VSGAnn2014

Whoops! I missed this one. Well, alrighty.

The OP asked: I'm just curious what guides others' decisions to tell or not? There's "ignorance" that stems from not having relevant information or education, and then there's "ignorance" that comes from never having had the kind of specific experience that delivers knowledge and even wisdom to those who have had that experience. Examples include being a parent, being a combat veteran, and (yes) having been obese most of your life. It's my observation that those who have never been obese have a very different view of what it takes to overcome obesity. They simply don't get it. That is how most of my friends and family feel, many of whom are confused if not downright disgusted by fat people. Therefore, what guided my decision to remain on the down low re WLS (I was sleeved 14.5 months ago) was that I simply didn't want to have any of those conversations wherein I had try (over and over) to explain and educate people who have never been obese. Plus, when you have those kinds of conversations, there's also an element of seeking agreement and even approval for my most personal decisions that sneaks in. And I didn't want to get even close to that emotional monster. This is my body, my decision, my life.

"We'll talk about it." Yeah, right.

You're trying for Sainthood? I have a suggestion -- try aiming to be just a plain old human being going through a rough situation. I make this sincere suggestion, having gone through my husband's diagnosis last fall (two months after my own VSG surgery) with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and his chemo, radiation and other treatments, which are ongoing. It's time to take care of yourself first. I suspect that you're putting everyone else (including the dogs) before you. If you make this change, no one will notice that you've started to care for yourself. But you will immediately feel the difference. (This completely unsolicited advice comes with my apologies if you're already putting yourself first and caring for yourself.)

I really am curious -- what were you hoping to learn by starting this thread?

I just like staring at my skinny legs. My. Skinny. Legs. :)

My doc gave me the go-ahead for coffee 10 days post-op. However, I drink a lot less coffee now than I used to, having cut way down during the pre-op diet. These days I drink 1/2 to 1 cup of coffee -- combined with hot skim milk for skinny lattes in the morning. I can give up a lot of drugs (and have given up some), but coffee will surely be the very last drug I ever give up.

Seriously, what were you looking for / hoping to learn / hear when you posted your OP? Also, consider doing this: Ask your surgeon if you've really understood his instructions -- are you supposed to NEVER EVER eat any fruit again. Or does he just mean for a certain period during your weight loss phase(s). His instructions are such an outlier amongst all the other bariatric program instructions that I seriously wonder if you have misunderstood what he said.

Gee -- you really didn't learn anything from this thread?

I have seen two nutritionists -- both of whom primarily work with diabetics who are struggling to manage their disease through diet. Honestly, I found my NUTs pretty worthless. I don't think they taught me anything useful. Happily, my bariatric P.A. is brilliant about nutrition for bariatric patients. I've learned a lot from her. One thing she guided me toward was increasing my calories gradually upward (while I was losing weight) so that I wouldn't teach my body to survive on too few calories. I'll be forever grateful to her -- I'm in maintenance now at 140 pounds and averaging 1,700 calories/day to maintain.

Yeah, no. I hope you will find the discussion of obesity and its causes at this link educational: https://asmbs.org/patients/disease-of-obesity

Shaking my head at some of the ignorance by doctors and nurses described above. It's particularly awful to experience something like this -- because the comments are usually made in situations where patients have ZERO power, compared to the assholes who are making these comments. You're either already in a hospital bed being cared for by them or you're in a relationship where the doctor has a ridiculous amount of power to decide if they will treat you and how well they will treat you. And thanks to all the wonderful, wonderful doctors, nurses and other medical personnel out there. You guys are angels on earth.

To try and answer my own questions ... 1. What behaviors / skills did you develop to compensate for being fat? First, I'm an extrovert, so there's that. And I'm the oldest sibling, so there's all that first-child stuff going on. By the time I hit high school I was trying to run everything you could get elected to run. And by then I was definitely the big girl with the big personality. Did I develop the big personality as compensation for being overweight? I think, even with my natural bent in those directions, that I did to some extent. I think I learned very early on that if you have a disadvantage (and let's face it, young fat girls and fat teenage girls do have social disadvantages) it pays to lead with any other strengths you have. I was lucky that I had other strengths. So I wound up being the hardest-working, most dependable, get 'er done, leap-into-the-breach employee, daughter, friend, and random stranger in an emergency I could possibly be. Someone needs to pull an all-nighter? Glad to do it. Someone needs to care for our mother with Alzheimers? Nobody can do it as well as I can. The big upside to all this is that I learned to take big risks in life, most of which paid off in many ways in both my career and personal life. I've had adventures, even when I failed! But the inevitable downside included decades of all-nighters. And moving 1,000 miles to another state to move Mother into our home and fund 24/7 caregivers because a nursing home couldn't possibly care for her the way I could. In other words, delegating to others (and trusting others) did not become one of my superpowers because I had learned to believe I was responsible for everything. 2. Do you think you'll change (and how) when you're thin? Definitely! I've been normal-sized for about 6 months now and maintaining at 140 pounds at 5'5". My anxiety is noticeably lower. I feel less judgmental of others whose performance standards are lower / different from mine. I don't think it's coincidental that I'm sweating the small stuff a lot less. Yet I wouldn't have predicted some of the changes I've undergone. Maybe it's just that I have more energy, am no longer in pain, no longer disappointed in myself, sleeping better. Perhaps these health improvements have resulted in my lower anxiety levels, feeling less irritable and not in "emergency mode" all the time. This is an important topic for me, and I'm going to think about this some more.

