FluffytoFab

I also chose to tell only a few close family members about the VSG. I have EXTEREMLY nosey neighbors (a friend of mine) so they actually suspected me of having bariatric surgery. I told them I had hernia surgery because my hubby slipped and said I had surgery (but not what type).
When people were shocked at how quickly I was losing, I said I'm working out and eating high Protein low carb - which is true (yet omitting the teeny portions). I just stuck to that and now they don't ask except for "what are you doing" advice. Then I share snack ideas etc and then move on.

I did everything "right" through my post-op food stages. I followed my post-op nutrition plan like it was my Bible. I did my 60 total minutes of "brisk walking" per day. I got my Water and Protein in. Hit 100 grams of Protein daily before I was even back on solid foods. As soon as I was cleared for more intense exercise, I started Couch to 5k and strength training. I met my goal weight right at my one year mark and have been maintaining for almost 16 months.
I definitely don't do everything "right" anymore, but I do it well enough to maintain! Once you are in maintenance, it's about making good choices like 80-90% of the time.

I am crying reading your story. Not tears if sorrow but of joy. God Bless you. You are an inspiration!! There us a saying "when you are going thru hell...keep going" you have persevered and came through and your strength is a testament to your inner soul. You are precious and beautiful. May your light continue to shine and help to lead those who may also be on a difficult journey. You go girl!!! You are a rockstar!! Your pics,are beautiful!!!
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The statistics were against me. I went to the hospital completely unsure if I would have the courage to go through with my surgery, and terrified I would die. No one... I promise you, NO ONE, ever wanted to have bariatric surgery less than I. I was an emotional food addict whose life had shrunk so much that food was my entire social life. I weighed 367.8 pounds, had out of control diabetes, and could no longer walk across my own kitchen on most days. I needed both knees replaced and my doctor refused to do it until I lost a lot of weight.
The night before my surgery I was alone in the house and I sobbed a funeral dirge for my best friend, food. I was certain I would lose my mind without it.
My friends, are you hesitating?? Struggling? Regretting?? If you can stay with me, read on.
I will tell you that after the first month there hasn't been one day in five years that I haven't thought, "I never could have done this before."
My journey has been difficult, and you will have your struggles, too. The first year, I cared for and buried my beloved sister--my "person" in this world--who died in my arms. The second year, I had my right knee replaced. The third year, my left knee. My weight loss stalled, but I never gave up. The fourth year, my father died and right afterwards, my husband almost died and needed months of nursing.
I didn't tell you all that to whine. I told you in order to try to put some context to my life, because in spite of all that sorrow and pain, I am filled with joy. I have taken back my life, and you can, too.
When I came out of my surgery, I vowed that having taken the drastic step of altering my body, I was going to be all in. I have honored that vow.
I had to learn to walk again. Now I am a landscape, wedding and portrait photographer.
I had to accept that I couldn't go on vacation and eat like the old me without gaining back weight it took me months to lose. Now I usually drop a couple of pounds on vacation, and I have one thing every day that I really want. To eat, that is!! I get to have experiences instead of food now!
I had to accept that carbs are not part of my daily eating. But I have learned to actually prefer zucchini spaghetti!!
Most importantly, I learned that no one will ever abuse me again. And that includes me.
I learned that emotional eating may feel like self care, but it is self destruction, and self destruction and self preservation can never exist side by side.
Last year, I photographed the cliffs of Maine, the mountains of West Virginia (going by rope down to the waterfalls), beaches in the Carolinas, and so many other things. (Check out my stuff at mlwolfephotos.com if you are inclined!).
I could babble on and on...
Today, I am at my lowest weight in 34 years. I have not met my weight loss goal. I'm still just over 200 pounds--a weight many people begin this journey at!! It may take me a year, but I'll get there.
On January 1st I turned 60, and I cried. A lot. I didn't cry because I was 60. I cried because I wasted so many years... My 30s... My 40s...half my 50s. I cannot get them back. But I have what's left, and I will cherish each breath.
So, I lost much of my stomach. I lost 153 pounds. I gained the world.
I wish that for each and every one of you! May you work to make all your dreams come true!
Attaching a few pics, not just of what I look(ed) like, but of who I am!!!

I counted everything I could as Fluid. I was never a Water drinker and still struggle with it, so I drink a lot of herbal teas, coffee, no calorie iced tea, and use squirty stuff in my Water when I actually drink it. So yes, I counted my shakes, too, when I was newly post op. Still alive after 2.5 years.

