Are you on a diet for the rest of your life?.. Is what a male colleague asked me today in the break room.

I work for a major oil corporation, so it's basically all men, me and one other woman, in the main office area of the building. When I started this job I thought it we important for them to know I was a Gastric Bypass Person. Well naturally when were all eating lunch together, they have questions. My lunch is significantly and visually different than theirs. Some bring their own, most got to fast food joints on their lunch hour and bring it back, others take a full lunch hour elsewhere.

But today Jeff took his lunch in house, and ate with me. Pleasant guy, overweight, with very high cholesterol, so he tells me, and is looking for foods that will help him lower it, and did I have any suggestion? So were talking, ok I'm talking, I tell him to nix the fast foods, that otta help a bit. So were talking a bit more, and out of the blue he asks me his question. It kind of caught me off guard, but I smiled and told him, NO. He looked a bit perplexed.

I think there's a stigma that come with this surgery, that people have pre-conceived notions that were all rabbit food eaters, fruit smoothie fanatics, and self-righteous heath nuts.etc.. well not in my case anyway. I think once they knew I was Gastric, they started watching what I was eating..lol..and it was far healthier than theirs.. I got it pretty quick, when someone is eating unhealthy, and they know it, good foods in the room make them nervous, like they know they should be eating better to, I think. They always want to know what I brought today, and what's in it..lol. I'm pretty sure I taught them the word 'Quinoa'..lol

I told Jeff that my surgery was 4 years ago, and now I eat pretty much whatever I want, but my stomach is it's own portion control. Some things make me sick, some don't. With lunch almost over, and not much talk about his high cholesterol but a lot of talk the foods I eat, I hope I conveyed to him that I have changed my eating from Dead Food to Live food, and if good clean eating is a diet, well yes I'm on a diet. He got it. I love my job

Life after RnY is not so much about what you can't eat - it's about what you choose to eat, or not eat. Big difference. I'm always surprised at how many folks are under the impression that RnY guys have a long list of foods that they will never be able to eat again. That is simply not true. I'm right there with you Dee, I eat just about anything that I want to eat. Or perhaps more accurately, that I choose to eat. Are my choices different now than they were before my surgery? Absolutely. Do I always eat "healthy" food every day of my life? Of course not. That's not realistic and it's not sustainable. I think a more important question is am I always aware of what I eat? And the answer is without exception.

I couldn't have said it more eloquently.

I'm taking the first line of what you wrote with me to my next WLS group!! EXCELLENT!!