I haven't posted on here in quite a while.  I just feel like updating, so here I am.

 

I had RNY in August 2007, so I'm a little over 8 years post-op.  When I had my surgery, I weighed approximately 255 pounds.  I now weigh approximately 125-130 pounds.  (I haven't weighed in a month or so, but my pants fit fine so I figure I still weigh what I did the last time I weighed.)  I went from a size 24/26 then to roughly a size 4 now.

 

The first few years, I followed the "rules" religiously.  I think that's what has contributed to my long term success.  (I also still refuse to consume sugar/sweets and/or carbonated beverages of any kind.) 

 

I no longer journal my food, but I still try to always eat protein first. 

 

In the last year I've started walking for an hour every day (before then I did no regular exercise what-so-ever).  I've fallen off the exercise wagon in the last month, but I'm going to start again soon because I just feel better overall when I'm doing it regularly.

 

As I already said, I still refuse to ingest any carbonated beverages of any kind and/or any sugar/sweets.  Why in the world would I "test the waters" with that garbage when those same tainted waters helped nearly kill me before (and are completely un-necessary for my well-being)?

 

I have had no complications and have no health problems to report.

 

I'm taking my vitamins daily (some more than once a day) and life is good.

 

I guess I'm just dropping by to say: YOU CAN DO IT AND YOU CAN DO IT FOREVER!

 

Good luck everyone and happy holidays!

 

Wen

I'm asking this on the general forum & on the RNY forum because I seem to be an anomaly from what I'm hearing among RNYers and post-ops in general (so far that I've asked privately).

I'm about 8 years out and have been VERY vigilant about my supplementation until this year when, for just various life reasons, I have missed a few days here and there lately of my vitamins.  I have noticed when I missed my calcium more than 3 or 4 days in a row, I actually start aching.  And I do mean ACHING as in TANGIBLE PAIN.  It stops when I start up again after a day or so. 

This isn't in my mind because it took me a few times missing to even narrow down that that is what it was that was causing it (the only thing I had in "common" with the pain coming on that could have been causing it that I can tell).  I really honestly believe that is it as hard as it is to believe.

So at the risk of looking stupid for believing it (which I do at this point since the evidence is overwhelming as far as I'm concerned as far as the timing and the lack of other coinciding factors), I'm asking if anyone else has ever had PAIN when stopping and/or missing several days in a row of calcium supplements? 

Thanks

Wen

thank u so much

thanks

thank u

thank u

thank u

 

Can’t sleep so figured I’d drop by & update everyone since I’m NEVER on here anymore.  I mean really… don’t most of us “move on” at some point?  Not with the “rules” if we want to keep the weight off, but with the constant support group attendance &/or forum participation stuff.  Or maybe that’s just me.

 

I’m 7 years out.  I started out about 255 – 260 pounds depending on what scale I believed.  I currently weigh between 123 – 133 pounds depending on what scale I believe.  So I went from a size 24/26 to a size 2/4. 

 

I still journal everything I eat or drink.  I do it for a lot of reasons.  1) I didn’t get fat overnight.  If I regain, that won’t be overnight either.  If I don’t log my calories, I just KNOW I will let myself add a few calories here and there (thus adding a pound here and there) every few months until I’m back where I started.  To stop that problem BEFORE it starts (which is always preferable in my opinion), I journal everything & keep to my set caloric limit per day as set by my dietician when she did my medgem test.  2) If I start having digestive problems or feeling gross periodically (or feeling “off” in ANY way really), I want to look back at my food journal & see if something dietary could be to blame, etc.  3)  If I go through a period where I start GAINING and don’t know why, I can look back at my food/fluid journal and see if I was carb loading witout realizing it or if I’m eating foods that may be making me retain more fluids than normal, etc.  But MOSTLY, I just do it to keep me honest so I stick to my limit on my calories.

 

I still don’t drink with my meals.  I stop 30 minutes before eating and don’t start drinking again until an hour after eating.  SOMETIMES I’ll admit to only letting 15 minutes lapse from the time I stop drinking until I start eating, but those times are rare & I never feel right (physically) eating that soon after I stop drinking.  So I do always try for the full 30 minutes.  Sometimes I wait even longer than an hour after eating to start drinking if my fluid intake is high enough for the day where I’m not worried about getting enough in.  If I’m not thirsty and I’ve had a lot of fluid that day, I can go as much as an 1.5 – 2 hours after eating before I start drinking again because I’m in no hurry to start getting more in.      

 

I still don’t drink carbonated beverages of any kind.  Too much research shows how unhealthy they are and how even the diet ones contribute to obesity.  All it took for me to never touch another one of those was for me to read in my pre & post-op research that the majority of post-ops *****gain had also started drinking carbonated beverages again.  The less I have in common with those *****gain, I figure the better my chances to NOT regain would be if that makes sense. 

