NurseGrace

I am only a month post op right now but I have noticed this with sugar. Everything sweet is like... too much, and I was a major sweets eater before surgery, probably 80% of my extra weight was put on with sweet junk food. I cant stand even a little bit of crystal light anymore, I just drink tea or water now. Juice is horrible, even the smell of it grosses me out...

It's probably best to just keep it moving and never look back, you seem smart, you'll do fine. I am a married lady but my hubster wasn't really 100% on board with this surgery and I was mostly on my own, he hasn't given me a lot of support with this other than obvious things like picking me up, taking me to appointments and whatnot and I'm sure a lovely lady like yourself has a friend or two you can count on for a ride should you need it. Emotionally, this site has been really helpful for me, I get to talk to other people who relate on a deeper level. I love my husband and in some ways we are really close, but his weight problem is not NEARLY as severe as mine, and I think the man just doesnt get it. So, not to make it about me or anything, but I just say this to let you know, even though it doesnt always appear this way, I lot of us are far more isolated than it appears.

This is one of the best blogs I have read on this site. Very well put.

holy moly - an omlette from IHOP here in Kansas is 8.99 for the BIGGEST one, most of them are 6-8 dollars. I usually just steal about three bites from my husband. It's way more than three bites for me - but when I am asking him to give me some that's how I describe it.

It's totally normal. It's hard to say the exact reason because normally these things have multiple causes so it could be any one of the following: women commonly gain during menstruation no matter what fluid retention decreased urination from the drugs you received in the hospital You probably have not had a bowel movement at this point, and if you did it was probably not substantial surgery is trauma and trauma = swelling and any time there is inflamation there is extra fluid in the tissues you could be predisposed to retaining fluid at certain times of the month regardless of menstruation - I am like that too sodium? Have you been drinking broth? That will do it. It's not a big deal but it might reflect on the scale. Basically, don't worry. We all see wild shifts on the scale the first few weeks, and its not always in the direction we were hoping for. It will come off over the next few days. There is no need to dramatically change anything you are doing just trust the process and keep up the good work. You are right about weighing weekly though. It's really in your best interest to pick a day to weigh in (for me its Tuesdays because my surgery was on a Tuesday but it doesnt really matter and weigh in that day and maybe the rest of the week just put the scale somewhere that it wont tempt you. For me, I slide it under a shelf in my bathroom but sometimes when I am rearranging I just pick it up and take it into my bedroom closet that way when I am in the bathroom the silly thing isn't staring me down daring me to hop on just to take a peek.

I was so happy to have my band removed. In only one month of being sleeved I can tell you that I feel as though my sleeve is everything my band was SUPPOSED to be, but never was. best of luck to you.

I dont want no stinkin hot crap, missy! lmao

I shoot for an even 800 calories but sometimes I fall short of that, sometimes I go over by a couple hundred, just depends how the day goes. My absolute max that I have not gone over since surgery is 1200 calories.

I think commercials are designed to have an effect, thats the entire point of marketing but I would never go so far as to say they should be banned. I have read the article thats being passed around about foods designed to be addictive, but even more tha designer junk food, the human brain itself is designed to prefer sugar, salt, and fat as a survival strategy to ward off starvation. Junk food makers produce that because they are universally appealing. I tend to think its less... sinister than people make it out to be. In the end I think it's up to us to control what goes in and I'm not just talking about food, we have to control what goes into our minds too. Food advertising really gets to me - you know what I did? I got rid of the TV. That's right guys, I do not own a TV. I do notice that my skinny friends are oblivious to food advertising. It doesn't really bother them one way or another, so that is also interesting.

I am a month out and from time to time recently I have had a little bit but I have had very little inflamation in my sleeve so you kind of have to use your own judgment on whether or not you can handle it, and I would NOT have more than maybe an ounce and a half if you can eat it, because it will blow your carb count away

When I was brand spanking new I ran into some of that, but I will say that it is important to use the search function and use it often, because so many things have been covered so many times that a lot of people just don't care to get into it in much of a helpful capacity I do wish that the search function was improved a little because a lot of times I KNOW there are 100s of posts on a topic and sometimes I can only find a few but I still always review what I come up with before making a new thread.

