My Gastric Sleeve

10 Secrets to Help You Avoid Overeating after Your Gastric Sleeve

A few nights ago, I went out to a restaurant with a good friend of mine. We were celebrating because she'd gotten a great medical checkup and because she was getting ready to move into a newer and nicer apartment. As we chattered excitedly about all the opportunities opening up to her, I drank a beer and didn't pay much attention to the food I was stuffing into my mouth.

I should have known better. Two hours later, my stomach was in full rebellion and I was, as they say, worshipping the porcelain goddess.

Sometimes I think the further out I get from surgery, the harder it is to remember that I can't eat like other people any more. It's just too easy to slip back into old, dysfunctional habits that have been my friends for a lifetime.

After this newest incidence, I created some important tips to help me regulate my eating. I have one copy hanging on my refrigerator, one on my front door, and one in my purse. They help me, so I wanted to pass them on as a resource that might be helpful to others who've had weight loss surgery.

The Power of "No!"

As I've mentioned before, I'm seeing a therapist to help me resolve some of my issues around eating and weight.

During my last appointment, she asked me if I would be interested in changing my appointment times to earlier in the day.

I didn't want to hurt her feelings or inconvenience her, but the time she suggested really wasn't convenient. I stumbled around, trying to explain why it wouldn't work.

Finally, mercifully, she stopped me. "It doesn't sound like you want to change your appointment time at all," she said.

I nodded that this was true.

Her next words floored me, "Deb, you don't have to make excuses or explain what you need. It's fine to just say, 'I don't want that.'"

"I don't want that." I repeated the words softly, then a little louder. Saying them felt a hundred times better than the mealy-mouthed excuses I'd been trying to give.

When They Say Don't Eat and Drink at the Same Time, They Mean It!

By now, you may have noticed that I'm a bit of a rebel. It's not that I refuse to obey any rules; I'm just not real big on arbitrary rules. For instance, I've always loved the combination of certain tastes, like milk and Oreos or a Diet Coke and a perfectly grilled cheeseburger. I wasn't happy when the rules of my new bariatric diet contained a prohibition against eating solid foods and drinking fluids at the same time.

I didn't say so to my surgeon, but I privately made up my mind that it was a silly rule and that I would not be following it.

Flash forward eight months. My weight loss has hit a long, steady plateau. I'm not gaining, but I'm not losing, either.

The day I had my second endoscopy, my surgeon came into the room to talk to me after the procedure and asked me nicely, but bluntly, whether I was combining fluids and solids. I admitted that I was because I had not been able to think of a good reason not to.

Three Hundred Dollars, Two Endoscopies, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the first day of Christmas, my bariatric surgeon gave to me...okay, enough with the cutesy Christmas carol stuff. Suffice it to say that the month of December was memorable because I had not one but two upper endoscopies.

As I mentioned in a previous post, scar tissue can form after weight loss surgery and cause a narrowing in the stomach or the esophagus. This stricture makes it very difficult to eat solid foods, so patients tend to gravitate to "sliders," foods that go down easily. Unfortunately, many sliders, like ice cream, are high in calories and fat.

This means that a stricture can actually lead to weight gain because people edge away from their bariatric diet of solid proteins. Luckily, the stricture can be fixed with an upper endoscopy or EGD. This involves the surgeon passing a tube down your throat and into your stomach. He or she can then dilate, or widen, the narrowing with a use of a small, inflatable balloon. Sometimes, as in my case, the procedure has to be repeated to fully open the blocked area.

Getting an Upper GI

I've found a new favorite drink - thin liquid barium! Yummy! And on an unrelated note, if you believe that, I've got some lovely beach-front property on sale in central Kansas.

Anyway, it all started in August when I was about six months out from my gastric sleeve. I found myself craving sweet, cold foods like ice cream, foods that were easy to swallow. At the same time, I could not force myself to eat solid proteins. When I did eat them...well, let's just say it wasn't pretty.

