mich

This is so close to what has worked so well for me in the past. And what I'm trying to get back to again. I usually eat two protein meals, 3pm and 6pm, then finish with a piece of fruit around 8pm. I try to keep all my eating between noon and 8pm. The timing is not as important. But the order I eat seems to be the biggest impact. Water, Protein Drink, water, yogurt and Vitamins, water, protein and veg, water, protein and veg, fruit.

This is so close to what has worked so well for me in the past. And what I'm trying to get back to again. I usually eat two protein meals, 3pm and 6pm, then finish with a piece of fruit around 8pm. I try to keep all my eating between noon and 8pm. The timing is not as important. But the order I eat seems to be the biggest impact. Water, Protein Drink, water, yogurt and Vitamins, water, protein and veg, water, protein and veg, fruit.

You are not alone. It took me a month just to start and feel normal. The first week after surgery my husband had to literally wrap his arms around me and lift me up from a laying position. At two weeks I felt like you described. But don't worry about stall and atrophy, that is just too much thinking. Over thinking is something I know well. It takes the place of all the eating we are not doing. But it can be just as harmful.
The Premier Protein shakes over a few ice cubes are what got me through. Try putting some ice in what you have. The thick texture bothered me too, and this helps a lot.
It will get better.

This may sound weird, but I sprinkled sea salt on my tongue a couple times a day. It burns a little, but the thrush is gone in a few days. I get thrush after every surgery( c-section, band, sleeve). Nystatin makes me gag/vomit.

Thank you for sharing. I'm about the same distance out from surgery and hoping to get the scale moving in the right direction again. Your post is very encouraging!

This is so close to what has worked so well for me in the past. And what I'm trying to get back to again. I usually eat two protein meals, 3pm and 6pm, then finish with a piece of fruit around 8pm. I try to keep all my eating between noon and 8pm. The timing is not as important. But the order I eat seems to be the biggest impact. Water, Protein Drink, water, yogurt and Vitamins, water, protein and veg, water, protein and veg, fruit.

Thank you for sharing. I'm about the same distance out from surgery and hoping to get the scale moving in the right direction again. Your post is very encouraging!

Thank you for sharing. I'm about the same distance out from surgery and hoping to get the scale moving in the right direction again. Your post is very encouraging!

Thank you for sharing. I'm about the same distance out from surgery and hoping to get the scale moving in the right direction again. Your post is very encouraging!

Very brave of you to go to the doctors. I'm avoiding mine.
Every other day I need to restart again. I have gotten a few good days in a row then fall off the clif. I weighed this morning and I'm at an all time high from my surgery on 8/2013. But I'm trying again this morning.

I think I need to drop out of this challenge. I have always known I don't do well with weigh-ins, but thought I would try this challenge. And even this friendly supportive thread is triggering me.
Thanks Susan. I'm out.
Maybe it's time to look into therapy....
Good luck to all!

Yesterday's weigh in was 199, again....
Sorry to be late. Blizzard prep and also my baby turned 13 yesterday!

Mich...
What I am learning from this, my second challenge, is to not give up if I don't lose weight. I was not close to my goal at the Holiday challenge and apparently not going to make this one either. For me, though, posting that number on the scale and not being overly awful to myself is what I am "gaining" from this stuff. Good luck to you. Hang in there!

I think I need to drop out of this challenge. I have always known I don't do well with weigh-ins, but thought I would try this challenge. And even this friendly supportive thread is triggering me.
Thanks Susan. I'm out.
Maybe it's time to look into therapy....
Good luck to all!

I think I need to drop out of this challenge. I have always known I don't do well with weigh-ins, but thought I would try this challenge. And even this friendly supportive thread is triggering me.
Thanks Susan. I'm out.
Maybe it's time to look into therapy....
Good luck to all!

199 this morning. I'm going the wrong way!

Monday weight in. 197

Monday weigh in-198
Susan, can you change my goal to 189. Thank you!

I'll join you all. My first challenge. The weight has been creeping up for months now! Current weight 199, goal weight 189
Thank you!

Interesting. What made you try that?

I am also a life long sufferer of anxiety and depression. Sometimes it's hard for me to separate and recognize which one is effecting me most. I have visited a few psychotherapists over the years. But have such a fear of medication I have avoided that. I do lean more words anxiety. An expensive fish oil has been my main tool. A few years ago I added high dose Vitamin D and was surprised how much that helped me. I know everyone suffering from this is so different. I don't mean to imply what I'm doing may help. Just sharing.
I can say I was unprepared for the post op anxiety and depression I felt. It was crippling for over a month. Thankfully I work at home and my husband was available to help me. But I do still find myself at times worrying about the future, and my sleeve. As far as worries about ulcers, I think they are more related to bacteria or a drugs, not so much stress or worrying. I will occasionally take aspirin and stress about it every time. My doctor says don't worry, and take enteric coated aspirin. I avoid Advil as much as possible.
Losing weight has helped tremendously with the depression. But that seems to have made the anxiety more noticeable.

