Worried about mourning food

I will be having sleeve surgery in Dec.  I am very worried about depression secondary to not being able to eat copious amounts of food.  Did any of your experience "food mourning", and if so, how did you handle it?

You will especially in the beginning....and that's ok!

for so many of us, our whole existence revolved around..

thinking about, consuming and thinking about again 

the next meal...

i will tell you this, that phase does not last...

i cried over a dunkin donuts commercial about 3 days out

with plenty of, man I can sure go for this...

but it doesn't last..once the weight comes flying off

youd be amazed at how good you feel and how food just doesn't matter anymore.

to this day someone will ask me what I want, say for dinner..

my answer is almost always...ehhhh, I don't know..

i don't find the joy in it anymore..

Wow...that is incredible!  Thank you for sharing this with me.  As a former lap band patient, I was subject to STARVING while not being able to eat at times due to the constant flucuation of the band.  Seriously, one day I could eat a tremendous amount of food, and the next day a crumb wouldnt even pass. This was torture!  I hated that band with a passion.  I want consistancy, and something that actually helps control hunger.  I really hope the sleeve is the ticket.

I think you'll be happy with the sleeve.  Its pretty consistent day to day.  I'm 2.5 years post op and I can eat about 6 or 7 ounces.  Every meal is a combo of 3 to 4 ounces of dense protein and a few ounces of low carb vegies.  And that fills me up and keeps me healthy.  I do miss being able to eat large meals, especially at special occasions.  But I can eat anything in small quantities.  I do try to eat dense protein first and then veggies and then the forbidden foods at the end, so I won't eat too much.  This usually works, except when I give in to the appetizers.  sigh.

I think you'll be happy with the sleeve.

Carol

I don't get my sleeve for 2 weeks, but I can tell you that from following my dietician's meal plan for 6 months my cravings really did decrease. I never kept track of my calories consumed before I started my meal plan, but they had to be in the 3000 range or higher. I was always hungry...always wanted some kind of carb and was not satisfied until I got it.

I still had cravings on my meal plan and veered off course with carbs. But if I ate my protein first, then my vegtable and fruit and then my carb I was still able to control my intake a lot better than before.

I am suspecting the sleeve = tool will only enhance that control.

My daughter had the band and had the same problems you described. She is getting the sleeve in December, too.

Best of luck!

I never mourned the lost food.  My thought was that it's gone for now but that doesn't mean at some point I can't have it again!  (all except the carby pastas and breads)  Meal time is more like a Tapas tasting :)

My experience: During the post-op transitions from liquids to pureed and finally to "normal" foods, there was no depression or food mourning. I was too intent on my work of recovering from the surgery to miss food in general.

Once I started to eat normal food again, I did miss not being able to eat full (overly full!) portions, but only when I ate in restaurants. When steaming plate of something delicious was put in front of me, it was very hard to eat just a tiny bit of it, even though I did box up the remainder and fini**** over the next few days. At home, no problems because I prepared my plate with carefully measured portions.

Then a curious psychological transition occurred at about 4 months post-op. When my husband and I ate out, I critically (not longingly) eyed my plate to determine how much I could eat. I also asked for a take-out box while ordering, so when the food came, I could transfer the amount of food I couldn't eat into it before I even started eating. I stopped missing or mourning what I couldn't eat. I started looking at waiters carrying huge platters of food and think, "How can anyone eat that much?" Tiny portions became my new "normal."   Except for steak, which I don't miss anyway, I can eat all the foods I used to eat, even sushi, my favorite. As long as I choose the very healthiest of foods, my cravings for junk food are mostly under control. So I don't even miss the sweets and salties that I used to binge on.   I've been very fortunate so far with my relative lack of hunger, both physical and emotional. I hope it will be the same for you, CJ.

Edited to add: I had the lap-band, too, CJ. 10 years of misery until I got it taken out during the sleeve surgery. No comparison between the band and the sleeve. The sleeve does everything the band should have done but didn't.     

psychoticparrot  

Thank you so much.  Having the band was a horrible experience, and I am so afraid that if the sleeve did as the band did, and I had no options because it isn't reversible, I would go insane.  All of the positive experiences folks are sharing with me...especially bandsters...is really decreasing my anxiety.

Thanks again,

CJ

I had the exact same fear -- that the sleeve "wouldn't work." If you look at my earliest posts from last year, I was nearly pleading with the forum members to guarantee that the sleeve would work. I needed reassurance precisely because the band was such a disaster and I didn't want to make the same (this time permanent) mistake.

The sleeve is not a device. It's your stomach, one that's been drastically altered, but still yours. That's the good news. Because all that's necessary to lose weight is to work with your sleeve like a team. Your responsibility is to choose the healthiest possible foods to eat. Your sleeve's responsibility (and it does it so well!) is to limit how much of those foods you can eat. I know what you're thinking -- what if I choose the wrong foods? what if I start scarfing down junk carbs again? what if the sleeve won't work for me even though it works for others?

The band does nothing to curb hunger. The sleeve does. For a while, during what the surgeons call "the golden period," your physical hunger will diminish. This period lasts around a year, sometimes longer. Then the body compensates somewhat for the lack of hunger hormones, and some hunger will return. Those who have reached goal and maintenance call tell you more about that, but with the sleeve, even that is manageable.

Trying to lose weight with (or without) the band was, for me, like trying to swim upstream in a strong current -- just not doable. Losing weight with the sleeve is like swimming across a calm lake. It still takes effort, but it's so much easier. 

Rest assured -- the sleeve works.

psychoticparrot

Thank you so much for this post! As I get closer to getting approved to have the weight loss surgery, I worry that I will be sad about not eating certain things and if I will be successful. This gives me more confidence.