Cadilex

The bottom line is, as Geaux points out, is you are putting yourself at great risk for complications. I'm guessing your medical team instructed you on this point and that may be one of the reasons you feel guilty. You had this knowledge, yet, you still took the risk. There could be dozens of reasons for this and you may want to talk to a professional to address this.

Here is the reality check coming. You have just undergone a major anatomical change to your body surgery to facilitate weight loss because you are miserable being fat. You, like everyone else here, tried everything else and decided to have this surgery as a last resort. You are putting yourself at major risk eating these things, especially the popcorn. It has tiny hard particles that could get caught in the wound that is trying to heal. Only time will tell whether you get an infection from doing that. I hope you don't.
I had my surgery Dec. 7 and knew that Christmas was going to not be the same. It was hard and I ate some mashed avocado and had one bite too much before finally walking away and feeling pretty yucky for 20 minutes. The surgery is a behavioral reinforcement tool that doesn't fix everything. It seems to me that your head hunger is getting the best of you and some counseling to deal with this would be helpful. I spent over 6 months in weekly cognitive behavioral therapy to work on head hunger and food addiction before embarking on this surgical journey. I just stared at my teenager's piece of pizza and my mouth was watering wanting to take a bite. I used some of the self-talking tools I learned in therapy to overcome this temptation. You can do it too but getting help to learn is essential.
My final words are this - do not beat yourself up over it. Reality is that what is done is done and you can only change what you do going forward. You CAN change the way you choose to respond in the future. If that means you avoid certain situations, then do it. Wishing you all the best.

Well said.

Marriage is a partnership, not a domination. I would never consider forbidding my wife to do anything she wants. We may be married, but she's still an individual and is living her own life.
Good luck to you, and I'm glad you're getting some support with your kids.

Iggychic you obviously don't know my life story or the people involved. I respect your opinion, but I wasn't asking for it. I just needed to vent. My husband can be a real a*****e sometimes and I just rather save myself the trouble of having to hear his **** the day of surgery. You must have an amazing, super supportive husband and that's great... I don't.

And that's your opinion.

What is your idea of success? Does it actually matter if you loose all your excess over a Xnumber of months versus Ynumber of months?
I am trying to gently suggest that the all or nothing thinking (dammit if I can't be skinny NOW, why bother!?!!!!) might be an old thought pattern rearing it's ugly head?
Even so, I understand your frustration. Do you work with a NUT? They can be very helpful at examing the details and coming up with good specific suggestions. You will get a lot of general replies on here, but without reviewing your actual food and activity log, it is speculation.
A general recommendation is to shake things up when things aren't going well. An example might be replace the walking with more intense exercise. Or, try eating a few more carbs or calories (not alot, just a few). Just change something and that can shake up things and get the weight loss going again.

I completely agree with you. I've always been an athlete and I was in the Army and could eat a hardy diet and stay only slightly overweight, and teeter totter back and forth into a healthy BMI when I was required to. The problem was once I stopped working out my appetite was still there and I wasn't working out nearly as much, the weight didn't come on over night, maybe 3 to 4 lbs a month over the course of a few years that added to about a 50+ lbs weight gain. The bigger I got, the hungerier I was, allllll the time. Dr. Alavarez was my surgeon and he did diagnose me with a metabolic disorder just as you had mentioned. The bigger I got, the hungier I was, and I had complete insulin resistance and was even put on medications for it. After surgery my hunger went almost completely away, and now I have it but in the faintest form. Nothing like it was before- that by itself was life altering. I know how to eat healthy and workout, but my brain was always hungry and I was never on the same page with my body. Self control is mysterious to me- so much self control in other areas of my life, and yet I struggled so fiercely with my weight and controlling my eating habbits

