thesuse2000

I'm still early out, but I do get hungry sometimes. I do think that keeping carbs low, especially sweets, helps curb my hunger.

Congrats on getting back on the wagon - never too late! I love your honest and positive attitude. Looking forward to hearing about your successes.

Hi there - you might want to repost this in the band to sleeve forum: http://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/394-band-to-gastric-sleeve-revisions/ I was a band to sleeve revision and I'm so happy with my sleeve! Everyone is different - I think there are some people who had more restriction with the band and miss that. For me, I was unfilled for years before my revision due to night reflux issues, and never liked being crazy tight with the band, so that wasn't an issue for me. I love that with the sleeve I can eat veggies and dense foods without a problem. I feel like it makes it easier for me to make healthy choices. I've also seen data that revision patients don't lose as well as virgin sleevers, but I think if you commit to it, and don't fall into habits of slider foods that band patients sometimes do, you should be able to be very successful. I wish you the best with your surgery and recovery - and with your new tool!

I flew yesterday and got one of those little bags of nuts - it's 250 calories! Mostly fat. I threw it in my bag as an emergency meal/snack.

I track on Mondays too. Here are my weight changes since surgery. I lost about 20 before surgery too. Week 1: 241; -2.3 Week 2: -234.5; -6.5 Week 3: 233; -1.5 Week 4: 229.5; -3.5 Week 5: 227; -2.5 Week 6: 223; -4 Week 7: 219; -4 Week 8: 219; 0 Week 9: 217.5; -1.5 Week 10: 217.5; 0 Week 11: 214; -3.5 Week 12: 208; -6 Week 13: 205.5; -2.5 Week 14: 203.2; -2.3 Week 15: 198.2 -5 Would love to see other people's stats too! I've been cruising the past month after a 3 week (almost total) stall. I'm mentally preparing to go into another stall any day. (also approaching time of month...)

Same here as above. I was fine to take care of myself once home from the hospital. I stocked up in advance for all the basics I needed, but I went out and walked and did errands every day starting on day 3 (surgery being day 1, and my surgery wasn't until 5pm)

What a tragic story! Condolences for your friend and her children. Congrats on your new outlook on your life. Great to acknowledge how your mindset and behaviors have changed.

I'm loving all the comments! Gowalking - totally agree on making those few bites something wonderful - we are so worth it! Bandista - love the way you talk about finding peace and joy with food. It is a wonderful thing! Rog - love your AHAs! It really is amazing how our mindsets can change... TatorTot - thanks for the reccos! I actually bought "50 ways to soothe yourself without food" before surgery - meant to read it during my surgication (time off after surgery) but got engrossed in a couple other books and never got to it. I was just thinking of it last week, but I haven't felt a need for soothing food substitutes (yet). I wish you the best with the rest of the class!

Thanks for suggesting it Ann! It was good for me to think through the various aspects as well. Indeed - trusting ourselves is very challenging! For me, (before sleeve surgery) it was fascinating that once I started trusting myself and allowing myself to eat what I craved, I noticed that sometimes I actually craved healthy food! When you're not telling yourself that you must eat healthy food because it's the right thing to do you can actually hear when your body just naturally wants it. And when you tell yourself that you're a terrible person for eating sweet/fatty foods and deny your cravings, it can just make them come back with a rebellious vengeance. Something else I want to add - when I started doing this, again pre-sleeve, I found that some of the foods that I thought I loved (like chicken chow fun from a local chinese place) were actually not that good! I think I craved them because they satisfied my cravings for fat and carbs, but when I actually paid attention to the taste it just wasn't very tasty. And I had an experience eating a burrito one night that was just amazing! I felt like I was eating food prepared for the gods - the range of flavors and spices was so intense and delicious. Since all this I use a lot more spices and hot sauces.

