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Goal weight achieved, but now, how do I eat healthy? Need tips please!
CrowLuv posted a topic in Post-op Diets and Questions
So, I've reached and actually far surpassed my goal weight, and I'm ecstatic about that! However, I am ashamed to confess that, to put it bluntly, my diet SUCKS. I don't even know when it started to, probably over the 2020 holidays if I had to guess. I've continued to lose weight since then, and that's probably why I haven't felt compelled to make healthy changes to my diet. But believe me, I know how wrong that is. I just haven't wanted to face it head on until now. The fact is, I know that reaching goal weight is NOT the end of the journey. It's just starting, in fact. I exercise daily, and that's great, but my eating habits are pure garbage. It's hard to admit this. I'm deeply ashamed of it. To have gotten the privilege of having bariatric surgery, and to, due to that privilege, reach the accomplishment of my weight loss goal, only to treat my body like a garbage can, is a huge disservice to myself and to the golden opportunity I was given. Here's the thing: I don't know where to start. During my weight loss phase I had that down pat, I kept it very simple, which is part of why I don't know what to do with myself now. Being in maintenance, I'm at the point where I don't even know, what do I eat? I do not want to focus on calorie counting anymore (at this point, at least), for personal reasons - I just want to eat healthily. I want to give my body the nutrition it deserves. But what does that look like at goal weight? Does anyone have any advice or resources I could use to help me with this? I don't mean a calorie counter type thing, I mean more like a basic "these are the foods you should eat" type thing, with ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I don't know where to start - I'm embarrassed about that but not so embarrassed as to not ask for help when I need it...and I really do need it. If anyone has any ideas or tips to get me started on how to eat healthy at maintenance, I'd be so grateful, thanks in advance! -
It's been so long since I came here and I'm disappointed in myself for that, it's such a wonderful forum with amazing people.
But I'm back with exciting news: I had my surgery in August of 2019, and I met my goal of 180 by the fall of 2020! And even better: as of today I've far surpassed my initial goal and am now at 156lbs!
In hindsight, I made the goal of 180 never dreaming I would be able to go below that, and yet, in the back of my mind I always knew that somewhere in the 150s would be the absolute ideal for me, I just never thought that would be a possibility, even with this surgery. So this is a dream come true for me!
The mind is a very powerful machine, and I guess my mind clearly said "we're not done here" when I got to 180. I didn't even try to get below it, to be perfectly honest - it took no effort on my part, the weight just kept (keeps?) melting off of me.
That sounds like the worst kind of humblebrag, almost cringe-level - but I truly don't mean it that way. It's just that I'm just completely gobsmacked! I never in a million years expected this to happen!
More good news: I started exercising with a program I'm obsessed with called Essentrics last October - heck, I've only missed a handful of days since I started. I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be so excited about working out, that it would be the highlight of my day, even. But it is! I always haaaated exercise! But this program is downright enjoyable and I always feel something akin to euphoria at the end of my workouts. That's not an exaggeration. It's possible that doing this is why I kept losing weight, but I'm not sure, because it's not cardio-heavy at all...it's more like just stretching and moving your body, I guess kinda like a more "active" form of yoga, but NOT yoga, it's hard to describe honestly. Nothing fancy, it just really feels good for my body, I can't say enough about it. I can't imagine it burns that many calories since there is very little cardio involved, but I don't know because I don't do math and that's that lol.
But now I have a new goal, and it's a big one: get back to a nutritious, healthy diet (maintenance I mean, not active weight loss). I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I have to be brutally honest with myself, and this is the ideal place to do it - the fact is, my diet SUCKS. I haven't even tried to eat healthily for quite awhile now. I'm so ashamed of myself just typing that out, but I need to face it and admit it to myself before I can fix it.
I haven't participated on this forum for way too long, and that was a mistake. This forum is amazing and filled with such great people who always inspired me so much!
So now I'm back because, even though I'm at my goal, the fact is, this is a lifelong journey - it's not just the weight loss part, it's so much more than that. I need help getting my diet back on track. I need the inspiration and excellent advice I always found here. Just because I'm at goal doesn't mean I'm done - far from it.