Well, its completely up to you. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this question really, its just whatever you want for yourself. If you can lose the weight without surgery it's my inclination to encourage you to do so, but if you are like me and you lost weight and gained it back 100 times in your life that is one hamster wheel I was happy to jump off and leave in my past, which is why I proceeded with the surgery. I was scared to do it, but I was scared of what was going to happen to me if I didn't do it.

These is basically just for me to vent over my private thoughts about something that went down recently. I still have some leftover frustration despite maybe personal messages cheering me on and supporting me in my line of thought so rather than make a forum thread for all to see begging for reassurance I just thought I would make a personal blog entry for me to come back on should I ever find myself in this situation again, because I think that spending most of the day in self reflection I have more or less worked out my real feelings about all this. I've been known as the mean girl at many points in my life because I have always been active in organizations, clubs, and jobs in positions of power. I have always sought excellence, I was never happy to just be a member of a club, I jumped in head first and ran for president, you know? It's just my personality. I don't do a lot, but what I do decide to do, I do it to the absolute best that I possibly can. Now, this certainly is not to say that I do not have my days, and my screwups but I am not the type of person to screw up and then go post about it online looking for people to tell me it's OK. I track like I eat like all of us know we should, so there is never any question about whether or not something was alright or not. I'm in the green or I'm in the red, and when everything is black and white like that it's pretty obvious what to do about it. This brings me to the heart of the matter, and what I seem to be continually butting heads with people over - I do not understand what people are looking for when they make posts about massively veering off course for a diet, let alone how we should be eating postoperative. I can understand it when people want to know if this or that is acceptable, but when people have gone and had 150 grams of carbs, 80 grams of sugar, and probably blown their fat and calories out of the water for the day too, I just don't understand. I know its not easy to stop, and I would never ever sit here and claim to never mess up. Hell, at two weeks post op I had frozen yogurt with my husband, and at three weeks post op I had a smallish serving of Outback Steakhouse's blooming onion, arguably one of the worse appetizers in the country. I make mistakes too, but what I do not understand is posting about it looking for nothing but hand-holding and reassuring comments. I don't know what to say to someone who does that, especially when its over and over again, not just in posts but in comments to over people as well. And let me be clear - while this last episode that prompted me to really examine myself was obviously in response to a particular person, this is extremely common, which is why I felt the need to check myself. I want to say something that I never said in all the back and forth, because it had not really occurred to me, and towards the end of all that, I was genuinely hurt by some of things people said and wasn't thinking clearly about the topic at hand. Enablers will not ever help you. Telling someone who has issues with food that their bad behavoir is fine and that tomorrow is a new day is not only a load of BS, its destructive in the worse sort of insidious way. You will NEVER change if you don't wrap your head around the abuse that you inflict on yourself. Never, it doesn't matter how much of your stomach they take away, it doesn't matter how many ounces of food you can eat in a setting, you will find a way to ruin this gift to yourself. I know this. I already HAD surgery once, and like so many of you out there, when I messed it up for myself day after day, week after week I came onto YouTube and forums like this looking for "support" when I really needed someone to tell me to stop what I was doing to myself. Some people act like they don't really have a problem with food and they might be true for a small minority of people on this site but the harsh reality is that no one makes it to 250 pounds, 300 pounds, and BMIs through the roof that merit weight loss surgery without unhealthy ideas about what is OK to eat, what isn't OK, and little ways we kid ourselves into thinking it's fine, it'll be better next time, I'll jump back on the horse tomorrow...... It's all a crock, and we kidded ourselves up to shameful sizes with that mentality. I'm not saying that we should suddenly go at things with a level of intensity that we cannot maintain, and through empathy out the window but what I am saying is that when a simple suggestion that doing the hard mental work that needs to be done might require therapy or counseling of some sort, and that sparks a rage in people burning so hot that they threaten to leave the site and throw all class and dignity out the window, that does not bode well for the state of this community. It would serve people well to sit up and take note of the state of things around here. When all that is offered is platitudes and hand holding, nothing good will come of that. We have to change our minds to change our bodies and sometimes that means growing a spine, and taking some honest criticism and self evaluation. No one is doing you any favors is everything they tell you is comfortable and unchallenged If none of what I said applies to you, then you have to take some responsibility for what you post. If you make a semi-dramatic post every time you do something wrong but you have it under control, you have no right to get indignant when people notice. Some things are more appropriate in blog format not public forums.

