My Advice To Newbie Post Ops

My first thought is for newbies that just had surgery. If you haven't reached the point of regretting the fact that you had surgery, just know you will. If you are a normal, typical, average WLS patient you will very likely go through a phase where you regret having the surgery. You ask yourself what the heck you just did to your body!

Just know, this is common. It WILL pass! Give yourself time, most of us feel that way and it usually happens right after surgery and might last for several weeks. But it will pass. Give it time.

There are a lot of head games that go with weight loss surgery. We are accustomed to large quantities of food, and the type of food that does not work well for weight loss. I was the fast food queen, ate it twice daily every single day. Burgers, onion rings, tons of diet soda, the works. I ate so much fast food that my band will paid for itself in fast food savings and soda savings in 1.5 years. Isn't that horrible? I'm talking $7800 for the cost of my band!

You know those reformed smokers? They smoked like a chimney for years and when they quit the rest of the world must quit? They suddenly claim to be "allergic" to smoke? They are rude, insulting, obnoxious, and believe they are doing a good thing? That's the way I am about fast food. I am a reformed fast food junkie. I don't think many had a diet as horrible as mine before banding. One can be obese and malnourished at the same time and that is probably a good way to explain my own pre-band eating habits. It was that bad. Pre-sleeve I was a fully reformed fast food junkie. ;o)

I explain this so you know I fully understand food issues. BTDT a million times over.

Some people seem to struggle with white carbs such as bread and pasta (me) and others seem to struggle with sugar and sweets. Those are the big ones. Some struggle with alcohol but I'm not sure that is primarily a WLS issue but more an alcohol issue that gets in the way of weight loss. Some claim to eat mostly veggies and they just don't know why they are obese. Is there a better example of denial than that? ;o)

Having WLS does take much of the joy out of eating. I don't think it matters which procedure you have, much of the joy is taken out of food. The non stop chewing, small quantities, food limitations, the works. In many ways I think that is a good thing. It's the joy of eating that got us fat. We can't imagine a time when we would ever prefer not to eat because it is unfathomable to comprehend that food might not be as fun someday. We can't comprehend that it might not fill a need somewhere. The need to inhale food - large quantities of food. We like the taste, the texture, the full feeling... we like it all. We eat until we experience extreme discomfort from eating so much yet we want to continue doing it. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Another obese person would understand this but a thin person would think we are crazy. I don't know, maybe we are crazy but you know what? It is what it is.

When you have any weight loss surgery (bypass, band, sleeve, whatever) it takes much of the joy out, what we are used to. We are used to inhaling anything we want. We are used to that Chocolate cake calling our name and we have to wait until we can stuff another bite down before we can inhale that, too. We are like a food vacuum cleaner, we suck it ALL up.

After surgery you realize you can't do that anymore and it's frustrating. You see and you want to eat it but you know there isn't a chance in the world it is going to go down. Think about it, when you were pre-surgery and dieting when you grew sick of the diet you could cheat. WLS doesn't permit you to cheat in the same way and with the same quantity of foods and it gets old in a hurry. This is the time to continue reminding yourself that this is a lifestyle change. This is it, we are here, living it, choices have been taken from us. We intentionally took our own choices away from ourselves because we couldn't achieve goals without it. Food choices, our choice in eating habits, it's gone. Never to return. That's one if the biggest head issues we have to deal with. There is no turning back.

I think it's kinda typical to start eating around the surgery during these times so you feel as though you have control over the procedure vs. the feeling that the surgical procedure has control over you. You have to get to a point that you accept it isn't a control issue but a tool that you need to lose weight. You can fight it, but it isn't going to work. But you know what? We try anyway. Then comes more frustration. I think this is the point that we need to give ourselves a reality check. We all have to accept that this is it, do it or don't. Most accept it and move on with weight loss and a small minority do not. My best friend is a prime example. She eats her 800 calories a day in good food and a whopping 3000 calories a day in Chocolate.

If you are not losing weight I suspect you are going through a phase where you are sick of dealing with weight loss, you are sick of chewing chicken to a liquid, you are sick of it all and I think those phases are normal. Let's face it, it's a great deal more fun to maintain weight vs. losing weight. That's why I wanted it over with in a hurry and kept calories at 600 daily and busted my butt doing hard cardio daily. And no, Dr. Aceves did not approve of my caloric methods but I wanted the fat chapter closed once and for all. I was sick of a battle all the time of losing weight. I felt like I was fighting the world and in reality, I wasn't. I was fighting the lifestyle change. When I accepted that this is my new world, my new reality... I was able to move on and get it done.