I was sure that this ice cream binge was just another manifestation of my superior ability for getting in my own way. My bariatric surgeon, however, thought it might be a physical problem. Because I trust her completely, I allowed her to schedule an appointment for me to get a series of x-rays known as an upper GI.

Not a happy camper, I reported to the outpatient radiology department on Wednesday. I changed clothes, pleased to note that a single patient gown could cover my new, thinner body. Then I positioned myself on a table that tilted back and forth like a misplaced funhouse ride. Every now and again, a radiology tech held a straw up to my mouth and instructed me to drink more barium.

Suddenly, I heard the radiologist say, "That's it. That's why she's having a hard time with solids."

What Are Your Food Triggers?

If you've ever taken a beginning psych course, you've learned about Pavlov's dogs. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physicist who rang a bell whevever he fed the dogs in his laboratory. Before long, the dogs had so strongly associated the bell-ringing with the upcoming lunch that they salivated whenever they heard the bell. In other words, the sound of the bell by itself triggered them to expect and to want food.

Humans have triggers, too, situations or feelings that we have come to associate with food. For instance, sitting down in front of the television set is triggering for me, because in my pre-surgery days that was my favorite place to binge eat.

Being stressed out about something is also a major food trigger, since I used to cope with stress by stuffing sweets in my mouth.

Witches and Princesses and Halloween Candy, Oh My!

When I was a kid, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays, second only to Christmas. What's not to love? You get to put on a cool costume and pretend to be someone completely different for a day. Then at night you get to knock on doors of houses and demand candy.

When I got older, trick-or-treating became less important, and friends and I set aside Halloween night to watch horror movies, tell ghost stories, and in general scare ourselves stupid.

Even now that I'm a fully-fledged adult, Halloween remains near the top of my list of fun days. I still watch scary movies around the holiday, and I love going to the mall or downtown shopping area to see kids dressed up in their favorite costumes.

The one thing I could do without is Halloween's association with candy and sweets. It's so darned tempting to buy a huge bag of miniature chocolate bars "just in case" any trick-or-treaters come by. And even as I'm handing the store clerk my money, I know that this candy will never be tasted by kids in costumes.

How Do I Know When I'm Hungry?

Several people who have read this blog have written to me asking about hunger signals. One difference between having a gastric sleeve and having a banding procedure is that a gastric sleeve actually removes a large part of your stomach, including the part that produces hunger-inducing hormones. Therefore, after a sleeve, you get very few signals from your body to let you know when it needs food.

But I might as well be honest. After years of weight loss and regain, of starving myself and then eating everything but the kitchen sink, my body wasn't really on speaking terms with me anyway.

Since the sleeve, the only "hunger" I've felt has been mouth hunger, or the compulsion to eat for emotional reasons. If I'm absorbed in something and don't experience any emotional distress that triggers my food response, I can happily go all day without eating or even thinking about food.

The Therapist Who Treats Herself...

After another week of struggling to keep myself away from chocolate, I decided to take my bariatric surgeon's advice and see a therapist who specializes in eating disorders.

I honestly felt a little stupid that I couldn't seem to work this issue out on my own, but as a friend bluntly reminded me, "The counselor who treats herself has a fool for a client."

Anyway, I've been to two therapy appointments. The therapist I'm working with is very intuitive and able to read (correctly) into what I'm not saying, but she's also very sensible and down-to-earth when it comes to problem-solving. That's a perfect combination for me.

Halloween T-Shirts (It Doesn't Take Much to Make Me Happy)

My last few blog posts have talked about some of the more difficult aspects of going through weight loss surgery, especially if you're an emotional eater like I am.

This week, however, I wanted to share some good news. My favorite time of year - the fall and the winter holidays - is fast approaching. I've always loved the cheap but pretty Halloween shirts that stores like Wal-Mart and K-Mart offer during the holiday season. For the last several years, however, I've been to heavy to fit into one of them.

On Tuesday, I ran some errands that included a trip to Wal-Mart. As I was finishing up my shopping, a rack of Halloween t-shirts caught my eye, and I wandered over to admire them.