lisafrommassachusetts

Today I "unsubscribed" from Lane Bryant emails! Although they served me very well through the years, no more plus sizes for me.
Sent from my SM-G965U using BariatricPal mobile app

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Today I "unsubscribed" from Lane Bryant emails! Although they served me very well through the years, no more plus sizes for me.
Sent from my SM-G965U using BariatricPal mobile app

Can I just tell you how powerful I find what you wrote here? That is exactly how I feel, when I am on top of this thing, and not being crazy about food and all of that.
I am so grateful for the surgery, and grateful for the healthier, stronger, happier me. One reason why I don't come to this site too often is because of the dogmatic and/or shaming stuff. Like people who claim to have only eaten 400 calories a day for 6 months, and shame people who don't, or who go nuts if someone asks if post surgery people can tolerate an occasional piece of bacon or movie theater popcorn, or respond to someone who admits to struggling or (gasp!) falling off the wagon by becoming some sort of weird bariatric drill sergeant. I know that shaming, cajoling, and extreme deprivation have NEVER worked for me, and I literally cringe when I see some of that stuff on here. And I also know that the food hormones come back, and yes, I am actually hungry! And I most definitely do need 1000 calories a day; I regularly eat 12 to 1400 calories a day and I am still losing weight, albeit slowly. (I also have a thyroid disorder which has impacted the speed of my weight loss).
I am one year out, 90 pounds thinner, and still at a "fat" BMI (28); I am 62 years old, and I am not going to be entering any bathing suit competitions! I make mostly healthy food choices, I walk a lot because I like it and it is good for my mental health, and one of the things I really miss is drinking a beer. Of course....that may just be head thirst

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Wow! What a mistake I made! I had my surgery in February of 2020, and have by and large had a successful and unremarkable experience. Recently I had to go through some significant and painful dental procedures. I have not taken any Ibuprofen (Motrin), Alleve or the like since my surgery, but my dentist prescribed it and seemed to suggest he thought it would not be a problem since I had the surgery over a year ago and had no issues. HE WAS WRONG! I blame myself, because I knew better. I took the prescription strength for a couple of days, and then switched to non prescription dose for another 5 or so days. Simultaneously I could not really eat (dental surgery), and was surviving on Protein Drinks, pudding and mashed potatoes basically. My stomach was not feeling great, but overall ok. Then I started getting some burning and pain in my stomach, radiating into my back and shoulder. These episodes would last a half hour to an hour and then pass. I of course stopped the ibuprofen, and googled stomach lining irritation. I went on a bland diet, and was using mylanta and tums. I thought it was getting better. I WAS WRONG! I had a major attack, and was on the floor of the bathroom, vomiting bile and with severe diarrhea. My blood pressure dropped to the point I could not even sit on the toilet, but had to curl up on the floor while being this sick. I was this acutely ill for over an hour. Foolishly (ok, everything I did in this story was foolish, so continuing my bad choices...) I would not let my husband call an ambulance nor would I go to an urgent care facility because "what can they do? It's a stomach bug). Finally spoke with my PCP's office, who had me call my surgeon's office. They diagnosed an ulcer and started me on 2 medications, one for the symptoms and one to heal my stomach. It could take months to heal. I am on a bland diet, no coffee, alcohol, spicy foods, etc. It has been a week and I have not had any other attacks. I was an IDIOT, but also got lucky that it had not progressed to where it was bleeding or worse.
Non WLS practitioners do not understand what really happens with WLS. If you have had the sleeve, and MUST use N-saids for any purpose, talk with your surgeon's office; they can prescribe a course of treatment to minimize the impact on your stomach. I don't know about bi-pass. I have been advised to never use them again at this point due to the damage already done.

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Today I "unsubscribed" from Lane Bryant emails! Although they served me very well through the years, no more plus sizes for me.
Sent from my SM-G965U using BariatricPal mobile app

Waiting for my surgery this coming Monday....thank you for the inspiration tonight. You look amazing, strong and happy.

Can I just tell you how powerful I find what you wrote here? That is exactly how I feel, when I am on top of this thing, and not being crazy about food and all of that.
I am so grateful for the surgery, and grateful for the healthier, stronger, happier me. One reason why I don't come to this site too often is because of the dogmatic and/or shaming stuff. Like people who claim to have only eaten 400 calories a day for 6 months, and shame people who don't, or who go nuts if someone asks if post surgery people can tolerate an occasional piece of bacon or movie theater popcorn, or respond to someone who admits to struggling or (gasp!) falling off the wagon by becoming some sort of weird bariatric drill sergeant. I know that shaming, cajoling, and extreme deprivation have NEVER worked for me, and I literally cringe when I see some of that stuff on here. And I also know that the food hormones come back, and yes, I am actually hungry! And I most definitely do need 1000 calories a day; I regularly eat 12 to 1400 calories a day and I am still losing weight, albeit slowly. (I also have a thyroid disorder which has impacted the speed of my weight loss).
I am one year out, 90 pounds thinner, and still at a "fat" BMI (28); I am 62 years old, and I am not going to be entering any bathing suit competitions! I make mostly healthy food choices, I walk a lot because I like it and it is good for my mental health, and one of the things I really miss is drinking a beer. Of course....that may just be head thirst

