Hello all... First time poster.. I have less than 3 months before surgery.. I am 34 and a mother of 2 wonderful childern. 7 yrs and 1 year old. I remember hearing women say how hard it was to lose weight after having children and I used to think BS!! This has now become me and has been me for quite some time now. It seems like if I look at food I can gain the calories from it without even eating it. My question is how do mothers with young children cope with the snacks in the house. My children are very healthy both physically and mentally both love fruits and veggies and do not have not weight issues. I pack my daughters lunch for school so I tend to keep extra in the pantry. I cannot completely remove snacks and certain foods from my home, like I have done before I had childern. How do mothers cope after surgery with having childern and staying out of the snack pantry. I am thinking of all the things that got me to not being able to control my weight and i have come to the honest truth that indulging in snacks and also eating their leftover food from of their plate contributes big time to me not being able to control my weight. Before I became a mother I rarely snacked, grocery shopped maybe a few times a month, now I'm in the grocery store at the least a couple of times a week. (I love the grocery store) any tips. Thanks in advance!

I can’t speak to your specific situation, but I will tell you what has worked for me as a father of two about 15 months post surgery. I have looked at this surgery as a tool all along. It is something I needed to learn to utilize to get the desired results. What I found post surgery is that I immediately began treating my food the same way. Your food intake post surgery is so low that in order to stay healthy you need to make what enters your mouth count. Since my surgery I have looked at food as a tool. Before I eat anything I am now thinking about what my body needs to fuel it and make sure I stay healthy with my reduced intake. It has been a complete and total mindset change from my pre-surgery thinking, and honestly I was surprised at how easy it was to change my way of thinking. Immediately post surgery I was consumed with hitting my water and protein numbers. This focus on hitting daily targets forced me into this way of thinking and I am thankful for it. Just remember this is a life long commitment. Take the time to stop and think before you eat anything, and think about wether it is really something your body needs or it is just something you are eating because you want it. After some time it becomes habit, and not eating the junk is just routine.

A lot of things change after surgery and your taste buds might be one of them. None of the snack foods I used to love sound good to me anymore. My program isn't low carb but we aren't allowed to snack, only 3 meals. My snacks of choice were always sweet ones. Like I could eat the heck out of fruit snacks. But now I have zero desire for them. My number one favorite food was ice cream and now it grosses me out. I want spice and sour and bitter. I also used to love mindlessly eating something bland like pretzels and now they just taste so bland. Things might change for me when I am further out but I am just so used to not eating snacky stuff now the habit feels broken. I buy less crap for my kids (who are all 18 and over and in school) because it is so easy to pass by the Twinkie displays now.