ms.sss

*raises hand* warning: this may get long.... now, for me, replace 'whiskey' and 'cognac' with Vodka Sodas or Red Wine or Espresso Martinis. i looked it up and according to North American AND European "standards" i would be considered an alcoholic in North America, as well as partaking in "harmful and hazardous" drinking if I were in Europe, based on my average daily alcohol consumption. I started drinking regularly during Covid, and basically never stopped. I too, consider myself a high-functioning alcoholic...i don't get black out drunk, i dont drink and drive, operate heavy machinery while under the influence, make bad decisions that would harm or embarass myself or others, etc. etc. since surgery i get affected much quicker, and on a lot less than pre-surgery. i'm pretty tipsy just after a single drink...legitimately drunk after 2. BUT.....i sober up really quickly too. the alcoholic buzz lasts me maybe 30-45 mins tops. then it's like i didn't drink a drop....which probably contributes to why i drink the amounts that i do. i am a boredom and social drinker (i.e,. i don't need it to sleep...i am a lifelong insomniac and need very little sleep all my life anyway *shrug*). so if i am busy doing stuff during waking hours that doesn't involve food, friends and sitting around, then i wont drink. i also have a chip on my shoulder, so often when somebody (i.e., Mr. or the Kid) challenges me that i couldn't stop drinking, I totally would just to prove him wrong. I've probably gone cold turkey 9-10 times for about a month each time in the past 5 years just to be right. Mind you, i never actually STOPPED for good, so maybe HE's right, ha. As for my current state of health, I am probably in the best shape in my adult life. I have maintained below goal weight since reaching it at 7 months post op. I am 5'2", 52 yr old woman, and this morning weighed 115.8 lbs. My body fat percentage hovers between 18-20% All my labs since surgery have been satisfactory, the last one being last fall. I don't take any medication any more (i used to take blood pressure and cholesterol and adhd meds). but I do have to take pesky PPIs i continue to need to keep my reflux under control. I have endless amounts of energy, bad moods and bitchiness are a rarity now, i am patient, calm, less stressed since losing the weight. I exercise (yoga, pilates, running, rock climbing) 20+ hours a week. I also dabble with swimming, hiking, volleyball, and dance for funsies. I consume over 2300+ calories a day so i'm definitely not starving myself (mind you, 400-500 cals are from alcohol...) soooo....sometimes i feel like i SHOULD worry about the amount of alcohol i drink, but really, if i'm honest, i don't, really. but if/when i do i feel like its becoming a problem, I can re-evaluate then (though this probably sounds like the alcoholic's battle-cry, no? ha!) p.s. may be worth noting here (not sure why) that i am also an ex-smoker at the moment. i smoked for 20 years, then quit cold-turkey for 10 yrs, then took it up again for 4 years, then quit cold turkey again last summer (am currently 14 months smoke free this time around, yay, me!). p.p.s. DISCLAIMER: i am in no way advocating nor opposing my M.O. to drinking to anyone who reads this. I am merely describing my own experiences. take or leave from it what you will ❤️ ...and scene. lol.

speaking of big dinner, here is a vid of said dinner i posted on my IG account. it was a 14 course (FOURTEEN!!) tasting menu and oh-so-delicious. i had at least 2 bites of each course, more of the ones i found especially delicious (i'm looking at you, braised pork belly, truffle pomme purée, and pickled-radish-octopus taco!) needless to say i was STUFFED afterwards and insisted we walked the streets for an hour to digest! 1726522286361443.mov

6 yrs out next month and there are still days that i forget to eat. case in point: TODAY. i went on a bit of an exercise binge today: 5km early morning run, followed by 2 back-to-back 1 hr each (power) hot yoga classes, then a last-minute decision to go to a pilates class (cuz i had a free pass expiring tomorrow), and finally an approx 10k round trip (leisurely) bike ride to and from the bike shop to get our bikes serviced (i hate biking btw, so this was sorta a big deal lol...i complained the whole way) ...and by the time we got home it was like past 4pm and i realized i didn't eat all day! and i didn't even feel hungry. now...how i was able to do all that on an empty stomach and not keel over, i'll never know. anyways...here is what i fixed for myself to eat for my first meal of day at 4:30pm: rice, burnt bacon (oopsies, got distracted!), 2 med-boiled eggs, and a couple tablespoons of this homemade ginger-green-onion condiment that i make that Mr. and The Kid LOVE and eat by the tubful lol. 394 calories for the entire thing. ate it ALL. (guess i was hungry after all! ha!) not sure i'll be able to eat my normal 2300+ cals a day today since its so late already, but im not worried, it all evens out in the end (plus i had a pretty big dinner last night, so there's that.)

tonights dinner: leftover pizza. its a different one fer sure: white sauce with creamed corn, roasted tomatoes, basil, anchovies and Parmesan . tasted like a salty dessert pizza lol. anyway, i ate it all, est 200 calories.

