have a no social media post ban on posting my pic online without prior permission! (its the same courtesy i give others) always get consent, people! its just good manners 😉

the inadvertent food twinning continues. i believe we really do all eat the same things at the same time...kinda like when your periods synch up with ur friends...😂😂😂 i don't always post what i eat, but do almost always take pictures of it.... @Tomo had shrimp shrimp cocktail, and i had this 3-4 days ago: @Starwarsandcupcakes's green beans and bacon vs. my green beans with pork mince 2 days ago and @Arabesque, i also had a pork bone soup but deleted the pic cuz it was unappetizing looking! lol too funny.

im almost 5 years out and lost 115-120 lbs (depending on the day, lol) pre-surgery, i was only slighty active...not because i didn't want to be, but because i tired out easily. i would do fun cardio-intensive activities every once in while, but wouldn't last long, and would take a few days to recover. immediately post-surgery i did a couple laps of walking the hospital halls, once home, forced myself to walk around my kitchen island several times a day. graduated to walking around the block a few times a day, to walking several times at once around that block, to walking around that block for at least an hour, often times much more. by 5-6 months post op, i was RUNNING around the block and neighborhood for min 5km sometimes more 5-6 times a week. i also started exploring other things to do around 3 months post. i tried hot yoga, tap, zumba, bouldering, salsa, weight training. only yoga and zumba stuck. i did force myself to do some sort of strength training 4-5 times a week (body weight only) because i hate strength training but i also know it does wonders for how one body LOOKS. i was pretty religious about all this exercise for about 2.5 years. then i hurt my foot which sidelined me for 2-3 months and i didn't go back to my regularity of exercise since. i probably only run a 5k twice a week now. i do notice the difference in how my body looks now vs then. i was much firmer then and also had more energy. my arms are a faded memory of their once awesome glory lol. i keep telling myself to pick it up but alas im super lazy. its way hard to start up again once u stop, so my advise here would be: dont stop! as others have alluded to above, exercise isn't really a main factor in weight loss, it more for health and "body presentation" lol. u mean i weigh pretty much the same as i did in my exercise heyday, but i dont look nearly as good (body wise). another piece of advice i would dole out here is find something u actually like to di, as u have a better chance of doing it long term. good luck! ❤️

was going to have salt and vinegar chips for breakfast/lunch but then i spilled them all over the couch when i sat down! before i had cats, i would've just scooped em up back into the bowl to eat, but now im a little weary of any cat hair or residual cat poo/pee on said couch so i tossed them 😂 went back to the kitchen and got me some breakfast pistachios instead. 240 calories for 2/3 cup. ate it all (just the pistachios, not the cat chips lol)

same!

i've been busy this morning/afternoon! woke up and decided to clean out the fridge/freezers. there was a bunch of stuff that needed to be used before they went bad so i went to work! a giant pot of meat sauce (used up the 3 month old frozen beef & pork, some ripe tomatoes, drying out carrots, the last of my onions and garlic, and a whole bunch of basil from the "garden" that we really need to use up before summer is over and the plant dies. pickled beets (went to farmers market two days ago and bought a bushel of beets for no real reason!) candied beets maraschino cherries (costco cherries...gonna make a cherry pie tomorrow) chinese green onion and ginger sauce (again, i blame the farmers market...bought a bunch of these steriod-like-overgrown green onions and a sack of organic ginger) didn't actually eat any of this, but i did do alot of tasting. i don't even know where to start to log that in MFP, so im just gonna skip it. actually, speaking of eating, i haven't eaten anything yet (aside from the tastings..ha!) ...will probably have some of the meat sauce with toast when its done simmering.

dupe post

dupe post..whats been going in with the BP site these days, right? 🤷🏻‍♀️

two of my fave things: paella and patios! what could be better??

