Holy Smokes. I have to just admit.. I went into this so uneducated and unprepared. I will now do the work I should've prepared for. So much more preparing and planning. I CAN NOT trust my eyes. No eyeballing for me as I still have "fat eyes" with "Fat brain" ugghhh.

Definitely a learning time. I will change!! I am determined. I appreciate the insight. VERY helpful.

"I need to be ok with putting food away or throwing out rest if I can not finish and not just keep it around till I feel a little more room."

Yes! Keeping foods around and taking another bite once you begin to feel less full will hinder your progress.

I wasted a lot of food my first 6-9 months. I felt bad about it, but it takes time to learn what you can eat. I think you need to give yourself permission to waste a little food while you're learning. Weigh/measure everything and you will begin to learn how much of different kinds of foods it takes to make you feel full. I record everything I eat almost every day, but even on the occasional day I take a break from that, I still measure.

There are a lot of foods I measure not to watch the calories, but just so I don't try to eat more than I physically can, and waste food. For example, from a calorie perspective it doesn't matter if I accidentally serve myself twice as much steamed broccoli, but it I try to eat that much my stomach will complain for an hour!

One thing that can make measuring less of a chore is if you dedicate special plates, bowls or cups for the things you eat most frequently. You'll learn to use the decorations for measuring things. To the bottom of the yellow daisy is a quarter cup, to the top of the blue ring is 3/4 cup, etc. I know that a heaping spoonful of a dry powder substance with my regular spoons is 10g. It reduces the number of times you have to go to the scale, or wash out a measuring cup.

Also, smaller plates (e.g. the size of a saucer) and bowls really help. Sorry if I mentioned this before to you; I forget who I've suggested what to!

The weighing, measuring, planning, recording all seems like a lot of work when you're right after surgery, but it all becomes second nature soon. Some things I eyeball, because they're very low calorie and I'm never tempted to overeat them. For example, I will eyeball 100 ml of unsweetened almond milk (only 13 cal for my brand). I will also eyeball a teaspoon of sunflower seeds because I'm not that fond of them, but I couldn't trust myself to do that with peanut butter! Even the things I eyeball, I double-check my measurements occasionally to re-callibrate my eye!

Have you checked the OH Post-Op Planner? It was accurate for me.

As the saying goes, this is a marathon, NOT a sprint!! Just keep following your plan and you have a great shot of losing it all.

I was fortunate that I had no hunger at all after surgery. I had very low carb, high protein. I drank a lot of protein shakes. They were awful back then, but I said I would gladly drink mud shakes if that is what I was going to need to do to lose the weight.

One protein shake of about 12 ounces did me for most of the day. My calories were around 500 per day for the first few months. I had protein shakes, ricotta cheese with spaghetti sauce, hard cheeses, applesauce, tuna, and chicken thighs. No bread, rice, potatoes, cereal, crackers, rolls, pasta, noodles or sugars.

At two months out I was allowed to add protein bars and non-starchy vegetables. I would have a cup of vegetable soup for a meal. I was also allowed to have strawberries after two months, but no other fruit.

At three months I added salad. That first salad was delicious. At three months, I also had my first restaurant meal of a tiny filet mignon steak. After that I tried small servings of pork but could not keep it down. Chicken breast was also too dry for me and I could not eat eggs at all. I could eat softer fish and sometimes salmon would be OK for me.

I bought an ice cream machine with its own compressor and made my protein shakes into protein ice cream. I had that for many meals. I also made flaxseed microwave muffin in a mug for most meals. I was at 142 at six months out and stayed there for a year, then lost down to 128. My weight loss during months two through six was around two pounds a week.

I added back bread during year three. It is very easy for me to gain weight now, so I stick to Weigh****chers points system, weigh every day with a smart scale, and still eat very little flours, sugars, or fruit. I need to stay at 1400 calories a day to maintain.

I put an unbelievable amount of food into the garbage. I look at it like this. It is either going into the garbage or into my body where I will then put it into the sewer system. I just put it directly into the garbage. No starving child in Africa is going to be helped by my eating too much food.

My surgery weight was 195 and it took me 18 months to get to my lowest weight of 128. My goal is 136.