ms.sss

I liked to cook/bake well enough before WLS, but AFTER it, I developed a LOVE/ OBSESSION / ALL-CONSUMING DESIRE to cook/bake (as well as all the planning, shopping, researching that goes along with it. not to mention sharing the goods with fam and friends and watching them eat it!) I'm not sure this was totally because of wls (but i'm sure it had a big part of it), but also because circumstances allowed me more time to indulge in my interests (change in work, and then pandemic, and then stopped working altogether). I am the family cook/food provider, to 3 thin, fit, active people who eat truckloads of food. During weight loss phase, I got whomever was around to taste the food; if there was no one around, then I would just take my chances and hope it was ok. If I REALLY needed to taste it, I would, but spit it out. Towards the end of weight loss phase and into maintenance I no longer required the help of the fam tasters, and would taste it myself AND sometimes swallow, lol. Now, 2+ years out, I taste and swallow everything, AND will often times actually eat the final product as well! I will eat (beyond tasting) maybe 20% of the savoury stuff I make for fam meals, but I eat (beyond tasting) 100% of the desserts. I recently became a lover of bread baking, and even started eating bread because of it (which was weird because I didnt have any legitimate (fluffy) bread for like two years...i did have crackers and other small hard type bread products though) I sometimes make sugar-substitute no/low carb stuff, but I will almost always make an larger-portioned, "normal" version for the fam as well. Of course, its not like I eat even close to the amounts that I did pre-wls. While before I would have eaten 10 cookies in one sitting , now I'll eat like 1/2 of one. Instead of 4 slices of sour dough, I'll eat like 1/4 slice, instead of 1/2 an entire fruit pie, I'll have 1/2 a slice, instead of 3 butter tarts, I'd take a bite off someones, and so on, and so on.... (ooooh now i want to bake something...lol) .......soooo so long as i don't stuff myself with huge amounts and keep within my maintenance calories (i track EVERYTHING), then its all good (which is basically what I've been doing for the past 1.5+ years of maintenance)

Sweeteners and real sugar affect me in the same way...in small amounts ok, but too much at a time or on an empty stomach results in dumping

I lost 21 (which to me was a crap ton...i have never lost anywhere close to 21 lbs in one month in my life). How did you arrive at the expectation of a 25+ lb loss? Was it something your doc/team told you to expect?

Here's something a little more normal, lol: I have turned into an avid bread baker lately and bake a loaf (or batch) 1-2 times a week. (Have also started eating bread since my bread is AWESOME) I don't usually eat in the mornings, but the aroma from this morning's bake was calling to me. 36g of homemade onion bread (yes, i weighed it!) + 1/2 tsp butter: approx 150 calories

Sometimes I eat weird sh*t. Usually its because there is nothing else to eat, but sometimes, I am actually WANTING weird sh*t. Case in point: todays lunch: shiratake noodles, a can of smoked oysters, 3 anchovy fillets, crumbled feta cheese, a pinch of candied ginger & BBQ sauce: 260 calories. Ate it all. No, I'm not pregnant.

Oh that looks good. Cheesy awesomeness.

During weight loss phase, very rarely. If i did, it was like 5-10 berries (raspberries or blueberries) on a salad or with cottage cheese or yogurt. AFTER weight loss phase I eat more, but probably still not so much compared to others (maybe 0-2 times a week). Also, I expanded beyond berries: apples, grapes. And the very occasional watermelon or mango or papaya or pineapple. P.S. I'm not counting cucumbers or avocados (which I eat a TON of), nor tomatoes (which I eat sometimes). But these aren't usually considered "fruit" when people ask about "fruit" lol.

....oooooh what are u going to wear???

One thing you will learn quickly is that there is such a HUGE variation of instructions given to post-oppers. With that said, I was having decaf in my protein shakes as soon as I got home, and drinking good-ole-regular coffee by 1 month.

+ 1 I'd add: vacation someplace hot where you can wear a bikini with your smaller bod (pending pandemic restrictions) new wedding ring/engagement ring (to fit your smaller fingers)...and if you don't have one to replace, just get one anyway! Or any other piece of sparkly thing tattoo (i've already decided that I'm going to get one once the parlours open up! mid-life crisis, anyone??? lol) hair extensions (to add fullness to your weight-loss related hair thinning) fancy new underwear/lingerie that you have no intention of actually wearing for very long LOLOLOLzzzz

With the conversion, its most likely much cheaper. 48K USD == 61K CAD, and yeah, there is no way it would cost that much here. Wait times in Ontario are about 9-12 months from referral to surgery date (other provinces are much, much longer), but yeah, that's if you are getting it covered via provincial insurance. Private pay is essentially immediate i believe...i chatted with someone who was self-pay and pretty much set her own surgery date. She was from B.C. though and travelled to Ontario to get it done, I can't remember the reason why. May be worth looking into....

