Globetrotter

Yes, thank you notime, I'm aware. Be very careful of how judgemental you are of others, it will come back to bite you in the a$$.

Thank you Sweetums, you are correct, I was not asking to be judged, peremptory judgement is what got a lot of us here in the first place, I am looking for discussion, the sort of talk-therapy thing VST is good for. Thanks to everyone for their comments, they are helping me formulate an understanding. Yesterday I ate ... some chinese broth with pork chunks and vegetables, a sandwich with pork chunks, cheddar cheese, and pickles, a few red grapes, a Swedish crepe with some mascerated raspberries, and some tea with milk. I should not have had the crepe or the bread on the sandwich but otherwise, did okay? Also a yoga and a pilates class.

Hurrah Coops! Every pound gone deserves to be celebrated! I have been MIA lately so here is the update - Moved out of my house/last day of my job was the 31st, then BF took me out to the middle of nowhere (Kansas) to his parent's farm where I just decompressed for a week, Olympics on the giant flatscreen, baking a pie with fresh peaches, visiting his family. Now I am in his/my apartment, in a state of constant rearranging cleaning and packing. BF leaves for Germany on Sunday, when he leaves we will be break up. I want to break up, this is a good thing - we had a lovely sweet season together but that is all it was ever going to be, neither of us is right for the other at this time in our lives - but that doesn't make it any less difficult. So, I am back to going to the gym, yoga and pilates. Since I was out of it for so long I am not jumping right back in to Crossfit, I will do a few weeks of running and yoga first. Looking for a job, trying to pay attention to the silent carbs that have been sneaking into my food choices ...

It also depends on when you hit goal, once the body "calms down" from hyper active weight loss and settles into maintenance you will have different caloric needs. At one year out I was not at goal yet and so was still eating 800 cals a day, >30 grams carbs, <70 grams protein.

Meg in my opinion that was the speech of a true lady, ever hear the speech Queen Elizabeth I gave her troops at Tillsbury? Thank you for your inspiring words, I might have to print them out and paste them over my bathroom mirror -when I get a bathroom!

I don't know if I have actually beat the carb and sugar addictions, or if I am masking them with all of my exercise and tiny portions, I genuinely desire this post-op healthful lifestyle and don't want to find out that I've been lying to myself. Today's food: tea with milk, sauteed chicken kebab, some kind of salad w protein, probably a fresh peach. and a donut. I'm sorry.

Frankly, notime, it does come off as a saint - but I'm not going to hold that against you lol! We all sounded that way at 3 months out, we simply "cannot understand" how anyone would not "implement the healthy eating part" and my goodness our sanctity! I know I was one of them, because at 3 months out, you are in the golden zone of the honeymoon, all bad desires have been magically erased, you are waking up to a glorious world where you feel so powerful over your body and your mind, you are riding on an awesome high - not to mention the fact that the weight is jus flying off you right now, which really helps reinforce the good behavior. However, that is temporary. I sounded just as righteous as you, back then, but now - even though I still have the incredible tool - it's kinda like the confidence a supermodel had when she was 20 ... and even though she is the same gorgeous creature, at 40 it's a different game. Well, at 2 years out, it's a different game. So, take advantage of that honeymoon! Eat as pure as pure can be! Get to goal as soon as possible, get under goal as soon as possible, so that you have a cushion for when life gets complicated again.

I would call those foods dessert, sweets. Basically, what they are. I just wonder why we tend to associate high caloric, low nutrition, basically poisonous foods with "treating yourself", it's illogical. It must be from the thousands of years of human living - prior to the last 65 years - when the only time you got your hands on a high calorie rich food was during special festivities and holydays, when the really were treats and only happened ahandful of times per year, not every dang day :/

I would like to conquer the notion/language involved believing that the food is a "treat" in the first place. Why do we call it that? Why do we feel that a piece of food is a reward or gift in some way? After a hard day, why not "treat" ourselves with a cost-equivalent non-edible reward? oh, psychology!