So although I'm embarrassed that my diet (currently!) sucks, I can at least give myself credit for finally admitting it and setting my intention to change that. Being at goal weight does NOT mean I'm healthy. It's great that I'm exercising, but if I'm not giving my body the nutrition it needs, then I'm only hurting myself. If I took the giant step of having bariatric surgery, I owe it to myself to follow through with the WHY I did it - which was to become healthy again - and that is sooo much more than a number on the scale.
I'm ready to make the changes necessary to get myself into the healthiest state possible. I won't be perfect, nobody is, but it's time for me to truly commit to giving my body the healthy nutrition it deserves as best as I can. I don't know where to start though, it's like I need an entire education about it. But I'm ready and willing to learn.
I'm so happy to be back here because I know that inspiration is found everywhere here in this forum.
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Hopefully the links below will help some people differentiate between physical and head hunger. I don't know about anyone else but in the early stages of post op, it was difficult to know when I was genuinely hungry as none of the usual clues were there. Only way I knew if I had gone too long between eating was due to hand tremors. I am nearly a year out and still do not get any physical hunger cues as yet, but I do get head hunger cues, and its like they say in the links below, those head hunger cues are for chips, lollies, icecreams. I do lots of distracting myself: reading, going for a walk, going to the gym, chatting with a friend, play games, do puzzles. The longer I distract myself and don't give in to head hunger cues, the less frequent they are. If I give in (which occasionally I do), those head hunger cues come back in full force...until once again I get into distraction mode. I am getting better at ignoring the cues which for me works best, as I am an all or nothing person. I don't moderate well at all, just having a little bit doesn't ever work for me, one little bit mostly leads to all of it. https://www.stlukesonline.org/health-services/health-information/health-topics/head-hunger-after-weight-loss-surgery#:~:text=Head hunger is about eating,are “above the neck.” https://primesurgicare.com/head-hunger-vs-belly-hunger-difference/ https://www.streamline-surgical.com/2017/02/dealing-head-hunger-bariatric-surgery/
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Online Support Group Question (FluffyChix’s Group)
Bari_KS replied to BariatricBiter's topic in POST-Operation Weight Loss Surgery Q&A
You can find her at - Bariatric Accountability Club or BAC on facebook or - imbacnow2020 on Instagram -
Can I just tell you how powerful I find what you wrote here? That is exactly how I feel, when I am on top of this thing, and not being crazy about food and all of that. I am so grateful for the surgery, and grateful for the healthier, stronger, happier me. One reason why I don't come to this site too often is because of the dogmatic and/or shaming stuff. Like people who claim to have only eaten 400 calories a day for 6 months, and shame people who don't, or who go nuts if someone asks if post surgery people can tolerate an occasional piece of bacon or movie theater popcorn, or respond to someone who admits to struggling or (gasp!) falling off the wagon by becoming some sort of weird bariatric drill sergeant. I know that shaming, cajoling, and extreme deprivation have NEVER worked for me, and I literally cringe when I see some of that stuff on here. And I also know that the food hormones come back, and yes, I am actually hungry! And I most definitely do need 1000 calories a day; I regularly eat 12 to 1400 calories a day and I am still losing weight, albeit slowly. (I also have a thyroid disorder which has impacted the speed of my weight loss). I am one year out, 90 pounds thinner, and still at a "fat" BMI (28); I am 62 years old, and I am not going to be entering any bathing suit competitions! I make mostly healthy food choices, I walk a lot because I like it and it is good for my mental health, and one of the things I really miss is drinking a beer. Of course....that may just be head thirst
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I love my bariatric therapist. She's a HUGE part of working this life change (for me, anywho) and has been absolutely indispensible to finding a new normal that isn't extreme. There's a lot of lifescript to rewrite...to get this food addiction thing worked out in my case. Like all relationships....part of the relationship is listening and compromise. I listen to food and my body and try to make sensible compromises now. My big thing has been getting away from the extreme thinking where food is concerned. I tend to go....to hell with it, I'll eat whatever I want OR I must control and document every micronutrient and be PERFECT! For years, there was no inbetween and there was no winning. Making peace...learning to really be accountable, but reasonable....has been the biggest part of the work for me. Therapy has helped with this bigtime.
