Arabesque

What are kitchen sink cookies @Starwarsandcupcakes? The mind boggles. 😁 Sorry you’re disliking your job so much. When you just want to keep driving past your office or dread walking in the door, it’s time to move on. It’s just not worth the angst.

Will you feel like you did before surgery? No. You won’t feel the same as you did because you’ve had pretty major surgery, changed your digestive system & you’re losing weight so every week you’ll experience new things you couldn’t do before. For a few weeks you’ll experience post surgical issues like rumbling, spasms, changes in your taste buds, nausea, discomfort, etc. but these pass as you heal & recover so you will feel better from that perspective. You may experience low energy, low blood pressure, foamies, dumping, hormonal fluctuations, etc. Some will pass after a couple of months, others once your weight stabilises. You’ll also discover how your new tummy works & identify how long to wait between eating & drinking, what doesn’t sit well, gives you the foamies, etc. I still gurgle but I usually know why like eating dairy often causes it for me. It’s an individual thing. During surgery, they pump you full of air & fluids so many people come out of hospital weighing more than they were the day they were admitted. You will lose at your own rate. There is not a single right amount to lose each week. There are average rates but some are naturally slow losers & some are fast losers. Losing 4lbs in your first week is pretty darn good. Remember, it’s not a competition. You’ve never experienced anything like this before so feeling unlike yourself & anxious about things is not uncommon. It will be ok. Give yourself time to heal & recover & to work out your new eating plan, your tummy’s likes & dislikes, etc.

Congrats on your surgery. I’m pretty much a newbie when it comes to maintaining weight - almost 2 1/2 years since surgery - but choosing a way of eating that is sustainable has been key for me so far. That is a way of eating that allows me to be healthy, make nutritious food choices, maintain my weight & still be able to live my life the way I want to. If the food choices you make & the amount of exercise you have to do to maintain your weight is so restrictive your lifestyle is compromised you won’t be successful simply because you can’t keep doing it forever. I watch what I eat pretty carefully. I don’t track everyday but do random checks. I watch portion size, cook most of my own food & carefully read the nutrition panels of any food I do purchase. I’m realistic to know I can’t predict what the future will bring. I may make some changes to what I eat in time. Sometimes life throws a pile of crap at you & I may put on some weight but I hope I can manage to keep a weight that is still reasonable & healthy. But I don’t let what ifs & maybes compromise or undermine what I’m doing. Stay positive & embrace all the opportunities this surgery affords you.

People can be the worst. I don’t understand how some people think they have the right to openly make critical judgements about others to their face or in their hearing. I had people tell me I’d lost too much too & minister at my church took me aside & asked if I was ok. My uncle told my mother I looked like death. But I don’t get those comments anymore - or at least no one says it to me anymore 🙂. If I try to look at the comments from family & friends more positively, I think for some it is a shock. Even if they knew when you’d been slim in the past, they forget & they find it hard to see you as slim again. It’s almost if they have a form of body dysmorphia in how they see you. Strangers can go to hell!! The seemingly sunken eyes, gauntness does pass. For me it improved when I started eating more carbs & generally more calories when my weight stated to stabilise. Plus your remaining fat seems to resettle. That uncle who said I looked like death now says I look great. Hopefully, this will happen for you too & you won’t have to hear such rude & hurtful comments. Sorry you have have had some health problems. I you’re able to manage your IBS & you don’t experience more obstructions.

Oh I hear you. I used to say my tummy is like a contrary 2yr old who throws random tantrums. Most annoying is when you tentatively try to eat the food your tummy revolted against two days later & it’s fine. WTF??? I’ve found it can be little things that set off the tantrum. Food a little too dry, too oily, too fatty. Ate a little too fast. Drank a little too close to eating or sometimes seemingly just for the hell of it. Thank gracious it’s the exception not the norm now.

Oops, yep confused the date of your surgery. Thought it was 3 September. You Americans write your dates backwards 😆.

So sorry you don’t feel confident &/or comfortable with your surgeon. But this sounds like a conversation you will need to have with your insurance company. They seem to have lots of the decision making power in the States. Hope they support your desire for a new surgeon & it’s an easy transition.

Iceberg lettuce is a slider food for me but I still eat lots of it every day. I love my lunch time salads. It’s a high water content food, extremely low in calories & has some good nutrients so wins all round really. Other salad greens like spinach, rocket, etc are a but coarse for me so can only eat a little. Popcorn can cause bloating & wind. If it’s a slider for you though this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. It does contain some great nutrients. I guess the other consideration is how it’s cooked & what you add to it - salt, butter, sugar, etc. There have been a few posts about it previously & there seems to be mixed reactions as to whether it’s ok or not. It may be something it’s best to avoid now on your plan since your only 4 weeks out but is ok in the future. Of course if your doctor says it’s ok & it doesn’t restrict you in any way, watch the portion size & pop away.

