​I have lost 36lbs total and 23lbs since surgery.

-Surgery recovery is such a small part of the process. Before surgery, my focus was on the surgery and the few weeks after but now I realize that period of time is very brief. In retrospect, recovery was very easy and fast.

-I lost weight a lot slower than I expected. That fed into my obsessive behavior. I really wanted to fall back into old thinking and try dieting versus following my doctor's instructions and trusting the process. As soon as I calmed down and started following doctor's orders, the weight slowly started coming off again. I am still frustrated by slow weight loss but on the bright side, I haven't gained more than a few ounces since surgery so it's nice not to worry about gaining. The other benefit of losing slowly is that I don't have to explain rapid weight loss to all those people that don't know I had surgery.

-I already feel better. My knees don't hurt anymore. When I first started working out, I really didn't have the energy to do much more than go for a walk. Now I'm taking some classes like Zumba. Zumba is serious business, they are constantly jumping and running in my Zumba class and they are cheerful about it. I hope to be one of those crazy Zumba enthusiasts one day.

-Bread is the devil. It causes pain in my chest and in my back for about 2 hours. It's amazing how a negative experience makes it incredibly easy to resist my once favorite food. I sort of wish some other bad foods had the same effect so they'd be easy to resist.

-I am one of the lucky people that only needed to take tiny bites and chew a lot for about a week. I can gulp Water and chew like a normal person without any negative effect. I just need to make sure I've measured out my food and don't take one bite too many or else I'm going to be uncomfortable.

-I totally get why everyone kept harping on surgery being a "tool". I wish I was one of those lucky people that had surgery and just lost weight no matter what I did or ate. I think that happens to a lucky few. For the rest of us, rules must be followed, food weighed and tracked, no drinking during meals, resist snacking/grazing and of course exercising like crazy.

-It rarely bothers me that I can't eat very much. I thought this would really be the difficult part of surgery but it's amazing what you can get used to.

I am really excited that I will be one of the few people that will lose weight this holiday season instead of gaining.

Great insights! Thank you for sharing.

I cant tolerate bread or rice. I've tried them both twice and everytime, I have thrown it up within 10 minutes. I have no issues with mashed potatoes, oatmeal or cream of wheat.

Thanks guys for the updates and insight! Congrats on surgery and the weight loss!!!

I'm two weeks out. I also have no problems drinking water large drinks of water not sips. I'm very grateful for that. Twice I was in a position where I didn't have any food. I did have a protein powder that I poured into the water and it did not do the trick. my stomach just hurt because it needed a yogurt or something on it. So I had a cup of soup from a restaurant and it went right through me and I got really sick. Another time I was out I tried to eat a little bit of bread and it also hurt my back and my stomach. I'm not supposed to be having anything but soft food and yogurt but I feel so good of course I want to try food sometimes. I do enjoy having my almond milk and chocolate un jury powder. I heat it up and I have it like hot cocoa. I hope that someday soon I will be able to have some foods that don't hurt going down. Till then yogurt and cottage cheese and cream soup from Safeway.