Ten months out, I'm down from BMI 36 to BMI 22.7 and I can safely say the surgery has been a complete success. Sure, it was difficult in the beginning, but once I learned how to eat (at the moment, I can eat anything, as long as I chew well and eat slowly) I can honestly say that in the past 3-4 months I haven't felt sick because of what/how I ate even once. You do learn, and it feels great!

The thing I've noticed recently as I'm working on stopping losing weight and maintaining is that nowadays, food bores me a little. What a change from the former me, whose life largely revolved around food! Now I feel like I have a completely healthy and normal relationship with food: I still like the taste of it, even though I very rarely get hungry at all, and I enjoy everything much more now I can only eat a little of it. But most of all, I absolutely LOVE the fact that now, when I look at the time and know I should eat something, I sometimes feel bored by the thought of food. It's a complete joy to feel this way instead...

Now I'm just having to retrain me when food shopping: instead of buying ALL low calorie food I have to start getting the normal ones so I'll be able to get enough calories to maintain. So now I've stocked up on normal fat and sugar fruit yoghurt (instead of zero fat and artificial sweetener one), lots of dried fruits, nuts (love cashews and pistachios and they really help me get the calories I need), even bought mayonnaise (light version, okay, but still!) and toast (bread I tend to avoid but one slice of toast is fine if I take about fifteen minutes to get it down and hey, you have to have somewhere to put the mayo, Swiss cheese and cold smoked reindeer...)

This sounds like such an ego maniac's post but I just thought I'd share the good news with you as you understand what it's like! And to those who are just out and still struggling with head hunger and learning to eat slow and small: It really gets easier as you form new habits. It really is possible to lose all that weight. And if you're still considering whether to have surgery, I'd say go for it. It's the best thing I've done in my life! :thumbup1:

OK, why I am the first to mention the cold smoked reindeer meat? You can't really get that here in Arizona, but it does sound kind of good. I will NOT mention it to my 7 year old, though. I'm sure he's be traumatized.

Congratulations, Jolanda.

Ugh, sorry... It's a delicacy over here. And the reindeer have the nicest life before becoming the nicest food! Much nicer life than the average cow. You can't have reindeer in "factories", they don't survive long enough, so they all live completely free in Lapland (northern part of Sweden).

I wasn't being critical. Reindeer meat sounds good to me. I'd much rather eat an animal that had a good life prior to being slaughtered than one that was in a feed lot. How we raise animals here in the U.S. is inhumane.

I said what I did about my son because for American kids reindeer = Santa's team. He'd be traumatized because he'd think he was eating Rudolph.

Here in the Southwest, you can get ostrich, goat, stingray and maybe even javelina (peccary) if you have the right connections. I'm an adventurous eater but we don't have a lot of reindeer in the desert. I noticed it because it seemed so Swedish.

I can hardly imagine what it is going to feel like to go to the store and pick things WITH calories!!!!! Thank you for posting about this stage in your journey.

I know - better not even tell you which other animal I eat occasionally, because there is obviously a huge chasm between Americans and Europeans in that matter culturally...

I've been able to maintain quite easily, only losing about two lbs since I decided to stop losing about two months ago. I could easily regain them but I'm fine like this. I still eat very small portions but do eat some more not-so-low-fat-foods like nuts, cheese, full fat cream cheese and regular cheese and so on. Love my lattes. Enjoy a piece of super dark chocolate. Life is truly good.

I'm really happy if this can be of help to someone just starting or in the middle of losing. I didn't write that often here before but I definitely read up on whatever I was interested in at that moment and it helped me a lot then.

yes you are right, I am almost 11 monthes out now and have the same feeling. I am not fighting head hunger as before. Still I need to lost 10 more pounds to feel perfect about myself. the losing rate is negligible now. may be I need to exercise and eat less but it is achievable. I just need to be patient. My relationship with food now is more or less normal. very little will fill me up. Thank god most gracious most merciful.

Oh Jolanda, do tell. Rabbit? Veal? Sea Turtle? Whale? What could it possibly be?

None of the above regularly, but I've had rabbit stew in Spain. And I've probably had veal at some point. Baby lamb, too.

*Pause for effect*

Horse. I love horses. Live ones, that is. Don't eat ones I've known personally. But compared with old used-up racehorses being either transported to Italy alive for their meat (the journey is completely horrible) or sold cheap to teenagers as riding horses (when they've got massive leg problems that make them unsuitable for that), I think supporting local slaughter by having a horse fillet steak now and then is better. Mind you, as a teenager myself I didn't think this way.

Oh I didn't even know people ate horses!

I did lose most of my weight with the band, but the sleeve is what is keeping me at goal. I gained 30 of the 75 lbs I lost with the band back from band problems. Losing that plus more has been like a dream come true.

I love never being hungry and not thinking about food constantly!

Edited September 21, 201015 yr by Oregondaisy

hehehehe you guys are so funny! Love ya all. . . i love horses too, not edible though, rideable is much more enjoyable!

We eat Bambi here in the UK so the smoked reindeer meat sounds great, do they sell it in Ikea? Horse is much rarer here, but I have had it on holiday in France, it's OK but I prefer cow fillet.

Jane x

I don't know, you could try Ikea. It's the most expensive meat (the reindeer) there is here, probably, but hey, I had the sleeve so I don't eat a lot!