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Tag: post-op

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What Happens When You Are Gastrically Altered? Slider Foods are NOT Your Friend

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So, a while back, I posted about slider foods and how they will make you fat again after you’ve had gastric bypass surgery.  You can revisit that post here – https://www.beautygirlsmom.com/2008/02/10/slider-foods-will-make-me-fat/

And now you can see that my arse is living proof of how slider foods will cause you to regain and start checking Weight Watcher points and wearing stretch pants.

You can see from the explanation on the previous blog on slider foods that basically what happens with simple carbs is they “slide” right through.  You can eat, eat, and eat without suffering any of the dumping, discomfort, or anxiety over dumping and discomfort.

Here’s the thing – for a lot of us, we really don’t know that full feeling.  We don’t recognize that feeling at the Thanksgiving dinner table when people are pushing their chairs back and saying, “No more, no more – okay, well until dessert.”  I know I certainly didn’t.  I mean, I knew when to back away from the table because everyone else was doing it, and, well, someone had to do the dishes.  But I often stood in the kitchen, snacking on the already carved turkey leftovers or nibbling on the sausage out of the stuffing while I put food away and put dishes in the dishwasher.

Eating slider foods is just like that.  There is no feeling that you’re full.  I can go to a movie theater and get a large popcorn, and even gastrically altered, I can down the whole thing by myself.  I can buy a bag of pretzels for the family to snack on, and before I know it, I’m reaching for the last one before the kids even know the bag is in the house.  The funny thing is when I first realized I could eat pretzels, I would dip them in cream cheese, figuring I’d get a wee bit of extra protein while I was eating them; but after a few pretzels with cream cheese, I’d start to get an uncomfortable feeling and stop eating the cream cheese.  That lets way more pretzels go down!

I think the key to the slider food issue is not to start eating them.  There is virtually no nutritional value to you in pretzels, popcorn, and crackers.  You’re consuming calorie after calorie with none of the risk you have with protein of feeling full.

Slider foods have almost become an addiction.  I keep saying I won’t buy them, but when I’m standing in the grocery store thinking of what I should pick up to snack on (because you are still going to want SOMETHING to snack on), I never think something good for me like Greek yogurt, light cheese, grilled chicken strips.  I always think of something I know won’t give me that uncomfortable feeling.  But THAT’s the feeling I NEED.

There’s a lot of head stuff involved with being gastrically altered.  You think that once the issue of your plumbing is sorted out, you are in the clear, but you’re not.  I think I am a compulsive eater, and while gastric bypass surgery certainly helped make it harder for me to eat to my heart’s content, the objects of my desire have changed so I have the freedom to put more food into my mouth without worrying about uncomfortable consequences.

This is so not the fun part of gastric bypass surgery.

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Some of the Ugly – What Happens When You Don’t Follow Orders

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Everyone is different with regard to how things will go for them following gastric bypass surgery.  And today’s post op lesson is all about how you should do what you’re told with regard to your body and the nutrition you require.

I struggled with what to eat, and as an option to conquer the fear of new foods and what they might do to me, I decided to eat only chicken noodle soup.  Yep, that was it.  I got up each morning, had coffee, then for lunch and dinner, I ate a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

If you do the math, the calories amount to something like “Did you live in Ethiopia?” or “You know anorexia is dangerous, right?”  I don’t think I ever had a day where I went over about 400 calories – until I started putting crackers in my soup.

So here’s basically what happens when you don’t do what you’re told.

Your hair is going to fall out.  In big clumps.  It will feel like something is running down your back when you stand in the shower, and your plumber will become your new best friend, as he shows off the new Mercedes your clogged drain has allowed him to buy.

I didn't color my hair for fear I'd be bald afterwards.

Your nails will become brittle.  And by brittle, I mean Sally Hansen will call you and tell you to stop using her Hard As Nails because you are bad advertising for her product.  On the other hand, your nail salon owner will become your new best friend, as she shows off the new Mercedes your frequent trips to the salon have allowed her to buy.

Your skin will become dry and lack color.  People will call you Elvira (for those of you too young to remember her, it’s what vampires looked like before they were all sparkly), and they will tell you to get your pasty white arse to the tanning salon.

Why Yes, Those Are Painfully Small Wrists

You will lack energy.  Monday Night Football will become a distant memory, and the Late Night Movie for you will now be the one that starts at 4 PM.

Eventually, in my case, when my hair was so dry and crunchy you could use it to jump start the fire in your fireplace, my friends held an intervention and made me eat a banana.  At some point in this series, I will tell you where that led to, but at the time, just eating a bite of a banana was horrifying to me.  And the sugar in it made my face hot and flush.  And it was an awful feeling.  But I did it.

So, let’s recap.  Protein – remember that ugly little word?  Yeah, instead of making your plumber and nail salon owner your best friend, make it protein.  Vitamins – you need them.  Remember when I mentioned how little of what your body needs is going to come from your food?  Yeah, that means you need to take vitamins.  And I don’t mean a Flintstone chewable.  Quality food.  Eat good proteins first, veggies second, and skip the slider foods.  We’ll talk more about that next week.

 

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Gastric Bypass Surgery – What Happens When You’re Gastrically Altered?

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Yep, that’s me.  It’s July 2006, just one week before my  Roux-en-y gastric bypass surgery.  Yeah, I tipped the scales at over 300 pounds.  I was a big fat ass.  Can you believe I thought I looked good in this photo?  Can you imagine what photos of me that I didn’t like looked like?

But making the decision to alter your body so drastically is only the beginning of the decisions you’re going to have to make.  Let’s hope you’ve done your research, you’ve checked out the doctor and the hospital you are going to work with, and you feel confident – if a little nervous – about your decision to have your surgery.  But what comes next?

I’ll be posting a series of blogs to help you get through some of the post op stuff – the stuff you may not have had a chance to talk about with your surgeon.  We’ll talk protein (blech!), we’ll talk losing your drawers when you sneeze because they’re too big, we’ll talk about adding exercise and how important it is, and we’ll talk about plastic surgery – because, honestly, it’s where a lot of us end up.

So stay tuned.  Once a week, we’ll tour that unknown world of what to do once you’re gastrically altered!