Hi all, I mentioned the benefits of mindful eating in another thread and VSGAnn suggested I start a thread. I'm far from an expert on this, and honestly don't practice it as it should be, but I think the exploration of it has really helped me, so wanted to go ahead and start this - and invite others who may practice it chime in with their input and experience. I did a workshop about mindful eating in the months before my surgery. So sharing what I learned. So mindful eating is really just about slowing down and paying much closer attention to the whole process of eating than we normally do. We all know the problems of mindless eating - how easy it is to finish a whole pint of ice cream, large bag of chips, etc. while watching TV. But even when eating at the table in a more traditional way so much of our eating is still pretty mindless. And we let external cues, rather than our own bodies, determine what we eat and how much. Some of the basic tenets of mindful eating (again, not an expert so may be leaving things out - all are welcome to add/correct what I'm including!): Before eating, check in with yourself and really think about what is your body wants to eat; sometimes we're just on autopilot and reach for the usual things, but when we listen we realize that we actually are craving something different Don't judge yourself for what you're craving; trust your body to tell you what it needsThis one was REALLY hard for me, and I have not perfected it, but I do think it's really important; most of us have spent years dieting or "cheating" on diets and it's all just disconnected us from listening to what we actually need This one is also hard to align with the guidelines post surgery - like focusing on Protein, but to a somewhat limited extent it can still be done Before eating a meal, pause and think about the meal you're about to eat - where did all the ingredients come from? Who prepared it? And so onFor me, this helps me feel so thankful for the abundance of foods available to me; I often marvel at the range of spices and flavors in each of my meals that come from all over the world, or the fresh ingredients that made their way from country farms to my NYC apartment; and I am more aware of the animals that gave their lives for my sake than I used to be (still a carnivore, but more conscious about not wasting meat) Eat one bite at a time, putting your fork down between bites and think about the whole sensation - how the food feels in your mouth, the flavors that hit different parts of your tongue, how the flavors change as you start to chewIn the workshop I did we did a few guided meditations with food, for example eating just one raisin at a time and contemplating each stage of eating - holding the raisin in our mouths, chewing (for a while) and then finally swallowing; then doing the same with a 2nd raisin and noticing how the experience is slightly different with the 2nd bite vs the first; I highly recommend this! It was amazing how delicious one raisin could taste when you pay attention (and I'm not someone who thought I liked raisins). Also interesting how much less intense each bite is vs the first; after the first bite we tend to go into autopilot mode and just shovel it in without thought After each bite check in with yourself and consider how your hunger, satiety and fullness has changedSatiety is probably the hardest of these; I tend to think of it as - if someone took this food away right now how would that feel? If I would feel that I needed to get something else to eat than I'm not satisfied; if that feels like it wouldn't be so bad, and that what I've eaten will keep me going for 2-3 hours than most likely I'm just about satisfied In terms of fullness, paying attention helps you recognize the early signs of fullness; especially for us WLS people it's important not to eat to point of too full. There are always signals before that; we just have to get used to recognizing them There are mindful meditations that you can do - for just 10 minutes a day; this isn't about eating, but just about learning how to listen to your body signals - there's an app called mindfullness with a good 10-15 minute meditation (I think it's 2-3 dollars)Full disclosure: I did these during the workshop I was in, but have not continued; but I think it's helpful for someone who wants to embrace this process to do the work of strengthening your mindfulness muscles Mindfullness is not easy! We're programmed to rush. It's almost ridiculous how frustrating it can be to hold a raisin in your mouth for a minute without chewing it, but again - a great thing to do for yourself to build this skill - it really feels like taking care of yourself in a deeper way, and we all deserve to give ourselves that attention and care I did this workshop in the months before my surgery and I really think it's helped me since surgery. As I mentioned above I don't practice perfectly, but having worked to be more conscious in my eating for a while, now that awareness is more innate. I am much better about checking in with myself about what i'm craving. If I start eating something that's not satisfying I stop and get something different (when possible). If I want a little more than I planned to eat I get more. If I'm satisfied before I clean my plate I stop. I track what i eat, and focus on protein and veggies, but I don't stop myself from eating more some days when I am just hungrier - or force myself to eat more on days when I'm not too hungry. And if I crave something sweet - I eat something sweet. Overall I think this has helped me feel satisfied with the smaller meals we eat post surgery. Even though they're small I still think about each meal and make sure that it's yummy and satisfying. I've seen people post about how eating is so much less pleasurable since surgery and I don't relate. I enjoy food as much or more, but I think the mindfullness has helped with that a lot. Hope this is helpful to some! Look forward to hearing if anyone else has tried this approach. Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll do my best to answer. -Susan/Suse

