bellabloom

Sorry, but rice is reallllllly hard to eat. It expands in your stomach. I puke with white rice almost every time. Brown rice is a little better. It took a year to eat rice.

It really depends on how your struggling. Is it physical? Emotional? Mental? Give us more info. I've also struggled with food intake for a variety of reasons. It can be very challenging and scary to lose too much weight. There are a lot of dangers involved to being underweight. I have a slow heart rate, abnormally low blood pressure, malnutrition, and hair loss. This is just the beginning. Don't wait and go see whomever it is you need to see to get this sorted out immediately. And if you give us more info maybe we can give more specific advice. hang in there.

Cowgirljane really hits it on the head. When you have this surgery you lose the ability to use food as a coping mechanism and it's difficult to adjust and one must start exploring other behaviors to cope. There is a shock and a loss that happens. There is the realization life will never be the same. There are so many adjustments to make. I've also dealt with a stricture and it is ROUGH. it's draining and exhausting. Give yourself a break, some understanding, and some time. You will adjust and feel better in time.

How underweight? What does your doctor say about it? I am also in this position somewhat

Almost at one year!! Let's get updates on everyone on how they are doing.

Wow a huge difference already!! Happy for you

I'm not really a vet at one year but what the heck. I took the liquid calcium posted above and it's actually not too bad. It tastes like yogurt and could be easily mixed into one.

Cowgirl, you give some of the best advice on here. And it's important for the semi new like me and the brand new ones that those vets stick around and give us advice!! I need to hear about your experiences to prepare for long term life with bariatric surgery. I personally think that when your brand new you have tunnel vision. I know I did. I was so desperate to have the survey be a magic answer. I didn't want to hear about struggles or complications. And many many people are like that!!! No one want to really face the facts- this surgery comes as a cost to almost everyone. But once the honeymoon phase ended I wanted all the help and advice I could get. I'm realizing now this is a lifelong thing I have done and I have to learn to live with it. Please don't go away because we need the support of those like you!!!

My only concern is are you sure you won't lose more weight and your ready to stop trying? I think you look great and really beautiful but it's all about you and your wishes for yourself. You sound frustrated at not having made goal. You know you won't gain weight- why don't you have that confidence in losing the rest? This is because, once you have plastics, if you lose more weight you'll have to have them again. My best friend had plastics higher than goal weight, then regretted it as now, three years later she wants to try and lose more and she is. She will have to do plastics again!! Make sure you really are done before you commit to this. If you are done, then power to you!! Have it done !!!tell the naysayers to stf up, they need to respect your boundaries.

hair loss happens. It's not related to Protein I'm afraid. It's good to get your protein in for other reasons, but you may lose hair regardless. Or you may not! It's just luck. Take your Vitamins and eat your nutrients. Take Biotin in your vitamins. And try not to worry. It's so worth it to lose this weight and it stops eventually.

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Hey everyone. Here is me before at 245 and me now at 118. I'm 5'6 and 35 years old. I'm definitely at goal of not a bit under weight now. I'm working hard on maintaining and not losing anymore. I had surgery about one year ago.

Are you tracking your calories? I'm of the belief that low carb is not enough. If your eating too many calories, you won't lose weight period the end.

I throw up if I eat too much or too fast. I'm about 10 months out. It's hard but one learns to avoid doing it eventually. Throwing up sucks.

Beef Jerky was a huge help for me in getting enough protein. If you chew really well it seems to go down easy. Because we can't drink around meals I also struggle with fluids. I find putting water next to my bed at night helps me drink more through the night when I'm not eating. I don't like to hear that you're throwing up after your meals. Have you discussed this with your doctor? You could be eating too much, too fast, or have a stricture. Please take vitamins. If you can't handle the pills or bariatric ones, do adult gummies. I know it's not the best but it's better than nothing!!!

Loving having my picture taken. That's a huge one for me now!

I'm Bella and I'm a 35 year old single mother of two. My kids are 3 and 6. I'm 5'6 and weigh 118 right now. My start weight before surgery was 245. For a living I'm a photographer although I am transitioning into teaching high school. It's been a wish of mine to be a teacher as long as I can remember. I live in California near the beach! I'm lucky. I've always struggled with my weight. My mom put me on diets starting age 11, because although I was a normal weight she was worried I was eating too much and would gain. This and an unstable childhood environment set me up for emotional eating and insecurity. I had very disordered eating all through college. Binge eating followed by crash dieting. For about 6 months I even became bulimic. I was a normal weight, about 150-160 pounds but it was always so hard to stay there. When I got pregnant the first time I gained 100 pounds because I binge ate. I was very unhappy in my marriage and it was the first time is 15 years I wasn't on a diet. After that I got some eating disorder therapy and learned to maintain my weight but I was very unhappy with it. I gained another 40 over the next 5 years and had another baby, which really took a toll on my body. I decided to have bariatric surgery because I had really bad back pain and lost all hope in dieting. I was still an occasional binge eater and hoped it would stop that behavior. I was also newly divorced and wanted a new start. I had gastric bypass dec 4 2014. The surgery went well at first but then I had some complications. I ended up having it reversed and changed to a gastric sleeve. After my sleeve I developed a severe stricture and could only eat Water broth and cheese for 6 months without throwing up. I threw up everything, even smoothies and Soup. I finally got in with a new surgeon (my first one was horrible) and he dialiated my structure and made things a lot better. I still have a small stricture and have to be very careful when I eat. It can be pretty painful for me to eat and I have to go super slow and chew and chew. For awhile I was so traumatized I would throw up if even the slightest thing got stuck but I'm working last that now. Because of al this I've lost weight extremely fast and surpassed my goal weight. I'm struggling with upping my calories because I am very afraid of gaining weight back after everything I've been through. I'm actually seeking eating disorder therapy now because my experiences have triggered a lot of difficult emotions in me and it's been really hard to stop losing weight. I'm finding maintenance to be the hardest part of this. Inspite of all of this I would do my surgery again in a heart beat. I love my thin body and I feel so much better physically than I did when I was overweight. I love the control I have over what I eat and that I can't binge anymore. I do have my issues to face still and I need to find balance but I know I'm close to where I want to be, and I could never have been happy or healthy at my prior weight. My confidence and joy is high now and my self love is getting better everyday. I'm in a place where I can grow in a positive direction and build upon, and that's a wonderful feeling. That's my story!! And here I am Before: Now:

