Sweet Foods

I avoid chemicals like the plague, but I do use Splenda on occasion and always feel like I am going to die from some rare cancer because of it.  I try hard to eat clean, healthy, organic but I love oatmeal and I need it sweetened and any real sugar plus the carbs of the oatmeal would cause reactive hypoglycemia so it's Splenda or nothing.  I tried stevia and disliked it.  Splenda is really not good for you,  I just read of a new study and a link to leukemia so I stopped eating oatmeal but I know someday I will want it again.  I don't eat red meat or pork or gmo's or food not grown organically if I can help it.   I search out healthy restaurants in San Diego where I live but we travel frequently and that's not always possible, in that cause I typically always get salad.  I eat the low end of the spectrum on protein because I don't believe I need to tax my kidneys processing all that protein.  I disagree with taking of chemical supplements, I choose to eat my vitamins in my food, hence the fresh vegetables, fruits, yogurt and lean chicken are my foods of choice.  Others with less healthy diets will explain why they need to keep pumping chemical ****tails into their bodies to be so-called healthy, that is their right, but I choose not to and my labs are perfect as is my bmi at 11+ years out. You do what works for you and listen carefully to your body.

Thank you for your kind reply.  I'm getting my RnY on September 9 so I am just starting out.  I'm on the Optifast for 3 weeks.  So I'm still learning very much.  I certainly want after all of this a healthy lifestyle.  So I will avoid all processed and chemicals.  What I found very interesting here, my way of thinking seems to freak out some of the vets on here.  My way of wanting things is very much like you.

The way you want to eat and drink in your journey is entirely up to you.  The way others, myself included, choose to eat and drink is entirely up to us.  The problem seems to lie in the way you usually come off in your posts by berating those of us wanting to enjoy our "live it" (I don't use the word diet) because we find alternative ways of preparing our foods.  I told you once a couple of months ago, give it a few months after your surgery, you may change your thoughts on food and drink prep once you have had time to walk in the shoes of a post-op.

You are absolutely right, it is entirely up to each and everyone of us to decide what we want to eat/drink.  As for me, most of my life I ate crap and mostly food that contained chemicals and that got me in trouble.  So, I have decided that in the near future I will feed my body with healthy stuff and not chemicals.  This is me.  You can do what you want.  I am entitled to say what I want. 

I wish you luck. I really, honestly, truly do.

But keep in mind, committing to doing something that we have never been able to do our entire lives is incredibly hard. Every day a million people wake up and swear they will go yo the gym or exercise every day. The percentage that do is vanishingly small. The same goes for clean eating -- whatever that means.

Very often, those of us suffering from obesity have an all or nothing mentality. When we can't be perfect, we go back to total crap. If the perfect road ends up not working for you, be prepared to accept good enough. Good enough is plenty good enough for me.

There isn't one thing that I eat or drink that isn't healthy!  I just choose to prepare my food and drinks in such a fashion that gives me a variety of tastes and textures.  If you are successful in your voyage not to make changes to your food/drinks then you and I will be attending the same church, just sitting different pews.

Oh trust me - I will be making 100% change from what I was doing.  If I had no intentions of changing I would not get WLS.

Everything in life is a choice, I never want to return to my former life so every single food choice I make every single day reflects my desire to not regain weight.  I was MO for 20 years, I loved sweets and ice cream, today and everyday since surgery I say what better ice cream and morbidly obesity or skipping it altogether and picking something else that's a better option.  I treat everyday as a new start, I just returned from a holiday in Las Vegas, I ate a half of a cinnamon role as a snack one night.  I tossed the rest the next day.  Choices.  If you regain all your weight you wasted you wls redo and will probably be miserable too.  I have always done things the way I chose, never caring rather anyone agreed because they never walked in your shoes or lived my life.  I don't hang with the crowd on wls or many things actually, but my success is my own, no one can take that away.

What we want and what we need aren't always the same thing. Heidi writes about things like not taking vitamins a lot. But she's also run into problems and deficiencies. The fact is, those with RNY will absolutely not be able to get all themicronutrients they need from food. And it's a pretty good bet that VSGers won't either.

Unless you live on a mountaion and grow all your own food, the thibgs you buy have been grown with chemicals. Even so-called organic uses chemicals.

Stay on top of your labs. Track them. Take what you need to stay healthy. Or you will eventually suffer.