Some thoughts on a "mature" sleeve

What a great post.

It's funny, we don't go to these kinds of things very often, I don't enjoy large groups...  however, when we do I go straight for the meet or fish, mostly fill up on that, maybe a bit of salad, and ALWAYS a small dessert :) .  For me it is an opportunity to have a few things I don't normally make at home.

And I rarely notice what anyone else is eating, and it is a releif that nobody seems to notice what I am eating either.  I have gone to several sit down dinners and same thing, I have gotten VERY good at making it look like I have a lot on my plate, when I don't.

At restaurants, I keep what I want and give the rest to hubby, or he helps himself.  Anything we don't eat we take home.  Hubby often overeats at restaurants, we don't go out often, so he does not get out of hand often.  At home he eats like I do, only more of it :)

Great post Di,

Cindy

 interesting - I know when I was less than a year out I was horrified looking at the giant plates of food others were eating in restaurants.

I've gotten used to it again, though.  imagine what it's like for somebody that lives with others who eat the Standard American Diet and in "Standard" (supersized) amounts. you'd feel, deep down, that what is actually a PIG OUT is normal. something you shouldn't have to deprive yourself of.

this past week a co-worker brought peaches to share. YUM! people liked them but their initial reaction was kind of WTH? because usually what we share is cake and cookies and other processed stuff.

I'll bet they WERE horrified that the peaches were not doused in sugar, fat and carby stuff.  WTH?????  A peach??? All by itself??????  I can just see their faces.....LOL

 not so much horrified as taken aback. they gave the fruit the old Head Tilt - like a dog who is trying to figure out what you are talking about.

I think it's more about convenience than anything - they are always in a huge hurry ("breaks" are for doing paperwork) and a cookie you can eat with one hand while walking somewhere else. then, you brush off the crumbs and you are done.

the peaches were juice and you needed to wash afterwards. slows you down!

Oh..OK...that makes sense.

 it's a fairly young and healthy crowd - they eat a lot of junk but work out and stuff (and drink!) - I'm sure there are a lot of workplaces where folks would really rather have the cake!

Well, I can speak of my band loss/regain experiences...

Restriction can vary greatly with the band...wildly...with or without adjustments. Many people may never experience optimal restriction. With my band after about the first year, I found that I seemed to have 2 modes no matter how many adjustments my surgeon and I attempted.

The first mode was tight to the point that if I wanted to eat solid food, I had to rely on slider foods. Even then I may experience frequent stuck episodes, couldn't eat in the morning, etc.

The second mode was wide open, no different from pre-op where I could eat everything under the sun.

Because I could never reach a good level of restriction, I wasn't losing weight. When I was in the tight mode, I wasn't losing because I was eating slider foods to try and get something down or doing liquid calories. In open mode, I wasn't losing weight because my big old stomach was acting just like it did pre-op and I was hungry and ruled by my cravings.

So, in that sense, I think of the band just like a diet. Just like any diet any of us tried pre-op. You may be able to have success for awhile, but the majority of us would end up slip sliding back to our old ways and experience regain.

I am still early out and not yet at goal, so I can only speculate on what is going to help me maintain my sleeve results and I think it is a combination of a few things:

1. Successful Weight Loss: With my band, I did lose about 65 lbs in the first year. That is a significant amount of weight, but it was still so far from where I needed to be that it was hard for me to really recognize my accomplishment. I felt like fat was fat was fat and I never left that fat category. I was still in plus sizes, still felt like the biggest person in the room, etc. etc. So it was hard to really see the difference between 310 and 245. It was a mental error, but the 2 points felt similar to me.

My weight loss with the sleeve has already given me so many thrilling results...I'm not a plus size, I have lots of room in a plane seat, I'm in onederland. I still feel slightly chunky or chubby in my legs, but I don't feel morbidly obese anymore and for the first time in my life, I really feel like I am succeeding. That feeling really makes it easier for me to pass up on sweets because I don't ever want to see my weight start with a 2 or a 3 again and I don't ever want to be scared that I can't fit on a plane or that diabetes is hanging over my head, or be exiled to the plus size section again.

2. Significant Restriction: The restriction that my sleeve offers is a world apart from the restriction the band gave me. I don't have any food intolerances, so I can go off plan, but if I do, I can't eat near the amount I could pre-op. My band experience was such that when I was in open mode, I was a bottomless pit just like I was pre-op.

I know I will have to really watch out and continue my behavioral changes to avoid regain, but I think if we were given our old stomachs back (which is essentially what happens when a lap band stops working properly), we would have even more difficulty.

3. Awareness/Support: I think support is a big player...having a place like this with successful vets around to encourage is really important. It is also really important to hear from those further out who are struggling with regain. It really helps to keep us aware that if we love our new, thinner lives, then we have to be vigilant about keeping up our new, healthier lifestyles.

One of the biggest selling points of the lap band to pre-ops is that it is "reversible." If you think about it, that is a really weird thing to consider a positive of your WLS of choice. Why would you want to reverse the changes that have led you to a healthier weight? That maybe a petty point or me trying to read too much into something, but to me it does sort of speak towards, and perhaps even on a subconscious level, the motivation of the patient to make lifestyle changes. If you find assurance in the fact that you can always go back, that may mean you are not 100% on board to really make the necessary changes.

Anyway, that got really long, but the point is that we really are in a different world than many lap banders. For a good chunk of bandsters, the band does not really offer much more support than any other diet we attempted pre-op. Most of us succeeded partially on diets pre-op, but had a difficult time maintaining and eventually experienced regain even though we knew that our old habits had consequences to our health.

It does seem odd to us now that people wouldn't fight to maintain their loss and healthier lifestyle, but it wasn't such a foreign concept to many of us pre-op.

Those are a few of my long-winded thoughts on the subject.
Lindsey

 

I have a friend who is sleeved and diabetic and really has not changed her eating habits much. Sure, she can't eat large portions at meals, but she makes up for it between meals. She eats candy and cookies etc, all day long, every day. She is still on insulin. It's too bad that the sleeve really doesn't change us if we aren't willing to do our part.

This is an example of the saying, "They operate on our stomachs, not our heads."  We need to do our part to be successful. WLS is only a tool, not a total fix.

so sad to see someone hurting themself. thats why its so important to be mentally ready for this surgery . and a single psych consult is not the answer. just lets the surgeon know you understand the surgery; not whether you are really ready for it. I often think more counseling should be a part of this process.   Diane