joatsaint

BladeFox,

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

I don't know how successful I would have been at losing the weight if I didn't live alone. I can completely control what foods are in the house and don't have any temptations laying around. And I'm too lazy to drive to the store for a snack once I'm home from work. So I'm forced to eat what's in the house. :-)

The hardest part is leaving my mom's house. She ALWAYS wants to send pie and cake and rice and mashed potatoes home with me. I don't want to make her feel like I don't like and appreciate her cooking. So I bring it home and try to ration it out over a week, instead of eating all of it in a day. (Even though I really want to)

Good for you for realizing that you need to get back on your grind. I can completely understand stress eating because I have been under quite a bit for about 5-6 months on the job. What I have done is surround myself with good snacks in the fridge and I have told my husband to stop buying me my 'crack' habit which is Skinny Pop Popcorn. He couldn't wrap his head around why popcorn is so bad for you in excess, so I broke it down to the way that we see food and he got it. Now, because I still need it, I ask that he only brings two bags home on the weekends ONLY. So my cheat days are the weekends.

Good luck on getting back in the swing of things, I'm rooting for you and watching

"Ok, what's up with that stuffed animal thingy" - that's Frankensleeve, I found him online. He's a plushie stomach, produced for a medical convention on stomach issues. I ran across a thread asking what people named their new stomachs and I chose Frankensleeve since mine is always making noises like, "roowwwwwwrrr" and is bothered by firey foods. :-) Then I ran across Frankensleeve online and had to have him.

Thanks for posting this. Good to hear all of this.

I'll be going from lap band removal to sleever this Thursday. I had really big pills. With the band, I had to cut all my pills in half. I'm guessing this won't be a problem with the sleeve.

Ok, what's up with that stuffed animal thingy. Funny but goofy

I am a bander and I weigh myself too much also.

One of my bander friends doesn't own a scale, smart person. She only gets weighed at the doctor's.

I'm too paranoid about my weight to not weigh daily. I like to see if I'm on track and not letting old habits creep back in. Sometimes I feel like I've been eating way too much and checking the scale the next day really helps me know if I'm still on track.

I wish I wouldn't have told so many. It's like I cheated or something. Sorry, having someone remove part of my stomach on purpose sure feels the opposite of cheating.

I understand your feelings. Unfortunately too many people want to shoot us down if we don't do things "the right way", meaning, the way THEY think is should be done.

So first they condemn you for gaining weight. Then you have WLS to loose the weight. Then they condemn you for not doing it "the right" way.

But these same people will have patches sewed to their tongues, take diet pills, go on crazy diets, listen to hypnosis tapes, and drink special fat burning tea - all to lose weight. And that's okay according to their rules.

Ahhhhh.... so many people.... so few places to hide the bodies. :-P

Keep Pimpin' that Sleeve!

Not so much hamburgers but I sure miss me some pizza. 3.5 weeks post op.

I thought I would miss those things as well. Right after surgery, I really wanted a Whataburger, but it was a month before I was back on full foods. I tried a piece of pizza at the 6 week mark, ate 2 or 3 bites and didn't want anymore. It just didn't taste that good. I think the 6 week detox from bad foods, post-surgery, reset my taste buds. :-P

I thought the information was presented well and I like your humor! The shaker sound did garble your presentation a few times but otherwise kudos to you!

Thanks for the info. Doing these was harder than I thought because I am not much of a talker. I turned the camera on and then thought, "Oh crap, how do I start the conversation?" :-P

okay, I am troubled. I had the surgery on Monday, and have not lost one ounce...is this normal? I am definately not overeating...rather struggling to get it all in.

thanks!

yes, it is normal, your body is still bloated with all the IV fluids they pumped into you post and pre-op. I gained about 6lbs the day after surgery, but it was gone in a few days.

Walking has really helped reduce the loose skin on my inner thighs and doing wall push ups is helping reduce my bat wings. :-P Now I'm looking for some form of exercise to reduce my loose stomach skin.

I think that high repetitions, not necessarily high weight or high intensity is the way to go for me. I think the increase fluid and blood flow into the loose skin areas revs up the skin recovery process.

I guess I was lucky at my 1st try with tasting protein shakes. I got a 4 pack of EAS carb control chocolate at Walmart - and if you like chocolate, they are pretty good, just a little thinner than I like. So I tossed in a scoop of some powdered chocolate protein I already had and made it a little thicker and chocolatier (is chocolatier a word? :-P)

Anyway, later on I tried Premier Protein chocolate shakes - I had to buy a 12 pack to test them out - and they are even better than EAS, but I still throw in a scoop of the powdered chocolate protein - I just like the thicker feeling. I tried not to go too overboard with my purchasing and just stuck with the basics. I had previously counted on the reduced food bills as part of recovering the cost of surgery over the next 3 to 5 years.

Try not to get too caught up in the excitement of trying new flavors of protein shakes or you may wind up with a bunch of product that you don't eat, wasted money, and get discouraged. You'll only be on the shakes for a short time before your doctor is going to want you to get your nutrition from solid food.

Gone through it and still going through it several times over the past 7 months. 27lbs in 6 weeks in incredible. Almost 5lbs a week! Just ask yourself, "How fast was I losing weight pre-surgery?" I bet it wasn't 4lbs a week. You are going to go through stalls, we all do. It's part of the process. :-)

Yes that shirt makes your head look big.