I think someone younger who is only 30# overweight would be well served to do the slow, lifestyle overhaul. Here is why i say that - i have gained and lost and regained bigger numbers then that many many many times. I did it via weight watchers, I did it on my own, I did it using nutrisystems... etc etc. What I could never do was keep it off.
I think the reasons are complex, and hunger played a key role. The fatter I got, the more :"out of control" that hunger got. Metabolic disorder is what they call it now. It is like pre-diabetes even if you don't "test" as that high of blood sugar that is what is really going on. I have a fat pony who is always hungry and can eat until he explodes, there is no off button - I have to physically limit his access to food and then there is my lean riding horse that stops when he is done even if delicious food is sitting in front of him. There is something physically different - it isn't a character flaw that fat pony is always hungry (he isn't really fat, but blink and he gets that way). My vet calls it a predisposition to insulin resistance - the key is to not let him get fat or he will develop a full on metabolic disorder - that is what I had.
So, diets are great for short term, but what I needed was a deeper understanding of my illness and how to manage it. If it were my daughter, I would counsel her to work with a nutritionalist that understands all this - and many of them don't. Learn how to eat really small portions of moderate carb. I am talking basically no simple carbs and limited veggie/fruit and whole grain carbs. I would visualize losing those 30 pounds over a year or two - really slow - but the main thing is learning how to manage this "illness" this metabolic monster. I don't know for sure, but I think if i had been able to do that when I was young I would not have needed WLS.
I was never a binger like eat 2 hamburgers at a sitting or anything. I was more a persistant over eater. Every meal, just eating a little too much. Too often having seconds. Too often having dessert or some high carb delight. My hubby could never understand how I kept so much weight on as it never seemed like I ate huge portions or ate all the time. He was right, it was more like always eating a bit too much, a bit too rich of food and it really adds up.
I still find it shocking that a full grown adult who is fairly active (me) lives on eating meals from a teaplate. The idea is still mind boggling, but it is the reality for some of us "fat ponies"

I could easily consume a two cheesburger, large frie and large diet coke with a dessert from Mc Donalds and even squeeze in a couple of my son's uneaten chicken nuggets before surgery. I attempted 2 french fries and 2 chicken nuggets with Water the other day on the way to his soccer practice and nearly had to pull the car over to throw up. Too much carbs, and too much food period. I'm eating almost 20% of my former diet if not less. Healthy food choices are absolutely essential, but Portion Control is a huge factor as well. Even the food tastes different to me now- and I dislike it. Which is quite helpful because I no longer crave a lot of the crappy food I use to adore.

I truly believe that all your daughter needs to do is cut her portion sizes down to 1/2 and eat healthy. Meaning Proteins first, veggies, and low fat....... Cut way back on the carbs and use My Fitness Pal to watch her calories. I do know that our hunger is in our head and that we turn to food to comfort ourselves. So we have to retrain our mines to using different coping skills during times of stress and even boredom. This is what we are doing right now. The thing that gives us the greater advantage is the time right after surgery when our stomachs are traumatized and swollen and we can't get anything in. But later we are able to eat children's size meals. We will even gain the weight back if we revert back to unhealthy eating patterns. We all have to eat healthy to stay healthy and maintain our weight loss. We all struggle with head hunger........

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That's awesome! It IS good, and I'm not even skinny yet!! 100 lbs makes a HUUUUGE difference. I can't wait for the next 100. I want full range of motion and flexibility back!! Go get it girl!

GMAN, if I hadn't been married to the most amazing man and love of my life for more than 35 years, I might just give your wife a run for her money!! Hilarious!!! Just hilarious!!! BTW, the men who work with, and for, him call him GMAN. Great to read of your success. Quite an inspiration.

For all of you guys just recovering. Record your ordeals in livid detail in a diary. When someone gives you the "you took the easy way out" nonsense make them read it....then eat it.

As already stated HGH is NOT produced in the stomach, ghrelin IS and it is a GH compound, unfortunately I cannot confirm exactly what GH stands for in this context. If like HGH it stands for Growth Hormone I am not sure of the implications.
Some info : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11600590
Perhaps our misinformed blogger got the two mixed up.
Oh, and BTW, I'd rather be older and thin and otherwise healthy than "young" and fat and have other terrible issues. like diabetes, high BP and cholesterol through the roof

Being 200 lbs overweight will kill you pretty quick too. Just sayin'.....