Hmm, you might try going down to home depo or whatever is near you and having them cut you a square of plywood or masonite to slip under your scale on top of the time.

For the record, I said she might consider it because things seemed to be a certain way, its a narrow but deep distinction. This is the last thing I am saying on the matter.

That is all well and good, I don't have a problem admitting that my first post was not as nice as it could have been, otherwise I would not have offered to take it down, but if you honestly say that you dont have any communication that isn't positive (what you view as positive) that could be part of the problem. If you cannot take someone holding a mirror up and saying to you honestly that something you are doing, and doing over again, and again is a problem then how are you supposed to grow as a person? It's best to keep a circle of friends who will once in a while make you sit up straight, get a little uncomfortable and deal with a problem instead of telling you that its OK and that tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is never a new day if you never deal with the issues at hand, which is why things seem to be on repeat for you. The women who jumped in and said something actually did see what happened on the other post, thats why she said something. Also, since you are taking shots at women. I wish I could remember what person said it but there was a famous quote that you have to watch out for women who do not keep female friends, because its a sure fire way to tell that THEY are the ones who can't play nice and I find over and over again that statement being true. If all women bring you nothing but drama consider that you are the common factor. You asked me if this is out of hand or not, and honestly, I am in complete control of my emotions reguarding this situation, so no, for me it is not out of hand, I just respond as I see fit because I care about the way I am perceived.

RIP THEM OUT. lol no just kidding. Drains are a pain, I dont have any voodoo to get rid of the discomfort completely but do you have any left over pain medication you can take?

I just want to say that all this is completely unfair. DeeDee is being extremely passive aggressive and I am the target. I was never mean to her, she made yet another post (one of many) talking about how she binged on terrible food again. I, having been friends with DD in the past made a post stating that I was starting to see a pattern and that she might MIGHT consider seeing someone to see if there was a deeper issue here than just messing up a few times. Thats all. Thats what brought on all this. It's manipulation of anyone who didn't see the first post because she really did a good job of making herself look like a victim but I am not keen to lay down and be the bad guy when I IMMEDATELY deleted the post, explained myself more clearly, apologized, and apologized here more than once. Please don't be fooled.

Honestly Laura, I sort of appreciated it. I feel thrown under the bus, and I also feel that I am the target of said passive aggressiveness which is pretty far out of line all things considered. I'm not even sure you saw my original post because I took it down immediately at the first sign of trouble because it was obvious my intention was not to be offensive. I apologized there, I apologized here and I followed through with what I said I would do like an adult. I have not had one single ounce of reciprocation for having gone so far out of my way to apologize for something so silly and small in the first place. I'm not a victim, so I will live to see another day without doing something dramatic like declaring I am leaving the forums for good, but I DO feel like the target of this passive aggressive behavior and honestly its not cool. I was not going to say anything about it but you telling that woman that it was not about her kind of upsets me because this IS passive aggressive and I am the target, and I do not appreciate it. For the record I have apologized multiple times, and I am not really excited to lay down and be the purporter of some great misdeed. I do not want DeeDee to leave the forums, but if she does it is completely of her own doing, she has not been run off by a pack of angry trolls. She was run off my a woman suggesting she take her health into her own hands and help herself get better.

