lauraellen80

Hopefully it didn't happen in the middle of the grocery store or something!

So far, I'm been able to mostly "shop" in my own closet. I have a lot of old clothes, some of them rarely or never worn, in sizes ranging from 20W down to 10. I kept all the smaller sizes hoping to fit into them again someday. I've bought a few things on sale at Target to supplement--a couple t-shirts, a pair of jeans.

Do keep in mind that the reduction in ghrelin is not permanent--your body will eventually figure out other ways to produce it. There are also other hormones that are partially responsible for hunger, and surgeons/researchers still don't know all the factors that come into play with hunger. BUT--the "honeymoon period" of the first year, year-and-a-half when your hunger is greatly reduced or gone completely is the time to set yourself up with good habits and relearn your body's signals. Some people say that their hunger (real hunger, as opposed to "head hunger") has never come back, but you can't count on it.

I lost 16.4 pounds in the three months between my initial consultation with the surgeon and the start of my pre-op diet. I just tracked everything with the My Fitness Pal app. I still had some "food funerals" but tried to get started on better habits overall. That put me at a BMI of 39.9, but my insurance had already approved the surgery, and I did have some comorbidities. Then I lost another 10 pounds on the 2-week liquid pre-op diet, so my weight on the morning of surgery was 208.4. I feel like losing some beforehand helped kickstart my post-surgery loss, and it wasn't quite as jarring of a change as it would have been if I'd eaten like crazy up until the day I started the pre-op diet. I cut out caffeine (along with all the sugary creamer that I dump in my coffee) during that time, too. I also started regular therapy in the months before surgery to help deal with some of the issues underneath my overeating, and I continue it post-op.

Oh, yes. This is part of why many of us chose surgery. I was actually just talking about this to my therapist today and mentioned this Louis C.K. bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuO4OZJ5ncY (edited to add: NSFW, language) "I don't stop eating when I'm full. The meal isn't over when I'm full. It's over when I hate myself." Start weighing/portioning out your food now, so you start making it a habit. Since surgery, I find I eat very slowly, and I will start to pause longer between bites as I get over halfway through my serving to "check in" with myself. I'm just over two months out, and it's much much much easier to tell when I'm full. Good luck!

Benefiber didn't work for me--I think it actually made my constipation worse. I second @@Elode's suggestion of Smooth Move Tea. I've been drinking a cup every few days, and it's quite effective.

Yes, I actually worked the weekend, and my surgery was first thing Monday morning. In fact, on Saturday we had a special event at work that I coordinated, involving tastings from a local distillery and fabulous catered food. It was tough, but I made it! Two days of teaching should be doable--just know that you will probably need to go home and take a nap afterwards!

I've been wondering about this, too. Our scale was my husband's before we got together and is fairly old for a digital scale, so I question how accurate it is and want a new one. But I'm stuck on whether to get one that measures body fat or not.

@KathyRS--you and I are right around the same stats, as far as starting weight, goal, etc. You're just a couple inches taller. I anticipated being incredibly grouchy and short-tempered during the pre-op diet, but I wasn't that bad. Well, maybe you should ask my husband. I was able to keep myself together at work as far as not losing my cool with people. I did have a couple times where I had to lock myself in the bathroom to have a crying jag and hyperventilate for bit. Post-op, I had trouble concentrating for the first couple of weeks--all my plans to catch up on hand-sewing projects and watch BBC period dramas while I was off work went out the window, and I mainly vegged out watching Friends and Gilmore Girls reruns, because I just couldn't focus on anything substantive. By the end of that first month, though, I was back to normal. That's where it helps to really focus on getting in your fluids and your protein--once you get your intake of both of those to where it should be, along with taking your Vitamins, that foggy-headed feeling will go away.

I was someone who also worried, "What if I have the surgery and just don't lose weight? What if I'm the weirdo that it doesn't work for?" Well, I'm two months out and have lost almost 60 pounds, so that worry was not valid! As for having too much spare time--like others said, you can still enjoy going to restaurants and cooking, you will just do more planning for it and eat less at a time. As you get healthier, you'll also be able to do other things that you couldn't do before--I've been able to start taking walks and working in my garden. The first couple weeks after surgery can be a struggle, but it varies from person to person--and it goes by quickly. My recovery was fairly smooth, and I was able to move pretty easily through the food phases and haven't had trouble with much of anything as far as solid foods. I don't have kids, so I can't speak to that, but as for being grumpy... really, the only time that I've been truly grumpy during this process was during the first week of my pre-op diet, when I was only allowed liquids and limited veggies (plus I had just started my period, it was awful!). Sure, there are times when I'm not losing as fast as I want to, or I have moments of wishing I could sit down with a giant plate of nachos, but overall I am much happier and more pleasant than when I was 235 lbs, in pain and out of breath all the time, sitting out activities because I couldn't physically do them or was embarrassed about how I looked. Good luck to you!

When I started the pre-op process, my husband decided to start doing Herbalife shakes, and he would have his "real food" meal at lunch when we weren't eating together. Partly this was to keep me from having to watch him eat real food while I was on a liquid diet, and partly for his own health. He's lost about 30 pounds so far... I just worry about him being able to keep it up over time. He tends to get very discouraged when his weight loss slows or stalls (we did Weight Watchers together a few years ago). I don't know if he would do the surgery or not--when I was just a couple weeks post-op and we went to the shore with friends, he leaned over to me at dinner one night as I ate my 1/4 cup of refried beans and everyone else was feasting and said, "I'm so proud of you... I don't know how you're doing this, I wouldn't be able to."