I don't know if this will help or not, but if I were you I'd try NOT to fantasize about food all the time or talk about it so much. For me, self-talk (even if it's silent and inside my head) has been a powerful influence in my WLS journey. I've used this forum as a forum of self-talk. I do try to be pretty positive about my WLS. But then I am pretty positive about it. My point is that how I think about WLS and how I talk about it -- anywhere, even just to myself -- reinforces my attitudes toward it. And those attitudes influence how I act.

No, my bariatric program encourages eating fruit -- after we have conquered Protein, colored veggies, and have a little more room left. I think your surgeon doesn't know squat about nutrition. Many fruits have a lot more going for them than "just a sugar stick," including Fiber, Vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, phytonutrients.

FTR, everyone here doesn't have a food addiction. Not judging. Just reporting.

Rog, Thanks for quoting all that. Really appreciate it. However, those findings don't identify or even hypothesize *why* weight loss ends and weight stabilizes after 18 months. My own (untested) hypothesis would be that it's due to a combination of these factors: * Weight has lowered to the point where the amount of food eaten is at the maintenance level for that weight. * People get bored around 18 months with their high-Protein diets and start nibbling or eating higher calorie foods. * Or something else. I will offer this -- I've been eating 1700 calories on average for months and months, while still losing 1-2 pounds a month for nearly 6 months. And now around 139-140 my weight is finally holding steady. I've weighed 140 for the last 4 Monday mornings. So I think I've finally found my maintenance level. (Of course, that's the level for the amount of exercise I'm doing now.) Jeez ... this is just one long old science experiment!

In my considerable Internet experience, all message boards (on all subjects imaginable) acquire "veterans." And eventually most veterans become inactive and leave for many different reasons, e.g., they've said all they can say 10,000 times, their interest in the board topic wanes, they go off and form their own "veteran communities," newer veterans unseat them, they become so irritable and grumpy that they leave of their own accord (or get banned), and other reasons. But while they're around, they are valuable resources. I'm only 14+ months post-op. But I do know a lot about the VSG experience generally (I'm a huge researcher) -- and even more about my own VSG experience. But I don't personally know a lot about complications (leaks, strictures, botched surgeries, psychological traumas triggered or exacerbated by WLS, binge-eating, and a lot of other things. I know what has worked for me. And I'm a pretty typical VSG patient: No complications, needing to lose around 100 pounds, a woman (although older than most), with a good deal of resilience after having seen what life can throw at fat people. But I'm not a WLS "expert." None of us is. All we are is a WLS community, where all the members are here for their own reasons -- not for any one else's. And they'll all do what they do. Once again -- take here what helps you, leave the rest. And a big protip: Unless you're the board owner or a moderator here, any member who tries to police a message board will probably get nothing but grief from all sides. It's just the way it works. Always has, always will. It's the Internet.

I have to say ... I'm leery when I hear that "somebody's NUT / bariatric coordinator" has uttered a statement like: "Your metabolism starts to slow down at 18 months." Before I take that factoid and wallpaper the inside of my skull with it I'd like to know a lot more about the research (if any) that supports that assertion. And if it's true, I would want to understand why that happens, e.g., whether it's also related to changes in food, sodium, Fiber, slider foods, exercise, boredom, etc.

I would never try to persuade someone to have this surgery. YOU have to want it because you're comfortable having it. Speaking purely about myself ... I was certain (at 68 years old) I'd never lose all the weight I needed to lose or that I'd be able to maintain the weight loss even if I could lose all that weight -- since I'd NEVER maintained a significant weight loss for longer than few weeks in my whole life. And I was completely gung ho and committed to being the most successful sleeved patient the world had ever seen. At 14+ months post-op, I've lost 95 pounds, reached my goal at 8.5 months post-op, and am now at 140 pounds and maintaining very stably. And I feel stable, something I've never, ever felt at the end of a weight loss experience. So I say, if you're not feeling gung ho about this surgery, don't have the surgery. Go for the continued weight loss by doing what you're doing now. If you achieve your goal and can maintain your weight, yea, you! After all, as many as 5% of those who lose a lot of weight without WLS do maintain their weight loss -- and you could be in that minority who do achieve maintenance. P.S. For the record, I am not constipated or suffer from GERD any more than I did pre-op. My hair's all grown back, my knees don't hurt anymore, and I have more non-scale victories than I have time to list here. Doesn't mean you have to have WLS to achieve similar victories. But I certainly did. Very, very best to you! P.P.S. If you're not in therapy right now, please consider it. There are reasons why we don't care for ourselves well enough to avoid obesity, which is a disease that spirals out of control. Yes, many of us have the dice loaded against us. But we also contribute to our disease's spiral through our self-neglect.

I see many examples of this myself. In fact, I think that "growing up fat" required I develop significant compensating behaviors and skills to overcome the downside of being fat. This is a big subject. The topic would benefit from its own thread.

See, I knew someone would pick up the slack. Congratulations -- you got the job.

I think you're going to be GREAT at this. In fact, I've often thought that it would be helpful if everyone HAD to "get off the horse" and then "get back on the horse" -- just to exercise their re-commitment muscles. Go for it. And let us know how you're doing.

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LOL! You are a ball of liquid. You're chock-full of IV fluids you were pumped with while in the hospital. Be patient. You're about to drop a lot of weight. Then you'll hit the "three week stall" which everyone does. And then that'll end and you'll lose weight faster again.