 

I don’t go to support group (or even on this forum) hardly EVER anymore.  Most of the topics on here and in real life group are for immediate post-ops.  I’m just not in that place so I feel like it’s a waste for me to be there/here unless there is something I can gain from it.  That sounds selfish, but I’m feeling selfish this morning.  There is a forum on here for longer out patients.  I wish there was a support group here for longer out patients.  I went to our support group here for the first time in ages the other night.  It was a lecture on vegetable based diet living (which she & the nurses leading the meeting flat out said wasn’t recommended for us) and one of the nurses even walked around showing us how small to cut the vegetables to illustrate a proper “bite size”.  I’m 7 years out.  If it fits in my mouth, it is a proper bite size.  LOL (jk… sorta)  In any event, I’m going to try another group next time I think.

 

So now the WHY I went to support group after not going for a couple of years and WHY I’m typing this out at 4:30 in the morning when I could be playing Candy Crush.  I have had a resurgence of a bad behavior that I want to put a stop to.  I figure if I confess it on here, it’ll help me do that. 

 

I was a BIG binge eater pre-op.  We’re talking OBSCENE amounts of food.  We’re talking a meal of an entire order of crazy bread + entire baconator + great biggie fries + great biggie diet coke kind of obscene.  We’re talking a snack of a half gallon of vanilla ice cream with a box of frosted flakes poured over it (for that crunch factor) – WHICH I would have to throw up halfway through sometimes because I couldn’t even hold it all, after which time I could go sit & eat the rest.  Pretty sick huh? 

 

In any event, we all know we have surgery on our BODIES and not our MINDS.  That sick part of my mind isn’t dead.  She hibernates sometimes and I don’t see her for months.  Then sometimes she is with me every day, seemingly taunting me in my mind, telling me I want to eat this & that (and not SMALL amounts of this & that because she never did ANYTHING halfway). 

 

So since my surgery, she’s been back maybe twice.  She stayed for a couple of weeks each time before going into hibernation again.  She’s back now.  It’s been a couple of weeks & she’s still here.  I want her gone.  So I’m confessing on here in the hopes that something will happen to make her go away.

 

Now since I’ve had RNY, obviously I can’t totally give in to her and binge – I’d hurt myself or immediately throw it all back up.  So, I compromise with her.  I do what’s called “chew & spit”.  (Paints a pretty picture doesn’t it?  Probably why they shorten it & call it “CNS”.)  I chew whatever she wants up, getting all the flavor/taste/etc, then I spit it out. 

 

Now I have to break in the flow here because this is very hard to type – especially publicly – but it needs said.  I’ve sat here for a good 2 – 3 minutes staring at this screen trying to make myself type these words.  For some reason, it is easier to DESCRIBE what I do (as I did above) than it is to just say: I have an eating disorder.  But I do.

 

There.  I said it.  I have an eating disorder.  Granted, it’s not something ALL doctors would classify as an eating disorder.  But they’d be wrong in my opinion.  I agree with the doctors that classify it as a ED-NOS (eating disorder – not otherwise specified) as does the National Eating Disorder Information Centre. 

 

I really want to delete the last couple of paragraphs but I’m NOT going to let myself do that.  I chewed up & spit out 48 miniature cupcakes this morning.  That will be the LAST time I do that EVER. 

 

I’ve spoken to a psychiatrist about this (it was as hard for me to tell her as it was to tell all of you) and we’re going to start working on it.  So that’s good news.  But I still felt like, for some reason, coming clean to all of you may be the most helpful thing for me. 

 

I have gone through this “CNS” phase twice since my surgery 7 years ago.  Both times I have come out of it fine.  (I never experienced any weight gain/loss.  I never experienced any consequences other than me feeling like I don’t have control of myself which was bad enough by itself.)

 

So here’s episode # 3 and I want control back.  Keep me in your thoughts please.  Thank you. 

 

I'm looking to maybe change my protein powder.  I usually use isopure vanilla or GNC chocolate.  I'm looking to find the purest protein powder I can (with the lowest fat, sugar and any unnecessary extras).  Needs to mix well.  (I add it to homemade cold hot cocoa before heating it up.) 

The last month, I have used the Wal-Mart brand equivalent to one of the Centrums.  I just don't like it - think I can do better.  (Been switching around the last 6 months or so - just don't really have one that gives me that tangible energy boost the Amway vitamin used to.  I mean it was really NOTICABLE - I just can't remember what it was it's been so long!)