Like others have said, I don't think that she meant to be hurtful. In general, people kinda suck at being supportive of others. I mean,you hear so many stories of people who get a cancer diagnosis, and their friends all disappear because they feel awkward and don't know how to handle it. Anyway, I wouldn't push her away because of this. She did reach out to you, albeit in a kinda dumb way. She also may be feeling hurt that you didn't feel like you could share it with her (which I totally understand--I have a number of friend that I haven't told yet). So I'd say, move on from this, keep in touch with her, and keep up the good work!

1. It really varies from person to person. I haven't noticed any huge changes in my tastes so far, but I do notice that some sweet things taste too intensely sweet. 2. Again, it varies a lot from person to person. Some people have no hunger for a long time post-op, some people say they feel hungry from day 1. Personally, I do get hungry if I haven't eaten for several hours, but it's satisfied with a small amount of food. I am 2 months out from surgery. 3. True food addiction requires psychological intervention. The surgeon only operates on your stomach, not your brain. The surgery is not going to make that "head hunger"--those thoughts of "OMG, I HAVE TO SCARF DOWN A HUGE GREASY BURGER RIGHT NOW"--go away. At first, you physically won't be able to scarf down a big greasy burger, but eventually, you may, and if you don't starting working on breaking those habits and thought patterns, now, you will be setting yourself up for failure down the road. I started therapy before surgery and am continuing for as along as I need to afterward to keep my head in a good place. Oh, and the first few days of the pre-op diet are the worst... it does get easier. Good luck!

If you like Chobani, you might try their "Simply 100" yogurts. The stats are: 100 calories (duh) 0 grams fat 14 grams carbs w/ 7 of those being sugar 12 grams Protein Ingredients: Nonfat Yogurt (Cultured Pasteurized Nonfat Milk, Live and Active Cultures: S. Thermophilus, L. Bulgaricus, L. Acidophilus, Bifidus and L. Casei), Blueberries, Chicory Root Fiber, Water, Evaporated Cane juice, Natural Flavors, Pectin, Locust Bean Gum, Monk Fruit Extract, Stevia Leaf Extract.

I use Centrum chewables. They work fine for me, and I can get them at Target.

That's insane! I would have wondered if I was on some hidden-camera prank show! My info session wasn't nearly as entertaining... just one woman who got kinda huffy when the surgeon said that during surgery they use muscle-relaxing drugs. "Really, do you have to use them?" "Um, yes, that way your muscles don't contract while we're in there operating." "Oh... well, I guess I can't have this surgery, then!"

Welcome! Best of luck with your insurance!

Oh, and also--going crazy with food when you've decided on surgery is totally a thing, referred to as "food funerals." I was doing a lot of that for awhile, then I decided that it wasn't going to help me any, but that I'd plan for a special meal once a week leading up to my pre-op diet, things that I wouldn't be able to eat again and wanted to say "goodbye" to. That worked well.

I'd say, pick one thing at a time to work on and once you have that under control, add another. That way you won't get too overwhelmed. Personally, I knew that I might murder someone if I had to kick caffeine at the same time as I was doing a liquid diet. So I started cutting back on caffeine slowly a few weeks before that--eliminating any extra sources beyond my morning coffee (like iced teas, Coke, etc.), then only drinking one big travel mug of coffee instead of two, then drinking from a slightly smaller mug, and so on until I cut out coffee completely. The pre-op diet was miserable enough as it was--I'm sooooo glad I wasn't going through caffeine withdrawal at the same time (as an extra crappy bonus, I started my period shortly after starting my liquid diet, too!). Good luck! You can do it!

This may sound weird, but... try gently "tapping" on them instead of scratching. It's a trick people use with new tattoos that are healing. Helps relieve some of the itch without doing damage.

Tofu would be good if you're on soft foods.

The dietician in my surgeon's office was nice enough... I dunno about how helpful she was, beyond giving me accountability in the a couple months pre-op by checking my MFP logs. She was young--still in her twenties, I'd guess--but the meal plans and advice she gave seemed straight out of the 90s. Low-fat or fat-free everything, with a lot more carbs than most people on here seem to eat. I just plugged in one of the sample "one year out" menus that she gave me, and it's 41% carbs (80g), 21% fat (18g), and only 38% Protein (74g). She quit right around the time I had surgery (she was very pregnant, I'm guessing she decided to stay home after the baby came), and the new dietician hadn't started yet when I went back for my first follow-up. I'm really hoping they have someone on staff when I go in for an appointment tomorrow, because I have a lot of questions about what and how much I'm supposed to be eating at this point (7 weeks out) and the rest of my weight loss phase, and I'm still super-confused about carbs.

Paneer tikka masala from our local Indian place, no rice. I ate about 1/4 cup and had a few sips of a mango lassi until I got all worried about the lassi and whether it would be considered a "fluid" and if I shouldn't have it right after the paneer. I ate a little more of the paneer the next day for lunch but then told my husband he could eat the rest and drink the rest of the lassi. This was in the soft foods phase. I could probably eat a bit more of the paneer now at 6.5 weeks out, but I still need to ask my NUT about the lassi.

My surgeon and dietician's instructions only said not to use straws for the first week or so. I regularly use a Hydro Flask water bottle that has a straw--like others said, it can help you get in your fluids. I'd say, try it out and see how it works for you.