Have you noticed that your world revolved around food a lot more pre-surgery than it does now? Now you have days where you put off consuming food because it is a chore. Did you ever put off consuming food pre-surgery? I don't think this is a bad thing. Pre-surgery we can't comprehend the thought that food will not rule our lives. Our world revolves around food. We eat breakfast and while we are eating it we wonder what we'll have for lunch. When we eat lunch we think about what is in the freezer for dinner. When someone mentions the name of a restaurant we immediately have a vision of the menu and know full well what we will order and it will be the largest portion sizes on the menu in all likelihood.

Have you ever been asked to go to dinner with someone and you didn't want to eat your usual portions in front of others so you eat before you leave the house so you can pretend to eat small portions while dining in front of others? Ever go to a fast food restaurant and pretend you are ordering for more than one person? In reality, it's all for you. Food ruled our lives pre-surgery. Post-surgery we wonder what we should be doing with all the extra time where we are no longer consumed with food issues.

Not sure if any of that resonates with you, but I think bits and pieces might.

Wine... I think you'll find many experienced WLS folks say that if they drink alcohol it will stall weight loss a great deal. It shouldn't, the calories are incorporated in your daily count but it still stalls weight loss. At least it does for me. I don't drink much now that I'm at goal. It hits me too hard, too fast, and even with just one glass of wine I'm not at my best the next day. But that's me, not everyone is the same. But again, I think you'll find many experienced WLS folks saying alcohol stalls weight loss every single time. And let's be frank here, if you are in the weight loss mode you do not need or require a couple of glasses of wine a few times a week. We are only permitted limited calories daily. If you drink a couple of glasses of wine you either are going over in calories or you are not getting good foods in. Either way it simply isn't good.

Are you eating soft foods? Liquid calories? Cottage cheese and creamed soups? Congrats to you for getting protein in, but it's the wrong kind of protein for your surgery type. I know it is easier to get cream of chicken soup down vs. solid chicken, but you know what? This is the game we signed up for. This is the lifestyle we paid a lot of money to obtain. So change from soft foods and liquid calories and get back on track. A half cup of roasted chicken is going to have fewer calories than the two cups of cream of chicken soup you are consuming now.

Are you cooking your own chicken? Are you cooking it so long it is dry and hard to eat? Or is chicken just not doable with your surgery type? Try going to the grocery store and buy a roasted chicken. Eat a small piece and see if it goes down better than what you make. If it does it might be that you are overcooking your chicken and it's simply too dry. Canned chicken soup has some of the most overcooked meat around and even cream of chicken has pieces of solids in it. If you can get that down, you should be able to get roasted chicken down.

If you are eating the right foods and have appropriate restriction you really shouldn't need snacks. That quickly become habit and if you snack too much you mess with your 800 calories (or whatever your doc suggests) daily that you are allowed. Then you don't get the appropriate quantity of food necessary for meals and you will be hungry sooner.

Ice cream... hello? Need I go further with that one?

How are your teeth? Are they in good condition? It's a serious question and quite important. One thing I don't think many realize is that if your teeth are not in super great condition you may not be able to chew the bandster/sleeve/bypass way. If your teeth need work, get it done.

Are you tracking calories? Many times it's easy to put off tracking calories if you are eating ice cream and drinking wine. Seriously, we don't always want to know the number of calories we are consuming. Then we'd have to be honest with ourselves and that can easily be a hard pill to swallow. If someone is losing well and feeling good there is little reason to track protein and calories. But if weight loss stalls it's time to take a long hard look at what is going in our mouths. A few ways to do that are to run anything you are not absolutely positive of through:

www.nutritiondata.com

It will give you a very complete food label for any food item or total recipe.

Then track that information on:

www.thedailyplate.com

or...

www.fitday.com

or...

www.sparkpeople.com

See what is actually going in your mouth on a daily basis. Be honest, nobody will see it but you.

So cut out the wine, ice cream, and candy bars. Make this new lifestyle a habit you prefer and amazingly, that really does happen over time. Your tastes change and you prefer the good stuff. You look at ice cream and think that sounds so good. Today over three years post op I think the SAME thing about a salad. Crazy... I know. But it does happen. Bump up your exercise. We have biological and emotional reasons for overeating, we have no excuse for not exercising. None.

Change the liquid calories and soft foods to solid proteins. When the scale starts moving like crazy you will find all kinds MORE motivation. Buy new clothes that actually fit vs. hanging off your body. That is very motivating as well. You can do this, but you have to do your part. No more excuses. Accept this is your lifestyle and use it to your advantage.

Good luck!