On pouch/stoma stretching

I definitely agree that it is usually a couple of factors not just one... I was just concerned that the message was coming across as "everyone *****gains has gone back to eating crap", which definitely isn't true.

Lora

That was prolly my fault. My point was mainly to show that you can eat a bunch of not so great choices and regain very easily without stretching your pouch. So I used an extreme example. My bad!

A big AMEN to this!
If we are making healthy, wise, and appropriate food choice even eating "a lot" wont be that bad.
If I can woof down a whole 6-7oz chicken breast with a side of roasted broccoli and a few baked sweet potato fries..... That's a heck of a lot better than 2-3 slices of pizza with garlic knots on the side or a large plate of spaghetti and meat sauce.

So it all comes back to what we've learned from our tool in the time where we can only eat a tiny bit.
It's all about CHOICES!

Thanks for posting this Nik! 

Well said!  Good Post!

Somewhere I read something about a surgeon saying that of all patients that had regained all or mostly all of their weight that he saw, he found about 20% had stretched their pouch or stoma.  I can't remember where I read that, though.

Remember Ron on the Biggest Loser?  He'd gained all his weight back and maybe more, and he was scoped and his pouch and stoma were perfectly fine.

You can stretch your pouch and stoma, but yeah, you're much more likely to regain by making poor food choices.  It seems like it would be better for us to be worrying about making the right food choices rather than worrying about stretching our pouches.

 That was probably from me.  My surgeon said LESS than 20% have any stretching of either the pouch or stoma (beyond expected pouch emlargement), and even of those who do have some stretching, it is usually not enough to account solely for the weight gain.  When they track food and exercise the culprit almost always comes to light.

Lora

Nik, this is a really great post! And you and Kelly and the other posters are right on, in my opinion about how we are responsible for our weight gains. It's so easy to transfer blame to something else like pouches or stomps stretching out, but we have to own up to the fact that WE are responsible for this happening from eating too much. But if they don't get stretched out, the thing about eating nothing but potato chips making us gain weight is a great example. One of my greatest weaknesses (besides ice cream) is Nutella. We still have a partial jar in the cabinet and I almost got it out last night. I figured I could eat one spoonful rather than half the jar, and I'm talking Costco sized jar. But I realized that if I got that jar, it would be one step closer to falling back into some really destructive habits. So, I resisted. Yay for me!

 i had the fear for awhile that that was why i wasn't losing anymore (honestly i think i set my goal to low, but that's why it was my dream goal. i'm at my happy goal). but the past 2 weeks or so my pouch is making sure i know it's there. i'm getting full way quicker than i was before, which sucks because i'm definitely not eating enough now. like right now i'm only at 800 (weird that it is exactly 800 according to myfitnesspal) calories for the day (i aim for 1200-1400) and since i just finished dinner, don't forsee myself eating anything else by the end of the night. i guess if i'm still up by midnight i'll make a shake or at the very least have a glass of milk.

 According to my surgeon LESS than 20% of the people she scopes who come in with significant weight gain (and swear that they are eating properly but think their pouch is stretched) have any stretching of the pouch (beyond the expected expansion) OR of the stoma.  (She does not do revisions, BTW, but can refer patients to a local surgeon who does.)  When she asks them to track their food (including portion sizes) and exercise, the problem almost always becomes obvious.

Lora

So, so true....as i have been battling the carb monsters, I can see how a few weeks of not paying attention, eating many carb heavy foods and things have caused me to gain 4 pounds.  Ironically, this started when I started using myfitnesspal to track my food.

Prior to the myfitnesspal, I didn't count calories, or count carbs or fat, just aimed for about 100+ g of protein.  When I started seeing how many calories I was eating (around 1500ish) I got scared and cut back, and started eating more "filling" foods and cut out more of my protein-y foods like cheese and nuts in favor of lower calorie, higher carb foods to cut back.  I even cut out a protein shake daily because it was too many calories.  

This fear came about after I realized I am close to 3 years out and was getting scared of the "bounceback" weight.  So I figured, let me count my calories and make sure I am not eating too much so I don't gain back any weight.  Bad move.

I am stopping the nonsense and going back to what worked for me.  For me, counting calories, carbs, etc doesn't work at all.

I am going cold turkey and stopping the carbs/calorie crap and just counting my protein grams.  I feel lousy that I don't have as much protein and too many carbs, and I am deleting the app from my phone.

I was doing just fine and I am mad that I deviated from what was working for me.  Case in point of what works for someone else might not be the best thing for you.

I will report back in a week to share my progress.

::::::rant off::::::::