...now i want a dehydrator....

everyones pain tolerance is different. so it really depends on what YOU can handle. i did not take any pain medication after i left the hospital for WLS. but after plastics (tummy tuck, arm lift and breast lift), i finished the entire 2 week Rx i was prescribed in said 2 weeks. i would have taken more if i had any, and i was too lazy to see my doc to get more, so i just left it at that. but yeah, plastics recovery pain was a bee-yatch compared to wls, and the meds helped tremendously. but thats me...i know others who felt the opposite (i.e., wls was more painful)...so yeah everyone is different. i would say if u are suffering then maybe consider getting an prescription, even if just a couple days. good luck! ❤️

yes, but...aren't your more muscular (albeit bugger) thighs still an improvement from your less-toned ones? bet shorts look better on you now!

bwha-hahahah!! so do i !! i now have a rather ridiculous pile of yoga pants and tops and jackets and unitards growing exponentially in my closet. p.s. unitards are the best...they make you look awesome-r than u really are...lol.

today's win: i pooped!!! i left for vacay Aug 23 (13 days ago), came back 2 days ago and finally pooped this morning!!!!!! (aside: i ALWAYS have vacay constipation, so this was expected ) some fun statistics cuz statistics are FUN: - 115.0 lbs morning we left (Aug 23) - 119.2 lbs the night we came home (Sept 3) - 114.8 lbs after my poop this morning (Sept 5) which means i've been carrying around AT LEAST 4.4 lbs of poop in my colon for at least 2 days. that in itself if a win, if u ask me 😂😂😂

omg hilarious!!! now im probably going to spend endless hours playing on this site 😂😂😂😂

out of curiosity... define "few".. ? (no judgement as im probably the resident alcoholic here, just wanna know...for SCIENCE lol)

count me as a non (traditional) gym goer as well. i do not enjoy lifting weights and never did. i really, really tried to like it but it just didn't stick. i also am not a fan of the various cardio machines (bike, row, treadmill, etc). so i gave up trying to do those activities. i did find out that i enjoy running (but for some reason only in circles, like around my block or on a track, i think its because i like to run, but not actually go far?) i also enjoy pilates and rock climbing. im completely addicted to hot yoga. also do other stuff i find interesting or fun or cool here and there but nothing on a regular basis like the activity above. like others have said, if u do something u like, you are much more likely to stick with it. if you force yourself or try to motivate yourself in any other way (to not waste money, self-flagellation or self-shame, fomo, etc) you will most likely quit and then feel disappointed or whatever and the shame-spiral continues.... not everyone is a gym person. hecks, not everyone is an exercise person. and there are lots of these people who are not (and even never have beeb) obese.

aside: when i was bigger, i would not go rock climbing or any sort of clasped-in activity because i was embarrassed to put the harness on and have my abundant a$$ in full-squeezed-out glory on display to the masses below now, i love this harness cuz it gives me a free BBL lol:

my first sip of wine (red) was 3 weeks post op and i swear i felt it travelling through my intestines. i didnt get affected as i only had maybe 3-4 sips of it. my next drink was about a month later (xmas) and it was again 3-4 sips, but this time it was a sugary sake/soju cocktail and i experienced my first dumpling episode. im talking laying on the bathroom floor type of dumping. so yeah, not good. by 4 months (where u are now) i probably had 2 more partial drinks of vodka sodas (like ½ a glass each time), and while no dumpling, i discovered i morphed into a cheap drunk. ½ a glass was more than enough to make me feel i had 2 full ones. on the flip side, i sobered up completely in like 30-40 mins, which was different. im six years out and my quick-sobering super power is still in tact. i also still (mostly) stay away from sugary cocktails (i don't like the sweet anymore anyway). i generally stick to dry red wine and vodka/gin with soda or tonic water. i do also love me espresso martinis but with just a teeeeeeny bit of kahlua cuz its sweet. p.s. it is my understanding that, on average, red wine has less sugar content than white. so the driest red wine will ultimately have less sugar than the dryest white....correct me if im wrong, all ye wine connoisseurs...?

i totally scaled the side of a mountain a couple days ago:

funny raw celery is probably the one thing i purposely pick out of salads or veggie trays just never took to them pre or post wls! i can, however, eat/lick celery salt like its going out of style. aside:, cooked celery is an abomination and i don't even like to talk about it🤢

