I am NOT judging, but I do have a very sincere concern. I would like to start with please "No defensive answers". I am not aiming it at anyone in particular, and have had the conversations that I am referencing across this and other forums, in person, etc.

With that said: I see blogs, videos, forum posts, etc that people discuss that they can still have sweets, or fast food is tolerated by their sleeve, or they can drink, etc...but why? We know that the VGS is unique among bariatric surgeries used for WLS, and that there is mounting evidence that you can literally change you eating patterns - your prefernces, you head hunger, your mood-association for food, and there is no dispute that (even thought somewhat not totally understood) it alters not just your hunger, but it alters your body's need for calories, how they are used and applied.

With all of this, why go back to the foods that were no good for you to begin with, are inargueably full of the bad fats, the hormones and antibiotic and cruel (horribly cruel, in ways that everyone I know once they ((if they)) let me show them do not eat the mass produced meats afterwards), inhumanely processed foods?

You need so little food now, healthy choices are abound, and if you shop locally absolutely no more expensive. You do have time, I bet you do. If I told you you needed to find 30 minutes a day to do something in addition to the exercize that would make your weight loss better, your health better, your body less exposed to bad fats, hormones, antibiotics, meat that was raised in poor health and inhumane conditions, would you? Look at your kids, your husband, etc... if you give back into fast foods, what could you be contributing to their habits, their lifestyles later on? Right now?

Again I do not mean to judge, I was really big. It took years to totally get off of fast foods, and I still cannot get my Husband off of them - we are actually in the largest ongoing "issue" we have ever had, in 10 years of mairrage and 13 years of relationship - I will not allow him to eat fast food while he is with me, or bring it into the home. Flat -pffft dont argue - It was super hard to do, but as my waist is shrinking his is expanding, but it had been for years - I can't make him do it all the time, but he will not do it around me.

In 2003-2005 I was the biggest I ever was. So large that I stopped getting on the scales at 298 lbs, and I know I was heavier for a while after that. I began to make some choices that over the next six years or so would drop my weight to 272 lbs in 2011. Not alot of weight to loose if you break 40lbs into 5-6 years, until you understand this period there was no yo-yo to speak of. These are permanent choices that led to sustained weight loss. No or extremely little fast food, avoidance of fried food, no regular soda. Increased acivity and mucsle building. No mayonaise, etc. That 40 lbs or so, however, can be the difference in goal in many of my fellow sleevers, and maintenance afterwards. I have only been sleeved 2 weeks, so I cannot say how I will progress, but I know where I have been.

I think I am reflecting what I want of myself as I progress back into real foods, I am 2 weeks out and thinking a bit about it. I want each and every person I see here that struggled with the insurance companies, that saved and scrunched a budget, that are making payments or gave up a lot of savings - then went throught the emotions and excitement and concern and stalls and successes and absolutely every damn up and down we have - I want us all to have as much success as we can. I want our legacy to not end at our hips.

We are entering a phase with the Sleeve as a recognized weight loss tool, to date the best tool, that when they do the research they need to see real changes, sustained weight loss, personal accountability that leans to better food choices, efficacy for true lifelong results and influincing others. This will be so important in helping the health insurance companies decide to cover the surgery, the mainstream in acknowledging that surgery for many is the only resolution, the mental health community in developing new programs and ways of communicationg with us pre and post surgery.

We see a trend, still, to regain a portion of the weight, or only loose so much. I have read alot of blogs, and read alot of data, and I think it has alot to do with the post diet choices for foods, and the lack of creating a new routine with a more active lifestyle. Again not preaching, I swear! I am saying the healthier diets and people who literally changed their preferences of foods, etc. do generally see better results.

I do suspect there are those of us that the surgery helps, and then also have undetected issues such as food alergies or metabolic conditions that could lose alot more, and aleviate more conditons if they were extremely careful with their food choices, only introduced one new food at a time, over a several day period, and kept a journal with what, when, etc...Since no one knows for sure who that will be or if that will be them, I think it is a good idea for everyone to start that way - no doctor has told me that, my opinion.

