heidikat72

Here is an article from today's Lexington Herald, the local paper for Lexington, Kentucky, about a new weight loss surgery memoir.
I haven't read it but think I have read some previous articles by the author.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article62909642.html

sounds like she was just telling you all the things she tells herself to justify her not getting the surgery. classic projection. pay her no mind or as was previously said on this thread - just smile and say "bless your heart"

sounds like she was just telling you all the things she tells herself to justify her not getting the surgery. classic projection. pay her no mind or as was previously said on this thread - just smile and say "bless your heart"

Last week I traveled with ready to mix Protein Shakes with no issue. I would recommend breaking down a box of Protein Bars tho... I was stopped and searched as they show up as a sort of "brick".... Security doesn't like that .
I have also asked the taxi to stop at cvs , Walgreens etc on the way to the hotel to get pre mixed shakes and stock up. It has not been a problem.
Bon voyage [emoji93]

Bless her heart.

Question: What have you replaced your "food addiction" with?
Me.... I can't stop buying sexy underwear.... I know it's crazy. But one of the first things i did was threw out all the un-sexy white high-wasted cotton draws..... Now i look forward each month to getting the coupon in the mail from VS. My underwear drawer use to be a sea of white ugliness..... now it bright and cheerful....
I would have said sex... but i don't think "by yourself" counts.... lol

I just had roasted asparagus for lunch. Yum.

oh I so look forward to this one! I used to have to travel A LOT for work and hated it. To the point where I actually bought my own seat belt extender to avoid the embarrassment of asking for one or there not being enough in case I wasn't the only obese person on the flight. Although I will say that the vast majority of flight attendants were very courteous and respectful about this (especially the ones on Delta) and I've never been asked to purchase a second seat or gotten booted off a flight (thank goodness since they were all work trips). But it has always been a fear.

How come when women get breast implants no one asks....why don't you just grow them the natural way?!?

Yeah, the "natural way" is for us to all grow or hunt our own food, build huts, walk everywhere, bathe in the river, not get immunizations or prescriptions, and die in our 30s. Everything else involves tools. Bariatric surgery is a tool. End of story.

We've all heard them, and owe nobody an explanation about our own medical decisions.
If you choose to tell people, you're opening yourself up to uneducated, ignorant comments about WLS. You can either start a conversation educating them about WLS, or ignore them and move on.
Opinions, assholes, yada yada yada. Everyone's got one.

Had a similar experience last night with a counselor. I knew that part of this journey was going to have to be dealing with my emotional eating and that unless I did that, the surgery wouldn't help in the long run. So I set up an appointment with a counselor - recommended by my insurance company. Last night was the first session. As soon as I said the words weight loss surgery she cut me off and said "you know the surgery doesn't really work, right? you'll gain all the weight back. you should just join weight watchers and a gym. WW has a much better success rate than surgery"...I was floored. then I told her that actually many people are successful with surgery but that the surgery isn't a simple fix, that I need to address my emotional eating in order to make the necessary lifestyle changes along with the surgery"...her big advice for how to deal with emotional eating? "Just don't eat"
I left feeling very defeated. I'm trying to deal with the underlying causes for my over eating but how do you find a counselor who will actually take it seriously?

@@Nurse_Lenora
There are alternatives for bariatric recipes. You can use spaghetti squash to replace Pasta.
Sweet Italian turkey sausage.

This is a recipe I tried.
Peel and sliced egg plant. Dip in egg wash and coat with garlic Parmesan cheese. Bake until golden brown
coat a cupcake pan with cooking spray
First layer - spaghetti sauce
2nd layer- Eggplant Parmesan
3rd layer - spaghetti sauce
4th layer - sweet Italian ground sausage -
Top with mozzarella cheese.< /p>

I like my "sausage" with girth.

I'm a worrier by nature, so once the decision and approval happened...it made things even more real.
I'm still working to prepare for the way to "let it go" in terms of the fears that come with the surgery itself, but I'm also working on making lists for what I'm looking forward to and mapping out how I'm going to document my journey.
Those two things are really helping me keep it in perspective and to try and feel better about what's to come.

oh I so look forward to this one! I used to have to travel A LOT for work and hated it. To the point where I actually bought my own seat belt extender to avoid the embarrassment of asking for one or there not being enough in case I wasn't the only obese person on the flight. Although I will say that the vast majority of flight attendants were very courteous and respectful about this (especially the ones on Delta) and I've never been asked to purchase a second seat or gotten booted off a flight (thank goodness since they were all work trips). But it has always been a fear.

