What Post-Sleeve Rules Do You Break?

[Sosewsue61 3,185]

@BDME bellabloom has an extensive history on here, she has been through a lot, suffered an eating disorder during the process, etc. Her journey as an individual is not most people's. You can do a search on her posts and get a clearer picture.

[BDME 138]

[mention=328045]BDME[/mention] bellabloom has an extensive history on here, she has been through a lot, suffered an eating disorder during the process, etc. Her journey as an individual is not most people's. You can do a search on her posts and get a clearer picture.

Thanks, I️ wasn’t trying to be rude I️ just always get scared when ppl say they don’t take their Vitamins cuz of the horror stories I’ve heard. I️ don’t judge ppls food choices cuz I legit had pizza the other day I️ was just concerned is all

[jess9395 5,448]

I wish Bellabloom would lead with some info about herself. She's not an average WLS patient and what works for her isn't what will work for many of us.

She struggled pre and post op with severe eating disorders, including anorexia. She had major complications requiring revisions.

It's GOOD for her to not obsess or overthink what she eats. Yeah she should probably take her Vitamins. But please don't look at what works for her and think it's a good way to eat.

Maybe when you are four years out like she is, you can try what she does. I can't, if I ate that way I would be back over 200lbs in a heartbeat.

We are all different and different things work for us. But I think Bella's posts need to come with a disclaimer.

[bellabloom 2,467]

@Bellabloom please take your vitamins!!!! There are stories of people who have died a year or more after surgery because their organs just shut down from malnutrition.

My blood work is perfect. I eat enough actual food now that I don’t need Vitamins. I’m definitely not malnourished. I eat a wide variety of foods in abundance. Not taking my vitamins in the beginning was definitely bad and I wouldn’t advise it!! I didn’t take them because I was going through multiple surgeries and frankly I couldn’t tolerate them, they made me sick and I was exhausted by trying. My body became very malnourished. So yeah, take your vitamins people.

Sorry I shouldn’t have said that like it was okay to do. But I also understand why taking them can be really hard for those of you struggling.

In regards to food- I suppose I should say that yes, I do have a different experience than most people. I lost too much weight for one thing... I also entirely gave up the restricting a diet mindset a couple years ago and accepted that I could definitely gain weight back. I’m okay with regaining weight if it means being happy. So yes, I gave up all the rules in order to be happy and free.

Rules- when I had wls I had been following rules my whole life. Don’t eat this. Don’t eat that. Diet diet diet starve starve starve. Living in constant hunger or Constant shame and guilt. One failed diet after another.

After I had wls my brain just kind of hit a wall and said f**k THE RULES. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I internally rebelled to any more control over my life from the dieting industry. I was so emotionally exhausted by years of dieting and starving and hating myself that after wls I found myself thin but more miserable than ever. I could accept or follow even the simplest rule, it felt wrong to me to keep down that path. My mind refused. I went through a lot of depression and really had to look at other options.

I like to promote my way of eating vs continued dieting because I am all about encouraging people to stop trying to be thin and start trying to be healthy. I mean healthy, mentally. Give up dieting and be free.

I promote intuitive eating which has been absolutely wonderful for me. I should have prefaced my post with that. I’m offering an alternative to weight loss and maintenance.

Honestly these boards break my heart. So many sad people. People struggling. People going crazy when they can’t lose enough weight or start to regain, when they fall off the rule wagon. So much pain. I know, I was there once. Every other post is about struggling to get to goal weight or stay there.

Wls works for some people I guess, people who can handle following a diet for the rest of their life. People who get lucky and have a lot of restriction for years. But for many many people it’s just another step in a failed Quest to starve themselves thin. I’m offering an alternative.

There are so many people out there struggling because of dieting and living less than complete lives. We need to explore a balance between wanting to be healthy and honoring the way our bodies are biologically meant to be. No one can live their whole life following a bunch of rules all the time. It is not reality.

Look how many people have wls and go off the tracks super quick. Look how many people never reach goal weight. So many posts on here about why the “rules” aren’t working. Why aren’t they working?

This post caught my attention because “rules” have always made me the most miserable when it comes to food. I feel a ton of anger and resentment at the rules forced upon me from when I was a child. Any wls surgeon who thinks a person with an eating disorder is gonna be able to follow diet rules for the rest of their life is truly failing their patients.

[Berry78 4,259]

Pretty sure the "eff it, I'm not gonna live with rules" is what most of us did prior to gaining the weight that landed us in the surgical suite.

