Hi I am 25 months post op Gastric Bypass Surgery . For last 7 months I have just eaten & watched scale go up & down. Again & again. I have 70 lbs left to lose and I don't know how much I should be eating at this stage. I do not want to stretch my pouch. Any advice would be appreciated even if it's approximates. It's better than gaining back all my loss. Thank you
Portion Help needed
- Thread starter Eileenpet
- Start date
dianeseattle
Member
You can't stretch your pouch. Research it and you'll find out. The tissue the stomach is made of is thick and doesn't stretch without a great deal of pulling with tools. One reason I know this is that I grew up on a farm and we butchered a steer every year for food. We kids played with the guts (farm kids, go figure) and it was almost impossible to stretch them at all.
Your stomach is no different in terms of tissue makeup. It's almost impossible to stretch. Don't take my word for it. Do research on the internet and you'll see it's true.
As to the scale going up and down, and the weight you have left to lose, I'd suggest you go back to your post-op diet. Use a scale and measuring cups & spoons. A portion of meat or fish should be the size of a pack of cards.
And keep a journal of every bite or crumb of food you eat, including licking the spoon you stir your dinner with while it cooks. Every single bite. This is super-important because the strongest driver of an eating disorder is denial--or in other words, lying to yourself. That sounds rude, but it's not. It's factual. Once you start keeping track, you'll see all the ways you get extra calories into your otherwise obedient day.
Obesity is the result of an eating disorder. No one wants to believe they have an eating disorder, but if we didn't have one, we wouldn't be obese or ever need surgery.
Best of luck to you. You can get back on track if you make a commitment to be compliant with your foods and portions.
Your stomach is no different in terms of tissue makeup. It's almost impossible to stretch. Don't take my word for it. Do research on the internet and you'll see it's true.
As to the scale going up and down, and the weight you have left to lose, I'd suggest you go back to your post-op diet. Use a scale and measuring cups & spoons. A portion of meat or fish should be the size of a pack of cards.
And keep a journal of every bite or crumb of food you eat, including licking the spoon you stir your dinner with while it cooks. Every single bite. This is super-important because the strongest driver of an eating disorder is denial--or in other words, lying to yourself. That sounds rude, but it's not. It's factual. Once you start keeping track, you'll see all the ways you get extra calories into your otherwise obedient day.
Obesity is the result of an eating disorder. No one wants to believe they have an eating disorder, but if we didn't have one, we wouldn't be obese or ever need surgery.
Best of luck to you. You can get back on track if you make a commitment to be compliant with your foods and portions.
Thank you. I lost 300 lbs but when the struggles start its like you forget everything you know . Thank you for the info
FinallyMe
Member
I agree with Diane. I had my surgery a year ago, August 2. I have lost 105 of the 120 lbs I planned to lose. I am over the moon with my steady progress until I got to July of this year i had steady decline on my app's graph. I tracked every morsel and sip. Then I started relaxing and having 4th meals, and popcorn with late night tv after I knew I had eaten my plan earlier in the day. It is very hard to stop those bad habits from creeping back in. My pouch is no bigger but if you wait an hour you can eat again even though you shouldn't. I still have random acquaintances stop me to say how good I look, and how I am feeling. I decided from the beginning, to take it as a positive and say thank you and acknowledge it is hard work and determination but so worth it and speak encouragement to myself. However, now that I have almost arrived and feel good about how I look and feel, it is hard not to let my guard down and relax. You have lost a lot already and even though you are not at your goal weight, you must feel amazing compared to when you started. Surely, people you know have noticed and let you know. Be patient with yourself, it is okay to plateau for a bit, but it will take determination to get back on track and push toward the finish line. I am right there with you, we all are. You got this!
sunshineandrainbows
Member
If you don't mind me asking do you have any tips for the popcorn part? I have noticed i've done a lot of mindless, and grazing eating and it seems very hard to break. I am only 6 weeks post op...
dianeseattle
Member
I've snacked on popcorn after eating my allowance of food for the day. Popcorn is a carbohydrate, and butter is a fat, of course. But the way I did it was to measure out just a teaspoon of kernels and pop them in a container or paper bag in the microwave. When it was done, I sprayed a small amount of butter-flavored cooking spray for just one second, literally, and then seasoned it with large-flake nutritional yeast and ate only one popped kernel at a time. By doing this is was less an indulgence and more a nutritional addition to my diet.
If you think about it, you really don't want to eat a whole bunch of popcorn. There's definitely an urge to eat a salty snack, but after a few handfuls, it stops tasting so good and your desire to eat it lessens dramatically.
I sometimes ate a brown-rice cake when I had a snack urge. It's good plain, or with a tiny smear of peanut butter. It's relatively easy to adjust your daily carbs and proteins to allow this. And for me, if the urge was driving me insane, it was a prophylactic that kept me from grabbing a bigger, worse portion of carbs to satisfy the craving. Of course, with any food, it's smart to consult your nutritionist. And you can increase your activity during the day to offset the addition of the calories you'll be eating.
officially speaking:
"Air-popped popcorn has only 30 calories per cup; oil-popped popcorn has only 35 calories per cup. When lightly buttered, popcorn is about 80 calories per cup. Popcorn is a whole grain and provides energy-producing complex carbohydrates. Popcorn contributes fiber to the diet."
I should mention that I'm the kind of person who wrote out her daily diet in a journal in advance, so I knew exactly what I was going to eat and I could put a check box in front of each item and check it off when I had eaten it. This really helped me. I think this is something we all should do, because awareness is SO IMPORTANT. While being aware, we could really enjoy our food without feeling shame.
Thank you. And yes I feel better just found alot of health concerns hiding under all the weight.