I would just like to say that in addition to your physical transformation being wonderful, it is really your emotional transformation that I find so inspiring! I can especially relate to the "I didn't hate myself because I was obese, I was obese because I hated myself" idea. Learning to love ourselves takes work and in many ways is the scariest/hardest part of this journey for me.

I would just like to say that in addition to your physical transformation being wonderful, it is really your emotional transformation that I find so inspiring! I can especially relate to the "I didn't hate myself because I was obese, I was obese because I hated myself" idea. Learning to love ourselves takes work and in many ways is the scariest/hardest part of this journey for me.

Thank you, everyone. I feel better about my say nothing, do nothing, be an example strategy. I do have anxiety that she might repeat my mistakes. Then again, she hasn't gained a horrible amount over the years. Maybe this is where she's comfortable.
I had a mother who told the Size 10 me that I was as big as my 350 lb aunt, who used to buy my aunt's used clothes and force me to wear them (the tops at least). It worked because I was so large breasted. She's why I have never discussed my daughter's weight with her. She is beautiful at any size. Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER will I be my mom.
And I'm gonna borrow her clothes once we're the same size. If she's nice, I might let her borrow mine.

As someone who has an overweight daughter and obese son (both grown), here's my advice:
Say nothing and just lead by example.
Both my kids know they are overweight, as did I. I was ready to do something about it when I myself was damn good and ready, not because someone else told me I needed to. Pointing it out does nothing but make the other person feel even worse about their weight. Imagine if someone took you aside and said "We need to talk about your muffin top".
No. Just...no. Accept them for who they are.

I have a lot of photos of myself from days long past.

Photos of myself at an extremely unhealthy weight.

Photos of myself at a time that I was eating as a way of dealing with my emotions.
​




These pictures represent a time in my life where I was constantly sad, constantly depressed. They represent a time when I felt completely unworthy. They are pictures of a woman who put on a fake smile to hide all the pain inside.
They capture a woman who felt like she was drowning in the co-morbid conditions that the disease of obesity had brought her too.
I was full-blown diabetic, I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, severe edema and severe depression. There were days that I was simply non-functional.
I knew that my weight was causing these medical issues and truthfully, I didn’t care. I had given up on life, love and the pursuit of happiness. I very consciously made the decision to not care about what my lifestyle behavior choices were doing to my health and to my body.
I had a lot of days that I really wished I wasn’t even there. I was very aware that I was digging a grave with a fork and a spoon. In fact, if I am being completely honest, that was very much my intention.
These photos portray a woman who truthfully didn’t love herself. A woman who didn’t believe that she was worthy of being loved.
They portray a woman who was still very much caught in the survivor mentality of life. A woman who had grown up a survivor of physical, sexual and verbal abuse. A woman who was psychologically using her weight as a way to build walls and keep people out.
Sometimes I post photos of my transformation, a before-and-after photo of myself and I look at it and I think “Oh my god, who is that girl?” or “I don’t recognize that woman anymore.”
Almost instantly someone will see my photo and tell me that I was just as beautiful then as I am now or that I have always been the same person.
I very rarely respond to these comments because I really don’t know how to explain. Really, that’s your interpretation, not mine. I don’t need you to qualify my beauty and I don’t need you to diminish the celebration of my transformation.
Let me pause here and clarify something – if you have ever been one of those people who came on to my post and made a comment like this, I am not spanking you. I realize that you’re trying to be a positive voice in a negative world. I realized that you are trying to be supportive and kind and I appreciate that. I try to do the same and there are far too many people out there that are willing to tear each other down rather than to build each other up.
What I am trying to do is maybe get you to see the situation through a different perspective. I’m trying bring light to the fact that sometimes what we think is positive and supportive, if contrary to how someone feels about themselves, really isn’t.




