summerset

Well, yes... In the sense that the bigger people in my environment are asking me how I did it. Usually they lose interest once I say "surgery" in the way of "Ok, that's not my really my business and I wouldn't do it". I think especially the bigger people are fascinated with the rather quick weight loss because they want to have that, too. (can understand that, I'd be wanting it as well)

Ok, I admit I'm having a bit of a bad conscience here because what I wrote about revisions might not have reflected what I think about "mental/emotional stuff" and revisions. I don't know if I will make it worse with elaborating or not but here it goes: - physical problems: no amount of psych or nutritional counseling will get you rid of this, might as well have a revision as soon as possible and (hopefully) your issues will be resolved but of course there is no guarantee that it will be 100% ok. - mental/emotional stuff: I think that's a more difficult thing. I already said that there is a lot of judgement within the WLS community if there is not a diagnosed medical problem that justifies a revision ("patient ate his way through surgery and will continue to do so", "not educated enough" etc.) I'm a bit more careful when it comes to revision because of emotional/mental issues. It might be that the second surgery (as in second try or second chance) will be successful because the patient has learnt from past mistakes and will do way better the second time around and it might be not. Maybe e. g. sleeve wasn't the right method? Maybe e. g. the DS will be the right method? However, it might be that surgery wasn't the right way to go for the patient in the end - unfortunately you only know after surgery has been performed if it was the right way to go or not. This doesn't mean "blaming the patient". It only means it wasn't the right treatment for the patient. No treatment has a 100% success guarantee. Some treatments fail patients 100% (no success at all) and some fail patients e. g. 65% (partly success). I recently made the experience myself (nothing WLS related) that a treatment has only been partly successful. Do I blame myself now? Does my doctor blame me now? Do the people in my environment blame me now? Of course they don't. I received a treatment option that was low risk and not invasive and it didn't work the way I hoped. I have an appointment due next Tuesday and it will be discussed what to do now (more wait and see or something more aggressive) - no blaming involved. And that is the way it should be with WLS related issues as well IMO. Unfortunately there is a lot of blaming and judgement going on when it comes to WLS, fellow patients being the worst. Yes, I see that having WLS is quite a risk so having (second) surgery is no piece of cake you simply give a try if it works or not - but that doesn't fully explain why the WLS community can be incredibly harsh when it comes to "lack of success".

I want a dime for every time I'm reading this. And then another dime for when I see that the people who wrote it get offended because someone didn't agree with their precious opinion.

Another post worth a full quote.

And you still needed surgery to lose weight?? Can't believe it!! That sure comes as a surprise after reading these lines. (or rather not coming as a surprise when considering how many users on here are sitting on the high horse)

Your post is worth a full quote but I hate full quotes of long posts so I chose this paragraph. One of the best posts I've ever read on here.

Do you remember back in school when nobody liked the grind who said that, including the teacher? (SCNR either, R&R right? ROFL)

I think a lot of it goes down to habit. Some habits form easier, some form harder. After some time (can be weeks/months/years) the new way of eating becomes habit, the supplements become habit, maybe the exercise if you didn't exercise before and the people in your immediate environment are used to your new habits, too, e. g. colleagues. For some that might never happen. Some don't want it to happen. It's the same with other chronic conditions like diabetes. Some people make their condition into a second job or identify very strongly with the condition, e. g. becoming the leaders of self-help groups etc.

Why do people risk their lives driving drunk or too fast? Why do people continue smoking after one of their legs had to be amputated? Why do people go out for a drink the day after they came out of rehab? Why does a woman get beaten up by her husband and goes back for more? --- I don't know. And I can't understand. Maybe it's because I never walked in their shoes. Or it's just life.