I don't have a good summation for what I am trying to say, which does bother me. The best that I can come up with that is this is a gift. We are some of the very few in the first time in the history of this epidemic that have had the opportunity to partake in a weight loss solution - a real solution. We are pioneers in a starship that are taking the leap past the Event Horizon, we are literally a new type of person, and how we react to the opportunity given will in part provide the feedback that doctors will use to help figure out why it is so successful for years to come. They will develop better supplements, better control of co-morbid conditions, and so much more based on information they gather about us. There will always be enough people who didnt follow the suggesions, retained poor habits, but what we need is as many of us as possible to look beyond this as a step, this is your journey, yes. But this is not your beginning or end, it is your Book of Days. It is our society's Book of Motion, of change. We can affect the way society sees obesity and WLS based off our actions - not results - post surgery. When we hear of a WLS patient that went back to fast food and such because they can still have it and just not be fat - that reinforces a sterotype of obese people. It shows no lack of control, and it does, really truly does, make the VGS and other surgeries seem like an easy way out. It is easy to do something exremely hard for awhile, as long as you know there is an end, so that as an arguement does not suffice if we give back into bad habits.

In a way I think I am talking to myself here - a pep talk for me in the months and years to come. I did want to get it out, and off my chest. I hope somewhere I inspired just one more person, in even just one small way, somehow.

I hear ya. I dunno if I can follow what you are advocating because once you come back to real food (after a month or so) the temptations are enormous. I may not have the ghrelin to cause hunger, but I have the impetus to hurry up and eat so I can get to whatever. My life changed big time recently: retired, developed a fib, started working out with prsonal trainer since may. Am now 5 to 6 times bper week and just fired up the old proforma treadmill (10 yrs old and used maybe 5 times!). Yet I was tossing my Cookies before for eating turkey pastrami (low fat) and haven't been able to keep anything down all day since then.

Its great to have determination and will but we're humans, too, and subject to frailities. I wish I had your confidence but at 66 I've been on almost every wl scheme and even kept off 128# loss over 5 years but still I came for vsg at 308#. And still I remember saying for each time I lost wt and bought new clothes tc: I worked too hard to get where I am. I'll never go back to that. And each time, I did.

Yep, even vegetarian diets, south b*tch diet, wwatchers, fasting, Soup diet, tops, overeaters anonymous, pills, shakes, you name it. Each was a tool, too. No?

I hope you retain your determination and will to succeed way past when the surgery will be a vague memory for you. I hope I do, too. I hope we all reach success and stay there. That'd be the 2012 miracle. I'm going to work with a shrink who has strategies for changing the mindset (lifestyle). I hope with that support I can achieve our shared goals. But hope is all we got!

I would like to address where you discuss each diet, and the diets being a tool, and the tool working for awhile, etc. I am compelled to ask, if this is how you are seeing the surgery, what else have you done to work through your feelings of the other diets failing, and resigning this surgery to "another tool"?

This is not just a diet, and that was all those others were - you were taking part in a billion dollar industry that if they worked, you would not have them promoting the diets, you would would have them promotong their "maintenance" programs.

This weight loss surgery is not a cure all, it is a step that you take, that you should take only after exhaustive steps to understand your habits, where they come from and how to handle them when you encounter them again after the surgery.

Develop strategies, in advance, of how you will handle situations. Write it down, make it your food bible. Keep your "faith".

Let me know if I can assist you somehow - I don't know if I can, but I will give it a hella try.

I am in no different position than anyone here - but I spent almost 10 years trying to decide if surgery was right, and when I began to near a point about 4 years ago that I realized if I did ever get the surgery I would need to address alot of things, I began to ask myself why wait. It has been beneficial, but I still have so far to go.

I think some are taking this topic as judgemental, but it is not. The only judgement passed was on myself, and the acknowledgement that I wanted to get my thoughts out.

All due respect but I still want to eat rolls and I still think @ the foods I liked...melted cheese on Pasta etc. I don't CRAVE them but I rememhber them and I remember the comfort food brought me...I haven't any dislikes except I used to enjoy spicy cheese but now I take exception and prefer swiss.