Hi. My name is ms.sss and I am a human being.
I drink alcohol, coffee and carbonated Water almost daily. I eat deep fried foods, fatty foods, and desserts on the regular. I eat popcorn (smothered in butter and lots of salt). There were 4-5 straight days just after Christmas where my diet for the entire day(s) consisted of solely alcohol and pecan butter tarts, no joke! I smoke cigarettes and drive well above the speed limit. I smoked pot almost every weekend last summer. I have not filed my personal income taxes for the past 2 years. If I'm home, I eat lunch on the couch with laptop, and binge watch TV for hours on end. I haven't taken my vitamins/supplements in over year. I didn't brush my teeth before I went to bed last night.
Sometimes (sometimes!) I worry that people will read what I post and get the wrong idea/message...like I'm eating too little, or too much, or just unhealthily. Or that I'm wholly irresponsible or going down the path the h*ll. Or, that someone with a different temperament than mine will do as I do and get unexpected results. But we are all adults here and we each can make decisions on our own lives without putting any onus on some stranger on the internet.
In the end, I don't assume any responsibility for your actions, nor your reactions to mine. I will commiserate with you, make suggestions, share a joke, and offer up my own personal experiences. But what you do with your lives is on you*.
* Clarification: You == the collective "You", NOT the OP nor anyone else on this thread specifically.

Man, if I had a dollar for every critic who said this to me on these boards. It's a past time of a certain type of dieter....to send me hate mail and try to shame me for being outspoken.
"You're still overweight! You shouldn't be telling people what to do! How dare you not feel ashamed at that weight!"
Shakin my head over here.
If I wanted to be 140, I could be. Have been. Looked god-awful and felt like I was starving all the time.
If I wanted to be 160, I could be. Have been. I wasn't particularly hungry, got a reasonable number of calories, but thought I looked older.
I like a little more round to my angles. I like less sag, fewer wrinkles. Not real interested in cosmetic surgery. Picked the best option for me.
I like eating 1600 calories a day. I like having space in my diet for a couple pieces of fruit because I think phytonutrients are beneficial and important. I like how i feel eating a high Fiber diet. I like room to be a vegetarian some days. I like flexability. It's how I can face this as a lifelong change. It's how I can make peace with food forever....cause I know this plan is WORKABLE in pretty much all situations. I can eat on my plan during a holiday, a funeral, a birthday party....during a power outage, while recovering from an injury, during extreme emotional stress, on the road, and while dealing with my inlaws. LOL.
I typically weigh 165-170 pounds. I LOVE this weight. It is NOT "the best I could do because I couldn't get to a "healthy weight" ", it is an intentionally chosen set point. It's a choice. This is, I am 100% certain...the MOST healthy weight I can choose for myself.
That whole...Arnold Schwarzenegger's BMI was technically Obese when he won Mr. Universe figures in. BMI is flawed. It doesn't differentiate between light muscle frames and heavy muscle frames, bigger bones, smaller bones. Different ethnicities. Different body styles.
My feet, depending on the manufacturer are size 10 or 11. My shoulders are more broad than most men's my height. My butt, thighs and calves are overdeveloped because I rode huntseat and jumped horses for decades, even when I was quite heavy. My husband says they have a kinda superhero quality now. LOLOLOLOL
So here's the thing....If you feel inclined to send me a snarky note about how I shouldn't say anything....because I'm not American Media model skinny, you might have a problem.
As it happens, I have a good friend who models. He's 5' 10", weighs 157 pounds soaking wet, and they STILL wanted him to use coke for a week and fast...to look more sickly skinny for his last national ad campaign.
Our impression of body image in the media is grossly distorted and unhealthy.
And a lot of folks here....get a grossly distorted and unhealthy obsession with their eating habits, their BMI, the number on the scale, and how it defines them.
Please, please, please remember....health.
Physical health, strength, endurance, good labs, fewer medications.
Emotional health...loving yourself, enjoying your life, feeling challenged and happy.
Mental health...finding balance you can live with for a lifetime.
Love your strong healthy body. Love your good food choices that provide good nutrition to nurture that body. Love the flexability to make it work though the tough spots.
Avoid the fixations, the extremes, the inflexable rules, the disordered eating (and disordered not-eating)
You can trust yourself to get to where you need to be....without punishment.
Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself.