I'm a band to sleever too. For that brief period of about 6 months when the band was working well for me it did curb my hunger and help me feel satisfied with less food - but for me the sleeve is SO much better! I just don't have those out of control cravings anymore - and I can eat a little bit of a treat without difficulty. A few weeks ago I went out with a small group for a friend's birthday. For dessert we went to the birthday girl's favorite cupcake bakery (one of my fave's as well). I had decided to just have a cupcake for this occasion, but after eating half (they're not huge either) I just felt like it was enough. I haven't been eating much sweets, so just half a cupcake felt like a lot. Could I have eaten the whole thing? Sure. But it was not hard to stop. In the past I would have gobbled the one and then bought a few to bring home (with the excuse of sharing with my husband) and eaten another one - or three... One more story - this past week I took a train home from a client and as I came out of the train into Penn station I ran right into a Cinnabon. I hardly ever pass those, but it's always been a HUGE temptation for me. I felt compelled to go look at the goods (fighting in my head about whether to do that) but when I looked at it all I realized that it didn't actually appeal to me at all. Just looked overwhelmingly fatty and just junky. It was sort of an awesome surreal feeling walking away from that realizing that I really have changed! I have to think that the whole metabolic reset with the sleeve (vs the band) has made that change happen. Honestly I still feel so cautious about trusting that this will last. It's just hard for me to imagine that my relationship with food is forever different now. But I am cautiously optimistic that longterm things will be at least a bit better than they used to be. I wish you the best with your new sleeved life! I am loving it so much.

Awesome! I might try to find some sort of dance venue... when you feel better in your body it makes you want to move it more and have fun again. For so long I didn't want to draw attention to my body and so avoided dancing, but lately I've been feeling the groove more and wanting to shake my hips etc. Have fun!

Wow - that really is a shitty thing for him to do. My only concern with you having the surgery is that you have some support when you get home from the hospital. But absolutely he is the selfish one here, not you! Please put yourself first and take care of yourself. If he is the kind of person to leave you for your looks - you will find someone better who will love you for who you are, and who will support you in taking care of yourself and your health. So sorry you have to go through this right before surgery, but I'm with all who think you should go ahead with it. I wish you the best.

I'll think about doing that! I'm not as conscious about the practice anymore, but have changed my thinking... I'll have to think about the core principles a bit...

Hi there - here's me before starting 2 week pre-op diet at 258 and a couple pics from this past week at about 200.

Wow - you are cruising! Congrats on your amazing transformation! I'm hoping to hit onederland in next day or two myself. Can not wait!

Interesting - I've been wondering the same thing this week. I'm 3 1/2 months out, but this past week I got super overwhelmed with work and got emotional and upset with my boss. It's hard for me to really figure out if my response was actually reasonable (I did have a tremendous amount of work/responsibility this week and when I reached out to my boss for support she was critica and completely not helpful) or if I'm somehow more wound up due to the weight loss or low calories. Proud to say I pulled it all off! Three client presentations in 3 states, and a ton of other work completed. And attended 2 family events. But on the train home last night I was weeping while reading something on facebook... Also proud to say that I haven't turned to food for comfort. Hasn't even occurred to me, which is wonderful to realize. I do think that food helped tamp down my emotions in the past and I'm a little more raw now - don't have that protective layer somehow. But I will learn to live with it! SO much happier with my lighter body already. More emotional is more alive in some ways, so I'll take it.

I started at a 42F and now I'm wearing a 38DDD. I'm quite thrilled to have lost some of that top weight and my boobs still look plenty curvy, especially with my now smaller waist. Never had a good butt - more wide than curvy, so overall it looks much better now - less wide almost makes it look less flat, more round. But I've still got a ways to go, so we'll see where it all nets out. Hoping the boobs don't end up like empty socks!

Hi Chele - are you really a 36? At your low weight I'd think you'd be no bigger than a 34. If you can go down a band size the B cup will be slightly smaller and might work better. Just a thought!

Nice overview VSGAnn! I was thinking about mentioning your point 3, but wasn't sure how common this is with the sleeve. I was a bit horrified and honestly embarrassed to discover that I'd stretched my esophagus when I had the band. Before I got sleeved I participated in a mindful eating program. I think it really helped me be more aware of my hunger, satiety and fullness levels to help me avoid going down that road again. It's amazing how easy it is for us to ignore our body's signals.

My understanding is that the sleeve doesn't generally stretch much - but over time it relaxes a bit and heals and can therefore hold more food over time. I think most people feel a bit different a few months out vs the first month or so. And after a year or so most people seem to be able to eat even more. For people who really push it and overeat on a regular basis I believe there can be some stretch.

201 today - so close to onederland I can taste it!

Could be acid? Are you taking a ppi like prilosec? My surgeon had me on 40mg for the first 3 months. Now reduced to 20mg daily and she will take me off at 6 months. You can also get the 20mg over the counter.

Hi all - I'm 205 today. Thanks!