I'm hungry much of the time and can distinguish real from head but hve no defenses against the head hunger especially now before actually working with the new shrink and this snowstorm that has me house bound.

I couldn't get away from the stimuli today and living alone didn't help.

I may not succeed at this project, Pookey, but I will feel resentment if you blame me for it. I don't KNOW that I can do it. No amount of anyone telling me I can is making a difference. All *I* have is hope.

The rolls you speak of and the processed cheese spreads that you pour over processed preserved pastas are two really good examples of the foods I am referring to that need to be avoided alltogether. Not just by us, actually, but by everyone. They make you crave more, similar foods. I avoid foods like this in my house at all.

The hunger, real or not, is a hard thing to deal with. Stick to your guns. Keep more things to do with your hands than eat, and keep good foods readily available to cook.

Work on getting the head hunger under control. Seek counseling from a reputable therapist, understand your cravings, recognize your triggers - stresses, people, places, situations. Write down how you wil handle them - and follow it. Make it your bible.

I don't have all the answers and I don't claim to. My post was inspired by my want to just give us all some blunt food for thought, to get my thoughts out on paper, so to speak. Don't think I judge and don't give a damn if I do - this is about us all and about you individually. Shed the caring about what other people may be judging and care about doing all you can to get as much out of this as you can. God bless. Take care.

I would like to address where you discuss each diet, and the diets being a tool, and the tool working for awhile, etc. I am compelled to ask, if this is how you are seeing the surgery, what else have you done to work through your feelings of the other diets failing, and resigning this surgery to "another tool"?

Thanks...I am getting defensive because I fear failure. What have I done? Id been working with a shrink for 4 years and she became ill and isn't able to continue the work we started. I'm looking for (and may have found) another but since I've seen him only once, I don't know if we will work together or not. Before that, id been in ad out of therapy most of my teen/adult life so its not that I haven't explored the issue. But none of the exploration allows me to make that determined pronouncement of success if I just eat the right foods (I did eat fairly clean before as was raised without junk food) and even tho I've been in therapy forever, I still feel like a wimp in the face of food.

Its always won and lived to laff t me. I'm 41# down at 6 weeks out and so far it would seem I'm able...but that doesn't stop the gremlin from lurking around each corner. The grehlin was eliminated...the gremlin wasn't. I can't shake that feeling even tho I try slaying the gremlin at the gym or in the pool 6 days a week. I AM trying. But I am not confident that will lead to DOING. And that's why I get defensive.

Thanks for your offer to help.

Obesity is such a complex topic, there are alot of forces at work here. We talk about "head hunger" "emotional eating" and all that but we should not discount the genuine chemical/hormonal psiological factors that drive so much of this! We hear alot about grehlin, but there is a whole lot more that drives our appetite/hunger. I am no expert, but I know from my own reading and my own experiences that what we eat can trigger responses - it will trigger what we WANT to eat. Dr Kessler talks about it as the overabundance of highly palatable (not necessarily tastes good, but triggers the eat more feeling) but low nutrition food. Obesity is actually a type of malnutrition!!!

I personally believe that this eating clean idea is the key. Avoiding highly processed foods, avoiding alot of the sugars and simple carbohydrates. Staying away from the stuff that just isn't natural, real nutrition!!! I truely believe that eating a lean Protein and wholesome veggies based diet, with a limited amount of whole grains, with very little else, will help keep a person from over-eating. It will keep your body from going haywire and demanding the junk.

That is so much easier said then done. We are SURROUNDED, knee deep, buried in the types of food that trigger many of us to overeat and/or to eat the very things that are not good for us.

I don't ever try to push the envelope of what my sleeve can "handle" but I feel like I am really really still fighting the battle to not desire crappy food. I don't even like crappy food, but I have spent too much of my life under it's spell, it is not so easy to just make the total break. Lately, my big thing has been dying for nuts. Now, nuts are a healthy food, but for whatever reason, I am not happy with 2-3, I want too many and they go down really easy. I think it is the salt/fat that is triggering that desire.