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I'll be getting surgery through MUSC. One of the things that attracted me to them was that they had a whole program of behavioral psychologists and such to follow up with pre and post surgery. I am a ways off from surgery, but have been having trouble finding actual reviews of people's experiences there. Does anyone here have any experience there? What do/don't you like about their process? I did a search on the forums for MUSC and the only posts I was able to find were from mostly 2008-2012 or so. Dr Bryne seemed to have positive feedback, and he is still a surgeon there now (edit to add: that's actually who I have my consult with). Was just looking for more recent opinions on the process, or if it's improved. Thanks in advance!
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lactose intolerance is not uncommon after bariatric surgery. Sometimes it's only temporary -- and sometimes it's not. Some lactose intolerant people can tolerate aged or fermented dairy products - like aged cheese or yogurt - but others can't. I guess it depends on how sensitive you are to lactose - sounds like you're very sensitive to it...
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I have chronic major depression and I take two antidepressants. Neither causes weight gain, in fact they're both known to sometimes suppress appetite so I've had no issues there. I have had to be treated with prednisone since my bariatric surgery for an unrelated condition and I didn't gain a lot of weight. As soon as I came off of it, I lost the water weight and the few pounds I had put on. Make sure to talk all your concerns out with your surgeon. I have a blood disorder and I am on anticoagulants for life. For this reason, my surgeon asked me to get clearance from my hematologist. The hemadoc told me I would need to switch anticoagulants after surgery because the one I was taking required a lot of food to be bioavailable. I tried to get the one he recommended but my insurance wouldn't cover it. It was too expensive for me to pay for out of pocket, so I stayed on my original anticoagulant. Six months later, I developed a blood clot just as my hemadoc predicted. So it's always good to make all your doctors aware that you are having surgery as there can be unexpected interactions between different areas of your health. Best of luck! 🤗
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Dr Dolan and positives of weight loss surgery
catwoman7 replied to Annie2021's topic in Weight Loss Surgeons & Hospitals
sleeve and bypass are different. With sleeve, they remove about 80% of your stomach. With bypass, they put a line of staples across your stomach (but don't remove it), which separates it so food only goes into the top part, meaning you can't eat as much. Then they move your small intestine up to the top part of your stomach (where the food is). The bottom part of your stomach just sits in there, unused (well, it technically makes some hormones which drain into your small intestine further down the route that help with digestion, I believe - but for lay person purposes, the lower part of the stomach just sits there dormant). supposedly weight loss surgeries do reset metabolism. The US society that many bariatric surgeons belong to is called the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Plus people with diabetes who get weight loss surgery often have their diabetes go into remission pretty quickly after surgery (especially with bypass - although this happens to a lot of sleevers, too), so that tells me that there's something other than weight loss that's going on to get it into remission so quickly. So yes - I think it does affect your metabolism as well (although admittedly, I'm not a doctor...) (however, you asked about metabolism changing after your lapband is removed - that I don't know) it took me 10 years to decide to have surgery, and in retrospect I should have done it years ago. One of the best decisions I've ever made! And no - no problems. It's been great! -
Meh, to each their own. But I'm tired of lying. These surgeries fix our stomachs, not our heads. Our heads will never be well if we keep lying. And we are CHAMPION liars about food and hunger (and fitness and body image, etc.) We're also prone to extreme thinking. If it's not one extreme it's the other. I want something truthful that is moderate and sane and not so EXTREME all the time. 1000 calories a day indefinately...is eventually called an eating disorder. We can't avoid food. We need to make peace with it and be honest about it. If we've been lying about food and hunger to ourselves, we are much more at risk of regaining or developing an eating disorder in the other direction or another addiction.....which does happen. I'm personally not interested in an eating disorder. I'm not interested in being someone who stands in the sun and believes the energy is flowing into me. LOLOLOLOL. I have no interest in the nonsense of "skinny, perfect, beautiful". I like how I look, and I always have. Even when I was 270 pounds. I want to be someone who is an average weight for a woman my age...who feels strong and healthy and has excellent labs and no medications. I want a long healthy life. I want to stop the weight obsession/identity/cycle of madness. I want to be someone who relates to food in a normal way. Someone who can enjoy everything in moderation who has the self control to stop and self regulate. Someone who doesn't think about food every minute of the day. And I think my chances of getting there are a hell of a lot better if I'm honest. So does my bariatric therapist. I am nearly 50, and I'm just getting this figured out after a lifetime of diets and extreme thinking. I love my moderate, normal weight.... and my moderate normal eating habits.... and my moderate normal fitness. Here's a current pic of me. Not perfect. Moderate. Normal. But exactly who I want to be:) And yep...this chick gets HUNGRY when she's not eating 1400-1600 calories a day:)
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Friend saw me for the first time in 3 months...