DeeDee today I realized after having a chat with a certain someone that I come off as pretty cold and clinical. That is never my intention but it's a byproduct of my work. I try to be as clear and concise as I can and sometimes seeming brusque is a side effect of that and I am really sorry because I must have come off as a real ass to you but it wasn't on purpose and I do feel bad that it's got you this upset.

DeeDee, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be mean to you and I made no secret of that. I sincerely hope you do not leave this site because of my posts which I gladly took down when I realized you were upset about it. If I am off the mark here let me know, for all I know this could be about something else but considering our most recent interaction I hope you can reconsider. There is room for all of us here.

I'll take it down then. I'm just not certain what you are looking for. There is nothing at all wrong with posting your struggles but for some reason yours stuck out to me as special because I do not remember every post I read, but I remember yours. I don't know why. I see we are no longer friends so I can only assume you have unfriended me, which is fine if you feel attacked in some way I get it - but consider this, you are posting in a public forum so unless someone has something deeply DEEPLY personal to share with you, it is not unreasonable to assume that people will respond publicly in the exact manner that you posted and if you are for some reason uncomfortable with that, you might reevaluate if you should be posting in the first place. The internet is full of mean people, trolls, and generally cold people and I can assure you that I am not one of these people. However, all things considered I will do my best to no longer respond to your posts as you do not seem to be looking for an actual honest assessment, which is all I have to offer.

I'm not following you I guess. I don't feel as though anything I have said is mean or hateful, but if OP is just looking for handholding maybe I am not the girl - I post publically because this is a public forum and if OP is having this issue there are probably many like her, so sure I guess I could PM her to say what I said but I guess the whole point in my mind is for other people to be able to come along and read all the tips and suggestions as well. When I was brand new here I was using the search engine like crazy to read about the problems I was having, and if people had only been PMing all replies it wouldn't be helpful to anyone else. I think you might be reading too much into what I said, I just simple suggested that OP might have an issue that runs deeper than "welp, not doing THAT again" because, frankly, this is at least the second or third post of this exact nature and I think no one is doing any favors by glossing over that fact if they have noticed it. It's clearly a problem. I ran support groups professionally, and support does not always mean never calling a spade a spade, and it doesn't mean always putting on a happy face either, but I want to be clear about something. I like DeeDeeMuffin, I have seen her all over this site and I always think she is a great contributor I don't know her personally, but having seen what I have seen, I have the respect to say what I think. I never called her any names, I never said she absolutely has an eating disorder or compulsive behavior, but I think we are all kidding ourselves if we don't consider that possibility and be honest about it. Thats what real support is about, sometimes its not all sunshine, rainbows and happy faces Now, to DeeDee, if you are offended by my message I will be more than happy to take it down for you, as I think it's obvious at this point my intention isn't to come down on you, but I can tell you as someone who had to deal with an eating disorder myself, I see a ton of similarities and it makes me worry. I could be reading to much into this because of my own perception based on my own experiences - you let me know.

yeeeeah I have a feeling that was directed at me, and I get it - but I want to be clear that I would never say that OP has impaired mental functioning or anything of the sort, in fact, just the opposite is true, she clearly cares and knows the right things to do. My comment was coming from concern because it was not that long ago that OP was going on about spending all day eating nuggets and drinking frappuccinos from mcdonalds. I want to be clear, my memory could be failing me and I COULD be thinking of someone else but I don't think I am. All I am saying is that I seem to be noticing a pattern here of relatively extreme bindging (in so far as a VSG patient can binge) feeling ultra bad about it to the point of making it seem as though she feels like she has had some kind of personal failure, resolving to do better, then rinse and repeat. I am pretty worried for OP, because I just feel like there are other issues at play here that might be more suitable for a professional. Being a psych nurse and caring for all types of people I have a lot of love, and I find it interesting that whenever someone suggests that couseling of some sort might be useful that people take that to mean mental capacity is somehow an issue. Needing/seeking professional help in NO way equals retarded, stupid, weak or anything of the sort and to assume that people mean that when they suggest that their issues seem to be behavioral, not a knowledge problem is a little unfair.