Once I got over 160-ish lbs years ago, I stopped feeling comfortable admitting my weight (...as i gained up to 235 lbs). At around 4 months post-op, when people started noticing I was losing weight, I would answer the "how much have you lost" question, but felt slightly embarrassed about it. As I got further and further away from 235 lbs, that slight embarrassment turned into FULL ON full-of-myself-confidence; so much so that I have been known to pull out a "before" picture of me in my underwear in all my obese glory to prove to them, yes, I was that fat. BFF waxed philosophical way back and I said that the level of comfort I have to show pics of my bigger self is cuz I no longer identify with big me, so I can look at those pics and not feel bad. I think she's right.

“Smoked”? Do u have one of those cool smoking things I see on cooking shows all the time?!?

Nah, not weird, just an alternative response. I'm the same way, if someone asks me how many lbs, I tell them. And if they ask how it was done, I say I ate way less than I used to. After that, I started getting annoyed, so I changed the subject. Almost nobody asks or comments about weight loss anymore though, its old news.

That's awesome. You get to spend a crappy Covid winter in a warm place! Are you there for the long haul?

Ok. I dont want to offend in any way, but technically WLS is elective surgery. But even with that said, the decision is up to the hospital (and maybe even your state?) to perform elective surgeries. If the facility and surgeon deem it safe to perform, then it is safe to perform! If it wasn’t, then they wouldn’t. I hope any decision you make to go thru (or not) with the surgery is based on your own feelings on the matter, and NOT from some judgy-mcJudger who slaps on a “selfish” label and presumes to know better than your surgical team/hospital. Good Luck! ❤️

duuuuuddddeeeeeee... You look phenomenal!!!!! Your waist is teeny-tiny! And your BOOBS!!!!! Holy smokes. Those are some nice boobs. I think I may want to take a bite out of them. They'd be an awfully nice dinner, methinks. lol. with @GreenTealael's ass for dessert. SOooooooooooooooooo amazing!

@ChubRub: are you still in florida?

Daaaaammmmmnnnnnnnnnn. You look like that without exercising??? I get the weight loss due to caloric deficit, but the overall firmness AND those quads need some explaining, pls! Blessed with good genes, you are. lol. Lookin' FAB.

I don't drink diet soda, but I do drink carbonated water. Alot of it. Though sometimes I add a couple drops of sugar free "water enhancers" so I suppose technically it could be considered diet soda? P.S. Full disclosure though: Not that I've never had ANY diet coke at all. In the past 2+ years since surgery, I probably had the equivalent of maybe 3-4 cans total.

*waits in anticipation*

Same here. I never thought of myself as so very big until I saw the rare picture of myself, and even then I'm was all, nah, that's not me. I would often bump into walls when turning corners because I didn't think I needed to give myself more clearance! Immediately after weight loss phase it became the opposite and I would think I was bigger than I actually was...like I wouldn't try to squeeze between the wall and the back of chair around the dinner table cuz I thought I wouldn't fit (but duh, I totally have lots of room). I'd like to say I'm totally used to my current size now, but there are still times when I laugh at the thought of getting myself into a tiny looking pair of pants (spoiler alert: I can). This non-believing doesn't happen as often as it used to, so I figure in time it will be a non-issue altogether.

So after almost a full week of a diet consisting solely of pecan butter tarts, raw carrots and espresso martinis (don’t judge me!) I finally felt legitimately hungry today and fixed myself some real food! It helped that I went for a longer than normal run on an empty stomach. Came back home around 3pm and felt hungrier than I can remember feeling for a loooooong time. Todays very satisfying meal consisted of various leftovers found in the fridge: cold steak, cold steamed broccoli, cold mushroom sauce, cold sautéed onions and 1/2 a piece of cold bacon. Yeah, I didn’t even bother to heat it up cuz i knew i was going to eat it all, and that it would take a while. So yeah, 232 calories, ate it all over roughly 1.5 hours (while I was watching Wonder Woman 1984, natch): ...am already looking forward to dinnertime!

ok, i opened the page in Safari (vs.Chrome) and it played fine. HUGE, but fine, lol. P.S. Love the demo lolololololzzzz... the thumbs up in end...😂

Neither doc nor myself set any weekly/monthly goals. Weight loss rates vary from week to week, and the overall rate slows down the further out/smaller you get. So adhering to a fixed number of lbs lost every week over time may be difficult at best. Doc did say that if I were to lose 60% of my excess weight (based on ideal weight/BMI of 25) then he would consider it a successful outcome. For my starting BMI of 43, this calculated to mean a 60lbs loss == successful outcome (which btw, would have had me at 175 lbs, at a BMI of 32...still in "obese" category). He also said if I were to reach this milestone within year, he would be happy. He was happy. P.S. I'm BMI 21 today.