Post about my daily menu

Recently, I posted in the daily what's on your menu thread, and, according to the regular folks on this site, following the guidelines given me by my surgeon is not the correct way to do things. I'm taking in too many carbs, not enough protein, etc. despite following the clinic-given guidelines. It's too much of a bother (and I've ruffled too many feathers) to scroll through on my phone and chat with the 4 folks that have chimed in (some constructively, some not so much). All I will say is that I DO see the underlying care that people have in posting their advice, I'm not ignorant of that. If I've offended anyone, I apologize. I also don't like the feeling of being cornered, and it's in my nature to defend myself. And by God, I will if I have to.

It's not a question of me "knowing more than anyone", and to the one user that mentioned it, one thing I won't do is post a "My RNY failed" post in 18 months. That simply won't happen. I want to succeed at this, or I wouldn't have done it in the first place. I'll be taking prints of the thread (I've already made them) with me on Monday when I go see my surgeon, and have a good long chat about things.

I have now heard conflicting reports on what I'm supposed to be doing, so I'm rather confused, even more-so than before. Hopefully I can sort it out between my support, and my surgeon.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm creating my own menu. I'll follow the protein/carb advice here while tweaking things some more, and hopefully land somewhere that continues to see results. Not sure I'll post them at this point, but that's my plan.

Cheers.

I would tend to follow the advice of people on this site who have "walked the walk" and maintained their loss. Many of us have been on these boards a long time and have picked up on the patterns and habits that lead to WLS failure. We see countless people argue with successful WLS patients and then come back, in year 3, complaining of regain. When red flags are pointed out to a newbie it is out of concern and a desire for that newbie to succeed.

Many WLS professionals (nutritionist, dietitians, surgeons, etc) have never been obese or lived the WLS life. They have no clue what eating excess carbs does to us physically and emotionally. They are giving you guidelines for a normal, non-op patient. They have no clue what it's like to be a food addict who's drug of choice is simple carbs. We are not normal. We will never be able to eat like a person who has not had WLS.

Eating simple carbs will cause you to crave more carbs. Eating simple carbs will make you feel hungry. Eating simple carbs will eventually lead to regain. Many of us have stuffed our faces with simple carbs as a way to avoid emotional issues. We have used those kinds of foods as our security blanket for comfort. We refer to them as trigger foods. We know that once we start eating them, we can't control ourselves. We know these things because we live them every day of our lives. Right now you are early out and will lose weight no matter what you eat. It gets harder. Please train yourself to stay away from simple carbs now. It will help you in the long run.

By all means discuss this with your team. They will never admit that they are wrong. The people who have lost 200- 300 pounds and maintained that loss have more credibility in my opinion.

Thanks! And I appreciate the delivery style.

Rocky this is a well thought out and very informational post.

Amen!

Rocky gave you the best response you could ever hope for! Much more well thought out than (clearly) I was able to do, so I apologize if I was too harsh in the way I went about trying to get your attention. Again--I am truly wishing you success.

Thanks JB, and again, I apologize. You caught me at the tail end of a work week that I'm very grateful my job doesn't require a sidearm. Normally I'm a pretty laid back guy, but it got the better of me and I got my back up. That doesn't happen often. Figuring out this process is hard enough, to have all sorts of different information thrown at me all at once is a lot to try and process.

Interestingly enough, today I met with my surgeon for the one-month (though because of scheduling, it was actually 9 weeks) post-op appointment. I asked him a bunch of questions and eventually got around to all advice handed me on here, most of which flies in the face of the menus.

Our exam lasted all of 10 minutes (which IMO wasn't really worth the 2.5 hour drive each way, but I guess he had to check things over and weigh me). Our conversation after lasted quite a bit longer and crossed a lot of things off in my mind as he explained things. Basically, I got my answers but it's too long and drawn out to go into while typing on my phone. At the end of the day, I'll meet somewhere in the middle of the guidelines from them and the advice from here. Probably on the lower carb end of the spectrum, but they'll still be there in some capacity. He was happy with that and agreed with my decision. He said all patients are different, all clinics and surgeons are different, but the end result should still be the same. How I get there is up to me.

On a side note - According to him, I'm approximately 35% ahead of the curve compared to others at my stage. He was really impressed at my progress and having had zero issues.

Take care

The first job I ever had in retail, they taught us that even though you are exhausted because you have been standing in the same place for 8 hours, everyone who walks into your store is there for the first time and needs your smile and greeting to be as big as when you first walked onto your shift. ...I have been on OH for 7+ years, through two surgeries and seen a million people come and go and the same post topics written again and again. Sometimes I get the exhausted eye-roll feeling when I see the same things over and over, which isn't fair to a newbie. Anyway, I am not a doctor and I don't have a crystal ball, but I have seen a lot over the years and there are some definite red flags that trigger concern.

Grim said something that really stuck with me, and I am going to steal it and quote him, here: People say its a marathon, not a sprint, but that's not true in the first year. The first year you need to run like hell to lose every single pound. Because if you hit your one year mark and you are 50lbs away from goal, it will be almost impossible to lose the rest. Plus you might gain a little from rebound, and then you are 60 away from goal, and you start to feel defeated, and you turn to food, and... So run run run like hell to the finish line! You have our support to get there.

Oh I forgot. As of today I'm 54 lbs from goal. Hoping to use today and all assimilated info to smash goal by maybe fall. That would rock.

• Sorry - I don't mean to hijack this thread, and hope I will be forgiven - but this comment worried me.
• I appreciate your advice to run, run run, even fly towards your goal during the first year, but your comment that if someone still is 50 pounds over their goal at the one year mark it will be almost impossible for them to lose the rest scared me. Why? Because I have 200 pounds to lose to get where I would like to be. I can likely lose 20 or so pounds before surgery but that still leaves a very big number of pounds to lose in one year. Please don't get me wrong - I'm all for it - I just don't know if a 180-200 pound loss is achievable for me (female, age 63, hypothyroid) in a 12 month time frame. I am sure I can lose a large amount and will do everything I can to push my losing as hard as I can, but...is it probable that with me, doing everything right, I can actually lose that much in 12 months? And if not why can't I continue to push downwards, if I remain very motivated and diligent? I really want to hit goal.