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I researched the patch Vitamins and apparently they don't work very well. I have some pretty serious deficiencies going on now so I can't afford to screw around. I have a very hard time swallowing pills and taking vitamins by mouth, they make me very nauseated and I already have a hard time eating enough so I don't need that. The best I can do is gummy vitamins. I found one with most of what I need and am concentrating on nutrient dense food in my diet like kale, spinach, broccoli, etc to get as much as I can that way. Vitamins are an absolute must!!

I really sympathize with your post and I'm wondering how are you doing? I wish more people on here would discuss this topic. I've really struggled and am still struggling with entering maintianence. My BMI is about 18.5 and I'm still losing although slowly. I'm as thin as I want to get. The problem in having is the fear of gaining weight back. After such a hard journey to lose weight it's so hard to up my intake and stop. I've even questioned whether I've developed an eating disorder or whether this is just some post traumatic stress over what I've been through over weight. After having weight loss as a goal for so long, and finally achieving it, there is such a good feeling in seeing the scale finally going down- it's hard to give that up. It's hard to say, I'm done. Because it was something we wanted for so long and couldn't get. I hope your doing okay and please message me if you ever want to talk.

Update. I am going bald. Hair is literally breaking off. Take your vitamins I got the patches and they are awesome

We are made to feel guilty about putting the blame on other people, but sometimes the fault does lay in others. Wether intentional or not, your mother impacted your relationship with food to the negative. I LOVE my mother. She is my best friend. But as a child she put me on diets and she has criticized my weight one way or another my entire life. She is very concerned with her own weight and looks and that kind of attitude can be very influential to children. We need our parents to give us support and unconditional love and sometimes in trying to help us they actually hurt us. I think the proper thing to do is to explore the issue, accept that what happened happened, forgive, and move forward. You can't do anything about the past but you can choose to overcome these scars and build a healthy relationship with yourself from here on out. Overweight people tend to be very hard and self critical, feel guilty about their weaknesses and need perfection. It's time to forgive her, forgive yourself, and move into a new chapter.

It seems like a lot of people regain their weight after the band. I wouldn't blame yourself so much. It's not your fault the success rate of that type of surgery is poor. I wish you all the best and you should be proud of yourself for keeping in the right direction.

I've been debating wether to post on this. I've decided to because I've felt very alone on this forum as it seems there aren't many wls patients who have also struggled with this type of eating disorder and I want to share my experience in case anyone is out there and afraid to speak up about this issue. I've had an eating disorder for about 15 years. I've gone through periods of anorexia, bulimia, and obsessive binge eating. My weight has gone from average(145-150) to overweight (250) to now underweight at 115. Five years before I had wls surgery I went through a rough period of bulimia/ binge eating and sought out treatment. I was in a 30 day outpatient program. It helped me get past bulimia but I was never able to stop compulsive binge eating which got me up to my highest weight and lead me towards wls. I knew going into this that wls surgery could trigger my eating disorder and it has, big time. I am now truly anorexic with some bulimic behaviors also, and although I've been telling myself when I get to goal weight I will eat to maintain that is simply not happening. My goal weight keeps dropping and I'm sure I'm not going to be able to stop losing on my own. I've been in weekly therapy with an eating disorder therapist and dietician since I had surgery and sadly it just hasn't been enough to keep me from slipping into this. She has been watching me literally waste away for months now and is very concerned. While my BMI is still technically in the normal range, I've recently begun losing about 3 pounds per week again because I've simply stopped trying to maintain and it's only going to go downhill from here. I look in the mirror and I can see all of my ribs and my body looks like a little girls. But as soon as I walk away from the mirror I feel fat again and want to lose more. Body dysmorphia is a real thing. For me the issue is complicated, wrapped up in fear of regaining, a deep sense of satisfaction and safety in seeing the scale drop, anxiety around most foods and the inability to see how thin I've gotten and feel comfortable in my skin. Dieting and losing weight is the way I feel in control of my life, and eating is an emotional comfort that goes very deep in me and leads me into guilt and an ugly cycle of feeling guilty about food even in small portions. Being overweight in this world is very difficult. I was tortured about it as a child and simply equated my own self worth with my weight regardless of health and logic. Having an eating disorder is an indescribable horror. It consumes your life and makes it impossible to function normally and be successful and happy. I promised myself that if I got to this point where I felt out of control and in a full fledged relapse I would admit myself into treatment before it took over my life again and I hurt myself. Being post wls I feel like I'm already fragile enough and to be unable to adequately eat is putting me at major risk for serious health issues. It's gotten so bad lately I'm having trouble even taking in Water and I'm resistant to Vitamins, basically I'm unable to care for myself correctly. Thoughts about food and weight take up all of my attention and I'm suffering in my relationships, work, family life, etc. I'm going to go into a live in therapy program for 30-90 days and hopefully get past this so I can enjoy my life and maintain my weight in the future. If there is anyone out there struggling with an eating disorder I'd love to chat with you. I'm grateful for the support I've received on this forum from so many wonderful people and though I may not post for awhile my heart is with you all in your journey.

I ordered the patch vitamins! Thanks!!! Yup. Doctor never mentioned it.