Sometimes I think we are so busy trying to make sure that those that are dealing with obesity do not feel shamed or stigmatized that we forget that obesity is a very complex disease and that it can be caused by many different things.
If I was a recovering drug addict and I posted a before and after photo of myself with a tourniquet around my arm and a needle in my vein would you tell me that I was just as beautiful then as I am now?
I am one of the first people to stand up against weight bias, weight stigma and weight discrimination. Nobody should ever have to experience those things and I spend a lot of my free time trying to help educate and raise awareness to fight these societal intolerances.
I am also the first person to stand up and say that obesity is not healthy. Obesity isn’t a pretty disease. It is as unkind and ugly as any other deadly disease. Just like you can’t look at a photo of someone and decide that the reason they struggle with their weight is because they make poor lifestyle choices and over consume food; you also can’t look at a photo and assume that it’s not.




As a recovering food addict, someone who used food to feed my feelings and someone who was purposely and systematically killing herself with food, when I look at a photo of myself and say “I don’t recognize that girl anymore.” — I don’t need someone to tell me that they do.
I’d much rather see my transformation acknowledged in a way that doesn’t focus on looks but rather on the accomplishment. “Way to go! What an amazing transformation.” “That’s awesome, congratulations on your health accomplishments!” “What a great job. Look how far you have come.” There are a ton of ways we can acknowledge before and after transformations without using beauty as our quantifier.
As someone who has very openly discussed body images issues after weight loss, I can honestly tell you that when someone tells me I am just as beautiful then as I am now I have to remind myself that they are talking about on the inside. Because just a couple of years ago a comment like that would have me standing in front of my mirror wondering what I needed to “fix” about my body to make it noticeably different.
When I look at those before photos and all they represent, I don’t think I was beautiful then. I think I was suffering. I think I was in a very dark place and I think my obesity was a very physical symptom of that ugliness. I’m relieved everyday that I was able to bounce back from it.
I look back at those photos and I am thankful that I have managed to find a way to maintain my recovery from obesity and food addictions in a world that is food-centric. I look back at those photos and I am grateful that I wasn’t successful at trying to end my life via obesity.
Some people look at those photos and think that I hated myself because I suffered from obesity. The truth is I suffered from obesity because I hated myself. The moment I learned to start loving myself and finding myself worthy, I started making healthier lifestyle decisions.




I am not the same person in those photos. Not on the outside. Not on the inside. I have successfully navigated a lifestyle transformation. If I was the girl you see in my before pictures, you likely wouldn’t have the pleasure of knowing me today, my friends would have been shopping for a casket by now.

Early out, eat what you can. You can put the rest in the refrigerator and come back to it later,
@@Dub usually gives excellent advice but I am going to have to disagree with him about the three meals, no snacking. You need to follow your program.
Mine is 100 grams of Protein a day. If I didn't eat more than three times a day I would never get in my Protein.< /p>
Also, I don't eat until I'm "full". I eat 1) either my planned portion or 2) part of my planned portion (saving the rest for later) whichever comes first. Eat until you are "satisfied", not full.
Track everything so you KNOW that you reached your protein goal, don't guess.
Eat slowly. Take small bites and chew slowly. This is really important, especially as you transition to soft and more solid foods so you can learn what it feels like to be satisfied. There is a fine line between just enough and one bite too many.
Also, even though it is common to feel fearful about gaining weight when you transition between stages, that is really the last thing to be worried about. As a matter of fact, this is an excellent time to just stay off the scale,
If you want to obsess about anything, obsess about reaching your protein and Fluid target every day. That was more than enough to keep me busy in the first few weeks.
You will be fine. Just go slow and try one new food at a time. If something doesn't work, then try it at a later date.

@@NatashaSaysRawr tuna with light mayo and egg salad were both things I ate on my puree stage. I had to actually puree the tuna in a food processor according to my team's instructions -- my second phase was "puree" not "mushie." I know it sounds gross but it makes it easier on your stomach. I would puree the tuna with a little light mayo (there's a light chipotle mayo that I like a lot) and put it in a tiny ramekin and sprinkle some shredded cheese on top. Heat it up in the microwave and it's like a tuna casserole without the noodles.
PS I don't mind talking about food suggestions at all, but did your team not give you any instructions? I got a booklet with lists of permitted foods and forbidden foods at each stage, directions on how much to eat, and several suggested recipes. Did your team give you anything like that?

Your GP is a moron.
How's that for encouragement?

Congratulations!