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Hi all - I'm looking for some advice!

I am just about 9 weeks post op and feeling great! But I am about to start student teaching and am worried about how my coworkers are going to act about how little I eat.

I've been able to survive going out to dinner with friends saying "oh I had a late lunch" and was able to go through a full day training with friends who are also student teaching by packing a bunch of healthy Snacks and "snacking" all day (which really I ate a little and shared the rest with them!)

So how so I handle questions about eating so little when I start student teaching? Any teachers out there with the VSG? How are yall handling back to school?

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I'm not a teacher but one thing I have noticed is that most people don't even pay attention to how little I eat. They see that I eat "weird" things or eat really slow. Most of the time, people are talking or looking at their phones and don't pay much attention to others around them. I think we all focus on it because it's what we always think about!

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When I student taught 16 years ago, I was quite the health nut and very thin. I'm assuming that you bring your own lunch instead of eating cafeteria food? Are you eating at the teacher's table or with the students? I always brought my own lunch and ate the same thing everyday: an orange, yogurt, and a small sandwich. The other teachers may have made a few comments about my eating the first week of school, but it soon just became "how I ate" and old news.

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Hey, I am a high school teacher and presently on sick leave because of my sleeve. However, I've been wondering about the same thing.

In the teacher's lounge, you get used to your colleague's eating habits but nobody really LOOKS at what you eat.

Also, if you dont want to burn out, it's important to snack all day because there's nothing worse than running on adrenaline...I think that if you bring healthy Snacks and then have a VSG lunch, no one should really notice and it's easy to just say that you snack so you have a smaller lunch.

I dont think we should get too preoccupied by what people think anyways. It's really none of their business.

PS : sorry for my bad English. I'm more of a francophone :S

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I was a teacher when I had Sx and am now, 10 months out, a principal. No one really noticed, or if they did they focused on their own shame-spiral of "I wish I had control like you" rather than on "why the change?"

If you want some specific strategies I can definitely help - one that was incredible was to address the bane that is the teachers' lounge head-on. "Hey folks, you know how there are always donuts, cakes, etc in the lounge? I'm trying to eat healthier, so I'm going to start bringing in proteins/veggies instead." All of a sudden everyone was on board and it doubled as folks assuming my lunch was so small because I'd 'eaten healthy' on my prep :)

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

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        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

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