I did the 30 min talk, the test, and left. It was the 500 question questionnaire and it dealt with eating food, taking meds, religion, and self-esteem. there was no feedback, no explanation to why I was there, or no discussion if he would recommend me to have surgery...

When does the feedback happen?

I didn't get any feedback directly from the head shrinker. He gave the results to my surgeon's office.

(sing to the tune from "Love Boat")

The Love Poop soon will be making another run

The Love Poop promises something for everyone

Set a course for adventure,

Your mind on a new roll of toilet paper!

OMG! You are truly my kind of gassy crab. :-)

Just tell them you've been in the wrong body all this time and you're going in for sex reassignment surgery. That way, no matter what people hear about you, they'll assume it's a lie - after all you came back to work looking the same as you left! :-P

I'M NOT SCHEDULED TIL AUG 6TH BUT I READ THAT THE PREMIXED PROTEIN DRINKS MAYBE TO THICK TO DRINK AFTER SURGERY, DID ANY OF YOU HAVE THIS PROBLEM? ALSO, I REALLY LIKE A MIX CALLED "SPARK ", YOU MIX IT WITH WATER & IT HAS VITAMINS & MINERALS BUT HAS 120MG OF CAFFEINE. IT WOULD HELP DURING POST-OP WHEN FEELING SLUGGISH. ANY TAKES ON THIS INFO.? THANKS KAREN

The EAS and Premier Protein shakes were on my approved food list - starting on the 2nd week. I found them a little thin but good, for my taste. But you should ask your doctor when you're allowed to drink them.

I tried a sample of Spark last week - I'm 6 months post-op, and Frankensleeve did not like it at all. I drank about half a glass and had to stop. And it did not taste good - kinda bitter. I tried the fruit punch.

But VSG'ers are told not to drink caffeine the first few weeks after surgery, as it is a stomach irritant.

I have a lunchbag that I can freeze in the freezer and then I also put freezer packs in the bottom--keeps my food cold enough that I don't have to put it in the yucky communal fridges.

We are lucky at having a very clean facility. We moved into a new building back in Feb. And our custodial staff is very vigilant about keeping the fridge clean and cleaned out.

This is at home, but I tell my son it has broccoli in it, no matter what it is, and he doesn't touch it. It's nice to have this limited time in his life where I can trick him like that.

That is so cool! LMFAO We've got too many health nuts here at work, so the broccoli thing wouldn't work for me.

I've added a new one to my food protection arsenal. I'm going to start telling people that I'm randomly poisoning my food 1 day a week - they get to guess which day. :-)

At week 2, I was only eating Cream of Mushroom soup. And only about 3/4 of a can a day. I just kept a supply in my desk drawer at work and ate it cold.

So you might look at the soup list when you go out to eat. See if there's something you can mash up like potato soup - so it's creamy with no lumps.

I'm stuck with boredom eating syndrome as well. Not sure how to break the cycle. It's easy to stay distracted during the day - always something to do at work or get up and walk around. But at night - between 5pm and 10pm - nothing to do but play games and watch TV.

I've tried playing "bloons tower defense" for distraction but I've been through every level multiple times.

And TV just plain sucks, unless you like History Channel's documentaries on Ancient Aliens or tracking Bigfoot - seriously dude!? On the History Channel? Did you guys run out of real proven history or something?

Oh! And lets not forget, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo". Now there's quality television for ya... Oops, sorry, wrong group rant meeting. **quietly backs out of room**

"When to start drinking alcohol?"

It's not mandatory that you start drinking. :-) But I would advise you to start immediately before the surgeon starts cutting! I know it made me feel less tense. :-P

Are these whey protein isolate? That is what I was told to drink because we can't process the regular protein drinks. I don't know why.

Yes, they do have SOME Whey Isolate in the ingredients. But they also contain whey concentrate. They don't give the percentages of each.

Whey Isolate is recommended because it is more completely digested by your body than Whey Concentrate.

Hrm... Well, I realize this is for comic impact and you don't really want poor people who are only doing their best to survive and put food on the table for their kids to kill themselves.

You are right. I was only trying to be sarcastic. I don't want anyone to kill themselves.

Sometimes it's difficult to convey humor through writing. But I hope that most of the readers are familiar with there rest of my blog and can see that everything I write has a numerous twist to it. And realize, that making people smile is what I'm shooting for in every post.

The obvious question is...are all your employee numbers on the DNC list? The second question is....are business numbers even eligible for the DNC list?

I can only answer that I don't know. But the telemarketer wasn't trying to sell us anything, only trying to gather information - most of which they could have pulled right off our website.

We get a few solicitations here and there, but for the most part, we don't have many telemarketers calling. But the guys in my story were relentless.

OMG....how creative you are! Your director should realize what a great employee they have and give you an appropriate pay raise for saving your organization lots of money from having to take and respond to those annoying calls!

Thanks for the comment. I wish I was that creative, but these moments are pretty rare for me.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story.

I was chased by a cicada! Those things are as big as birds!

Lol, that made me smile.

I've never been chased by a cicada, but I have been a landing strip for the dreaded "love bugs". :-)

The best part of this story it shows how big an assbag you are.

Obviously, you are one of those telemarketers. Thanks for the comment. I appreciate all input on my writing.