Wow Meg, that was so inspiring! Bring on the zen speech, this is so what I needed to hear! And boy do I KNOW what you mean about getting there first, us being the hardest on ourselves, isn't that the damn truth! I smiled when I read about your husband thought-change experiment, I sort of have been doing something similar with myself, and referencing my own attractiveness. I recently mentioned in a little speech to my bf how hot I am and he just looked at me and said, yes - you are, in such a way as to imply "you mean you were unaware of this fact?" I'm afraid of returning to the hard core gym, afraid of not being strong enough anymore to keep up, afraid of being laughed at and belittled, afraid of not being ... enough.

Has anyone made Eggface's protein drops or protein popscicles? How were they? It's hot in the midwest and even the "healthy" popscicles at the natural foods store are too high in sugar.

I am a long time follower of Eggface, I found her at the same time I found this forum, before I even had surgery. And btw, she had roux-en-y, not classic GB. I understand that some people swear by sugar free this and that, but for me I do not feel the trade-off is worth it, trading sugar for a mess of creepy chemicals. My jam is a locally made whole fruit organic jam that is just berries, sugar, and pectin and it so full of fruit that it is really just a jar of jammy berries so I will use probably 5 berries in my cup of greek. The psychology is so complex! I eat because ... I eat because? I eat because I feel ... frustrated anxious bored lonely I believe that I (and many others) self-medicate, cloaking our brains in a soothing dreamy blanket of carbs. We chew, rather than shoot up. Did you know that french fries light up the same pleasure centers of the brain as cocaine? yep. I'm sure a lot of it goes back to childhood (naturally) and never feeling good enough, smart enough, fast enough, whatever. When you are raised Catholic a lot of times the message that comes through is that perfection is not only attainable, but anyone who isn't perfect just isn't trying hard enough and isn't deserving of happiness. IMHO. BTW, I exercise 5 days a week, 3x Crossfit, 2x yoga, 2x tango. I am 25-30 lbs from surgeon's goal, 50 from personal.

I agree that it is unrealistic, which is why I said that it sounds great when I talk about eating healthfully and reasonably, but my concern is that I may be talking a smooth line but that really it's an excuse to eat crap. For example I worry that the list of food I said I'm going to eat today is bad - full of carbs and sugar?

I was too terrified to eat raw greens in the first 6 months, I didn't even eat green vegetables that had been cooked to practically mush in the first 4 months because I was so terrified of what might happen (I was far from any Dr that could help if something went wrong). I am 2 years out and the teacup amount is what I can eat now.

So I have struggled with a plateau for about 4-5 months now and I know that it is (mostly) my own dang fault; I've always been an excruciatingly slow loser but in the last 6 months I have stopped being true to my super-low carb/high protein/low cal diet. On the one hand, I justify it because I am committed to eating healthfully and reasonably and that means not living the rest of my life on a diet. Sounds good right? But, I think I'm toeing the line of making excuses, I let myself eat M&M's, bread, soda!! Grrrrr. Today I am having a Protein shake, 2 eggs, greek yogurt with a spoonful of jam, lots of hot tea sweetened with stevia, and probably a caesar salad w chicken for dinner and maybe some hot quinoa and a tiny piece of chocolate. That sounds ,,, bad? good? cheating? Does anyone else struggle with the psychology of this?

I agree it is very filling, before surgery I would make salads in a mixing bowl (!!) and eat the entire bowl! Now if I finely chop greens like arugula, radichio, spinach, with a teaspoon of dressing and maybe a 1/4 of a cucumber, I can eat about a teacup's worth of salad. It's funny, salad is so filling it is now a treat! In order to get my protein in I can't have salad as part of my dinner, it has to be a separate snack because it is too filling to eat both a green salad and protein like a chicken breast or steak.

Well I spent the weekend cleaning and moving out of my house, tonight is my last night in the house. Yesterday I ate a bacon/egg/cheese sandwich my boyfriend made us for brunch, I ate half of the sandwich and then a few hours later ate the other half. After a lot of cleaning I ate a wedge of laughing cow and an inch of saucisson (french sausage). For dinner I ate 3 Korean dumplings and some green salad. Seeing this written down I understand that I am not a pig, I understand that in my TimeBefore I would have eaten all of that and a lot more at a single sitting. But, I haven't been to the gym lately what with all the other business going on (and in some wierd way punishing myself) and I feel like I ate terribly yesterday. Oh, there were some coconut M&M's too ...