Confusing. The smaller one has 26g of sugar, but the biggest one only has 5!

Can I just tell you how powerful I find what you wrote here? That is exactly how I feel, when I am on top of this thing, and not being crazy about food and all of that.
I am so grateful for the surgery, and grateful for the healthier, stronger, happier me. One reason why I don't come to this site too often is because of the dogmatic and/or shaming stuff. Like people who claim to have only eaten 400 calories a day for 6 months, and shame people who don't, or who go nuts if someone asks if post surgery people can tolerate an occasional piece of bacon or movie theater popcorn, or respond to someone who admits to struggling or (gasp!) falling off the wagon by becoming some sort of weird bariatric drill sergeant. I know that shaming, cajoling, and extreme deprivation have NEVER worked for me, and I literally cringe when I see some of that stuff on here. And I also know that the food hormones come back, and yes, I am actually hungry! And I most definitely do need 1000 calories a day; I regularly eat 12 to 1400 calories a day and I am still losing weight, albeit slowly. (I also have a thyroid disorder which has impacted the speed of my weight loss).
I am one year out, 90 pounds thinner, and still at a "fat" BMI (28); I am 62 years old, and I am not going to be entering any bathing suit competitions! I make mostly healthy food choices, I walk a lot because I like it and it is good for my mental health, and one of the things I really miss is drinking a beer. Of course....that may just be head thirst

At no point did I attempt to discount your experience. As a reminder, this was your first paragraph. I am sorry, but if that's you talking about your own experience only, then I'll eat my shoe. You start off by saying "when you're losing weight, your body is not hungry", and go on to use "us" and "we" multiple times. There are no I statements there. No "this is my experience" in the entire paragraph. There is not any "most people", "some people", or any language that would indicate you're not referring to a collective group instead of a subset. The fact that you keep insisting you were not generalizing and that you were only referring to your own experiences, is insulting.

I am well aware of the way the brain communicates with the stomach, and the hormones that get released. I also recognize that one of the triggers for hormone release is when your body is in need of energy, IE when it needs food. There are foods that can help you feel full longer, such as Protein, but that doesn't prevent the initial hunger trigger when your body needs energy. Now everyone's bodies are different. I fully believe that maybe some people don't experience actual hunger anymore after surgery. I have not once said otherwise. But those people are not what this thread was ever about (unless they were pushing their experiences onto others).
I also know that, scientifically speaking, the majority of people do need over 1000 calories to survive as a general rule. There are some exceptions, such as people trying to lose weight, but when eating so few calories it's strongly recommended to be medically supervised as it's well known that it can be dangerous to do. If you're an exception and you've discussed that with your doctor, then that's great. However, that is below most people's BMR. Stating that "we don't need 1000 calories to survive" is not only false, but can be very damaging to people who are at or below their goal weight who may not know better if they aren't medically supervised.
No one here has claimed that head hunger doesn't happen. Quite the contrary, many of us have given multiple examples of our head hunger. The rant was about the seeming denial of actual hunger as a thing on these forums. What you have done, and continue to do, is akin to coming into a place where someone is stating they're tired of people not believing they have depression cause they don't experience xyz symptom, and then you stating that people with depression have xyz symptom and then stating you have depression and you experience xyz symptom. It not only is tone deaf, but completely dismisses the original person's experience and feelings.
That being said, I won't engage with you further. You seem more hell bent on how your words are being perceived than actually contributing to the topic at hand. I was only really engaging to point out why your posts are not being well received, but you don't seem to care.

Can I just tell you how powerful I find what you wrote here? That is exactly how I feel, when I am on top of this thing, and not being crazy about food and all of that.
I am so grateful for the surgery, and grateful for the healthier, stronger, happier me. One reason why I don't come to this site too often is because of the dogmatic and/or shaming stuff. Like people who claim to have only eaten 400 calories a day for 6 months, and shame people who don't, or who go nuts if someone asks if post surgery people can tolerate an occasional piece of bacon or movie theater popcorn, or respond to someone who admits to struggling or (gasp!) falling off the wagon by becoming some sort of weird bariatric drill sergeant. I know that shaming, cajoling, and extreme deprivation have NEVER worked for me, and I literally cringe when I see some of that stuff on here. And I also know that the food hormones come back, and yes, I am actually hungry! And I most definitely do need 1000 calories a day; I regularly eat 12 to 1400 calories a day and I am still losing weight, albeit slowly. (I also have a thyroid disorder which has impacted the speed of my weight loss).
I am one year out, 90 pounds thinner, and still at a "fat" BMI (28); I am 62 years old, and I am not going to be entering any bathing suit competitions! I make mostly healthy food choices, I walk a lot because I like it and it is good for my mental health, and one of the things I really miss is drinking a beer. Of course....that may just be head thirst