k, im pretty proud of this one...my first ever attempt at paella, and it turned out really good! 1st pic collage are the different cooked components: the main rice part (aborio rice, shrimps, chorizo, onions, tomatoes and seasonings) + mussels in lemon white wine sauce + grilled whole shrimp. the second pic is of our table spread of the finished/assembled paella plus some mexican street corn i made with and without cojita cheese (cuz one of my guests doesn't like cheese 🤷🏻‍♀️) and some extra grilled shrimp that didn't fit in the pan. looks like there was too much seafood on the paella cuz u cant even see the rice...or maybe i just need a bigger pan lol. anyway, in my excitement i didn't take a pic of my serving before it was all gone, but i ate about 1/2 cup worth of the rice, 4 mussles and one grilled shrimp. also had a martini and 1/2 a lemon square. altogether, i estimate tonights intake at 859 calories . im ready for bed! but i need to digest first....

im almost 5 years post and i still have days when im super hungry. what do i do? i eat. i wont go to town on a buffet spread or anything, but i will fix myself a bowl of something in a regular-person-ish portion size. satisfied or not, restriction will usually stop any more eating...so gotta choose my food wisely if im aiming solely for "satisfaction" (cravings: only specific things are wanted) or if im feeding an empty stomach (hunger: anything will do). and yep, i i still also have days when its like 4pm and i suddenly realize i haven't eaten a thing. then think: i should eat, but don't really want to. so...i don't. i hate forcing myself to eat something i don't want just as much as i hate not eating something i DO want. sooo....i just eat when/what i want. groundbreaking, i know. the restriction in my stomach helped alot to "train" me to eat this way. so thanks, stomach! of course im almost 5 years out, so its a little different for me, but i pretty much adopted this MO since the beginning (except i purposely avoided starches and sugar in the 1-2 years or so, now nothing is off limits...well except copious amounts of sugar at once cuz i dump)

its funny cuz pre-surgery i was strictly a milk or white chocolate gal. now i find them too sweet and much prefer dark. the darker the better!

jamaican jerk pork AND oxtail AND rice and peas. the rice was super filling...should've just ate the protein by itself. will eat the rest later if its still around. 🤞🏼 425 calories for the bowl.

Lindt chocolate bars were on sale the other day, so naturally we bought like 6, LOL had 2 squares of the spicy dark chocolate one for 106 calories . could've been spicier.

fried flour dipped boneless chicken thighs for lunch (with a side of ketchup). oh, and an espresso martini beforehand (not shown). 401 calories for it all. ate 1 of the thighs and some ketchup and the drink oc.

is it weird i wanna try to make that? but maybe instead of the hot dog, shove in a piece of candied bacon... 😂😂😂

late lunch (since i actually had a breakfast this morning!) Mr. made a very yummy melty-cheesy mushroom basil frittata. Paired it with some naan chips i made (equivalent to 1/4 of a naan) and some ketchup. Yes, i eat my eggs with ketchup! Don't judge me! 330 calories for the bowl Ate about 1/2 of it.

oopsies...forgot the recipe. WARNING for bacon lovers: these are addictive and you wont be able to stop at just one. best to not have it sitting at arms reach at parties lol. BACON WRAPPED CREAM CHEESE BITES INGREDIENTS 1 - bacon 2 - soft white bread (no crusts, rolled out for easier use)...when im especially lazy i just buy pre-packaged tramezzini bread, no prep required) 3 - 8oz cream cheese (or garlic & herbed or chive flavoured if u wanna things easier and skip item 4 below) 4 - some chopped chives, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (skip if u want, see item 3 above) PREPARATION - pre-heat oven to 400 - (optional) mix the paprika w/ the cream cheese - spread cream cheese onto the bread - roll bread like a jelly roll - cut the roll into bite-sized pieces - cut the bacon into pieces big enough to wrap around a single bread bite (make sure the ends AT LEAST overlap) - place each wrapped bite bacon seam side down - bake for 20-25 mins or until bacon is crisp (u usually flip em over 1/2 way, but its fine if u don't) best served warm! now place on table and back away lest u get mauled by the bacon-crazed crowds 😂