Josephine

My last supper was a big salad filled with nuts, tons of veggies, cheese, the works. Kinda boring I know. :thumbup: I ate a lot of fish and salad the couple weeks before surgery. One salad that is really low carb and delicious is iceberg lettuce (gross i know but much less carbs) with sour cream, turkey bacon, cheese, and boiled egg. It sounds weird, but it's really heaven. It'll be much easier after surgery. The only thing surgery does for you is the most important thing: You get full FAST. And in the first month especiall.. 2 or 3 bites and you're done. It gives your body plenty of time to dump all those toxins so you're not craving bad food PHYSICALLY. You may still crave it mentally, but you won't be able to eat it, so you just have to deal with that part.... which tends to go away after a few weeks.

We made delicious pizzas last night for dinner. We used those small tortillas. They were great! Here's what I did: I cut up red onion, red bell pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, some spring onion, a couple jalapenos, and sauteed it. Then I cooked some chicken breast in small pieces on low heat (1 teaspoon of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of water) with the lid on. Then I mixed the meat and veggies together. I zapped the 3 tortillas in the microwave for 30 seconds. This helps them harden and brown later. Preheated the oven to 200 celcius. I diced 2 more cloves of garlic and added it with a tiny bit of garlic and onion salt to a teaspoon of butter. I spread the mix lightly on the 3 tortillas and sprayed PAM on a pizza platter and put the tortillas on it. I added a couple teaspoons of pizza sauce to the 3 tortillas with 1/2 ounce of cheese on each. Then I loaded them up with the chicken/veggies mix, aded another 1/2 ounce of cheese to each, sprinkled some parmesean on top and then baked for 15 minutes, stopping 5 minutes early to sprinkle some green onion to the top of them and then baked the additional 5 minutes. They were sooooo friggen good. I ended up eating 1/2 of one of the little pizzas and the boyfriend ate the other 2 and a half pizzas. He LOVED them. It was QUITE good. I have a friend that posts about her pizzas that she did early out like yours (cheese, pepperoni, and sauce only) and it's GREAT for people who are early out. Those of us that are past 4 months and can eat a little bit more might like to prepare it with a 1/2 slice of pita bread or one of these mini tortillas.

hehehe you made me spit crystal lite. you're hilarious. omg, i'm so sorry for your woes but very glad you've got a working one now. i know all about mean scales that lie :thumbup:

The only thing I'd be concerned about is that 50 lbs is not much to lose. I'd ask the surgeon to give you at least a 40f so you will have a better shot at being able to stop the weightloss after you hit50-60 lbs lost. If he gives you a 32, it might be a lot harder to stop the weightloss when you want to. That's just my opinion, and some people say bougie size has very little to do with it, but mine's a 40 and I've lost a lot of weight, never thrown up, never had problems with any food, etc. I love that I'm able to eat anything, just a lot less of it. I'm almost 5 months out and losing steadily. A good example of what I can eat is what I ate yesterday. 1/2 cup of oatmeal with 7 cashews and 10 frozen blueberries 2 string cheese 1/3 of a mango 2 ozs of rice/vermicelli/scrambled eggs/chicken breast 1/4 cup of greek yogurt 1/2 cup of endive/mashedpotatoes/bacon/nutmeg/vinegar mush with 1 cheese souffle (Admittedly this meal took me about an hour to eat but I knew I needed to try to get dinner in because I have a kidney infection so I had been sipping white beer and cranberry juice all day. Man it's hard to drink beer after VSG.) Then before bed I had 5 saltines with light gouda cheese. I thought after all that I'd show a gain on the scale (the beer and cranberry juice alone was 700 calories) but I actually lost another 2 lbs. I dunno, maybe bougie size doesn't matter that much, but I know I can eat enough healthy food with a 40f whereas some people I've read that have a 32 can't get in much more than 1/4-1/2 cup of food at a time. If I only had 50 lbs to lose, I'd be scared it wouldn't stop. I have a few friends that are 20-30 lbs below goal and try very hard to gain weight. We're all different, so it's hard to say, but I do know that a 40 allows me to get in proper nutrition (my 4/5 month bloodwork was excellent!) and still lose weight. Additionally, if for some reason a 40 is too big and you have trouble maintaining, you can have additional surgery to convert to a bypass or switch, but if you get a 32 and can't stop losing, what can you do? Nothing except get used to weighing 110 lbs. Just my opinion. I do think the sleeve is an AMAZING tool, but for someone who has only 50 lbs to lose, it's a risk that your body might get down way below goal before it matures/heals enough to allow you to stop.

They go down fine for me without drink, but if you're having problems with being thirsty while eating, you're probably not properly hydrated. I try to drink a lot of Water. When I actually do it, I don't have any problem with being thirsty while eating dinner and it helps me get in a lot more food than I would if I had been slacking on the water and have to drink with my meal. My surgeon never said anything about not drinking before/during/after but of course I know that we shouldn't. I think it's mostly important for RNYers or Lapbanders. My sleeve is a 40, so I have enough room for a few sips with my meal if I need it. Regardless, when I'm drinking all the water I'm supposed to, my intestines are full of water and hydrated enough that even if I'm eating something salty, I don't get the sensation to drink.

One of the best things that ever happened to me was 12 years ago when a lady at work ate half her cheeseburger and tossed it in the garbage. She saw me looking and started to say something and then stopped herself. After a few seconds she came and sat by me and told me that she'd had gastric bypass surgery and had lost 200lbs, and it would be a wonderful option for me. I didn't get offended, but it did start me on my path of researching and finding my own way. =)

Pork rinds were my first HAPPY PROTEIN find! Only mine are 250 cals, 33g protein for a small 45g bag. These are great for the munchies without feeling guilty. (I have chronic pain as a result of the lapband and take pain pills/medical THC for it)

I've never had this pain with the sleeve, but when I had the lapband and something got stuck really bad, OMG, the pain between my shoulderblades was so severe, I knew when something had come unstuck finally when the pain subsided. My own fault for eating salads, but I just love(d) them so much!