Don't bet on it.
Boredom eating (or any emotional eating for that matter) is alive in practically everyone. This "food for fuel only" schlock is only the wet dream of the dieting/WLS community.
"Elimination" of emotional eating is just not possible. Also, physical and emotional hunger are entangled all too often. When I e. g. eat after a complicated intervention that lasted for hours I'm usually eating out of both physical hunger (it's afternoon and lunch is like really late) and emotional reason (need for relaxation) and I'm definitely not in the mood then to analyze and evaluate what "might be the stronger reason for eating" or "if I should've eaten something different" or "if I should've stopped eating earlier" or "if I should've eaten at all before having done a meditation session to relax" or whatever.
Does it seem like calories are over the top? Was it an out-of-control-binge? No? Then I won't waste another thought on it.

This board is proof. Lots of hangry people on here sometimes. 😂

Can I just tell you how powerful I find what you wrote here? That is exactly how I feel, when I am on top of this thing, and not being crazy about food and all of that.
I am so grateful for the surgery, and grateful for the healthier, stronger, happier me. One reason why I don't come to this site too often is because of the dogmatic and/or shaming stuff. Like people who claim to have only eaten 400 calories a day for 6 months, and shame people who don't, or who go nuts if someone asks if post surgery people can tolerate an occasional piece of bacon or movie theater popcorn, or respond to someone who admits to struggling or (gasp!) falling off the wagon by becoming some sort of weird bariatric drill sergeant. I know that shaming, cajoling, and extreme deprivation have NEVER worked for me, and I literally cringe when I see some of that stuff on here. And I also know that the food hormones come back, and yes, I am actually hungry! And I most definitely do need 1000 calories a day; I regularly eat 12 to 1400 calories a day and I am still losing weight, albeit slowly. (I also have a thyroid disorder which has impacted the speed of my weight loss).
I am one year out, 90 pounds thinner, and still at a "fat" BMI (28); I am 62 years old, and I am not going to be entering any bathing suit competitions! I make mostly healthy food choices, I walk a lot because I like it and it is good for my mental health, and one of the things I really miss is drinking a beer. Of course....that may just be head thirst

Meh, to each their own. But I'm tired of lying. These surgeries fix our stomachs, not our heads. Our heads will never be well if we keep lying. And we are CHAMPION liars about food and hunger (and fitness and body image, etc.) We're also prone to extreme thinking. If it's not one extreme it's the other. I want something truthful that is moderate and sane and not so EXTREME all the time.
1000 calories a day indefinately...is eventually called an eating disorder. We can't avoid food. We need to make peace with it and be honest about it.
If we've been lying about food and hunger to ourselves, we are much more at risk of regaining or developing an eating disorder in the other direction or another addiction.....which does happen.
I'm personally not interested in an eating disorder. I'm not interested in being someone who stands in the sun and believes the energy is flowing into me. LOLOLOLOL.
I have no interest in the nonsense of "skinny, perfect, beautiful". I like how I look, and I always have. Even when I was 270 pounds.
I want to be someone who is an average weight for a woman my age...who feels strong and healthy and has excellent labs and no medications. I want a long healthy life. I want to stop the weight obsession/identity/cycle of madness.
I want to be someone who relates to food in a normal way. Someone who can enjoy everything in moderation who has the self control to stop and self regulate. Someone who doesn't think about food every minute of the day.
And I think my chances of getting there are a hell of a lot better if I'm honest. So does my bariatric therapist.
I am nearly 50, and I'm just getting this figured out after a lifetime of diets and extreme thinking. I love my moderate, normal weight.... and my moderate normal eating habits.... and my moderate normal fitness.
Here's a current pic of me. Not perfect. Moderate. Normal. But exactly who I want to be:) And yep...this chick gets HUNGRY when she's not eating 1400-1600 calories a day:)

It may be a while before you can eat the crust, but the toppings are the best part anyway! Try a ricotta bake for the pizza taste too. I think I ate the cheese off a slice of pizza around 2.5 months post op!

No anger here. I think I first attempted pizza at about 4-5 months post op. I’ll still have half a slice from time to time. I’ve been delighted that I am completely satisfied after half a slice. Allowing this kind of “treat” from time to time has made this livable for me long term. I’ve met my first goal weight, so it hasn’t derailed my process overall. I think the key is just keeping these kind of foods (high carb/fat) an occasional thing rather than falling back in to old habits and having them daily.