VSGAnn2014

Ignore button. Click!

Wow! That is a lot of stuff happening in your life. Good to hear you're getting all of it addressed. Check, check, check!

I find this research methodology and conclusions pretty persuasive. It's amazing (to me) how responses and emotions learned and experienced in childhood stick with us for life and can still trump the lessons we learn intellectually later in life. Mindfulness (am SO interested in those practices lately!) can throw light on our automatic responses and emotions and give us space in which to consider how we really want to handle the instant situation. Privilege comes in all forms, but mostly in the form of early childhood circumstances and experiences that bend us forever. Thereafter many / most of us have to struggle against some ugly angles along which no one would ever have chosen to be shaped.

I'm almost 18 months post-op, so everything else that others have mentioned aren't problems for me .... ... except for what @@bikrchk said: Too much sugar on a given day makes me feel like crap for several days thereafter. Ice cream is a particular problem, because it's also a trigger food for me and one of those things I can eat more of than I "thought" I could -- until I feel like shit. I don't dump -- just feel blah for a few days and resolve Never To Do That Again. BTW, I've never thrown up a single time since WLS. My stomach doesn't like to give up food once it's down there.

Oh, honey! You are gorgeous! You earned every curve and cut and all the admiration you're going to get on the beach! Wow!

LOL ... I found the BEST internet meme to post on another thread today. But the link keeps getting rejected. SUCH a shame!

Roger, thank you, thank you! So many good thoughts there. Now I gotta think more about all this.

I am not persuaded that the comments we see here about "When can I eat pizza again?" are really due to lack of education or knowledge. Consider this .... This morning I spent several hours in hospital waiting rooms with a family member who's undergoing medical tests. We were there during the morning shift change, and the halls were full of nurses, doctors, and other medicos, arriving and leaving. I started categorizing them as "normal weight" vs. "obviously overweight or obese." An hour of this impromptu survey returned these results: The ratio of "overweight or obese" to "normal weight" medical personnel was (wait for it) ... 2 to 1. That's 67% overweight or obese folks -- the exact proportion of US adults who are overweight or obese. But if anyone should know how to eat / exercise for good health we'd expect medical professionals to be well educated on this front. And they probably are. But their education and knowledge hasn't fixed their weight problems any better than it fixed mine prior to WLS. I don't assume that many WLS practices leave their patients totally ignorant of what to do post-op or long-term. Even most low-cost tourism WLS practices that offer no or minimal after-care provide their patients with post-op handouts and some general counseling about what to eat long-term. The knowledge is there for the reading. Yet many WLS patients (no matter where they had surgery or how much they spent for it) seem helpless or unwilling to change the lifestyles that made them obese. Contemporary US culture is greatly to blame, thanks to the influence of fast food, sedentary lifestyles, a lifetime of terrible habits, and the influence of friends, work colleagues, and family members who are twice as likely to be fat as slim. The pressure from peers and the environmental is horrific, and food that's terrible for us is offered daily as "treats." In the face of so much temptation it's easy to backslide. Sometimes we feel fury at the food gauntlet we have to run. But what's really hard to create is a serene mental space where we feel safe to make on a regular basis the healthy decisions we want to make. WLS procedures provides us with significant metabolic benefits: restriction of a smaller stomach or pouch; the cessation of ghrelin-induced hunger urges (with the sleeve); malabsorption (of the bypass and some other WLS procedures); and a 12-18 month window when our WLS surgeries make it easy for us to eat less, eat healthier, and build healthy new habits. Every WLS patient is given these early advantages to reset their lives, whether they take advantage of them or not. But then weight loss ends and maintenance arrives -- along with diet boredom, holidays, stresses of daily living, health problems (some obesity-related, some not), inclement weather, career setbacks, exercise injuries, the illness and loss of loved ones, etc. In response, some WLS patients return to bad habits and food for comfort. But some don't. Some stay the same weight or perhaps in a small "bounce zone." Some regain 10-15 pounds. Some folks knuckle down and re-lose the regain -- multiple times. Some just keep gaining. Of those, some stop halfway to where they started out pre-op. But some (50% of all WLS patients) regain more than 50% of the weight they lost -- some even regain all the weight they lost. Understandably, I'm curious about why people revert to old behaviors and/or can't sustain what started them on their WLS path and, for some, got them to their goals. But I'm most curious about what distinguishes those who stay at or near their new healthy weights for the long term. Your thoughts?

Not saying that WLS doesn't have effects, sometimes unexpected ones. But all the changes we go through in life post-op won't be due to or even related to our WLS. It's also possible that with our increased mindfulness and attention on all the changes we're going through that we are just more aware / alert to all our physical changes. The good news is that post-op we're much more likely to improve our self-care in every way.

Eating Protein and eating protein first works (for me) like magic. When I eat half a cup of dense protein first at a meal (usually meat) I really feel full, and the food is burned so slowly that I feel satiated for hours afterward. The other "magic" that works for me is just not buying crap and having it around. In the workplace, it's a little more challenging to control your food environment, but there are ways to do it. Get creative if that's one of your challenges. Also, a short walk and a glass of Water (which my body seems to appreciate more after exercise) is helpful to keep the grazing monster at bay. You can do this. You know you can. Just do it. Your reward will be the joy you'll feel in making progress toward your own personal goal.

Yeah, teeth would be a requirement for me -- either original equipment or dentures, doesn't matter.

What a great photo collage. You really do look amazing! Congratulations on all your hard work.

