Will WLS work if the problem isn't overeating?

[Dub 9,922]

My husband already knows we can't have junk in the house anymore. He's sad about it but supports me on it. My kids also don't need to eat junk so they'll survive the changes.

I had mix feelings about this. For now, I've chosen to still but the same stuff in the grocery store. Our pantry is filled with Doritos, Pop Tarts and other stuff that I don't eat. I felt that my new way of living shouldn't translate over to punishment for the rest of the household. Even when I fire up the grill I still make much of the same old classics they love, yet I avoid.

After all....I'll be faced with those same temptations outside the house, why not be able to flex & develop my self-control muscles in the safety of the house?

I can certainly understand the opposite way of handling this, though.

Yeah, Protein vs carbs. That's a bit of retraining my body needs. When I ate low carb years ago it was awesome. So much Protein, I felt great! But after getting off that there were days when I'd eat practically no protein at all. Carbs were life. I gained it all back, plus a little more. (It took over 10 years to gain it back, but it did come.)

@@WitchySar

You are still trying to convince us that you were actually eating 7 chips and not over eating. Not many people are going to believe that.

You are tracking your food now and saying you aren't losing weight and barely getting enough calories in. So that has been the case you whole life? You ate 1000 calories a day for the past 42 years and got to 368?

You know a bunch of fat people aren't going to believe that...

The only time I've ever successfully lost weight was when I followed strict Atkins. I ate over 2500 calories a day on that diet and lost almost 150 lbs in a year. But I lacked the will power to STAY on it. I'm seeing surgery as being the tool I need to not start eating crap again. I'm certainly not going to sabotage myself after going to such extremes. But yes, I lack the will power myself to never eat crap again unless I have another tool in place.

For me, I have been easily able to stick to a low carb lifestyle post op, because I am not hungry and I can eat small portions. My issues with Atkins/Paleo/Keto etc has always been I was still hungry and over eating, even eating the right things. The sleeve makes it easy to stick to the lifestyle. I already had the will power but I was still over eating, and then I would stall and just quit. I can't quit with the sleeve.

There is no WLS that will give you will power. You can eat around the sleeve, the RNY, lapband, all of them. DS is probably the only one you can't eat around because it is so extreme.

Mentally you have to be in a place for WLS to work for you, or it won't.

I think it is good you are asking a lot of the questions you are asking but you don't really seem ready for WLS. It seems like something you are agreeing to because your healthy is failing, but you don't really seem to be at the end of your rope with your weight yet. JMO

Agreed. The lack of hunger once post-op has been a much appreciated aspect.

Oh believe me, there is no rope left. I'm not *agreeing* to do this. No one else suggested it to me. This is a decision I'm making for myself because I can't live like this anymore. I rarely leave my home anymore because we live on the second floor and my knees can't handle it. I have very little to wear because I can't shop in the stores near me, nothing fits anymore. I take 3 different blood pressure meds everyday and it STILL is high. No, I'm ready to do this.

Plus I have a minimum of at least 6 months to get the rest of my questions answered.

I have no intention of *eating around* my sleeve. Hell no. Not after all the hoops I'm going to have to jump through to get the surgery, and the pain and trauma to my body of the surgery itself. Nope. Not going to make all that be for nothing. So will the WLS *give* me willpower? No, of course not. But it sure as heck is going to supplement the willpower I already have because I WILL NOT fail this time.

Sounds good.

Remember....we were answering your original question. You've taken it to a new level of resolve, which is all very good.

The other tool that I've found to be highly effective with losing fat: EXERCISE

In fact, I'd rank the post-op tools in the following order of importance:

1) Lack of hunger

2) Exercise

3) Restriction

The way exercise helps me is on several levels.

One is in terms of understanding what a calorie feels like. Punch in your stats on any treadmill or elliptical and hop on and do some work for an hour. Get off and see that you burned enough calories for 2 candy bars and you'll never again won't a candy bar. You'll equate that sweat effort with willpower and you'll understand how bad junk food is.

Another way is in how you'll feel after sustained exercise. You'll feel better all day....and even better the next. Add some weight training into the deal and you will really start to feel GOOD.

The effect it has on your body will soon become visible. Tone and structure. Improved posture. An easier stride. Clothes fit better. All the sudden you'll SEE it. Others will see it, too. It becomes another way that your willpower to resist junk food is strengthened.