As everyone has said. Very common. Remember you aren’t consuming all that much yet so if you don’t go for a couple of days it’s ok. I’d take a stool softener after day 3 so there would be movement on day 4. Any longer & it would become painful. Add some soluble, not swelling, fibre to your diet too. Just add to your shake, yoghurt, milk, water, etc. Congrats on having some movement.

Yeah, damn pleats. Love them but … That’s a lovely skirt, @Sophie7713. Would be worth the ironing torture I think. Especially love the white nail polish too. How long will you be living in your temporary home & why a temporary residence? Are you building a new home or still looking for the perfect place for the three of you? Oh my injury was a battle between a mandolin & a sweet potato & my thumb lost. They had to graft my skin back on. Silly thing to do but so limiting cause it was my dominant hand. God bless must nieces who took me to the hospital, did my washing, washed my hair, did some cooking for me. Want to see a pxt of your new winter flats. These are my latest addition. Actually, that’s not true. There have been several other shoe purchases. Hello, my name is arabesque & I have a shoe addiction. 😉

Certainly not trying to diminish what you’re experiencing. Just offering some suggestions, things to think about or discuss with your medical team. Head hunger encompasses more than just cravings it’s just the most obvious one that most relate to. But it’s also eating for emotional reasons: to sooth in response to anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, stress, etc. Head hunger is also habit driven eating. Like always eating when you go to the movies, watching tv, before you go to bed or eating very regularly (every hour or less). Also eating because you’re drinking alcohol & socialising. Plus perceptions of what is ‘enough’ food as I mentioned before. Because, if we’re honest when we’re obese, our body has plenty of stored energy in our fat it can burn if our body needs more calories than we’re currently consuming to function. It’s what we need to happen if we are to lose weight. Major surgery is stressful & doesn’t matter how ready you were for this surgery it still is an emotional roller coaster of various degrees. So that could be contributing. Is your esomeprazole prescription or over the counter? You may be producing too much stomach acid so you may need a higher dose - 20 or 40mg. The acid will make you think you’re hungry though you’re not. You eat & your tummy uses the acid to digest that food & the pain/pangs go so you think yes, I was hungry. Once you get onto solid foods this should reduce - more acid is needed to digest the denser food than just liquids & purées so you’ll use more of what you are producing. Hunger pains/pangs do not necessarily occur only when your hungry. They are the result of many triggers. Not the best article about the causes of hunger pangs but it may be a little helpful. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321725#symptoms. My tummy gurgles, groans, squelches, often (it’s doing it now 😆) but is not related to me needing to eat. (Remember how when our tummy would gurgle people would say you must be hungry? Not necessarily true.) It can be from what I ate (dairy causes it sometimes), drinking too fast or having too big a swallow, or even resting my iPad on my chest when I read at night. Can be a bit embarrassing but it seems to be how my tummy works now. I hope you can find a way to manage & help what you’re experiencing. And I hope your medical team returns your call soon. So frustrating when they don’t follow through with support. All the best.

A lot will depend on how much loose skin you have. But really the only way to get rid of skin that has been stretched out is to have it surgically removed. Sorry. ☹️ Depending on your age & genetics you may have some retraction of your loose skin but unless you’re young, with good skin elasticity & weren’t at your higher weight for a prolonged period of time, it won’t be a noticeable bounce back. Radio therapy tends to have only short term benefits around stimulating collagen growth. I had several weekly sessions (12 in a package deal) on my face & neck. Did it tighten my skin? No. Did it reduce any sagginess? No. Did it smooth & even out texture? Yes. Was the treatment & accompanying facial soothing? Yes. But you can always give it a go. You may see more benefit then I did.

The cooler is my go to too. I take yoghurt, cheese, protein bars, etc. Even packed cooked chicken & deli meats (got to make sure the cooler is very cold of course). If no freezer in my room, I’d ask management to pop the ice bricks in their kitchen freezer over night. Restock from grocery, convenience stores as you go. Throw in some protein shakes too. Of course you’ll likely be only on soft foods in a month so you won’t be able to eat all that I pack but it might give you ideas. Try containers with meat balls & sauce (gravy) in your cooler instead of chicken & deli meats. Just mash them in the container with the gravy. Only last a couple of days but it will start you off. Look for eating places with soups, eggs (scrambled, poached, omelettes), mince meat dishes or slow cooked meats. Appetiser size meals are most realistic portions, or share meals with your family. Don’t be afraid to ask for half serves. I used to ask if they would mind scrambling a single egg for me when I was travelling. Most places were sure, no problem. Hope the move goes smoothly. Be careful lifting, carrying, pulling, pushing too much though.

