summerset

You gave the answer in your post: Just calculate how many calories your body must burn to lose 18 lbs and how much of this weight you lost was most likely only water that is now stored back.

Definitely worth a read. It seems to be quite expensive now. I was lucky to get it for 1,27€ as Kindle edition last year (just looked it up in my past orders) in March when there was a promo at amazon. Now the book is 14,99€, yikes! Davis is also not the only bariatric surgeon who comments on the favored LCHP diet. Weiner also criticizes the obsession with "lean animal protein". His book "a pound of cure" is worth a read, too. (Available on Kindle Unlimited for free at the moment.)

Nobody forces us to eat that little calories. With time the amount of food one can eat usually increases. During the months we are able to eat only very small portions we maybe shouldn't focus on HCLP and view the high protein content of the food as some kind of medical prescription to avoid deficiencies.

Two weeks out I was tired all the time as well. I went back to work after three weeks and felt like collapsing after work (didn't do the standing work for two more weeks IIRC) even though it was only sitting in front of a computer. It takes a while. I don't know what you're eating throughout the day but getting in enough fluids, veg and protein is important even that early out.

It tastes really good, especially when you like your coffee sweet.

My dietician didn't say anything about calories as well and I think it makes a lot of sense since calorie intake is dependent on many things. What job do you do? How active are you? As long as you're losing weight and getting your protein in why are you caring about calories? It just makes things more complicated. As long as things are going smooth don't worry about calories. Be grateful that these days are over at least for now.

What did your surgeon say about this? Was the volume of the pouch measured? So how much so you really eat? I know it's annoying as hell but try to keep a food diary for two weeks or so to evaluate how much you really eat in one day (i. e. how many calories). And what are these cases in which you can eat as much as you like? Does it depend on the food or is it different from day to day?

4 weeks after surgery it was allowed again. Before that only this fake coffee stuff.

Are carbonated beverages allowed? Depends on your surgeon. I read about dumping -- does that mean that I'd have to stay away from sweets, period? By far not all patients dump. You'll have to experiment what you can and cannot eat (in general, not only in regards to carbohydrates). What about lethargia? I've read about people being very tired, and that's something I really can't afford in my life these days. I needed quite a bit to get back to pre-op energy levels. However, it was the second general anesthesia within a few months so that might have contributed to it. A lot of people say they have lots of energy after surgery. I wasn't one of them and needed several weeks to really get back into gear.

Excellent evidence based post.

I doubt you gained 2 lbs because of eating some food you shouldn't have eaten in your opinion on a single occasion. Food addiction is powerful but I somehow doubt that only food addicts gorge themselves on these occasions, otherwise I would be surrounded by food addicts only. Get over it, brush it away, get back on your personal plan and forget about it. These things happen and most likely will happen again.

These are a lot questions and you will get lots of different answers I guess. I'll try my best though: [What do] you have to give up? Eating a lot while being invited for fancy dinners. That is something I miss but it comes around only occasionally, so I don't regard it a problem. Aside from getting thinner, what else changes in your life? Exercise is more fun again. However, not everyone feels this way. Some people will never have fun exercising and view it as an additional chore that has to be done. I did Martial Arts competitively in my teenage years so I have a history of doing a lot of sports and it felt fine being able to go back there. How long am I away from solid foods? Depends on your program. I had to eat mushy stuff for four weeks. How much can you actually eat once the procedure has settled in? There is a lot of variety. I feel like I could eat quite a lot without feeling uncomfortable quite early after my revision. Are there food that are just gone for good? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on what you can stomach or not. And does it work almost all of the time? Statistics vary. There is no guarantee. Many people regain everything or at least parts. If it works or not also depends on your definition of success. If you only view reaching a BMI of 21 as a success your chances of being a successful patient are much slimmer than when you view success as reaching a BMI of below 30 or getting rid of co-morbidities.

Good question. I was a chubby child, but not fat. I was quite slim when I did martial arts competitively in my later teenage years. However, when I gave that up at the age of 19, all hell broke loose.

I'm sure you had the intra-op leak test. Regarding the post-op test: you have to swallow a more or less (usually more) nasty tasting contrast agent and then an X-ray is done.

Works again! Thank you!

So, this not-loading-the-pages seems to have been fixed but I have a brand new problem. I can't put an empty line between text passages for better readability. I can see it while typing it but it's coming out in the way you can see it here in this post.

Ok, let's test it. Test. New line.

This leak test was done of course. It's standard procedure.

I think it's very hard to give advice on this and I don't want to cross any lines with assumptions. If this behavior started after you got WLS I'd try to talk with him about if he might be scared now that you're on your way to a more normal weight.

I didn't have one. Leak tests are usually only done if they have a suspicion there might be a leak.

It's good you're not nagging. You don't have to lose him. You will still be a couple but you might have different hobbies along the way. What things do you still like to do together? (We go to the cinema for example.) Maybe he will catch up later? It's way harder for him than for you because you had surgery and he didn't.

It seems like you're running into a problem many couples seem to run into when one has WLS and the other is still overweight. Or maybe it's just a problem many couples run into when one changes preferences of what to do in their leisure time. We're together since September 1994 and I can tell you that a lot of things changed during this relationship. It might be frustrating for you but you won't get him to do the things you want him to do. I'd like to see my husband giving up meat and eat more fruit. I'd like to learn a foreign language together with my husband. I'd like to go biking with him. I'd like to see him doing some exercise because he complains about back pain now and then. I'm sure he has his own list of thing he wants me to do. However, I can't force him and I won't be nagging at him. I'm convinced that would do a lot of damage to our relationship. He's a grown up and so am I. I wouldn't want to get the heat from him because of something he wants me to do as well. I'd tell him to go to hell if he started nagging about something I don't want to do.

This. All this pressure makes a lot of people say to themselves "to hell with it" after they got what they wanted and I can understand. Rebellion is not that uncommon and I'm glad nobody demanded something like this. How are you supposed to prove these steps taken anyway? Do you have to wear something like a fitbit?

You might also find some help reading books that deal with emotional (over)eating or intuitive eating, you don't have to wait until you find a therapist. (hermione53 already suggested that) I guess you want to make your way out of the overeat-diet-overeat-diet-cycle and the surgery is a good start for this. Too many people stay stuck in this cycle or fall back into it after a while (look at all the "help, I've gained and can't get a grip on it" threads). You seemed to have underestimated the power of emotional eating, so did many others. I felt it full-force after I stopped smoking some years after having lap-band surgery and the self-help books were tremendously helpful. The gained weight fell off again during several months without dieting or any 5-day-pouch mumbo-jambo and I'm still a non-smoker. You can deal with this but you need to choose a strategy that suits your needs.

Okay, I admit I had to look up that Bean-guy. Otherwise: "How do you know your pouch is too big?" "You can eat three Scottish peeps in one sitting."