OK, different thought: I was very successful during the weight losing phases of WLS. And coming up on 10 months of being at goal and beyond I've been very successful at maintaining my weight. When I was losing weight I eschewed sugar and most starches, focusing instead on Protein (of both animal and plant varieties), healthy (colored, fibrous) veggies, whole grains and a little fruit. My calories the last two months I was losing weight averaged 1,200/day -- upon advice of my surgical team who explained that if I ate at 800 cals/day for all of my weight-losing phases I might wind up with a body that became too accustomed to those low cals to burn later (in maintenance) at a higher metabolic rate. Well, now that I've been at or below goal for nearly 10 months and am eating 1700 (and lately 1800) calories/day to maintain at 135 pounds, I have a new eating philosophy: I now eat all the healthy things I used to eat -- as well as wine, some dark chocolate, and other simple carbs. So far, that approach is working out well. If it stops working well, I'll change how I'm eating. What we're "supposed" to do really does vary a lot from person to person -- depending on their metabolism, their activity levels, their genetic contributors, etc. I have women friends my age / my size / my activity level who can eat only 1,000 calories a day and maintain their weight. A few people I've met online can eat even more than I can and maintain their weight. This is all very, very personal. We have to take responsibility for understanding what will work for us. I'm so much less of a zealot than I used to be about what everyone should eat to maintain their weight -- because I've watched my own expectations about my own body's responses be shot down by reality. Live and learn! Seriously, it's a good philosophy.

Such a cool thing happening with you, @@Dr-Patient !

I don't think I'd have known it was you. Well done!

@@careya123 ... Boy, you DO like milk! Mooooo!

Am married now, but if I were single I would have zero qualms about dating several guys at one time if I weren't yet serious about any of them. It's called "dating." Not "going steady."

It goes so fast! Especially now -- nearly a year and a half after surgery, looking back -- it seems like a dream. And, honestly, the weight loss time wasn't a hard passage for me at all. I just did every day what I was supposed to do that day. Sounds a little saccharine, I suppose, but I knew that if I did what I was supposed to do I would get back the life I had longed for for so long. And yes, the dream came true.

I didn't think that milk slowed down my weight loss. But I usually drank only one glass of skim milk each day -- rarely, I drank two glasses a day. I also still eat / ate a lot of cheese (full-fat) and was a big fan of Greek yogurt during my weight-losing phases. As a matter of fact, I'm eating a Dannon Oikos vanilla greek yogurt right now. I always thought heifers were very cute animals -- quite attractive!

I reached my goal weight of 150 pounds at 8.5 months after surgery. Surgery day I weighed 216 pounds. But my highest weight (2 months pre-op) was 235. During that pre-op period I lost 11 pounds on my own diet and another 8 pounds on my surgeon's pre-op liver-shrinking diet. I was SO ready to get that wagon rolling! I'd had enough of being fat, immobile, agoraphobic, yuck! I wanted my health and my life back more than it is possible for me to communicate -- even to others who understand what that's like. Since I reached 150 pounds in mid-April 2015 I've very slowly lost another 15 pounds and am now at 135 pounds. I eat so well -- healthy and tasty food and also have some treats. My calorie goal in maintenance has been 1700 calories on the average. I recently just determined I need to raise that to 1800 calories/day to stop losing weight. I don't need or want to lose anymore. If I looked any hotter (at 70 years old) it would be a felony!

My highest weight (about 2 months pre-op) was 235. Lost 19 pounds pre-op. Lost 42 pounds during the first 4 months post-op. I was sleeved at age 68. I'm 5'5" tall. I reached goal (150 pounds) at 8.5 months post-op. 9 months later I've lost another 15 pounds and am at a comfy maintenance weight of 135 pounds. Good luck! (This is NOT a race. In fact, this journey never, never ends.)

I'm sleeping better than I have in 20 years. More exercise, not eating late at night = sleeping longer, deeper. EDIT 24 HOURS LATER: Just remembered this bit: My surgical team urged me pre-op to reduce / cut out caffeine so I wouldn't suffer post-op from recovery issues AND caffeine withdrawal. (The idea there is that our poor little traumatized tummies don't need any extra acid immediately post-op.) Anyway, 10 days post-op my surgeon said I could have a cup of coffee again. And today, 18 months later, I very, very seldom have more than 8 ounces of coffee in a 24-hour period. Obviously I don't drink any more carbonated colas, so no caffeine coming in that way. Therefore, I'll hypothesize that drinking less caffeine than I used to drink also contributes to my better sleep.

Jeez, @@BananaB ... I wasn't suggesting you were crazy. I was suggesting you aren't! And since I'm seeing a therapist and don't think I'm crazy that seeing a therapist doesn't mean their clients are crazy. Your intelligence and humor are self-evident. But (based solely on your initial post above) it's also obvious that you're in considerable emotional and physical discomfort and frustrated with what you've experienced thus far with WLS. If you won't benefit from therapy, then you won't. But as I said, you hadn't mentioned therapy in your OP. And it's something I still recommend you consider. It's been very helpful for me. That's all we can do here based on the limited information we have about each other -- speak from our own perspectives and experience.

Apparently, meat's not a no-no on the Mediterranean Diet -- as long as it's low-fat: meats are eaten in small portions by Mediterranean peoples, who prefer lean cuts. Poultry is a good source of lean Protein without the high levels of saturated fat found in some cuts of red meat. With ground meats, 90 percent lean/10 percent fat is a sound choice. Poultry and red meat common to the traditional Mediterranean Diet include: beef, chicken, duck, goat, guinea fowl, lamb, mutton, pork. http://oldwayspt.org/resources/heritage-pyramids/mediterranean-diet-pyramid/traditional-med-diet

I just eat the Sara Lee multigrain (45 cals/slide) bread. Two slices have 90 calories, 6 grams of Protein and 5 grams of fiber. However, there's a monster protein bread out there you will have to order online (I haven't had it, but @@bikrchk here swears it's great): https://www.p28foods.com