NEWBIE and very confused (sleevers)

I am 3.5+ years out from my sleeve and I most certainly can't eat "normally" if by normally you mean whatever I want in any quantity. I still can only eat about 2-3 oz of chicken or beef just like at 7 months out. I can eat about 5 oz. of cottage cheese. If I eat more, I still get the foamies just like in the early days.

OTOH, anyone can eat around any surgery at any time. You just eat really soft foods and eat every 30-60 minutes, drink with your meals or soon after. Basically break all the rules that are designed to keep you full and satisified for as long as possible. So there is some choice involved. 

The thing is, when you go on a diet without surgery, your body fights back. It makes you super hungry until you give up dieting and gain all your weight back with friends. That is not what having WLS is like. With WLS, you get hunger control. This is not to say that you never get hungry (though some people don't) but that you get normal hunger that lets you eat as much as you need to in order to survive. Your body isn't fighting you any more to gain back all your weight and then some. it might fight to keep you 10 pounds over some number you've picked for yourself (I see that a lot, actually), but that's a lot different than the inevitable slide back into obesity that many of us experienced up until we had surgery.

 THAT IS JUST WHAT I WANTED TO KNOW thank you, great info will help alot in deciding.
its just that i went on diets aloott and i did lose the weight i went from 185 pounds to 121 pounds ... but ofcoarse i was still hungry and little by little i ate my way up to 200 .... i can be strict on myself dieting but somehow i just lose it and can neverrrr mentain my weight. im sweet tooth so i need to stay away or eat in occasions only. but i can diet ..infact im great at dieting my only problem is i cant stand being hungry all the time. 

The sleeve is perfect for people like us. We don't need the malabsorption of the DS because we can lose. And the VSG removing the part of the stomach that makes ghrelin is the best kind of hunger control. It's like it was made just for us!

 is it hard staying at 125 ?
does you sleeve still restrict you from going overboard with food?
i know im asking alot of questions but im around 225 and my goal is 125pounds so i feel your the perfect person i can ask many questions PLUS ur 3years out .

You did not ask me, I weighed 267 at surgery and am larger than you in frame, but I can answer *from my perspective* about my sleeve and whether it keeps *me* from going overboard.

The answer is no *unless we are talking about dense protein.*

I can eat ****tons of simple carby food, puddings, yogurts, chips N salsa. If when I eat things WITH my dense protein, I can eat more than I could just dense protein alone. 

Some folks say they can still eat only a few bites and get full, some older sleeves have said, but then when you look on another board they will tell you they are afraid to gain weight, so their fear is a motivating factor OR that it hurts to eat, so - if it hurts to eat still, then yea, that is also a limiting factor.

What a lot of folks say is the first year, its 90% your sleeve and 10% you.  Over the ensuing years, it becomes 90% you and 10%  your sleeve. 

I had to learn how to structure the foods that I do not do well with (read - eat way too much of, way too often, if its in my 'every day life' foods). 

http://books.google.com/books?id=Nl2bfrlGW4AC&lpg=PR1&ots=FrkuEEWBTi&dq=%22thin%20commandments%22&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false

That is a book that helped me to learn to structure foods.  Not everyone has a screwed up relationship with food like I do/did, but even for someone like me, who KNOWS I am fully capable of eating around my surgery if I were hell bent on it - I had to learn how to "box in" foods and "box out" foods, so I could still enjoy them and not have to *wear them*

 Ok so my question to u  is:
is it the same if i just diet now and become a 150 and try to keep my self there by not eating sliders and eat protein first and lots of water?
what benifits do i get from my sleeve after the rapid weight lose in the first 6 -18 months?
if im gonna be able to eat just as much as i used to then whats the point of going thru surgery? you know what i mean?

my problem is that i have a very very huge apetite , i can literally eat all day long ... like REALLY all day long and i never get full ..yea im not hungry anymore but i dont stop eating.
so if there is no restriction after surgery then whats the use?

i can get motivated without surgery and lose the weight , hell i did it before but i couldnt maintain.

I have lost over 100 pounds multiple times.  *for me* its NOT the same as before BECAUSE I looked at all the reasons I *stopped* eating the way that was working and *started* eating the way that I had before I started eating healthfully.

I CAN EAT ALL DAY TOO!  I CAN!

But here is the thing, NOW I do not have that panicked roaring hunger anymore.  I have regular hunger (unless I have been feeding my face simple carbs or sugary things, then I can feel those ol insane feelings come bace).

So, between not being INSANELY hungry and using the time right before surgery, and the food progression after surgery to DETOX myself from foods that had me in their grip and I LEARNED new ways to THINK about all this stuff.