The world we lived in during our development as a species... it's not the world we live in today. Our biological programming has no idea what to do with all the readily-available foodstuffs that are concurrently devoid of nutrition.

food. Taste good. Eat. Need nutrients. Eat more. Need nutrients. Eat more. Need nutrients. Eat more.

If the problem was with us, individually, it wouldn't affect 70% of Americans. It's a society-wide problem. So, what to do?

We each have to figure out a system that works for us that will nourish our bodies while allowing us to maintain our desired weight. In other words, to become healthy amidst a sea of junk food.

Bella, you feel eating doughnuts in line ..... (for real?) ..... is the answer. Hey, we each have our own row to hoe, and I wish you well on your journey.

Sleeve or no sleeve, I could easily polish off a dozen doughnuts in fairly short order if I let myself go there. Sugar is basically toxic to me. At least when I used to eat it, my brain would take a nice little vacation...

[Sosewsue61 3,185]

I believe it's complicated because there are so many factors genetically, physically, physiologically, and mentally. (We can talk ourselves into and out of things in a nano second.)

As far as rules - don't we all live by rules with everything? Pay your bills on time, go to school by 8:05, get to work by 7:45, no alcohol at work, drive responsibly? If you could apply that logic to eating instead of how it makes you 'feel' there would be less confusion. But then - chemically - food supplies neurotransmitters that signal pleasure to our brains the same as drugs. Some of us are more sensitive to this than others. Okay now add society's ills and mental health issues. Put some viruses and bad gut bacteria and fast food in there and you have the perfect storm.

But back to rules for just a minute. Two of my four children, now adults, are type I diabetics - they have no choice but to follow the rules, if they want to live. Eat on time, eat correctly as possible, test, monitor, exercise, get checkups and hope for the best research. One wears a monitor that constantly tells her phone what her blood sugar levels are as she can go low very quickly, have a convulsion, and die. I have given so many glucagon shots to this child to save her from a coma and death. (Her monitor alerts several family members as well.) And yet she is so grateful to be a mother and to have this technology now, and the laser technology to save her eyesight when diabetic retinopathy builds unneeded blood vessels and she works hard at it every day. So tell me again how hard it is to follow a few healthy rules?

Forget how other people made fun of you as a fat child, or the father that threatened to whip you for not finishing your food, or the anorexic mother that made you ashamed, the b!tchy cheerleader that taunted you, or the girl that wouldn't date you because you were fat, forget the golden arches - LIVE. Live like you have no choice.

This isn't meant to make anyone feel guilty for their choices or situations, but to make you see that the gift of this chance should be celebrated and utilized to its full extent. Honor yourself and what you mean to your family by working hard at this. Figure out what you have to do to achieve this. Don't give food any more due than it deserves.

[Vrg 1]

No Protein Shake

not enough Water

caffeine

chocolates

god I feel terrible writing this

[njgal 535]

No Protein Shake
not enough water
caffeine
chocolates
god I feel terrible writing this

I’m allowed coffee so maybe just consider the other 3 broken rules? [emoji16]

[CrowMilk 96]

Exactly, I'm over six years out and I can eat absolutely everything I could eat the day before my surgery (had I not been on my pre-op diet of course). Oh, with the exception of pancakes!! OH GOD pancakes... I can eat bread, oatmeal, waffles, french toast but a few bites of a pancake and I'm wishin I was dead. lol
Deal is, if I could put all I eat (when I eat) into a measuring device of some sort I bet the absolute most I've eatin since 1/27/11 would be 2 - 2 1/4 cups (tad more MAYBE, Chili night who can blame me? lmao). And I'm DYING when I get close. But I have to be mentally sidetracked for that to happen.
Trust your new stomach, they CAN and to a point WILL stretch (some) but you would have to over eat SO much and suffer SO much for it to stretch enough for you to start gaining back again.

Oh gosh, the pancakes. I cannot handle those well AT ALL. I can't have most breads, and if I do I can only eat a few bites before I am done and my stomach is gurgling.

Naan doesn't seem to bother me at all though. Toasted breads are not too bad either, but I can only have half a piece or a bagel over the course of like 3 hours.

[SassyScienceNerd 213]

American bread does a number on my stomach. I had a grilled chicken breast on a bun on my way to a meeting and eating in the car on the way was my only option, unfortunately. So I couldn't go bunless. And it was just awful. I stopped and threw up on the way. I had a bite of my daughter's white toast and it did the same thing. But the really dense grainy breads don't have the same effect. We had avocado and smoked salmon on some dense whole wheat type (German style) bread and it was delicious, filled me for hours, and didn't give me any tummy trouble at all.

