LumpySpacePrincess

If your eating is out of control, I highly suggest you find a therapist who specializes in eating disorders and see them for a few months BEFORE your surgery. The surgery will not fix the psychological issues that make your eating out of control, and if you continue down that path you can very well negate the positive effects of your surgery. I really, really cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure your psychological health is taken care of before you alter your body.

I add 1/2 cup of 2% milk and splenda to my espresso every day. I will say its beneficial to make sure you've had at least 16 ounces of Water for the day before your coffee because the coffee is very acidic so you want to make sure your stomach is hydrated enough to handle it. I get stomach aches if I drink coffee before I've had water in the morning.

For full liquids you can eat unsweetened Greek yogurt (I put splenda and cinnamon in mine), sugar free pudding made with skim milk and Protein powder mixed in; pretty much anything that would fall between the tines of a fork. Your fullness will happen after about 6 weeks out. You're doing good not to search for the full feeling! Just stick to the prescribed volume of food and you'll be just fine.

You're doing just fine! Just keep your portions to two ounces so you don't overeat. Don't try to search for that "full" feeling, just stick to the portions you're supposed to. Remember the inside of your stomach is still really numb from being sliced and stapled and will be for the first 6 weeks so you may not feel that restriction yet, but it definitely comes later when you start on chunkies. Keep up the good work!

Kids burn a TON more calories in a day than adults do. I'm not a fan of restricting out junk food completely for kids because it can lead to a sense of deprivation (especially if they see other kids eating what they want) and can cause a backlash of bingeing when they're older and can get the food for themselves. Keep their meals balanced and properly portioned. For Snacks, just make sure they're eating just ONE serving of whatever it is, even if its fruit. Teaching them what a proper portion looks like will help them later when they're more independent and you're not in control of what they eat anymore.

Ditto what LipstickLady said. Just about everyone says they don't feel restriction at first. I didn't feel it very much for about a month, but at 6 months out I do. Example, I just ate about 7 grapes and I'm full! Your stomach is also pretty numb from being sliced and stapled so keep that in mind.

About four months out I had a cashier at my local grocery store notice my weight loss and asked me about it. I was actually thrilled someone noticed, because its always been hard for me to see the losses on myself. I don't think people were thinking negatively about you before in terms of your size; its more likely they noticed you are quite a bit smaller and are trying to be encouraging.

I've found if you call ahead to whoever is doing the catering you can find out what they will be serving. I always bring a Protein shake with me in case I can't eat anything. There is actually a picture of me the day I started the pre-op diet that also happened to be a friend's wedding, sucking down a protein shake in an evening gown and feathered fascinator! lol That being said, most places serve vegetables of some sort with their dishes or fruit in the morning. But in all honesty, at 7 months out I think if you just ate what they serve in moderate portions you should be OK.

I think hiring a full-time therapist might be a bit too expensive at first. If you want a psychologist who actually specializes in helping people with eating disorders and overeating you'll want someone with a PhD and that can get costly. What I would suggest (and you'd have to check the regulations in your state) is to sort of rent office space within the gym for an eating disorder specialist that would be affiliated with your establishment but bills separately. That way they can charge clients what they need to and you don't have to worry about dealing with insurance. Another idea would be to pay a couple of therapists to come in and run group therapy a few times per week for different issues such as body image, overeating, handling relationship stress, etc. The pay for hiring a therapist for one group session would be considerably less than having one around all the time, and they can always be approached by your clients if anyone wants individual counseling. Hope this helps!

I eat pretty much everything I did before except rice and Pasta, but some of the fattier stuff I either make modified versions of or just eat them very, very rarely. The biggest key to maintain weight loss is to not increase the volume that you are eating too fast. The longer you can keep the restriction in your sleeve the longer it will help you. There are people I know that were sleeved the same date I was but were eager to eat larger portions early on and can now eat way more than they should at even double our time out and have either stopped losing or are even gaining weight back. So in short, its not always what you eat that will stop your losses, but how much of everything in general you're eating.

I'm six months out and I do eat a few of my son's fries when he has them, but he might only have fries once every two or three months, so its not a big deal. If your son is eating things like that on a regular basis and you find yourself doing it frequently, then it might turn into a bigger problem. One thing I've found about my former favorites is that I actually don't really taste them anymore. Regular ice cream just tastes like a bowl of cold mush to me, french fries taste like hot mush...not very appealing.

One of the reasons people regain the weight is that the surgery will not fix your psychologically dysfunctional relationship to food. Not everyone has a full blown eating disorder, but there are a very, very, very tiny percentage of people who have gained enough weight to qualify for this surgery who do not have a dysfunctional relationship with food. If you don't actively work on the psychological aspect, you aren't taking care of what made you overweight in the first place. I have been in therapy for a year for binge eating disorder and exercise related bulimia and I plan to keep going for the majority of the remainder of my natural life. I always encourage people who are looking into WLS to find a therapist who specializes in eating related issues and see them for at least a few months pre-surgery. You will be so much happier if you do, I promise!