Let's start throwing out personal attacks! Awesome way to support your viewpoint! That said, I wish I'd done this at 28.
I lost 80 with WWs at that age, gained it back. Lost 88 with phentermine at 33, gained it back. Lost 60 with exercise at 36, gained it back.
Lost 112 three and a half years ago with WLS. Maintaining like a dream.

@@theantichick
I really wish I could reach through my IPad and hug you!!!! I swear I could not stop shaking my head yes yes yes.....what she said!
Thank YOU so much for taking the time. It would be great if we copy and paste this everytime someone does something crazy their first few days, weeks post op.
I appreciate that you get it and are helping others!

Yes, avoid high carb foods as they won't satisfy you for very long before you will be hungry again. Explore The World According to Eggface. She has numerous recipes when the surgeon says you are ready.
Banded 10/12/16

You've made it this far, you can do it. How many more days until you are allowed mushies? Have you tried egg drop or miso Soup for a change? How about strained bean soup?

As @@Sai said above, you are still healing. Your good health is worth much more than a few bites of ANYTHING before your body is ready.

Chew some gum, brush your teeth, rinse with Listerine (the nastiest liquid on earth), use those nasty Listerine strips -- nothing tastes good after that. Helped me make it through for sure...

Nothing that comes in a can is really that good anyway. Seriously. It's habit. You will be able to eat anything you want again next holiday season, but you will eat it in teeny portions and while wearing a MUCH smaller size. Focus on how awesome it will feel to fit into booths, wear single digit sized pants, shop anywhere you want...

It's ALL worth it.

Wait, whuuuuuuut?

There is a BIG difference between creating your own path by eating what you choose to eat on/off plan both pre and post op and eating something that could potentially cause serious health risks 3 or 5 days post op.
I really don't give a rat's patoot if you choose to eat a cupcake, a pizza, a taco or an entire pan of brownies if you so desire once you are cleared for all foods. That said, I am certainly not going to help you justify that behavior, especially if you know it's a poor choice and you are looking for permission to make said choices.

If you are on liquids or mushies and eating pork chops and swedish fish and come here looking for validation or a stamp of approval? It's probably not going to happen.
If it's working for you, AWESOME! I can make poor choices, too, at 3.5 years out because I learned good habits along the way by sticking to my doc's PRESCRIBED diet.
But that's just me. It says so in my signature.

I was a definately foodie before and am still a foodie now. My tastes have simply changed and for the better.
The first 4 to 6 months I was pretty limited in what I would tolerate but I am over two years post op now. Honestly I can eat whatever I want but i am super particular about what I eat.
I love date night and enjoy trying new things. The good news is, I always have a lot of leftovers and hubby and I share things as well.
Prior to surgery I would have a cocktail when going out, now I absolutely LOVE decent wine so I choose that as my drink with dinner which I ONLY do when i go out. The rest of the time, I follow the not drinking with my meal rule to a tee.
Nothing passes these lips that doesnt taste good or makes me feel good. I figure, I can only eat so much so it damn well better be worth it. I also do restrict carbs and honestly i feel bad when I eat them so I choose to avoid them as much as possible.
I also love to cook and cook differently than I once did. Instead of all the Pasta (I am Italian), I enjoy cooking delicious Proteins and veggie dishes.
I still love food, its just different now.

Meh. After almost 3 years on this forum, I'm used to it by now
I so wanted the vets input and knowledge when I first started! I hung on their every word, even when they told me I didnt know what I was talking about. They are the reason I've been successful thus far. It honestly gets me a little misty eyed just to say that.
It may be my tone. I'm not the most warm and fuzzy person, and it rubs people the wrong way sometimes. But I'm straight to the point, and that should at least be appreciated, darn it!

No, not "end of discussion". I didn't say I was going to block newbies, I said I was going to block newbies and ANYONE who comes in guns blazing and name calling. I am here to support people, not to watch someone give good advice and be called an a-hole for doing so.

I'm fairly certain none of the above is on the diet plan of someone who is two weeks post op.
Just sayin!

