Thinking about post-op

Susanb2117
on 9/2/14 5:38 am

As my checklist for surgery gets almost completed I am starting to worry.  (Not enough to stop me, but worry all the same).  I was thinking this weekend about how much time I spend every day (for the last 30 years or so) thinking about food.  What I want to eat, what I should eat, what I just ate, whether I have been good, whether I have been bad, what I can eat and not be bad, what I can eat to be good, how much I should eat, how much I ate, how much I will eat, what will my next meal be, do I need a snack, should I have a snack.....  okay, I am sure you all get it LOL.  

Anyway, I am wondering what I will do with all the spare space in my brain once this is simplified for me after surgery. Will my life be boring and empty? what will I feel the void with?  Did anyone else have these thoughts (or am I just crazy!?!).  

Cicerogirl, The PhD
Version

on 9/2/14 6:37 am - OH

{chuckling...}

If your experience is typical, you will still spend a huge amount of time thinking about food and vitamins and things weight loss related. It will probably occupy your thoughts even MORE than it does now, and it will stay that way for quite a while!

Your brain will be busy thinking about:

- how much you have had to drink today

- when the last time was that you drank something

- how much you still ned to drink the rest of the day

- trying to develop a vitamin routine that fits into your lifestyle

- trying to REMEMBER to take vitamins at least 4 times a day (3 times for calcium and one for iron which cannot be taken with the calcium, and then others scattered in with them)

- when your next meal/snack will be

- WHAT your next meal/snack will be

- what you would RATHER eat at your next meal instead 

-  the portion size for your next meal (or measuring out your food)

- how much protein you just consumed (or entering  your latest meal/snack into a tracking tool)

- how much protein you still need to get in for the day

- looking up or memorizing the protein and carb contents of various foods so you can make decisions about what to eat

- any trouble you are having drinking or eating enough

- how you are too easily able to eat and/or drink

- remembering to chew our food to mush

- remembering to eat slowly

- whether or not you should have the snack you are craving

- whether there is an acceptable snack you can have

-  how bored you are with he same old things you have been eating

- what different foods you can eat at whatever stage you are at post-op that is high in protein but low in carbs

- Fighting off cravings for high fat or high carb foods

-what you are going to eat when you go to dinner tomorrow night or to a party this weekend 

- how much you weigh today

- if you lost a pound today or not

- whether you are losing "too slowly" or "too quickly"

- worrying about a stall, why you are stalled, and/or how you can break the stall

- how to get in physical activity today or how much physical activity you have had today

- how much physical activity you did or did not get yesterday

- how loose your pants are getting and whether or not you can continue to wear them for a while longer before you have to buy new ones

- how you are going to afford to keep obtaining new clothes as the weight comes off

- why you don't seem to be losing weight as quickly in your ___ as in the rest of your body

- how much hair you are losing

- how slowly your hair is coming back in 

- how loose your skin on your ____ is

- whether that pain you have had in your stomach the past day is something to be worried about or not

- how to deal with the constipation you are having

- about how you can now do ____, which you haven't been able to do in years 

- about when you will be able to do ____, which you haven't been able to do in years (or ever)

 

You get the idea.  People tend to be pretty weight, food, and body obsessed the first year after surgery.  So much so that sometimes other people have to policy tell them that they are tired of hearing about it, LOL.

Lora

14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained

You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.

(deactivated member)
on 9/2/14 6:49 am

This should be made into a print to put on a wall.It is so true.

Susanb2117
on 9/2/14 7:01 am

Oh great! LOL.  I thought my brain would get a rest from all this food-related stuff :)

lburrell
on 9/2/14 7:24 am

Thank you Lora...you hit the nail on the head. I am 5 weeks post op and I think about food way more after surgery. Before surgery if I wanted to eat something I ate it....little to no thought there...thus why I weighed 300+ pounds. 

  RNY 7/28/14 - HW 312 (1/9/14) - SW 263. CW 164 (3/28/15)

selhard
on 9/2/14 7:26 am - MN
RNY on 11/26/12

...from this entire so-true list, there's only one I really, really hate and it's third from the bottom or should I say "turd from the butt-um."

NYMom222
on 9/2/14 8:33 am
RNY on 07/23/14

Haha... this is a great list. I am 5 weeks out and I am constantly thinking about it.

Cynthia 5'11" RNY 7/23/2014

Goal reached 17 months. 220lb Weight Loss
Plastic Surgery Dr. Joseph Michaels - LBL and Hernia Repair 2/29/16, Arm Lift, BL, 5/2/16, Leg Lift 7/25/16

#lifeisanadventure #fightthegoodfight #noregrets

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CerealKiller Kat71
on 9/2/14 9:15 am
RNY on 12/31/13

I literally laughed out loud.  This is SO accurate!

 

"What you eat in private, you wear in public." --- Kat

Dcgirl
on 9/2/14 10:19 am - DC
RNY on 12/16/13

Are you inside my head?!?!

Yes, make friends on this site so you can obsess over all of Lora's points (and more!) - people in the real world don't get it and probably don't care. But we do :)

Sherrie P.
on 9/2/14 11:22 am
RNY on 02/06/13

Yep - Lora pretty much sums up post op life for quite a while! 

This is a good place to turn. Not everyone in our post-op lives are as interested in our journey as we are.

 

Revision Lapband to RNY 2-6-2013   HW: 286  Pre-Op Diet: 277  Surgery Day: 265  Goal: 155  CW: 155

Plastic surgery 8/28/2014: Brachioplasty, mastopexy, & abdominoplasty.

Plastic surgery 1/27/2015: Butt Lift

    

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