Former_VBG - not to hijack the NSV thread but I so relate! And, I'm so tired of doing it all alone. Of course, I can't imagine doing it at all without this forum, but in actuality in person doing it alone in the world, it makes it so difficult, I had ENOUGH of that feeling of aloneness when I was SMO. If I just had a partner in this I could kick those last few pounds to goal!

Looking hard for an NSV, not feeling very NSVish lately ... well I don't know if this counts and it certainly is strange but, I can now drink diet Coke or eat those 100 calorie packs in public without seeing people smirk self-righteously. If a SMO person eats or drinks diet items in public, people think it's a hoot and openly make fun of it, which is so stupid because it's a damned-if-you-do situation for the SMO person - trying to make an effort and then made fun of for making an effort, wtf. Now, if I buy a can of Coke zero or snack on a 100 cal pack of cheeze-its (I know both are still crap but I'm making a point here), nobody bats an eyelash. I'm just another vaguely chubby adult woman watching what she eats. A victory?

Hi all, thought I would check in - haven't found a job yet, the person whose couch I was to crash on is backing out, my supervisor has gone on vacation (Tuesday is my last day), and none of the exit paperwork or questions have been addressed. wow. I'm stressed about everything and people telling me not to stress just makes me angrier! My boyfriend is uselessly supportive, if that makes any sense, he is all too happy for me to be in charge of everything so he can placidly sit there like a small child absorbed in licking their popscicle. I don't have the wherewithall to deal with such a drain right now, I need a grown up. But I can't break up with him right now because I need a place to live! I just have to wait a few weeks until he leaves for study abroad and I take over the sublease of his apt. So that's it in a nutshell. Oh and it is very hot and droughty here in Kansas.

I used to love laughing cow and cream cheese in general, in the first 6 months post-op, now (2 yrs) I can't stand the texture, it always just seems so grainy and pasty, yuck. I agree with someone earlier who said rotisserie chicken; I buy a whole one of those from the deli section, it lasts me almost a week, put it in a green salad, make chicken salad, eaten plain smeared with mustard, thrown in a soup, chopped into a casserole, roasted chicken is a sleeve superstar!

They say that failing to plan is planning to fail but that isn't always true; if I am travelling and did not pack anything I know that I can pull into a gas station and get some plain beef jerky, it would be the rare gas station that doesn't have that! A lot of gas stations now also have pretty nice little convenience stores attached too, especially if they are truck stops. Greek yogurt and RTD protein drinks are pretty readily available. If on the other hand I am packing my own goodies for travel then I will make a batch of chicken salad or tuna salad and bring a bag of colorful pepper slices for scooping, a protein shake, and some "good" low sodium jerky.

I do love that carbonation, cold drinks seem colder when they are carbonated, so when I need that "burn" I drink a pellegrino or perrier or some other carbonated mineral water.

I've never been a big soda drinker but I LOVED iced chai prior to surgery and love it now, the difference now is that I get it with alternative milks if possible and when I make it myself I make it into a protein shake.

Hi all! You know the show The Biggest Loser? One of the comments I hear most from people, and I've been one of them, is - well of course they can lose crazy amounts of weight! Anybody could if that was all you did all day long and you had round the clock nutritionists and personal trainers, duh!! Well, I've decided to make a sugar free lemon pop out of the lemons life has handed to me - When I lose my job and my house in 8 days I will have nothing better to do with my time than job hunt and exercise, so that is precisely what I'm going to do! I am going to be a one-woman Biggest Loser and my trainer/nutritionist will be my sleeve! In Kansas we are experiencing the worst of the heat and drought afflicting the midwest this summer so I will exercise at dawn and dusk and use the hottest part of the day for sitting at the computer applying for jobs. Since I do Crossfit I will change up my diet to reflect the "paleo" they favor. My goal? July 31 to Aug 31 - 30 lbs! I know that is a bit of a stretch but I figure, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you still land among the stars!!