I haven't been on here much at all the last 4 or 5 months. No need to beat a dead horse but as so many are saying, some of the posts just got old. I am not sure if it is the same when I started this journey almost 2 years ago or not. I read every word a vet offered and was so grateful for all of them. I am 8 weeks post lower body lift / arm lift and struggling a bit with my food addiction and just this morning I thought "Hey I am 18 months post-op RNY. I qualify for Vet forum posting!" So anyway just thought I would pop in and say hello.
My struggle is either I will binge on bad foods or get busy and not eat enough. I am still so very thankful for the miracle of WLS but I definitely need to figure out the "healthy living" part of it all and switch my focus off the actual weight (though that is much easier to say after finally losing my last 10 pounds of stinking swelling after plastics).
Anywho, thought checking back in might be just what the Dr ordered and as @InnerSurferGirl has suggested before, perhaps it is tine for me to investigate OA...
Hope all is well with you all!!
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One more thought.
I think it's important to realize that everyone who is a "vet" and is posting on this board is very likely doing so because they want everyone on this board to be successful. I have yet to meet anyone here who has even a shred of malicious intent. Most of the vets are far enough out that they aren't really here for their own support. They're here because they made friends that are important to them, and/or they are trying to "pay it forward" for the help and support they got when they were newbies.
It's also good to remember that they've answered the same questions, or posted the same content, hundreds of times. So sometimes their answers may seem short or impatient, but it's really just that they've typed it so darned many times. They're trying to share their experience and knowledge, period. They're not here to lord it over anyone, because trust me there's easier ways than spending time on this board to get a superiority fix.
As someone who's only a little ways down this path, I deeply appreciate everything the vets share about their experience and how they're making this work. I believe it would be very short sighted and more than a little idiotic for me to blow off what they have to say. I give serious consideration to every post that a vet makes about successful WLS. Not all of it applies to me, but I consider it carefully.
Assume good intentions, is all I'm saying. Because that is seriously all I've ever seen here.

Let's not start this. You weren't 'schooled' or 'drilled down', @@Babbs corrected misinformation, period.

I think that it frustrates me the most when reading to a post where someone ate something that they clearly know they should not have 1 week after surgery is that other posters coddle them. They tell them stories about how they did something similiar and they turned out ok so therefore you will be ok. What?! Really? Just because you did not get sick and die, doesnt mean the next person won't. There is a very good reason they put you on a clear liquid, full liquid, pureed, soft foods and finally regular foods diet. Oh, and regular foods does NOT mean the crap you used to eat.
Those of us that tell them to get help or questions their decisions are called haters. Hmmmm....Now I know i am not a hater but i will say I believe people who are sabotaging this early on need more help than anyone on this board can give them.
They need a therapist who specializes in food issues. If you are breaking the rules 1 week out, when your stitches are still fresh, you are likely still swollen that is called sabotage in my book.
Down the road, these are the same people that tell everyone the surgery did not work for them giving WLS a bad name. I know because i have a nurse (yes, a nurse) in my doctors office that blames her failed WLS on the surgery and not her own behaviors.
Too many others who don't know it yet, need this cure for obesity. I will be honest, I don't want the non rule followers to ruin it for all those that need to come after us.
Those of us that have followed the rules and have been successful work hard at educating people who might need this surgery down the road to survive. So pardon me if their behaviors pisses me off. It can be absolutely exhausting but someone has to tell it straight.
Thanks for your post!!! I agree with you. I don't get why people do this and more importantly I don't get that they won't go get some help to learn to deal with their issues.
And for those of you that won't like my response and question whether or not I followed the rules....I did pre op and post op to the letter until about 6 months post op, then i started introducing small things. I wish i never had done that because now it makes it easy to do it more often. It makes fighting the rebound gain much harder to deal with.
Rant over......

As I've said many times before, there's a difference between "cheating" when it's just a diet, and violating your prescribed diet advancement. One is a simple choice, good or bad. The other is taking your life into your hands. Eating solid food before your surgeon has cleared you is more than just "a mistake, we're all human". You don't see people in AA saying "hey, that's OK, we're all just human". No. They say "we're human, and we screw up, but you get that this was a really bad choice and it can kill you, right?"
Everyone on this board wants nothing but success for everyone on the board. But we get a lot of people who are posting about their choices like they want or need some kind of absolution. I don't get it, either. And a lot of people get their knickers in a twist because of someone else's "tone". Guess what, people? I've been on the internet since the AOL dial-up days, and there is no "tone" on the internet except what you read into it.
I followed my diet progression instructions to the letter, because I'm a nurse and I've seen what happens when people don't follow the post-op instructions. A lot of times, nothing happens. But sometimes, people end up in the ICU or the morgue because they thought they new better than the doctor, or they "just couldn't help it". It was rough. I wanted to taste something other than Water and Protein shakes so bad I was ready to lick a Dorito. But my health was important enough to me that I kept telling myself it was only 10 days more (or whatever at that point) and I got through it.
If you're not ready to muscle through the post-op diet progression, then you're not ready for surgery, period. If you've already had the surgery and have messed up, then the people here have a responsibility to say "hey, you know that was a bad choice, right, and it can hurt you?" And then to say "here's how I got through that rough patch myself". Tone be damned, we should not be expected to coddle people who are potentially killing themselves. Or let the silent readers who don't have good information from their surgery team think that it's just "cheating" and it's OK.
Now, once released to a full diet, I've eaten all sorts of things that would give the veterans on here fits. And I'll suffer the consequences for that, because I'm an adult and I decide what I eat and don't eat. So far, I haven't done too badly. That could change, but for now I'm good. I don't need absolution or permission from anyone for my diet choices, and I don't come here for some sort of weird confession. If I did, I would expect to have people tell me that similar choices derailed them and I might want to consider my choices. That's the point of an online support forum, it's not supposed to be an echo chamber where everyone coddles the poor choices other people make.
I'll step off the soapbox now.
And by the way, this is the rants and raves section. This is one of the purposes it serves. If you find it too negative, quit reading it.