Well said, @The Greater Fool. I was one of the fortunate ones & didn’t feel hungry & wasn’t interested in eating for ages. One thing I did discover was real hunger feels different from head hunger. For me, I feel restless, like something is wrong but I don’t know what. I can then logically understand why I should feel hungry - missed a meal, it’s been a long time since I last ate or haven’t eaten much today. With real hunger I usually don’t mind what I eat as long as it’s nutritionally sound but if it’s a craving (yes cravings still occur but I can recognise & manage them way better) I know exactly what I want to eat & aren’t satisfied unless I eat it. Like @vikingbeast, if I don’t succumb to the head hunger straight away, the desire passes. Real hunger remains. But that’s me. The psychology behind why we eat is fascinating & confusing & challenging to understand & recognise & manage & …. Even simply coming to terms with portion size is huge. How can what seems a tiny serving be enough for my body to function when I used eat to T-H-I-S much. Sometimes we just can’t work though this alone & therapy can be very helpful with the psychological aspects. Your surgeon or medical team should be able to recommend someone with experience supporting people having or who’ve had bariatric surgery. Good. Luck.

My first reaction to the fasting option was sustainability. Can you sustain such an eating plan for the rest of your life? Because losing weight & keeping it off is a lifetime behavioural change. Personally, I fasted for most of my high school years. No breakfast, no lunch, 4 multi grain crackers for afternoon tea & a healthy dinner nothing else all to try to maintain my weight. Did it work? No! I put on almost a stone every year & I was way more active then too. All it did was kill my metabolism. The sustainability aspect was the game changer for me. I can follow any restrictive diet for a few weeks or months & did many, many times. But as soon as I reached the weight loss goal I gave myself or when the diet became too hard to continue, I’d just go back to eating how I did before & start gaining again. As some posters above have said weight loss surgery is a tool. If you use it, take advantage of the benefits it affords & make changes to how you eat, what you eat & understand why you eat you can be successful in losing weight & maintaining. The time before surgery & after while you are losing are the time to work through the answers to the what, why & how you eat & to begin establishing new behaviours. Don’t be afraid to seek help from a therapist & a dietician. Just make sure the changes you make are sustainable & will complement your lifestyle & how you want to live your life. It’s something you will have to do forever. I am biased though, the surgery has been a successful experience for me. From deciding to have surgery to actually having the surgery was a very short period - less than two months from GP referral to theatre (much easier process here in Australia though). Don’t know if I would have gone through with it if I had to undergo 1-4 years of pre requisite steps & approval processes. I’d choose the shortest & quickest path forward. Though you know yourself best & know how much support you will need. But it is your decision. Good luck whatever you choose to do.

In simple speak, your body is being stressed so it shuts down & the stall occurs. Just like when you’re mentally or emotionally stressed & want to shut your door, go to bed & pull the covers over your head. Remember your body has been going through a lot - surgery, reduced calorie diet, changes to activity level, etc. The stall will break when your body is ready. You don’t have to change a thing. Just follow your plan. The small adjustments that you make to your diet & activity as you progress through your plan are enough for your body to cope with without making other larger changes.

Your hair has got so much longer. Like the layers. What are you getting done - foils, highlights, all over colour,…? Don’t you love being able to cross your legs like that so they rest against each other. Still get a thrill when I do it.

It’s all so new & you have no similar experiences you can fall back on so you are very much allowed to feel a little lost & feel it’s all you think about all day. Plus the stress of surgery & anaesthetic can mess with your head & emotions. That’s why I found this forum so helpful - voices of experience. Not always exactly the same but a lot of similarities or places to start. It takes time to heal. Think about how long it would take for a long cut on your arm with multiple sutures holding it together to heal. Same with your tummy - lots of sutures & staples holding your tummy, etc, together. And we all recover differently. Some people stay a lot longer on some stages because they’re just not healed enough to progress yet but that’s ok. Spread your tablets out across the day as you can. I used to take one vitamin in the morning the other at night to try reduce the nausea & how many I was taking at a time (so 2 tablets in the am & 2 at night). The dizziness, light headedness, is likely low blood pressure. It’s from the surgery & the low calorie diet. Make sure you’re getting your fluids in, add a little more salt to what you’re eating & wait before moving on standing to give your heart a chance to get your blood back up to your head. It will get better (unless you’re like me & naturally tend to low blood pressure & then you just live with it 🙂). It will get easier & you’ll start to feel more confident & comfortable about everything. Give yourself time.