You'll be a whole new person before you know it. It can occur overnight, literally. For me.....it happened when I was sitting up in my easy chair one night. I couldn't make it to bed. I couldn't do much else but sit in that chair. I'd been sitting there for six weeks. Six weeks of going to PT sessions and taking meds to get past a back injury. One night I couldn't sleep.....just like the night before.....the meds and the pain had me wide awake. I decided that night to make a change. To find a way to get my legs beneath me and to change. By the time the sun came up the next morning I had a gameplan. I knew that wls would be part of it. I lost a nice chunk of weight in the next couple months and then had my VSG. It's been game-on ever since.

It all came back to that one night.....everything that's occurred since was set in motion on that night. I'll never forget how bad I hurt then....unable to move or even breath deeply without crazy pain. Never again will I let fat be a contributor to that type of situation. I want this stuff burned off and turned into fuel.

I have a hopeful eye to the future of how I'll adjust my diet once my body has burned the onboard fat for fuel. It'll be an interesting place to be.....another phase to live in. Looking forward to that.

[ironpoorer 88]

Like the title of the thread says, will WLS work if the reason for being overweight isn't from overeating? I don't overeat but I definitely choose the wrong foods.

Have you ever seriously tracked your food consumption for a few weeks to see exactly how many calories, carbs, fat and Protein you are consuming? You may not think you are overeating but if you consume a large amount of calories from carbs and fat every day then the result will be excess weight

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Myfitnesspal is good for tracking this

Edited June 15, 2016 by ironpoorer

[KristenLe 5,979]

@@WitchySar - One more thing - and a lot of people don't like to hear this - but honestly, therapy has been a stronger tool than my pouch (I had RNY). I had tried to do that before and never found the right therapist or would give up and stop going when it got hard. I credit the work I have done there to getting to goal so fast. I still go twice a month. I know not everyone can afford it. I get that. But if there is ANY way you can participate in therapy, I strongly suggest it.

I recommend therapy too! It has helped me and I had the time anyway so why not get the most out of it. I believe it will help me tremendously post-op. I understand your "fear" of not losing after WLS. I often worry about the same thing but my Team assures me the weight will come off IF I follow the plan.

[KristenLe 5,979]

Like @@Dub - I'm not eliminating temptation from the house. Pre-surgery, I buy a loaf of Italian bread (my favorite) so my SO can still enjoy bread with dinner. This week I bought him a 1/2 gallon of ice cream (my favorite flavor). I need to learn how to avoid temptation as these foods will always be around us. I'm having the surgery - my SO isn't and he shouldn't have to sacrifice because I am morbidly obese. I would never ask that of him. Last night, he had potato chips while I ate a Tomato. It takes alot of control and as I mentioned above - therapy has helped a lot!

[LipstickLady 25,682]

I don't limit my family either. I offer a lot of nutritious foods in the house, but there is junk, too. I want my kids to have a healthy relationship with food so they don't end up like me.

My mother denied us all junk food, sweets, and goodies. When I got out of her house, I binged because I could and blew up as a result. My kids always have cake, chips, candy, Cookies in the house. It's nothing exciting to them so they rarely eat it.

[VSGAnn2014 12,992]

You sound pretty determined. Your determination will be your strongest asset in regaining your health and staying healthy.

I will double down on what others have already said -- that WLS long-term success requires significant lifestyle and behavioral changes -- re what you eat, how much you exercise / move, your eating habits (eating slower, not drinking with meals, etc.), and for many people changing the ground rules for many of their relationships, both personal and professional.

Some resources that have been hugely helpful to me in addressing these changes in my own life include:

* I've been in therapy for two years (started just before WLS -- I'm sleeved). It's been so helpful in helping me learn how to care for my own needs before caring for others' needs. My greatly improved self-care has been critical to my losing 100 pounds and maintaining that weight loss for a year.

* I'm a pretty regular measurer of my foods and liquids. Without that consistency I'd definitely be experiencing "portion creep." Two of the foods I consistently underestimate are cheese and nuts. My eye thinks that 1.5 - 2.0 ounces of cheese is 1 ounce. And my guesstimates about nuts are just, well, nuts! As high-calorie as both these foods are, they can present problems over time. And they're not the only ones.

* I have planned and tracked all my meals / Snacks / everything on the online food tracker at www.myfitnesspal.com.

* I weigh every morning. Not everyone can or even should do this. But everyone should weigh at the same interval -- whether it's once a day, every week, every month, etc. It's easy when you don't weigh regularly to ignore the impact of developing eating problems and the resulting weight gain. That's how some people wake up one morning and realize they've "suddenly" regained 20 pounds.

Re measuring and tracking, I do not know how anyone knows for sure how much they're eating without measuring and tracking or how their intake might be slowly changing over time. I challenge everyone pre-op to measure and then track their food intake for at least one week to learn and/or confirm just how much they're actually eating in terms of macronutrients (calories / Protein / carbs / fat).