Just wait until you are 3.5 years out, maintaining beautifully, and are called all sorts of fun names for giving well thought out, sincere advice. It's actually quite funny.

And then when the story changes to justify the behavior and it's all you can do not to bust out into mad giggles. My favorites are the people who eat more than I can at at my stage 4 or 5 days post op, say they are too afraid to tell their surgeon when urged to, and then come back and say that they DID tell their surgeon he was OK with it. Uhm, Ok.
Another favorite is the people who say they can "feel" that they are healed a week or two post op. They feel great, they know they should "listen to their bodies" and have at the chips, the ice cream and the pizza. Unless they were given some sort of internal camera and a medical degree at discharge, they can't know that they are healed in the inside. As far as listening to your body? Listening to your body most likely got you to this weight in the first place.

But let me stop...

Please don't reply if your offended by what I'm about to say.
I know I'm not the only person who followed their post op diet to a perfect T. I don't understand why someone would cheat post op and risk their lives for a piece of food. Maybe it's because I don't see food as a crutch? The majority of my life I've only see carbs, fats and Protein. I'm not addicted to it, and it irks the hell out of me when people use that as their excuse. I know I snapped at a newbie on her post a few weeks ago, but I really had the best intentions. My husband, who is a slim guy and very health conscious about food, would chew me out if I even so much as looked at something I'm not supposed to have. He only has the best intentions for my success. I believe everyone going through surgery should have that sort of jerk to keep them in line. Which brings me to my second issue, why would you consult with a forum first, instead of your surgeon about your screw up? Knowing how people are on the Internet and how harsh and rude they can be, wouldn't you rather be reemed by the person who did your surgery and make you feel guilty, rather than a group of strangers? All of our post op diet plans are different, mine for example: Clear liquids for a week, full liquids for a week, my puree stage is 4 weeks long, then I move on to soft foods for 2 weeks after that. Then it's all maintenance from there. I've seen some people where they only need to puree for 1 week. So of course someone like me would have a heart attack thinking about someone eating solids during purees. People don't use their brains, and don't have any self control. And that's what bugs me the most. Our surgeons should make sure someone is mentally competent to handle the diet before the surgery to make sure they don't put their lives at stake over a sandwich, or a pork chop.
Sorry, I really needed to vent that. I'm just so tired of seeing the same posts over and over again

Username relevant.

So let me just state upfront so that I do not believe in the BMI scale as a measurement of health and normality. I understand many of you might disagree with that but this post is not a debate post. The history of the BMI scale is something worth looking into if this is your sole measurement of reaching your goal. It isn't mine, which is why I am trying to consider what a proper and also realistic goal weight is for my body.
I have the surgery 11 months ago, i'm down over 124 pounds, and have entered ONEderland. Before my surgery, I thought that if I got anywhere under 200 pounds I would consider it a smashing success. And I do! That said, I feel I would like to continue losing weight.
My original goal weight, sit by me, was 180 pounds. Currently, I am about 15 pounds away. I chose this number because it is the lowest weight I have been in my real adult life, and after the last time I lost a lot of weight, this was where my body settled. I found it very difficult to get any lower than 178 179.
Thinking that the odds of me getting to 180 were not very large to begin with when I began, I thought this was a realistic goal-if a stretch. But now I see it is not unreasonable to believe that I could go further.
Right now, I am considering a goal of 160 pounds. Which is 35 pounds away from where I am now. This to me, is a stretch goal. I haven't weighed 160 pounds since childhood. That is, before graduating high school.
I'm not sure if it's realistic or not, and I'm not sure if it's too high of a goal weight or not. When I told one of my good friends that I moved my goal from 180 to 160, he suggested I should go for 130 which to me seems ridiculous. I know I would be very skinny at 1:30 but I don't think it's realistic.
My height is about 5'7". I am female. I am 37 years old. Is there anyone out there who would share with me where they began, what their goal weight was and why, and whether they were able to obtain it? I think you so very much for sharing your story with me!
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I was 287 and am now 145