Avoid the pureed starches like potatoes because they will take up space in your wee stomach that needs to be filled with Protein. Seriously, everything you eat right now needs to have a high protein content! The veggies of course will taste great and satisfy that head hunger, but they are not giving you what you need nutritionally right now. I ate some refried Beans, but I also pureed roast chicken thighs (skinless; 1/3 cup Water for every 2/3 cup cut up chicken will give you a nice consistency), Underwood canned meats that are already puree consistency, pureed tuna salad made with low-fat mayo, and tons of yogurt. Don't even bother with baby food from the jar..its really disgusting! You can also eat cottage cheese right now if its small curd. Yes, everything does need to be smooth, with the exception of baked fish because you can chew that enough to puree it in your mouth. Hope this helps!

I am 6 months out and I average about 500-800 calories per day, depending on what I eat. Most days my breakfast is plain greek yogurt with a bit of splenda mixed in, morning snack is 1/2 cup of 2% milk in my coffee, lunch is between 100-150 calories, dinner is around 150-200 calories. There are some days that I will add in another snack like a Protein shake or another yogurt if I need to up my protein. I average 65g protein, 25g fat and 20g carbs for the day. In terms of what I eat: greek yogurt sweetened with splenda, 2% milk (only 1/2 cup per day), boneless skinless chicken thighs, very lean ground beef, low-fat cheeses and dairy products (cottage cheese, sour cream, etc), and sometimes fish when the prices aren't too high, as well as one serving per day of raw fruit and at least one serving of steamed veg, such as broccoli, cauliflower, or salad. I know a lot of people will say that my calories are too low, but my nutritionist is very happy with how I'm eating, and told me not to go over 800 until I'm closer to a year. I also keep my portions to 1/2 cup or less of everything except yogurt, which I eat 2/3 cup of.

I always order the steamed crab legs at Red Lobster. Crab is so low in calories and really high in Protein. Plus you have to eat slow since you have to crack it out of the shell! I take a bite of my boyfriend's biscuits, but lately he's just been asking them to not bring them to the table because he doesn't want to eat them in front of me.

Thank you for the response, Kylee. I'm wondering if it has to do with my fat loss picking back up again, and it being that time of month, but I'm not usually this irritable, depressed, and anxious even during PMS! All I can say is thank goodness for therapy! lol

I know emotional mayhem is part of the post-op experience, but I didn't expect it this far out. Anyone else hit a major depression around 6 months or around 120 pounds lost??

Hi, Mia! I'm in Bergen County and would love to be your buddy! PM me and I'll send you my regular email address.

I've been eating spicy food since I was a week out, when they put me on purees. I would mix in a packet of Taco Bell fire sauce with my refried Beans. Since then I've gone on to eat a ton of really, really spicy things. I think it just depends on your stomach. I have a stomach of Iron so I can tolerate pretty much everything.

Pepperidge Farm cracker chips. They come in a few different flavors (bbq, chilli lime, three cheese, sour cream and cheese). They are baked and an ounce (which is quite a lot because they're light) is 130 calories and only 4g of fat.

You can't spot-reduce fat. Fat comes off from wherever your body feels like it. You can train different muscle groups to tighten and tone, but just because you do more crunches than leg lifts doesn't mean your tummy will get smaller first. That said, weight training should wait until 6 weeks and cardio will need to be cleared by your surgeon. For now just walking at a pace that makes you sweat for half an hour is sufficient.

Your mother's comments sound like my mother's before my surgery. My mother has never had addiction problems, so I can't relate to that. But yeah, my mom told me I just needed to apply myself, work harder, etc. She was actually really pissed about it for awhile; I even sensed that she was disappointed in me. Since my surgery she has been very supportive. I think she knew it was the right thing for me to do, since I've been overweight since I was 8, but she was scared of something happening. She told me stories about people she heard about that had died because they couldn't stop losing weight. It was terribly invalidating, but once I realized that she was scared it made more sense. I also think a lot of mothers take this sort of thing as a failure in their parenting, that they couldn't help their children with something like this. Maybe this will help you and a lot of people understand about these situations. There is a form of therapy called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), that has what's called the ABC theory. A: an event happens; B: we have a belief about the event; C: we have an emotional reaction to the belief. So in this case A: your mom was told you were having surgery; B: she believes "I don't want my daughter to be harmed; that would be unbearable"; C: she feels anxious about you being harmed. This is a great way to analyze the reactions of others because it allows us to take a step back and realize that its not the event or a person people are reacting to, its the belief about that even or person. Best thing to do is just validate her concerns by saying "I totally understand how you could feel that way. I agree this is potentially dangerous." Keep validating and eventually people stop feeling defensive and will open up more and hopefully become more accepting.

Try netrition.com. They have a ton of options!

I'm 6 months out and I try to really limit these things because they can trigger past behaviors in terms of eating patterns. I didn't have my first frozen yogurt until 5 months out, and it was the fat-free, sugar-free TCBY stuff, and even then I only had an ounce of it, and really only had it because it was my anniversary. Keep it out of your diet for as long as possible.

In my experience, the sweetner is what makes the Protein shakes tolerable in terms of taste. You can buy Isopure plain, but I would buy a small can of it at first to see if the aftertaste is OK for you. The other thing I can recommend is using cold Water soluble Gelatin (I use Great Lakes brand). You can add it to pretty much anything and it gives you 6g of protein per teaspoon. It has no flavor at all, no sweeteners, and no gluten. Also, you might want to try the liquid sucralose (EZ-sweetz). The liquid variety of Splenda doesn't have the ingredients that give you the headaches, which are used when they make it granulated.