Anyway, I get your point and I sometimes wonder why people seem to be tring to find the "edge" of what their sleeve lets them do. Maybe it is just the choice of words, maybe people don't really mean that. I am trying to find the other end... trying to find out how I can eventually become one of those people who forget to eat.... lol

I wish I was a more perfect being, but I am not and so I do the best I can and give myself all the kudos I can when I do "pretty good, even if not perfect"

Really liked your post, so much to digest when it comes to this information (no pun intended - well, lol).

Thanks...I am getting defensive because I fear failure. What have I done? Id been working with a shrink for 4 years and she became ill and isn't able to continue the work we started. I'm looking for (and may have found) another but since I've seen him only once, I don't know if we will work together or not. Before that, id been in ad out of therapy most of my teen/adult life so its not that I haven't explored the issue. But none of the exploration allows me to make that determined pronouncement of success if I just eat the right foods (I did eat fairly clean before as was raised without junk food) and even tho I've been in therapy forever, I still feel like a wimp in the face of food.

Its always won and lived to laff t me. I'm 41# down at 6 weeks out and so far it would seem I'm able...but that doesn't stop the gremlin from lurking around each corner. The grehlin was eliminated...the gremlin wasn't. I can't shake that feeling even tho I try slaying the gremlin at the gym or in the pool 6 days a week. I AM trying. But I am not confident that will lead to DOING. And that's why I get defensive.

Thanks for your offer to help.

My offer is sincere. It is open to everyone.

Knowing you are doing all you can and it still may not change an outcome is a difficult place to be. Are you local to a support group that meets in person?

I am sorry about your therapist. I did not see a therapist until a few years ago. I may be a little different from some in that my weight was also driven my metabolic issues. The same thing that helped me stay large (I had an appetite too!) was a metabolic disorder. My sister had the same thing but instead of a damper on her furnace it burned white-hot to the point of doing damage sometimes. I would be at the gym and taking my martial arts classes and maintaining massive amounts of muscle to just be a size whatever (it varied so much) and my little sister would be on 4800 calories a day to maintain a size 0. It followed on like that till I was about 19, when I had about 6-7 years that I maintained a size 14. I got back up to a 16 when I was about 27, which I would miscarraige that year and then my weight skyrocketed and I began to suffer real health problems for the first time ever - sports injuries aside. By the time I was 30 I was as heavy as I have ever been, and diagnosed with diabetes in 2007. Since I have been on a very slow downward pattern again. I was at 272 when I finally decided one last "go" and shortly thereafter decided I needed to admit I needed help. I was attending therapy at this point but amped it up and changed from a "food" therapist to a therapist that focuses on cognative therapy - helping me think for myself. It has done so much good.

There were walls in my journey. I crossed a big personal hurdle when I admitted to myself that no matter how fit I had been when I was younger despite my size, that it had left its mark. The miscairrage and weight gain and diabetes and being so large I could not fit in an airline seat without an extender, that between my Husband and I we couldn't share a hammock with a 550 weight limit - it left issues. Doing what I can to fight the good fight - and again only 2+ weeks post op. I have no guarantee I will succeed, either.

Strong energy to all who needs it.

Pookey, I also get what you are saying. Coming from a person who weighed at my highest 440lbs (I'm a now at 332lbs), I find this incredibly hard to do! I have a sleeve of steel and can eat anything! I take my required vitamins, drink the required water and don't drink soda. I work out at Curves 3 times a week. So I consider all those things good habits I have learned and don't mind doing. Here is my challenge...I have never been normal...I have been overweight since I was 5 years old...I don't have any "thin" years to compare my life to. I'm thrilled that even now I have a much more active life, I went to China twice (a very vigorous trip) to get my girls and now I just want to be around to raise them and see my grandchildren. I was really hoping I could just eat like a "normal" person...proper portion control etc. Now I'm wondering if this is just another diet...albeit a successful one...for that I'm incredibly thankful! But I'm seeing that more discipline will be necessary I think! HELP! Thanks, Tracy w.

Yes, that is exactly the Dr Kessler I was talking about. I found his writings and thoughts on obesity to be mind opening.