[FishOn 75]

19 minutes ago, SassyScienceNerd said:

American bread does a number on my stomach. I had a grilled chicken breast on a bun on my way to a meeting and eating in the car on the way was my only option, unfortunately. So I couldn't go bunless. And it was just awful. I stopped and threw up on the way. I had a bite of my daughter's white toast and it did the same thing. But the really dense grainy breads don't have the same effect. We had avocado and smoked salmon on some dense whole wheat type (German style) bread and it was delicious, filled me for hours, and didn't give me any tummy trouble at all.

I learned a valuable lesson last night. Eating on the run in your car is a no-no and almost lost it last night and vowed never to eat on the run again. You forget to slowly chew your food and wolf it down like you used to when gaining weight.

[SassyScienceNerd 213]

1 hour ago, FishOn said:

I learned a valuable lesson last night. Eating on the run in your car is a no-no and almost lost it last night and vowed never to eat on the run again. You forget to slowly chew your food and wolf it down like you used to when gaining weight.

Yikes, sorry you had that experience! I definitely didn't wolf my food, and I chewed it pretty well, it's just something about that bread. I had a veggie-dog on a bun a few weeks ago with the same result, though at the time I thought it was the veggie dog.

[summerset 5,261]

On 13.11.2017 at 0:22 PM, Berry78 said:

Pretty sure the "eff it, I'm not gonna live with rules" is what most of us did prior to gaining the weight that landed us in the surgical suite.

I think what bella bloom said about rules carries a lot of truth for a lot of WLS patients. Of course there might be the "f*ck rules" people that were always like this, however, I think what most WLS patients experience is a severe "dieting burnout" where you're simply no longer able to follow any rules because you're so burnt out from years and decades of "following the dieting rules" that it seems to be virtually impossible. The surgery usually gives a ton of motivation but that doesn't last and the burnout kicks in again, maybe harder than before.

And that's very different from "eff it, I'm not gonna live with rules".

[Berry78 4,259]

I was reading, just today, about re-feeding anorexics. Basically, for them to gain weight, a typical 2000 calorie diet isn't enough to make significant changes to their weight. They need to eat 3500 and 4000 calories to make much headway. This is because the first 2000 calories are used just to continue living.. the extra is needed to make repairs and gain weight.

Bella, even eating whatever she wants, is still restricted by the size of her stomach and her rule of stopping when satisfied. She isn't eating over 3000 calories a day, therefore can't gain a ton of weight... yet. I believe that once her body has healed the starvation damage, (may take years with limited calories), then she'll gain weight like the rest of us. Assuming "satisfied" comes a smidge too late

As for what "most bariatric patients" do or don't do with rules.. you are probably right, summerset.. I just know that at some point, in order for us to be morbidly obese, we couldn't have been following rules. Whether burnout, or lack of attention, or a rebellious attitude.. whatever reasoning was behind it.. doesn't really matter... cuz here we are!

The key to long term success is going to look different for each of us. But ultimately, we all are working with the same fundamentals. If we eat too many calories, we will put on weight. (how many is "too many" will vary wildly between us). If we find we are eating too many and the scale goes up, then we have to change something so we aren't eating too many any more.

Much easier when we've gained 10lbs, then 100.

[bellabloom 2,467]

I think what bella bloom said about rules carries a lot of truth for a lot of WLS patients. Of course there might be the "f*ck rules" people that were always like this, however, I think what most WLS patients experience is a severe "dieting burnout" where you're simply no longer able to follow any rules because you're so burnt out from years and decades of "following the dieting rules" that it seems to be virtually impossible. The surgery usually gives a ton of motivation but that doesn't last and the burnout kicks in again, maybe harder than before.
And that's very different from "eff it, I'm not gonna live with rules".

That’s exactly how I felt and how I still feel. Total burnout with dieting, to the point that I was more miserable dieting than I was overweight.

Not everyone feels this way of course. Luckily I’ve found a way to keep my weight off and not diet. I don’t know if Intuitive Eating will work for everyone but it’s working for me.

It was a long long process for me to be able to say “f the rules”. I still don’t say that. I still have to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I break the rules and sometimes I pay for it. But what it comes down to is my overall happiness being more important than my scale number.