1.  A few years ago I took a 30 or 45 day sample of one of the Amway vitamins. I had never had a VITAMIN ALONE make me feel better all around - but that one did.

I'm looking to switch my multivitamin. It's okay - just think I can do better.

Does anybody have any recommendations for a great multivitamin (preferably that you actually just felt healthier - more energetic, etc)???

2.  Has anyone added Deplin to your vitamins & how did you like it long-term if you did?

adjusting MENTALLY and EMOTIONALLY to my smaller stomach size & new way of eating.

it did a real mental job on my when i first started eating and 1 tablespoon of refried beans made me physically feel like i'd gorged on a thanksgiving meal.  i mean, that's crazy.

it did a rea emotional job on me the first time i went out to eat with my family (who always eats at all u can eat buffets) after my surgery.  i finally had to stop going w/ them to most of the places they go because i dont eat in that way anymore.  so if they wanna eat with me, they go somewhere that serves healthy options for me.

Had my RNY in 2007.  5 years later, I am maintaining at around 130 - 135 lbs (a good weight for my height & frame - any littler & i look sickly). 

I still log every bite I eat and every ounce of fluid I drink - just to keep me honest (and thin).  I didn't GAIN all that overnight - I wouldn't REGAIN it overnight either.  So I am careful. 

I was a binge eater before my surgery.  I would go on binges where I would eat extremely large amounts of food to deal with stress, depression, pretty much anything.  Since my surgery, my surgeon's directives regarding portion size have kept my pouch small - and I have observed those rules and never once binged (although there have been a couple of times when I have wanted to). 

I had a really stressful day today (actually a really FEW stressful days).  I wanted to binge SOOOO badly.  It's important that you understand when I say BINGE, I don't just mean "cheat" or "overeat" or have too many "treats" or anything like that.  Even though many of you have been or are still obese and MAY have or have had the same binge issues I have dealt with, I feel the need to actually type out to you what a "binge" was for me.  I think I need to type it out not just to make sure you understand, but to make sure I acknowledge/affirm just how ridiculous eating that amount of food in one sitting is.

Today, for lunch, I had a spicy steak soft taco just the way I like it.  An hour later (after I almost got side-swiped & ran my company car into a curb & nearly tore off my two left tires, had to get a flatbed tow to the tire dealership to completely replace all the tires on the left side of my car, tell my supervisor & her boss, write up a memo about the incident, etc, etc, etc), I wanted to eat again.  I wasn't hungry or even thirsty (I was drinking water).  I just WANTED to eat - and not just eat really, but BINGE.

I wanted what I used to consider one of my favorite lunches before my RNY.   I wanted to eat:
a Wendy's baconator w/ extra-large fries & diet coke
+ an order of crazy bread from the Little Caesars next door to the Wendy's drive through.
(I'd wait an hour or so after that for my McFlurry dessert.)

Now typing that out, I KNOW that that is a ludicrous amount of food for just one woman to eat at one sitting.  I can still remember doing it.  Going through the Little Casears drive through, ordering & paying for my Crazy Bread, then going next door to the Wendy's drive through to order my baconator combo.  By the time I paid for that and got it, I could drive back to the Little Caesar's drive through and pick up my Crazy Bread. 

I'd eat the whole order of garlicy buttery crazy bread first because it got cold faster - washing it down w/ that diet coke.  Then I'd eat the baconator & fries.  And they say obesity is not a disease.  Tell me what about that is not sick? 

In any event, I did NOT go eat that this afternoon.  I drank my water instead and finished my stressful, work-day-from-hell, then came home and had a nerve pill with my supper (which was the reasonable amount I normally eat now as a post-op). 

I know I felt such a strong urge to binge today because I have been under so much stress lately.  My son leaves for college Saturday and I cannot even begin to express how stressful (and just emotionally draining) all of that has been.  Then all this with the wreck thing happens today.  Just straw that broke the camels back.  But I did NOT let it break me.

I saw someone on here say once that even though they were years down the road, they have to check to lock on the door to their fat girl every day or something like that.  That's the way I feel.  I am definitely a "skinny girl" now... but that fat girl is still inside me.  Sometimes, I go weeks or even months not thinking about her (because I don't have to - she's asleep or something inside me).  I think too much stress wakes her up - like some sort of protective alternative personality I have or something, waking up to try to de-stress me in the only way she knows how.  On THOSE days, it's a battle to ignore her until the end of the day when I can't seem to get to sleep fast enough (because I know tomorrow will be better).  Today was a that-kind-of-day, except I'm feeling better now that I have my nerve pill, so I think she went to sleep again.  LOL

Sorry I don't have time to proof-read this.  So it may come across as jibberish!  Hopefully my general message will come across!