JMJames92 replied to BayouTiger's topic in Gastric Sleeve Surgery Forums
I am sorry that you had to go through that. Do you mind if I ask if your friends that have treated you this way are overweight? If so they are probably jealous that you are losing weight and they are having difficulty losing theirs. I always find it funny, too, when people talk about bariatric surgery as cheating. It's like, "I had a health issue and I had a medical procedure done so that I could correct that issue". Is someone with cancer being a cheater if they have surgery to remove a tumor? -
So I saw a new surgeon that is closer to my home. he saw my blood tests with iron levle and hemoglobin levels in the normal range but he had me take a blood test for ferratin level. the lab test says normal is 11-307 but the surgeon said he likes to see his patient in the 50-100 range. I tested at 10.6! Is this the same test that in your experience people are getting infusions? He wanted me to start taking 2 iron pills a day and work up to 4. I think they are 65mg each in addition to my bariatric multivitamin has 45 mg. I am only taking 2 a day since the constipation side effects. It's been 2 months now and I am supposed to go in to have the ferritin level rechecked. I think I am goin to start taking the chelated iron and see if that is easier to digest and helps my number. Ugh such conflicting info. How often did you retest? How long did it take to go up?
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it happened for me during a routine physical. My doctor told me I needed to lose weight, which of course he always said (and I responded with my usual "I know, I know...."). This time he was quite blunt: he said that I did not take drastic action, I would likely have a major cardiac incident within 10-12 years that I might not survive. (I was 59 at the time.). He referred me to a local bariatric surgeon, and the rest is history.
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For me it was really basic. I had a painful knee that I had suffered with for 37 years and I wanted to get a knee replacement. They wouldn't do it at the weight I was then, so I took the plunge. I had my bariatric surgery in March 2019 and my knee was replaced in August 2020. It's SO GOOD being out of pain now!
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Have you watched any of Dr. Weiner's videos on YouTube? He's a bariatric surgeon who has a lot of great videos, but he said something about head hunger in one of his videos (can't remember which one now) that really bugged me. He basically said that "stomach growling" hunger feeling is just head hunger, and I was like, "B.S.!" I am so thankful that my surgery has almost completely eliminated my hunger (so far... I know my hunger will probably return eventually). Before surgery, I felt like my stomach was a bottomless pit, and I could eat huge quantities of food and still be hungry. I tried waiting after I ate since we're always told it takes time for satiety to set in, and nope -- I would just keep getting hungrier. There were so many times that I didn't WANT to eat any more, but I was just so hungry. Sometimes I couldn't sleep because of hunger and I had to eat more just so I could sleep. And I am quite sure that this was real, physical hunger and not just in my head. My personal theory is that this is one of the factors that makes it more difficult for some people to lose or manage their weight. I truly believe that some people are just hungrier than others, or maybe we feel hunger more strongly -- kind of like a pain threshold. People who don't have that extreme hunger can't understand why it's not as easy as it sounds to "just eat less." Now, I will also admit to having head hunger -- eating out of boredom or habit, or because something looks delicious and I want to taste it, or I'm eating something so delicious that I want to keep eating more of it, or to treat myself to something I've been looking forward to eating -- and I still experience that sometimes. I still have times when I see something I want to eat really badly even though I know that I'm not hungry. But it is a heck of a lot easier to resist when I'm not actually, physically hungry.