Ummm, no - that's not the way I see it. I asked a question (about calorie intake), good a lot of text as a response but not an answer to my question. And then she got angry - it would have been so easy to tell me "I ate about 3500 cals a day before surgery" without any drama. She chose the drama. *shrug*

You're realizing you're kind or rude here as well, right? If not, I've got news for you: you are, my dear. You can eat all the stuff you want and can cut out all the stuff you want. I don't care. If you want to believe in food magic, do so but stop throwing some wild theories (you would call that "nonsense" I supposed) about "not being able to lose weight because of being malnourished" like it's absolutely impossible to lose weight while being deficient in micronutrients. Of course obese people can be malnourished when it comes to micronutrients, everyone can, including people suffering from anorexia nervosa who obviously don't have any problems losing weight despite being malnourished. You said you ate about 3500 cals before surgery and are now maintaining on 1300-1400 cal - a difference of more than 2000 cals a days - but hey! Math is nonsense! It's all magic!

@Djmohr Out of arguments and getting angry? Why is that? Because I challenged your opinion on the magic of low carb food?

Interestingly enough it is still recommended as an alternativ to NSAIDS after GB. You seem to know your stuff. Why is that?

@@Djmohr You're telling me lots of things in your posts but unfortunately you didn't answer my question: So how many calories did you eat when you ate "all that crap"? Do you know? (most people don't, including me - I have no clue how many calories I ate while gaining weight and being at my highest weight because I only counted calories when being on a diet) You say: Of course you do - you're getting in more calories because you either eat 1) more food (grazing) or 2) more calorie dense food (the crap as you call it) I am also guessing you're not the only one gaining weight when eating more calories.

I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but I'm going to ask it anyway: Did you ever count calories when eating like this and when you weren't on a diet? Like really counting calories with weighing everything and not only estimating so you can compare the amount of calories with what you're eating now? Just asking because people tend to underestimate the amount of calories they eat quite a lot (even the professionals do!) I think some people are more sensitive to certain foods than others (there is obviously evidence regarding this) so in general I don't think you're a big exception but part of a whole crowd. However, when looking at the diet of some WLS patients it's purely the fact that they're eating less of what they ate before. Especially on this board there is the talk about patients who "can eat all the crap they want" and lose weight effortlessly in the honeymoon period because the "surgery is doing it all". Well, what is the surgery actually doing? It restricts the amount of food that can be eaten, sometimes combined with malabsorption, so it seems that quite a lot of people can eat "crap" and losing weight anyway (someone remember the guy who lost weight on twinkles to prove a thing or two?) without having to rely on the so-called "clean" foods. I'm not saying it's not true for you but I'm not so sure you couldn't maintain your weight on a diet containing different foods if the amount of calories is about the same. I understand that you wouldn't want to experiment with this, though.

I think this is a very important observation. You will most likely always be prone to go back to food in times of stress, more or less. Hopefully less. Maybe you still need some more time to further cement the new coping mechanisms. Hell, even "normal eaters" do rely on food for solace now and then. It's not as pathologic as one might think. Therapy is not the "cure it all" 100% solution. Some might like to sell it as such, but it's not. Look at the success rates of therapies regarding eating disorders and relapse rates. It's just sad. Therapy is certainly useful when it comes to overeating issues but I think its power is overestimated quite a bit sometimes.

I don't think that this is "the sad part". It's not sad being able to eat the foods you like, on the contrary. It's nice to be able to eat the foods you like. What didn't help our situation wasn't "the food" - it was how much we ate of it. I wish I would have known before surgery that there would be almost no food I'm not able to eat. Would have prevented "famine brain" maybe.

It's indeed "famine brain" - the thought of "I will never be able to have this or that" is very powerful.

It's pretty common. I didn't go overboard (means: didn't gain weight) but I ate everything I wanted to eat in the time before surgery.

6 days are nothing. It's not a stall. Your body is now filling up the digestive system again. You also might be retaining some fluids. You also already lost quite a bit of weight which means you need less energy now to sustain your body mass so your weight loss is slower with the same intake.

Paracetamol, Novalgin. If the pain is bad, opioids. You'll not be allowed to take NSAIDS anyway after MGB.

My eyes were always on the big side. They look huge now.

I'm still the one complaining about how "hot it's in here". I'm usually chilly in the late evening and early mornings, in other words: when I'm tired but that didn't get worse so far.

Interestingly enough I make the same experience with the private patients (German healthcare system). Of course most of the patients aren't really this way.

Not really. I had to look that name up though, LOL. Didn't see that movie.