Airstream88

So far so good with my husband. He is loving the new me - likes that he can get his arms around me and that we can fit together in one of the twin beds in our Airstream travel trailer! But mostly he is happy that I am healthier and can move around much better and that I have more energy.

When did you have surgery? 400-500 calories doesn't sound like enough, especially if you are exercising. Are you making your Protein and fluid goals? At 8 -10 weeks I was eating 600-800 calories and now at 6 months I'm eating between 1000 - 1200 per my surgeon's and NUTs recommendations

When did you have surgery? 400-500 calories doesn't sound like enough, especially if you are exercising. Are you making your Protein and fluid goals? At 8 -10 weeks I was eating 600-800 calories and now at 6 months I'm eating between 1000 - 1200 per my surgeon's and NUTs recommendations

I found that some foods just didn't sit as well as others once I started in the soft food stage. Take very small bites, chew really well and wait until the next bite to see if you have sick feelings. If so, stop eating that food and try another. I ate a lot of cheese in the soft foods stage. Mozzarella cheese sticks and baby bells were my go to foods during this stage as well as crab Soup (no veggies), meatballs and chili.

I'm 13 years out and have had a few rollercoaster rides - also do to periods of loss in my life. But I've continued to overall maintain my 170 pound weight loss. I went through a similar struggle at the 2-year mark. It's common.
Good for you for continuing to try and to work on this. The diet mentality is a tough one to break but it can be very harmful. The idea of going back and doing a "reset" is a good one but I don't particularly like the one mentioned above. You can reset your pouch in about 3-5 days without going back to liquids and puree and soft foods etc. That uses a lot of "sugar-free" items which aren't great for you in such quantities and can trigger more craving. There a couple "back on track" programs out there that have you go onto basically only Protein - with some green veggies thrown in. It's not a diet, but it resets the pouch which is totally different. After 3-5 days of this you'll notice your capacity going way down. Then just go back to good nutritional eating, following the rules of the pouch.
The rules of the pouch are the most important actions you can take to ensure losing and maintaining. The 3 most important rules are #1 Protein first (dense protein like chicken, fish, eggs, beef etc.) #2 no liquids with your meal and don't drink for up to 2 hours after. #3 Eat your meal fairly quickly - eat until you are quite full but not overly full. You fill up faster and feel full longer if you eat quickly.
Cutting back (don't think of it as restricting) carbs such as grains (esp. wheat products) helps keep your cravings down which can be a constant battle for many of us including me.
We never need to diet again - it's counter productive. But I know that I absolutely need to follow the rules of the pouch if I want to stay successful.
Good luck!

Why Psychologists Deny Certain People for Weight Loss Surgery and How to Not be One of Them