I am also a life long sufferer of anxiety and depression. Sometimes it's hard for me to separate and recognize which one is effecting me most. I have visited a few psychotherapists over the years. But have such a fear of medication I have avoided that. I do lean more words anxiety. An expensive fish oil has been my main tool. A few years ago I added high dose Vitamin D and was surprised how much that helped me. I know everyone suffering from this is so different. I don't mean to imply what I'm doing may help. Just sharing.
I can say I was unprepared for the post op anxiety and depression I felt. It was crippling for over a month. Thankfully I work at home and my husband was available to help me. But I do still find myself at times worrying about the future, and my sleeve. As far as worries about ulcers, I think they are more related to bacteria or a drugs, not so much stress or worrying. I will occasionally take aspirin and stress about it every time. My doctor says don't worry, and take enteric coated aspirin. I avoid Advil as much as possible.
Losing weight has helped tremendously with the depression. But that seems to have made the anxiety more noticeable.

Thanks for the encouraging words Cowgirljane. I agree, when banded, full was up in the esophagus. Now it's like a normal stomach. And at times I find my self eating extra to feel full. For years I hated that diaphragm pain, full pain in my esophagus. I'm so happy to have regular full feelings! In my stomach where they belong. But now I am practicing daily to be content without any full feeling. It's a struggle. At times I will have some extra protien just to feel full. But I realy want to learn to do without that.
When banded I never knew how many bites I would get. A delicious meal ruined by getting stuck on the first bite. Adjusting to the sleeve I see myself eating as much as I can. Like someone denied food for years. And on the flip side I had anxiety for weeks about trying to eat fruit. The first time I had an apple slice was surprisingly stressful! It took me months to get comfortable with fruits and vegetables.
It's been an interesting year. I have high hopes for year two!
OP, I walk daily 30-60 minutes, some yoga and weights occasionally. No pain with eating. If I overeat its like a thanksgiving dinner feeling, stuffed.

Hi moonlitestarbrite,
Sorry I've been MIA from this thread for awhile, and haven't answered your question until now. Geneen Roth was the first author I read, probably over twenty+ years ago when I was desperately searching for why my life was in such a shambles (at that time still undiagnosed major depression). I suffered from EXTREMELY low self-esteem due in large part to my obesity and early childhood parental death. The seedlings Roth helped me plant in my brain all those years ago were that: 1) I AM "good enough" and 2) in my cocoon of profound lonliness, I used food as my only true comfort, friend, and healer. food was always there for me, no matter what. At the time, those were really major awakenings for me because I had no clue why I felt so different from everyone else and so out of control.
It took me many years and much painful work--both with psychiatrists and therapists, and utilizing self-help reading of many well-respected professionals in the field of emotional/compulsive eating, to get to where I am today. Food is just food. It is not good or bad. And its job is NOT to be a comfort or a friend--it is to fuel and nourish my body. Period.
Finding those emotional substitutes for the old famliar go-to foods when we're stressed, bored, tired, angry, etc. is a HUGE JOB that doesn't happen over night, but when you consistently do the hard work, the end result is SO WORTH THE EFFORT.
Hope this helps, at least a little. Keep up your great work!

Since it has been ages since I even looked at one of her books, I can't really say. I have had counseling as I was one of those that believed that surely I must be broken inside to weigh 300#. I had a counselor give me this book called "Ed". yes, the author had named her eating disorder "Ed"
I just didn't relate. I can (and have!) talked about my childhood for years and yet I was still hungry. I still had this overwhelming drive to eat. Like, an hour or two after a meal, I was ready for another one.
The eating disorder counselor would ask - what do you feel when you are hungry? HUNGRY! I don't think she ever believed me.
Anyway, post sleeve - I do see a counselor 1-2 times a month. Guess what we NEVER talk about? How food is love, how food is a substitutue for a decent father or whatever.
When I talk about needing to work on the "mental" part of all this what I am referring to is how much my life has changed and how it is good, but also difficult at times. For awhile, it was strange to look like an attractive woman and it made me feel awkward, like I had lost a protective shell. I am talking about accepting on a very deep level that I need to eat just alot less than other people do in order to maintain a trim weight. I am talking about finally being in a position where there is a whole wide world out there... what do I want out of it?
So, this is why I don't relate well to the whole eating disorders movement. I surely had "disordered eating" and I surely used food and obesity to numb emotions. But bigger than those things, I was hungry almost all the time and that primal urge drove alot of my behavior and it just doesn't anymore.