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Rice, Pasta, Bread, etc
summerset replied to HealthyLifeStyle's topic in Post-op Diets and Questions
There is no gold standard (even though some might claim that they've found the holy grail). IMO that's one of the reasons patients are so afraid of "doing something wrong". In the end there are patients adopting elements from several plans, creating the most restrictive plan possible because they only look at what other treatment teams label as "forbidden" and not what they label as "ok". One team says "NO!!!! NEVER AGAIN!!!" when it comes to coffee - there goes the coffee, even if your own team says it's ok in moderation. Others say "NO!!!! NEVER AGAIN!!!" to carbonated drinks - there goes the carbonated water, even though your own treatment team doesn't mind it. Just for - you know - safety reasons. A team says "NO!!!! NEVER AGAIN!!!" when it comes to bread - you plan to never touch a slice of bread again, even though your own dietician says you can start eating whole grain breads 6 weeks after surgery, just to be... safe because there is this talk about lack of weight loss because "carbs". And that list goes on and on and ON endlessly. In the end you've become the prisoner of your new "bariatric lifestyle". -
Hello everyone! I’m glad to be a part of this group and look forward to sharing and hearing about everyone’s journey, whether it’s contemplating weight loss surgery, newly post op like myself, or those with years of experience. I feel there is value in learning from everyone. so for me, I have struggled my whole life with my weight. I have been up....and I’ve been down, but for me the weight always finds it’s way back to me. I know everyone has their own personal reason for having this procedure. My reason is more than just to lose weight. I have very significant spinal degeneration and have already had three spinal fusions on my low to middle back. Every surgery I am left with more debilitating symptoms. My hope is that with the gastric sleeve as my tool, I can lose the weight and actually keep it of. Less stress on my spine may buy me time until I need another spinal surgery. My journey has been a long one, but I hung in there! Lol I began my 6 months of managed weight loss on December 18, 2019. I only had one month left until I would qualify for surgery, but my back surgery in March of 2020 left me unable to return to work. I lost my job AND my insurance. Luckily I was able to get on my husbands insurance fairly quick, but because I skipped a month of weight management appointments I had to start the whole process over again! Needless to say, it was a long road to travel, but on February 1st (surgery day) I was down 60 lbs! My starting weight was 275, so I went into surgery at 215lbs. Here I am today at day 20 and for the most part things are going well. I am down another 13 lbs and starting my second week on puréed diet Monday. My biggest issue so far is heartburn!! I was already taking Omeprazole 40mg but the reflux is persistent! My bariatric nurse advised me it’s ok to take 1 tums and that has helped some. Has anyone else had persistent heartburn post op, and did it go away after a while? So far that is my biggest concern. By the way, I didn’t mention my goal weight is 150, so I now have 52 lbs to go. I see many of you are losing lots of weight very quickly. I sometimes feel like my surgery wasn’t as effective, but I try to remind myself that it may be slower for me. well, that’s my story! I look forward to hearing from others as I continue my journey! Thank you!
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Calcium citrate is more easily absorbed because it doesn't require stomach acid to digest. It also has less risk of causing kidney stones. Unfortunately, most drugstore brands of calcium supplements are calcium carbonate, which is cheaper, and we bariatric patients have to buy the more expensive specialty ones.