FOR ME, a lot of my weight problem had to do with eating foods that I become emotionally attached to and do not WANT to give up, and the head games I would play with me to justify why it WAS OKAY.

I did not say there was NO restriction.. I said for slidery foods, you cannot RELY on restriction. 

Somewhere along the line, for me, I had to realize that only a SMALL part of *my* issue was portion control.  Most of the "problem" is the way I MISUSE food for things.

For me, I *risked my life* for an ELECTIVE surgery.  MY LIFE.  *ELECTIVE*

If I was willing to risk my LIFE and not be willing to work on the hard stuff that might show itself as to WHY I was KILLING MYSELF WITH FOOD, then I shoulda just kept on the same track I was.

Maybe for you it really is just a portion issue.  Most of the folks you find on the failed/revision board will tell you that they started eating like they had before surgery, got back in the grips of stuff they had gotten OUT of the grips of, started self-medicating with food *again*, et cetera.

For a lot of us, our BEHAVIORS plus the physiology of crazed hunger got us here. 

I CAN eat a lot more than I do, but for me, part of this was to learn/teach myself that SOME WAS ENOUGH.

Hopefully someone else can come and be more helpful than I feel like I am being to you. 

Before surgery, I never was full, I stopped because food was gone or because it was polite to do so.  I could eat a whole entire large pizza by myself. 

I do not *want* to engage in those behaviors ever again.  I took the chance that to *reset* my stomach to "manufacturer default size* for a small period of time was going to help me to re-learn how to use food like it was supposed to be used, MOSTLY for nourishment, SOMETIMES for just pure-dee joy. 

Its kind of like a marriage, at first its a whole lotta good things, then at some point, its just your regular breathing in and out life.  If you take the other for granted, you can get into a lot of bad habits - so, for me to remember WHY I committed to this relationship (to have major ELECTIVE surgery and risk my life) helps me to be thankful for what I HAVE been able to do, and see where I might be tripping up and adjust how I react/behave.  Relationships are mercurial and ever changing, and its been that way with wls too.  Its not always just 3 bites and you are full, its not always that you never want to eat another X ever again, sometimes its just regular ol life,  and for me, when its just regular ol life - I have to have had a structure that I fall back on of self care, because otherwise, I will let everything fall around me, and take care of me the way I did when I was immature - which means to numb me out with food.

I am sorry, I do not think I am using words that mean something to your heart.  I will think on it and maybe I can.  Or maybe you are a peer-review kind of charts and numbers person, and someone can help you like that too. 

Its good for you to ask questions, especially when considering a serious life change, and it is, or - it can be!

 your posts are very very helpful to me , im just freaking out because my problem is the sugar.
i just love sugary food... and i just realized if i needed to succeed then i must stop loving it . and start eating healthier foods.
i need to do other stuff , activities other than sitting at home watching tv. i need to change my life ... and thats kind of overwhelming.

i read many of your posts and i think they are very very helpful... thank you for taking your time and posting and giving me advice.... its really helping me decide what i need to do.

I am a MONSTER fan of simple carbs, sugar and savory. When I am stressed I find myself lurking near the Eagle Brand Milk.  I could (and still can :} ) eat it right out of the can, the whole can and nothing but the can.

Well.  A spoon. 

But do look at that link for the 10 thin commandments.  I just did not KNOW how to fit the foods in, that I could not handle all the time, and not be stuck back in the binge cycle. 

It is kind of overwhelming - learning all the new stuff is kind of overwhelming, but so is learning to drive a car with a clutch, you know?  Or learning to write with your opposite hand.

It takes time, and it takes practice, and sometimes it takes remembering why the hell you were doing this in the first place!  :}

For me, going back to remembering - I wanted sanity with food.  I wanted some to be enough. I was so WEARY of always wanting, all that there was not being enough, and honestly - being bummed out at me for all my broken promises of "this time I will."

Taking away that roaring panicked hunger gave me TIME to use all the tools I have learned in ALL of my dieting history, and all of my therapy history.  Knowing what I risked my life to not go back to gives me the REASON to use all of the tools *consistently*.

I am glad to help if I can, sometimes I tend to confuse folks because information from me is like drinking out of a fire hose :} but I figure, if I can get all the information out that I can think of, then maybe it can answer some different questions that will come up.

Our love does not have to change, we can love something and know we cannot live on it - but sometimes the thing we focus on the most becomes the biggest thing in our view.  *squeeze*

Be sweet to you.  You are asking good questions.

 thanks for taking the time for posting really, im so happy i found this forum , i dont know who i would have talked to about this... i AM having this surgery because i cannot live like this anymore, well i dont have a problem trading my sweettooth for a healthier me . its gonna be hard tho :)