Just an update on me....

Haven't been here in a few weeks....just a quick update for those interested. lol

I had surgery 10/29/15. I had a surgical incision that closed, except for the top of it. It would scab over, then the scab would painfully fall off and the wound would be open...not deep, but more like a surface wound. Every time it would scab over, I thought, great, it is finally healing...then it would open up again. Finally went into the doctor's last week. She said there was a stitch in there that I was have some sort of reaction to. She said it would dissolve within 6 months, but it could get infected in the meantime. So, she removed it...damn that hurt. In any case, I think that will fix it.

I have lost almost 40 lbs so far from,pre-surgery to now. My doctor thinks I should be losing faster, but I am happy with my weight loss so far. I have lost many more inches and am fitting in clothes I haven't worn in YEARS. Almost new jeans that I stopped wearing after their first wash are now loose on me. I am getting comments left and right about how amazing I am looking. It doesn't suck. lol. 

I have interesting stalls. Every few weeks, I regain a pound and then within that same week, I will lose 1-2 lbs again. I never stay the same weight, I gain, then lose that and more. It is weird, but good in a way. Now when I gain a pound, I know another loss will be around the corner. 

I have broken my life long sugar addiction. This actually was the hardest part about the liquid diet faze. However, as tempted as I am sometimes at work (birthday parties, people putting cookies or donuts on your desk, candy that is always around), I haven't gone back down that road. This isn't to say that ALL sugar is out of my life. For example, we have a powdered hot chocolate at work that is 90 calories. When I have coffee, which might be a couple times a week, I will put about a teaspoon in my coffee to counter the extreme bitterness of work coffee. At Christmas, I shared ONE piece of candy (had a bite, lol). This is the kind of small round candy that you get in a box of chocolate candies, filled with a cream or fruit or something.

The biggest change of that, is that I am not craving it anymore. It used to call to me, especially chocolate when I was feeling emotional. But that is gone. I don't crave desserts or anything sugary anymore. THIS is a HUGE change for me, and I am DETERMINED to never go down that addiction path again. 

Any way...that's my update if your interested.

Cheers!

Congrats on your success. 

But some caution from someone 4.5 yrs out - the sugar addiction will not just go away on its on. When I was early out - up to about a year, year and a half - I left the sugar alone and thought my problem was solved. Looking back it was a piece of cake (no pun intended). But the further out I got, the addiction came back even though I had entirely changed my lifestyle. 

It wasn't until a year or so that I found Overeaters anonymous and learned that I can only have a daily reprieve from my addiction by working at it daily. I highly recommend checking it out and at least reading some of the literature to see if you might benefit from it. 

You can obviously take it or leave it but I always wished I had listened to "vets" more. 

Good for you. I know what you mean about the stalls that pop up ever 3-4 weeks or so, it seems for me like once a month ( I am a little over two months post op) I get a stall that lasts about a week, no change in my eating habits or activity level, I keep a log on all of it. I will stay at roughly the same weight for that time. Then poof the next day when the stall stops, I drop a noticeable amount. First stall ended, I dropped 4 pounds the next morning, my current stall ended this morning and I dropped 3 pounds. It's irritating while on the stall, but it's heaven once it stops. My only guess it's just my body adjusting to it's new self. I too have no craving for garbage food, I pass by it all the time and it doesn't even phase me.

Congratulations! Good luck on the rest of your weight loss journey!

I agree with acbbrown that for the formerly (or soon-to-be-formerly) obese, sugars and starches are foods that we must stay away from for life. Personally, I think even people who don't have weight problems should stay away from them too -- they're not just empty calories; they're the most unhealthy calories anyone can eat and have the potential to ruin the health of anyone who eats a lot of them.

Having said that, I will very rarely give myself permission to have something sweet, but only if it's something truly unique and worth the calories. For instance, I'm in Nicaragua for the first time and have heard that the tres leches cake (three-milk cake) is one of their treasured national treats. So, several weeks ago, I allowed myself to have a small piece of it. It was delicious. But now that I've had my taste and broadened my horizons a bit, I'll never have it again. Don't need to. I know what it tastes like. Having a dozen more pieces would do nothing except to shift my carb cravings into high gear and cause weight gain.

It's true that sleeve surgery plus a healthy eating plan does reduce sugar cravings (thank goodness!), but I don't think they ever go completely away. Just be very, very careful about including sugar in your diet on a regular basis.

psychoticparrot