I truly believe that there are many factors, but a big one is this certain type of food (processed, low nutrient or with fake supplements, usually salty or sweet or carb laden) triggers over eating. It impacts alot of people, not just the obese, but it is one of the triggers that can help send a person who is prone to obesity right over the edge.

I just want to make the point that there are plenty of obese people for whom counseling, talk therapy etc etc have zero impact because the "cycle" they are on is very largely driven by physical imbalances, metabolic disordrs and an undernourished (but overly caloried) body.

I agree with what u said to a point. But I had surgery to not let food control me. I am a yr out and finally at a healthy bmi. I have the occasional carbs and pasta and fast food. Not all the time. Some weeks I do great with my clean eating others I'm so busy I grab whatever. But I listen to my bodys signals. I don't overthink food anymore. I love being able to indulge and not overdo it. And I'm still losing. Life would be miserable if we didn't allow ourselves the occasional treat. There's this lady on myfitnesspal.com who is also had the sleeve. She's a yr out like me. But she drinks a protein shake for bfast and lunch ans then some meat and veggie. She tries to stay under 800 cals. At a yr out that is so unhealthy. If u look at my diary I have eggsl and cheese. Steel cut oats, fruit, veggies, grains, healthy fats. I eat 1500 cals a day I still lose about .5 a week and I'm 149. She's 220 complains she's hungry doesn't eat but one actual meal a day and is miserable.

lady on myfitnesspal.com who is also had the sleeve. She's a yr out like me. But she drinks a Protein shake for bfast and lunch ans then some meat and veggie. She tries to stay under 800 cals. At a yr out that is so unhealthy. If u look at my diary I have eggsl and cheese. Steel cut oats, fruit, veggies, grains, healthy fats. I eat 1500 cals a day I still lose about .5 a week and I'm 149. She's 220 complains she's hungry doesn't eat but one actual meal a day and is miserable.

So wht would you advise her to do differently? How do your ages compare? I'm afraid I will end up like that person because I don't want to bother with cooking and expeimenting with food. And at nite, I invariably eat too much.

Damn

lady on myfitnesspal.com who is also had the sleeve. She's a yr out like me. But she drinks a Protein shake for bfast and lunch ans then some meat and veggie. She tries to stay under 800 cals. At a yr out that is so unhealthy. If u look at my diary I have eggsl and cheese. Steel cut oats, fruit, veggies, grains, healthy fats. I eat 1500 cals a day I still lose about .5 a week and I'm 149. She's 220 complains she's hungry doesn't eat but one actual meal a day and is miserable.

So wht would you advise her to do differently? How do your ages compare? I'm afraid I will end up like that person because I don't want to bother with cooking and experimenting with food. And at nite, I invariably eat too much.

Damn

She's in her 40's. I would advise her to up her cals a little at a time and eat instead of drink her cals. For breakfast I usually eat eggs and veggies or steelcut oats and fruit sweetened with a little honey. Or even ww toast with an egg and cheese. For lunch leftovers from dinner or a salad with veggies and meat and cheese. For supper it varies so much. But I love to cook. I usually eat 3 snacks. 1 in am, I in pm and if I'm hungry one before bed. Nuts, cheese, apple with pb. I know ppl find it odd but upping calories works (for me at least) we need calories. What funny is the woman messaged me and said I was eating too many carbs. I usually eat around 120 grams. But they are usually from whole grains and fruit. Id rather eat real food that's good for my body and still lose. Just my opinion.

I find that eating makes me hungry. Ihad 2 hb eggs for bfast before gym. Iended up running to the bathroom a million times and tht made me uncomfortable for gym. If I just have a protein drink, I don't have to worry. When I get back. From gym I eat "breakfast" ( usually a 'major' meal) and then have many drinks inbetween that and lunch. So I'm fine most of the day but come dinner I feel like I have to stuff my face and I do stuff it! And then heave away most of the night. Need to figure outwhats triggering my evening feedbag mode. I'm down 45# since 12/5. Almost 2 months. Is that average?