Glad you are doing so well & are happy with your progress. Whoo hoo! By 4-5 months I was eating a variety of meats, vegetables & some fruit & lots of dairy. Had a small amount of carbs in the form of rolled oats 3 or 4 times a week. Still small portions - almost 3/4 cup on a good day & depending on what I was eating. I ate three meals a day & usually two snacks (yoghurt & cheese or fruit). No real difficulties eating most foods that I can recall by that time except for things I always had issues with like chilli & spicy foods. Though there are still odd occasions when my tummy says nope this is not for you but I’ve worked out what most of those things are now or why my tummy said no. I hit goal at 6 months so my weight loss was noticeably slowing especially by month 5. I did keep losing for another 11 months or so but it just took me time to be able to physically eat enough to stop losing & to work out how & what that meant & looked like for me. While losing my cholesterol levels increased & my liver function was off. Not because of what I was eating but because of what was being released into my blood stream from my melting fat. Once I reached my goal they settled & my cholesterol dropped back to the level it has been for years (regardless of my weight). Always had a tendency to low blood pressure & the occasional hypoglycaemic episodes & as I got closer to my goal, they increased in frequency (esp the low blood pressure: all day, ever day). So that did, & still does, affect my energy levels & my ability to be very active - start strong but fade fast. Lol! Now I eat almost a recommended serving size again depending on what I’m eating. Eat 3 meals & 3 or 4 snacks a day - about 1200/1300 calories. Cut out a lot of sugar, (real, substitutes & artificial). Only eat whole or multi grains - rolled oats & some crackers (2 serves a day). Can’t eat breads, rice & pasta - sit heavily in my tummy & restrict what else I can eat. My surgery hasn’t limited me socially in any way. That’s my story anyway.

Oh that sounds more like dumping than just the foamies. The racing heart, getting flushed or increased temp, cold sweats & feeling awful for hours after is dumping. With dumping you usually vomit (& that can be just a lot of saliva) but not always. The foamies are lots of saliva bubbling up. Wanting to vomit but you may only be able to spit up more saliva but without the other symptoms. When I have the foamies, my restriction gets really bad really quickly & doesn't ease until the excess saliva comes up. I also do this barking hack thing - bit gross. Usually I’m a little tender in my upper chest area after. At this early stage, I’d think it’s because you’re not quite ready for soft food yet & your tummy is saying nope not yet. Go back to liquids for a couple of days or maybe try the purée stage for a few days. Your tummy is healing & can be sensitive & fussy for a little while. You may be able to eat. Something today but tomorrow your tummy says No! Though trying to swallow a large tablet can set it off too. Have a chat with your medical team.

I had a similar experience earlier this year. Specified no pasta, rice or bread & high protein on my admissions form & wrote I had a sleeve gastrectomy beside it. First meal was sandwiches, second was a vegetable pasta bake. When I pointed out my diet requirements & restrictions of the sleeve for me they said they thought I was just being difficult. (Not in those exact ways but it was what they meant.) Yes, some people can eat bread, pasta & rice in time but I can’t. They sit very heavily in my tummy & reduce what I can eat. So, yes some of my request could be perceived as a personal choice but it is also a physical thing for me too. If I said I had a gluten or lactose intolerance they would have happily modified the meals without an issue. Once I explained everything they were fine & my subsequent meals were great. With the numbers of people undergoing bariatric surgeries now, you would think there would be a wider understanding of the requirements & limitations within the medical fraternity. Maybe I’m expecting too much. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Hope you have no post spider bite issues.

It’s very individual. Some can. Some can’t. I’m a not so much. A good mouthful so about two swallows is about it for me. Sometimes I can do a third swallow but never more. Restriction, gurgling, discomfort. So still drink regularly throughout the day & happy to drink this way. Never really feel thirsty & never reach that OMG I’m dying for a drink stage & have to chug litres at a time. Always well hydrated. Oh & the colder the drink the harder it is for me to drink.

If the pain is on movement only, it’s likely because your moving too much or too fast, stretching too far or pulling or lifting too much. Remember you had pretty major surgery & you have a lot of internal stitches & staples holding your tummy together. Take it easy & give your body time to heal. Of course if the pain occurs without moving or gets worse contact your medical team.

As @catwoman7 said it’s likely a stall. They happen & you may experience a couple if them. They will pass. Your body just needs time to come to terms with the changes - pretty stressful to it as well as you. If you’re following your plan & your doctor is happy you’re golden. It’s not a race. The weight is not going to magically disappear quickly. Because you had a higher starting weight you likely lost more quickly to begin but as your weight decreases, your weight loss rate will slow. We all experience this slow down as we get closer to our goal simply because our caloric intake is getting close to the amount our body needs to function. Congrats on your weight loss so far.

Looking gorgeous @sillykitty. That dress is fab. The scenery ain’t bad either. 😉