Happy966

I am trying to be honest about my experience, and support you through sharing that experience. If it doesn't help, then please ignore. You said: "My bulimia has always been for weight los, but because I'm eating foods I deem "bad" and can't have one cookie like a "normal" person, but wil feel guilty after one and eat a tray. I'm excited to not have the guilt anymore!" What I am trying to say is that VSG will not stop you from eating just one cookie. Especially after you've healed up, you could probably eat quite a few. They don't stay in your tummy long, and you probably won't feel a lot of restriction. VSG will definitely not stop you from having guilt about what you eat. What I was trying to say is that *for myself* I have felt guilt about what I've eaten post-op even though it was kind of unreasonable when compared to my pre-op eating. I have those feelings because of my ED, not because of any reality about what I eat. If purging were one of my coping strategies, believe me, I would have at least thought about it several times post-op. Now, VSG may make it too scary to purge (wouldn't want to damage your stomach), or may give you the reassurance you need that with the tool you won't become obese, and maybe this will diminish some of the fear it sounds you feel about eating. But I am just saying, that in my experience, this surgery does not does not does not cure the disorder thinking I have about food. VSG will *not* protect you from that out-of-control feeling with food. It will help you not overeat as much, especially if you are following a food plan. There will be all kinds of foods out there that you will be able to eat, and that you may feel intense guilt, shame and regret after you have eaten them. I will be thinking about you.

Hello! I am not a bulimic, but I am a compulsive overeater and I have been in and out of Overeaters Anonymous for 26 years and consider myself to have an eating disorder. I am three months out, which isn’t a vet by any means, but I can give you my perspective at least. Surgery has been a great blessing, because it has allowed me to be satisfied with a smaller amount of food, and allows me to follow a food plan and lose weight. It also allows me to get back on track more easily than before. Surgery has not *touched* the addictive component of my relationship with food. For example, I bought Quest Protein bars which came highly recommended (they’re great nutritionally). Unfortunately, they were very triggery for me and I ate two in one day, unplanned. This may not sound like much, but boy that feeling was so familiar and scary. After one, I couldn’t stop thinking about the next one, fought with it for a couple of hours and then ate a second bar. I was filled with those familiar feelings of guilt and regret. Now granted, this was only 400 calories of unplanned food which isn’t going to make me gain a bunch of weight, but I promise you I could eat 3 or 4 of those a day if I let myself and now we’re talking serious calories. VSG only restricts the amount of food I can eat at a time, and only if it’s dense protein. Carby food like chips or sugar slide right on through. I haven’t tried popcorn myself since surgery, but several VSGers have told me they can eat a large movie-size popcorn by themselves. I have zero restriction with liquids, so I’m pretty sure I could eat a gallon of ice cream if I wanted (I’ve been mostly off the recreational sugar for the past 7 years or so). I still have this old monkey on my back, and the surgery *has* made it a lot easier to deal with him. However, I would be cautious about expecting surgery on your stomach to address what for me, at least, is a problem in my head. I have felt shame and regret about eating food I “shouldn’t have” when I only had 800 calories the whole day. I still have to deal with having screwed-up feelings about food and screwed-up feelings about what I eat/ate even though my tummy is tiny. This is just my experience, and yours may be completely different. I have heard people say surgery took away their hunger, surgery changed their tastes, surgery cured their cravings. This has not been my experience. Surgery makes my hunger manageable and keeps me from eating 2 pounds of food at the Chinese buffet. It doesn’t keep me from having obsessive food thoughts and my brain is still hard-wired to think that food is the solution for just about any emotional discomfort I have. Surgery helps me manage a side-effect of my food addiction (obesity), but it hasn’t made me a normal eater. Hope this helps.

Okay, folks, I have never seen the TV show, but I *know* I would be content at a weight many of you would find much too high. I'm 5'6" and have been overweight my whole adult life - even before. I weighed 254 when I graduated from high school. I feel fanTAStic at 180-190 pounds. Many people consider that fat.

I was wondering about this - the "vanity sizing." Back when I was smaller, when I lost 100 pounds and weighed about 165-170, I wore a 16. *Very rarely* a 14 (mis-sized, usually). I am 5-6". I think sizing has changed, also on the large sizes too. My mom died in 1995 and I took a lot of her clothes. Many were 10 years or more old and I couldn't wear several items that were size 24, even though in current sizes I was in a 20W. Anyway, I have several boxes of 16's in the attic, and I'd be thrilled to wear them again.