👆🏼Nailed it! esp the bolded part. in a way, its the never ending angst and shame spirals (and all the things they bring on) that are the death of us. not the food.

for most, it doesn't have to be this way...i am 6 yrs out and i still go out yo eat and go to dinner parties and have coffee and dessert. if anything, i probably go even more than pre-wls cuz i live to get dressed up and go out and socialize more now. and yes, its almost always centred by food and eating and drinking. i think the further out u get it gets a little less angsty cuz u have learned to trust yourself around food and know your limits in autopilot. i order whatever i feel for and generally just have a taste of it and the rest is generally eaten by my meal companions or becomes a take out box. or compost if it wasn't very good. i particularly like to go out with lots of people cuz then i get to taste all their stuff too. and yeah, we will rate the food in order of preference, critique them and discuss what could be better or left out, take pics for our IG, etc lol. i gave a bucket list of restaurants i am going trough locally and abroad. in fact i am on vacay right now and we came with a list of restaurants and bars and cafes and snack joints to try and have gone through almost all of them plus a few extra we thought would be interesting. i'd estimate we've visited (and ate at!) 40+ restaurants and bars in the last 9 days. and this doesn't even include the multiple food stalls we sampled at the 3 food festivals/night markets we went to. and for those that may be wondering, no, i did not regain all my weight back (i've stayed below goal weight since achieving it at 7 months post op, im 6 yrs out next month). aside: also may be worth noting that my travel companions are all normal sized and never had weight problems in thier lives (except maybe one of our group who is diabetic). i guess what im trying to say is that food and food-centred social situations and vacations can still be enjoyed (im probably an extreme proof of this) and we dont need to miss out and feel deprived if we dont want to. you can eat that burger (just maybe not the whole thing and definitely not 3 of them). and the beauty of eating less is you can have a taste of your friend's fries, a peice of your partner's steak, a sushi off ur kid's plate, a forkful of pie from the stranger at the other table...lol anyway, thats just my very looooooong speech on foodie-ism and food enjoyment years on the other side.

i started drinking carbonated water (i.e., perrier) around 1-2 months post op and haven't stopped since...it does make me burpy (always had), but i kinda like it lol. alot of the time the burps give me relief from pressure or fullness i often feel. i started drinking coke zero regularly again around 2-3 years post op. again no issue (that i am aware of at least). i probably drink at least one glass of coke zero a day. sometimes more, sometimes less, depends on where i am, what im doing, its availability, etc... but i mean if you dont need to drink diet drinks in particular, and you've gone long without and and can stay away, with minimal angst, i'd suggest just keep staying away, especially if u can do it with little effort. there are lots of studies out there that artificial sweeteners may not be the greatest for you so may as well keep staying away if u can. just plain carbonated water probably has less to worry about health-wise, tho.

im 6 years out next month. for the past 3-4 years i can (and do!) eat anything/everything in small amounts. (this includes all the things most say they don't eat or drink). i average 2000-2300 cals a day. and i've stayed below goal weight this entire time. and have not needed to buy bigger clothes lol. but i also exercise quite a bit. the exercise is all things i really enjoy doing so its not "work" for me. balance is important, but also getting rid of the idea and thought processes that something is bad or not allowed or forbidden or whatever. because this usually leads to angst and shame and guilt that does nobody any good.

My entire family wears On Cloud s. Me, Mr. and the Kid have multiple pairs of them for various purposes. The name is fitting as its really like walking on a cloud when i wear them. Here are the ones i wear for walking (i couldn't find them on the website, so i took a pic of mine...sorry kinda dirty, i'm on vacay and will clean them when i get home! lol)

neither can i! you look HAWT. RAWR!!! i love your work!

im retired and all my kids are grown so i've gots lots of time on my hands lol. i recently took up (indoor) rock climbing regularly earlier this year due to Mr.'s influence (he loves to climb and goes maybe 3-4 times a week), so i go with him more often now. i dabbled in climbing and bouldering before, but more as a fun occasional activity...these days though its more "serious"...i have my own gear now: no more rentals for me! lol and yeah its a workout alright. but not just upper body, there's a ton of leg work involved too. really, its a full body workout, back, core, butt, jeez even my fingers and toes. but its super fun, and very accomplishment-feeling when you successfully hit the top. p.s. im actually on vacay now and will be climbing my first ever "real" rocks (i.e., an actual outdoor mountain lol) this weekend...and pretty excited!