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Autoimmune diseases & bariatric surgery ??s
Reign7780 posted a topic in Gastric Bypass Surgery Forums
Hi all. I am not very active here, but I am struggling lately and just have a couple of questions. I started back to university in January, which I'm so glad I was able to, but it has been exhausting and I don't think it really should be. I am also from Texas, so we are still going through some pretty awful stuff at the moment. My family (5 kids, my husband, and I) made it out unscathed for the most part and got very lucky we only lost power for about 8 hours. I was pretty scared of being without power so we risked travel on icy highways to travel to my mom's house since she has a generator. We left to come back home because I was afraid of our pipes bursting and the animals were alone, and unfortunately on the way home we were rear-ended due to some black ice. We are okay and it's probably all just cosmetic damage, but we'll need our entire bumper replaced. It has been so extremely stressful, to say the very least. We, fortunately, had power back when we came home and our pipes did okay through the freezing weather. I have been struggling with fatigue. My doctor has suspected an autoimmune issue for a while (years), and I finally saw my rheumatologist after an entire year of waiting. Well, my blood work shows markers so when I go back I'm sure there will be more tests. I do have hypothyroidism and my T3 is low (other thyroid levels within normal ranges), but I have never been tested for Hashimoto's, I was just put on Levothyroxine and have been on it since 2011. My vitamins are okay as far as I can see. I know I'm also probably dehydrated because I still struggle with eating and drinking properly. My question I suppose really is, does anyone here have autoimmune diseases who had the bariatric surgery, and did you/do you struggle still with fatigue? I am nearly 7 months post-op, so I was hoping to see an increase in energy levels, but that's just not happening. I am just always lethargic with little energy. I will add, I do not sleep a solid 8 hours due to pain, and I do know that that could also be making things worse. I would just like anyone's insight/suggestions/experience with this sort of thing. Did you improve with treatment? How long did it take to see/feel improvements? Thanks in advance. -
how many calorie daily is enough to maintain weight lass when you move to soft diet
Jaelzion replied to punte's topic in Food and Nutrition
It depends on so many different factors - what's perfect for me might be way off for you. We all have different sizes, activity levels, dieting history, metabolisms, etc. I'd ask your bariatric team for some guidance and even with that, it may take some trial and error. It's counter-intuitive but sometimes people have to eat MORE to start losing again after a stall. -
The BariatricPal Multivitamin One vitamins are the best-priced bariatric multivitamins I've seen. If you buy the ones with iron, you might not have to take a separate iron supplement. They have a yearly subscription for $99.99, which is $8.33/month. You can buy them in smaller quantities (which I recommend doing to start to make sure you like them), but the more you buy, the lower the cost per vitamin. They do have a chewable one that you can take right after surgery, but I didn't care for the taste (I took Barimelts for the first two months, but they are pricey). You can take normal drugstore vitamins, but you have to take a double dose, and if you do that, the BariatricPal subscription is cheaper than most of the drugstore vitamins. You will have to take a separate calcium citrate supplement (make sure it's calcium citrate, not calcium carbonate). I LOVE the BariatricPal Belgian chocolate caramel and French vanilla caramel soft chews -- they taste like candy and make me look forward to taking my calcium. They are the lowest-priced calcium citrate chews I've seen (and they go on sale often), but you can get calcium citrate tablets for a lower price (about 1/3 of the price of soft chews per dose). I buy Caltrate petites and take those 1x per day (2 pills per dose) and soft chews 2x per day. You will also need vitamin B-12, which you can get as a sublingual tablet, injection, or nasal spray. I buy NatureMade brand sublingual tablets from Amazon. They are very inexpensive -- less than $10 for 50.
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Any recommendations on good bariatric vitamins for a reasonable price? Or combination of vitamins? Also, any liquid ones you can take right after surgery? Thanks!
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Do Gastric Sleeve patients have to take vitamins?
minimamaz00m replied to flgirl23's topic in Gastric Sleeve Surgery Forums
At my bariatric surgeon's, they put everyone on vitamins and tell them it's lifelong - with roux en y you definitely need to take them forever but sleeve it depends on how your labs come back. -
How do you know when you are full of soup?
minimamaz00m replied to mweiss1998's topic in Gastric Sleeve Surgery Forums
I measure everything too, but since I used this dinnerware, I don't have to get my scale out all the time because the measurements are on the actual plates/bowls. https://livligahome.com/shop-all/bariatric/ I also love the small fork/spoons they have which are the biggest help.
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