Finally, the folks who seem (to me) to have the most problems along the way are those who have WLS so they'll "never have to diet again." Usually what they mean is that they don't want to ever have to make any future tough choices about what to eat or how much to eat -- because they expect their new gastrointestinal system will make those choices for them or somehow negate the impact of the bad choices they do make. Please believe me when I say that even after WLS you will still have to make plenty of tough choices about what to eat and drink. You're about to put your foot on the road to health. That road and your journey will never end.

Good luck to you.

[Kindle 8,667]

Like @@LipstickLady, I was denied all junk food and processed foods growing up. Everything was nutritious, healthy and mostly homegrown. We never went to fast food places. We also HAD to clean our plates. Anything we didn't finish for dinner, we had for Breakfast the next day. Turns out it's not such a great lesson to learn. Don't get me wrong, my mom is an outstanding cook and I still look forward to her home cooked meals. But it's sad that one of my profound memories is that we were allowed to buy 1 box of "kids cereal" a year. Captain crunch berries was my favorite and I got to have it just once/year. So of course when I moved out, I made up for the previous 18 years by pigging out on every bit I could lay my hands on. I filled my shopping cart with chips, Cookies, oatmeal cream pies, and I ate captain crunch and went to fast food places every single day

And also like @@dubs, I like to excercise my willpower muscles all the time. I purposefully walk through the bakery section and down the candy aisles and watch cooking shows and go to restaurants with friends and watch them eat Desserts. The "bad" food isn't going anywhere just because I had surgery and I don't think it's fair to make everyone around me adapt the my chosen lifestyle.

Being able to say no just makes it easier to say no the next time and the next time. The only exception to this for me is peanuts and Peanut Butter. It's my crack cocaine. Not to mention a slider. I could eat a whole jar in one sitting. So it's the one thing I do avoid.

[taracutch 226]

But what ARE small portions? We pre oppers don't know. We really don't. We think we do. Lol. You say you don't eat large "portions" but in America portions are out of whack. I'm less than 2 weeks from surgery and have worked my butt off absorbing every scrap of info available to me and I'm still unsure of what a pizza portion is. Not that I have any interest in pizza but for the sake of argument, I would assume it's less than half of a slice. But your husband, if asked, may say a serving portion is 2 slices maybe. I think that's what people consider normal. But I would guess it would be like a half slice. Our portions are completely out of whack.

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

I grew up eating mostly food cooked from scratch, we never had junk food. The home cooked food wasn't the most healthy, and we always had home made sweets in the house, but it was cooked at home, from scatch.We grew veggies or got them from local farmers, we used a local butcher. I never had much junk food growing up and I didn't want it. I had soda once a year on 4th of July. The few times a year I got fast food with a relative or something I had milk. I never binged a lot of fake food as an adult. I cooked a lot and I went to high quality restaurants, and lots of expensive liquor (an expense account is a dangerous thing).

I still think that denying people trash food being viewed as "punishment" or denial is a big social problem. The marketer in me thinks that food industrial complex has really won and has ran the best marketing plan ever over the past 50 years. All these foods people are saying they won't deny their families, didn't even exist a few decades ago. You know before we had a diabetes and obesity epidemic. And it is totally the foods and the food chain, because as every country moves from malnutrition and the Western foods are introduced into their society, the move to obesity and diabetes, in areas where is was previously unseen.

I eat organic (mostly), and so does my dog. If it isn't good enough for me, it isn't good enough for my dog or the people I love. I don't try to force my friends to eat how I eat, but if you are in my house, there is no sugar, and a lot of other BS that people want. I still make good delicious food with love. The people I love, I love, and I am not going to feed them toxic poison because it is socially acceptable. Clean eating used to be the norm not a special diet.

Edited June 15, 2016 by OutsideMatchInside

[VSGAnn2014 12,992]

But what ARE small portions? We pre oppers don't know. We really don't. We think we do. Lol. You say you don't eat large "portions" but in America portions are out of whack. I'm less than 2 weeks from surgery and have worked my butt off absorbing every scrap of info available to me and I'm still unsure of what a pizza portion is. Not that I have any interest in pizza but for the sake of argument, I would assume it's less than half of a slice. But your husband, if asked, may say a serving portion is 2 slices maybe. I think that's what people consider normal. But I would guess it would be like a half slice. Our portions are completely out of whack.

Your portion sizes will change a lot over time. That's because your stomach's capacity will change. And when you are through losing weight you'll have to (and want to and be able to) eat more to maintain.

For instance, the first 4 months post-op I averaged about 800 calories/day. That translates to about 1/2 a cup of Protein / veggies at a meal. Then I raised my cals to 1,000/day for Months 5 and 6, then up to 1,200 cals/day for Months 7-8.

