My RANT!

I think perhaps I am a little tired, had a tough day in meetings,  and maybe am even cranky today. Keep that in mind should you decide to continue reading. That said.....

I have been reading some posts the past couple of weeks that are leaving me wanting to throw my hands up in the air and invoke the heavens to come and knock some sense into some folks. (Now my frustration is not always with the original poster, but sometimes with the replies to the post.)

Let me answer some questions that have been floating around the VSG board over the past weeks:

When will I be able to eat normally again? Never. Think about it: Your normal got you here to WLS land! You had 75 to 85% or your perfectly healthy stomach removed because you failed over and over to eat normally. You needed a lot of help to overcome your issues with food. Removing your most of your stomach does not change the fact that we have skewed relationships with food - me included! You need to start practicing early out how you are going to eat for the REST OF YOUR LIFE. It will make it that much easier when you get to goal and can eat ANYTHING, because believe it or not, that day is coming - at least the day you can eat anything.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned on this journey is that my eating was anything but normal, no matter how much I wanted to believe it was. You need to find your new normal.

When can I have _______________? (fill in the blank with some item of high carb crap) My answer: When you’d like to stop your weight loss. If you are craving bread or cereal or in my case it was sweet treats like cookies and chocolate, you need to let those things go. The craving is a pretty good indicator that it is a trigger food. So get over it. Push past the craving. Your life needs to be about protein and water(fluids) the first couple of months. Then you can start to think about adding a green veggie because you’ll have a little more room. Then come the other veggies, and finally in itsy bitsy quantities come the unrefined carbs and I’m talking by the tablespoon.

I don’t like protein drinks. What can I do instead? SUCK IT UP! Yeah, I know that’s harsh, but you know people, you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do to be healthy.  Eventually, you’ll get off the darn things. It’s only a few months. There  were some I hated. Made me sort of gag and yak, but I sucked ‘em down till I found my beloved GNC Amplified Wheybolic Extreme 60 chocolate flavor.

Generally, I try to be pretty supportive of people. I know what it took for me to lose the weight. I also know that when I was early out I couldn’t eat much of anything, so sure, if I had had a couple of tablespoons of cereal or mashed potatoes or cream of wheat, or.... I would have still lost weight. But I had a surgeon who etched upon my mind the importance of protein in my post op diet. Protein was not optional ever. It had to come first ALWAYS, so I never had room for anything else until quite a ways out. Then it was my job to add vegetables. And finally, just a little bit of what my doc and his nut and MD called healthy starches - a TBS of yam or quinoa or hummus.

After 5 or 6 months the weight didn’t just fall off. I had to work at it. Yes, I lost a lot pretty fast and I was almost at goal, but those last 11 pounds did not melt away. They took work.

I am over a year out. It is still work for me to eat “normally” and by that I mean staying on program. I have a new normal. I plan my meals. I weigh and measure my portions. I still count calories. I still count carbs and protein. I track my water and I weigh myself every blessed morning. I exercise very regularly. I do all this work because I do not want to be obese ever again.

Being fat is easy! There, I said it. Yes, for me, being fat was a easy. I ate without a thought. I stuffed my emotions with food: Pissed, eat. Sad, eat. Celebrating, eat. Distraught, eat. I loved the party of flavor in my mouth and could eat impulsively with only mild guilt. I was sick and getting sicker, but it was easy.

This VSG life is work. And guess what? I don’t care. I wouldn’t trade the work I do with food everyday for anything. I can move. I can breathe. Hell, I can RUN! I can fold my body over like a jack knife. I can lie down flat on the floor with my legs bent back at the knee like a freakin’ gymnast! But the best is that I feel good about who I am. I am proud of who I am becoming. I am finding the strength to be who I was meant to be all along. And everyday I have to do the work that keeps me here.

No one is perfect on this journey. No one. We all falter. But if you look for ways to not do the work, I believe you are looking for a way to fail yet again, not for the path to success. I want for everyone here to have what I have and then some.

Thank you. Rant over.

Kairk, you big meanie, you make all this sound like work, but what if I really really, really want my Starbucks mocha every morning.  Do I really have to give it up?  After all it has milk and that's protein.  :)  I am willing to get the grande rather then the venti now that I have had surgery.  :)

 

Did I just say that out loud.  Ooops.

Well, I think you can have that. Let's take a look:

These are the stats for a Starbuck's Grande Mocha

  % Daily Value*

Calories 330	Calories from Fat 140
Total Fat 15g	23%
Saturated Fat 9g	45%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 50mg	17%
Sodium 0mg	0%
Total Carbohydrate 44g	15%
Dietary Fiber 2g	8%
Sugars 35g
Protein 13g

Well, maybe not. Hmmmm 44 carbs and 35 sugars. But, you're right it does have 13 grams of protein, so it's not all bad!

Hey but it has 2 g. of fiber and we really need our fiber you know. 

Kairik, your the best!

On a serious note, I am so happy (and a little sad) that sweetened lattes make me barfy now.  I've tried them a few times post op, and they make me dump.  So, it's a big yay-boo for me :) 

I do actually have a plain old skim latte every day, homemade.  It has 77 calories and 6 grams of protein.  It's yummy, I love it, AND it fits into my plan (my doctor wants me to have 3 glasses of milk every day, for the rest of my life).

this is a learning process.  people learn by trial and error.  our heads take time to catch up with our stomachs.  it take longer for some people to get the hang of it and some people never will.  

I understand that, really, I do. I just worry about the people who seem to want the sleeve to do all the work for them. It doesn't really work that way at all. After 6 or 9 months, I think success is really 90% mindset and 10% sleeve. If you don't get the mindset down, it's very likely you won't be as successful as you really want to be. To me there is nothing as sad as having WLS and losing all hope when you could have been successful.

Most of us wouldn't have a prayer without wls.  I am almost 5 years out and I know that if I make healthy choices most of the time can still lose weight and keep it off for the rest of my life.  So I guess I don't feel the same sense of urgency as some. To me it was never about losing a lot of weight....fast.  I am more concerned about my overall health and would prefer not to risk vitamin deficiencies.  Supplements are helpful, but can not take the place of real food.

I do appreciate your perspective and realize that tough love has its place.

LOVE 

Tough love!!! But needed! I am getting sleeved 1/31/2013...I need all the therapy I can get thanks!