Absolutely! Great -and so very true - words of encouragement, Liz . Keep your chin up Alicia. Great and wonderful things are being planned for you. Don't believe me? Find a Bible and read Jeremiah 29:11. Then read Romans 8:28. Then, dear one, take a deep breath, smile and know you are loved and cared for every minute of every day - and have been since long before you we're ever born!

January will be here before we know it!

January will be here before we know it!

Au contraire, mon frere!!! Wait until you have lost all the weight you want to lose and are well on your way in maintenance. Your capacity will have increased a bit at this point, so you have to be careful, but you CAN enjoy "normal" meals. Just much smaller. I've had some very delicious food recently, and had to give half of it to my husband, but that works out (he's skinny already;) ) You can INDEED enjoy a food trip. It will just take you longer.
Don't they server much smaller portions out there anyway? (depending on the country...)
People have linked true food enjoyment with pigging out and stuffing the stomach to bursting. With the sleeve you realize that food is even more enjoyable in smaller amounts with a varied selection.

December 4 with Dr. Nicholson in Dallas!

I've looked for it for as far back as I can remember, really, even though everything I do seems to say I don't really want it found. And in the end, when it found me, it did exactly what I thought I wanted - it changed everything. That thing, that one thing, has catapulted me from the comfort I know into a new place I thought wanted to go. I know it's a good thing, but all I can think is, "What have I done?"

I am sick now. That kind of sick that makes the doctor say, "If you don't lose some weight now, you are going to die - and I don't mean in a year or two - I mean very soon."

Kidneys working at 25 percent. Liver working at about the same.

I haven't been in my 50s long enough yet to even say hello.

It wasn't the "Ah-Ha! moment" I wanted at all. My family will know what I've pretended all these years they didn't... that I am an idiot for being so careless with the precious, joy-filled, blessed life given so freely to me - a husband I love beyond measure and who absolutely adores me, too, two great kids who married well and have beautiful kids of their own, a boat-load of wonderful friends, a Savior who died for me, and all the other requisite bells and whistles.

An idiot.

The really sick thing about it is that the thing I find the most frightening isn't that I find myself so close to death!! No, it isn't that at all. I am paralized with fear at the thought that I will have to give up my fat shield.

How will I hide whatever it is I must be hiding? Who will I be without it? Do I really have the courage to find out?
This morning, I was pretty sure I didn't.
Today is the first day in this long process that I am really frightened and wobbly. I have been thinking about where I was a few months ago when I got home from the doctor after getting such frightening news about the true state of my health. I sat down at my computer and wrote those words above - not TO anyone, just to get out what it was I was thinking about all that had happened to me in those past few days.
Although, with the unwavering support and help from my amazing husband of 35 years, I have decided, after months of research, to move forward with the decision to have the vertical sleeve, I found myself almost crippled this morning by the fear of not knowing who I will be after this process is over. I have cried and cried. I cried out of frustration because I have no idea what happened to me that would allow me to eat myself into such a horrible mess. I just wanted to throw up my hands and go hide my soul somewhere where no one could ever find it again.
Fear is a hateful, hateful thing.

Then - and this will REALLY sound stupid - I decided I was more afraid of someone thinking I was afraid of ANYTHING than I was of being afraid to keep on trying. Don't worry. I don't understand it either.
So I blew my nose, dried my eyes, washed my face and took a deep breath. I took a long look in the mirrow and told myself that feeling sorry for myself - and everyone else whose lives I have robbed of joy because of my weight problems and its related issues - wasn't going to accomplish anything and it was effort I should be putting toward making the situation better instead of worse.

I know if I don't come to terms with the unknown ahead of me, it is going to cripple me.