It's been nearly 2 years post-op and in maintenance for the last year for me. I now eat 1700 - 1800 cals/day. That's anywhere from 0.75 cup to 1.25 cup of food at meals. I eat 3 meals a day and have 2-3 Snacks. One of those Snacks is "treat food, " and the other two snacks are nutritious food, e.g., yogurt + fruit, high-protein, high-Fiber cracker + cheese, etc.

Re pizza -- the first time I had pizza (maybe 3 months post-op) I ate part of the toppings from one slice. Today, I can eat two (not huge) slices of thin-crust pizza. Sometimes I eat only 1.5 slices.

A typical serving of Protein at a meal for me is 3 ounces. A typical serving of green veggies is a quarter to a half a cup; same with servings of whole grains.

[Daisee68 2,493]

@@taracutch - You are SO right! I am 1 year post-op and less than 2 months ago, my NUT said to me that a "serving" of meat should be 3 to 4 oz. I was FLOORED! Seriously, I thought I was supposed to be working towards higher amounts! I since have limited each meal to 3 oz of meat and Snacks to less than that and it was eye-opening. I realize now that pre-op I easily at a 10 oz steak. I mean even the "petite" portions of filet mignon at a fancy steak restaurants are sold as 6 oz and I was always so sad to only get 6 oz but felt if I ordered the larger portion, I would look like a pig! Now, I realize I am only supposed to eat half of that?! Learn something new every day...

@VSGAnn gave some great responses re true portion size.

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

@@taracutch - You are SO right! I am 1 year post-op and less than 2 months ago, my NUT said to me that a "serving" of meat should be 3 to 4 oz. I was FLOORED! Seriously, I thought I was supposed to be working towards higher amounts! I since have limited each meal to 3 oz of meat and Snacks to less than that and it was eye-opening. I realize now that pre-op I easily at a 10 oz steak. I mean even the "petite" portions of filet mignon at a fancy steak restaurants are sold as 6 oz and I was always so sad to only get 6 oz but felt if I ordered the larger portion, I would look like a pig! Now, I realize I am only supposed to eat half of that?! Learn something new every day...

@VSGAnn gave some great responses re true portion size.

Right, portions are totally out of control. People post-op think they are eating tiny portions but for the most part once you heal, you are eating the correct portion of meat and most other things. I had depression era Grandparents so they believe in proper meat portions because even though meat had became relatively cheap in the 1980s, they still viewed it as expensive and something that should properly portioned. Also with our native american background, we have certain spiritual views about eating meat and how it should be consumed.

Not only is 3-4 ounces of meat the recommended amount, but your body can't really process more than that. 30 grams of Protein is the max your body can process at one time, so if you are over eating on Protein, it is turning to excess in the body. This is how people can low carb and still gain weight. Portions still count.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

To the OP, another huge difference between my pre-op and post-op life is learning to deal with the inevitable stalls. Pre-op, stalls were generally when I gave up. I can't do that anymore.

Embrace the Stall

http://BariatricPal.com/index.php?/topic/351046-Embrace-the-Stall

[CowgirlJane 14,259]

I will be 5 years post sleeve in December. It is my opinion that you will lose weight due to the quantity restriction, but you will have a hard time maintaining if you continue to eat these slider/junky food as a mainstay. Maintenance is harder than losing....

[LipstickLady 25,682]

@@taracutch - You are SO right! I am 1 year post-op and less than 2 months ago, my NUT said to me that a "serving" of meat should be 3 to 4 oz. I was FLOORED! Seriously, I thought I was supposed to be working towards higher amounts! I since have limited each meal to 3 oz of meat and Snacks to less than that and it was eye-opening. I realize now that pre-op I easily at a 10 oz steak. I mean even the "petite" portions of filet mignon at a fancy steak restaurants are sold as 6 oz and I was always so sad to only get 6 oz but felt if I ordered the larger portion, I would look like a pig! Now, I realize I am only supposed to eat half of that?! Learn something new every day...

@VSGAnn gave some great responses re true portion size.

What's even more boggling? As were many of us, I was a dieting expert. I (thought I) could eyeball meat/chips to the ounce and salad dressing/ice cream/juice to the tablespoon or cup.

Every once in awhile I would check myself only to be shocked that 4 oz crept up to 6, 1 cup crept up to 1 1/3 cups, etc.

It looked the same on the plate, but not on the hips.

My husband is naturally thin. A plate of food the size of his head looks like a small portion to him. Now, when I put 1/2 or less away in tupperware to save for another meal, he just shakes his head. More than a mouthful is no longer a waste.