I have worked as a psychologist, providing psychological evaluations prior to bariatric weight loss surgery for the past eight years. For the most part, people need a power tool to help them lose and keep off the weight they have lost over and over again in their lives. The gastric sleeve, bypass, and now balloon are those tools. However, every once in a while, I will encounter someone who believes these procedures are the magic bullet.
I can pick this up in five seconds when I learn that:
this person has no exercise plan to maintain their weight loss a barrage of excuses as to why they can't exercise anymore zero insight into why they are overweight ("I don't know why I am overweight, I just eat steamed vegetables and grilled chicken mostly.") a lack of motivation or understanding for why they also have to engage in behavioral modification in addition to the surgery "Why would you reveal all of this?" you ask. Aren't I giving away the keys to the kingdom to anyone who reads this and wants to pass a psychological evaluation? Perhaps- but who are you really cheating if you don't go within and face the real demons that got you here in the first place?
When I ask people about their eating styles, I tend to group them into four categories:
1) emotional eater- someone who uses food when they are bored, stressed, tired, lonely, sad, or even happy in addition to eating when they are hungry
2) skip and binger- someone who fails to think about food until it is too late, and when they are ravenous end up going for whatever is available which is usually some type of carb and calorie laden fast food
3) miscellaneous- someone who just recognizes that they eat too large of portion sizes and/or the wrong types of food
4) food addict- usually someone with a history of other addictions, trauma, and a significant amount of weight to lose. They usually have comorbid psychological diagnoses that have been unaddressed or ill-addressed.
Out of the four categories, the 4th is the most troubling for a psychologist. This particular person is most correlated with the patient who fails to address their core issues, eats "around the sleeve," or bypass, experiences dumping syndrome, comes back a year later and asks for the bypass, or a different procedure.
This is the person who, ironically, is usually the most resistant to my recommendation that they seek therapeutic support prior to the surgery. They want it done YESTERDAY. They want it NOW. It is this type of thinking that got them into trouble in the first place. The impulsivity and lack of emotional regulation.
I've witnessed people fail to address their maladaptive eating patterns and never quite get to their goal weight. I had a male that would buy a bag of pepperonis at the grocery store and snack on them all day and couldn't understand why he wasn't losing weight. This daily "snack," which was a mental security blanket, served as a veritable IV drip of fat and calories throughout the day.
I've had a woman who figured out how to ground up her favorite foods into a liquid form because she never quite let go of her attachment to "comfort foods." One of her most notable liquid concoctions consisted of chicken and Cheetos. I'll just leave that for you to chew...er swallow.
They say with drug and alcohol recovery- you "slay the dragon," but with food addiction recovery, you have to take it for a walk three times a day. If you don't fundamentally shift your relationship with this dragon, you're going to get burnt when you are walking it.
My number one tip for transforming your relationship with food is to start looking at eating the same way you do as brushing and flossing: You don't necessarily salivate at the idea of what type of toothpaste you will use, where you will do it, who you will do it with, right? You just do it twice a day because you don't want to lose your teeth and you want to maintain healthy gums.
Food has to be thought of in the same way. You fuel up. You don't use food as a place to define your quality of life. You don't use food to Celebrate. You don't use food to demarcate the end of a long day. You don't use food to help you feel less alone. You figure out healthier coping alternatives to meet these needs.
Loneliness-call a friend for support
Celebrate- get a massage
Demarcate the end of a long day- start a tea ritual and use essential oils
Another reason you must say goodbye to comfort food is that it triggers the pleasure center of the brain, which ignites our dopamine, which perpetuates the addiction. Many people think we are just telling them to get rid of the comfort food because of the carbs or calories, but there are unique and harmful chemical consequences to ingesting these types of food we know are bad for us.
If you are ready to take a modern approach to weight loss and stop dieting for good- check out my wls/vsg psychological support course here for free.
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You paid out of pocket for this surgery. Why? Did you have health issues? If so, when you want to eat those foods ask yourself this: Is this food worth dying for? If you knew that piece of pizza would kill you the next day, would you still eat it?
I was basically a carb eater pre-op as well. WLS does not prevent you from putting the bad foods in your mouth though it should limit the amount (but it doesn't for slider foods like crackers, chips, etc) That's why you MUST eat your Protein first so your new stomach will feel full. You should not put a carb in your mouth until you have eaten your protein because if you don't you will not be getting the nutrition you need and your body will take it from your muscles.

Yes I started to feel hunger after the first month - but only after about 3 hours. Any hunger during that 3 hours is usually because I need to drink more Fluid or I didn't eat enough dense Protein or I'm bored. My NUT has her patients eating 5 mini-meals a day - that really helps with not getting that starving hunger feeling.

Yes I started to feel hunger after the first month - but only after about 3 hours. Any hunger during that 3 hours is usually because I need to drink more Fluid or I didn't eat enough dense Protein or I'm bored. My NUT has her patients eating 5 mini-meals a day - that really helps with not getting that starving hunger feeling.

Because studies have proven that our bodies fight us tooth and nail to put the weight back on. I can tell you that this small tummy I now have gives me the full feeling I never experienced prior to surgery. It keeps me from overeating if I follow plan and eat the Protein first. I will never again be able to eat a whole plate of food from Outback along with 1/2 a blooming onion - just not possible and I am so grateful for that.

My cholesterol was under 200 to begin with, but my old/new stats are as follows:
Total - 177 - 109
LDL - 109 - 49
My HDL didn't change.
My blood sugar has dropped below 100, out of the pre-diabetic range.

Because studies have proven that our bodies fight us tooth and nail to put the weight back on. I can tell you that this small tummy I now have gives me the full feeling I never experienced prior to surgery. It keeps me from overeating if I follow plan and eat the Protein first. I will never again be able to eat a whole plate of food from Outback along with 1/2 a blooming onion - just not possible and I am so grateful for that.

Because studies have proven that our bodies fight us tooth and nail to put the weight back on. I can tell you that this small tummy I now have gives me the full feeling I never experienced prior to surgery. It keeps me from overeating if I follow plan and eat the Protein first. I will never again be able to eat a whole plate of food from Outback along with 1/2 a blooming onion - just not possible and I am so grateful for that.

Because studies have proven that our bodies fight us tooth and nail to put the weight back on. I can tell you that this small tummy I now have gives me the full feeling I never experienced prior to surgery. It keeps me from overeating if I follow plan and eat the Protein first. I will never again be able to eat a whole plate of food from Outback along with 1/2 a blooming onion - just not possible and I am so grateful for that.

I told almost everyone and still do if the subject comes up. Everyone has been thrilled or at least supportive so far. If there are those that weren't, I'm guessing they kept it to themselves. I didn't want to have to lie about why I was losing weight or eating a certain way. At almost 55 years old I've come to learn that I can't control what others think or do, just my reaction.

Another way to meet someone other than online dating is to join groups with interests that match your own. That way you are meeting real people with very little risk. There seems to be a Meetup Group for just about any interest out there. A guy in my office just got married to a woman he met at the Mall - she helped him buy a sweater and they hit it off. Stop looking and start living. When you least expect it someone may cross your path that is perfect for you.

There are some threads here you can search for where we had some long convos about this. Specifically about that biggest loser study.
I am almost 2 years out and my metabolism is normal to high.
You aren't supposed to stay on ultra low calories forever. The sooner you get your calories up, the better. Over 1000 a day ASAP..
I don't know how many calories @BigViffer eats but he is a guy that works out a lot and I think he eats around 2000 calories a day if I recall correctly. A lot of us eat normal levels of calories and are able to lose or maintain. The people that hang out at 800 calories forever even though they are stalled are the ones that ruin their metabolism.

I definitely can see where grazing can happen the longer you've been post-op. Any type of cracker, chip, etc just goes right through and doesn't make me feel full. So I don't allow myself to eat any multigrain cracker, bread, etc without Protein. 1 - it keeps me from eating more than one serving because the restriction kicks in and 2 - the protein keeps me feeling full much longer, negating the need to snack or graze between my 5 mini-meals.

I measure things like Cereal and milk to make sure I have the Protein count right. I eyeball protein per the Deck of Cards guideline or use the serving info on the package (for shrimp, etc). I buy nuts and popcorn in pre-portioned bags for convenience. My NUT only gives protein and fluid goals so I rarely count calories and never carbs - just eat the servings she recommends. I log my food in a book I got from Amazon but only count my protein and Fluid intake. That's as much obsession about food I can handle in a day.

I haven't experienced dumping yet either. But that's because I am super careful about how much sugar or fat I eat in a serving. I did take a bite of something that was pure sugar and while I didn't dump, I felt bad for about 30 mins. I think you'd find if you ate a whole piece of cake or a bunch of fried chicken wings you would experience dumping. I don't think it happens with just a bite of something. I think I read somewhere that over 25 grams of sugar would cause dumping.

My mom and I have both had the GBP surgery. Neither one of us have experienced dumping. She is 1 year post op and I am 6 months post op. I do not want to experience it either, so I watch my sugar intake closely. I did have a hard time with nausea, vomiting, and dehydration for the first 4 months. So anyone experiencing any of that try to be strong and it will pass. I feel so much better now than I EVER have in my whole life, and I am only 6 months out from surgery. I will say this is a life changing event. It is not an easy way to get healthy. Please take your Vitamins too. It will catch up to you if you don't. Good luck to anyone facing surgery and those that have already taken the plunge!!!

I'm only about 6 months in but prior to surgery I was a grazer - ate all the time. The eating pattern I've been given for life is 5 meals daily - every 3 - 4 hours. I eat my Protein first (~3oz give or take) and then veggies and a multigrain or fruit (2 each per day, not at the same meal) along with 3 good fats (nuts, avocado, etc) I'm really doing well with this way of eating and feel I can continue this for life. Eating the protein first triggers my restriction and keeps me from getting hungry in between the meals. I won't lie, it takes some work to eat 5 times a day - I don't use Protein Shakes or bars, but I do use the Sargento Balanced Breaks, pre-portioned packages of nuts, and pre-sliced cheese to help fill out my meals. I bake a few chicken breasts on a cookie sheet along with onions and peppers on Sunday and then pre-portion out for weekly lunches and evening dinners (quesadilla with whole wheat tortilla or as a topping for salad).

My forever plan given to me by my NUT (Sleeve and Bypass) is 5 meals daily - Protein at least 4 of 5 meals - deck of cards sized serving, a multigrain or fruit serving (2 each per day, but not at same meal), and as much veggies that can fit after eating the protein first. Plus 3 good fats - 1 tsp olive oil, nuts, nut butters, avocado. Always eat protein with any carb. I just count protein and Water.

Another way to meet someone other than online dating is to join groups with interests that match your own. That way you are meeting real people with very little risk. There seems to be a Meetup Group for just about any interest out there. A guy in my office just got married to a woman he met at the Mall - she helped him buy a sweater and they hit it off. Stop looking and start living. When you least expect it someone may cross your path that is perfect for you.

I told mostly everyone from the moment I started the six month pre-op requirement. It was just easier for me. I didn't want to have to lie or explain why I was eating/drinking in a certain way. I've found everyone to be supportive and no one has dared say to me that I've taken the easy way out. They might be thinking it but I could care less. I'm doing this for my health not for anyone's approval. A good side effect of being up front about it is that people do not push food on me at family events, etc. They know I can only eat a small amount.