Hi, I'm new to these forums and am only one month out since surgery. Today is my first day on my "lifetime" diet. One of the things that's struck me from reading the hundreds of posts I've read over the past couple of days is how much stricter my bariatric center is when it comes to diet than many of yours are. I see post after post about people eating popcorn, bread, oatmeal, rice, tortilla chips, pizza, potatoes, etc., and all these things are forbidden forever by our dieticians. Looking at people's tickers, I see a correlation of lack of success for people who eat these types of starchy carbs, so as much as I wanted to believe my center is being unnecessarily strict, I now believe they are right.
When we first go to my weight loss center, they begin preparing us psychologically and behaviorally for our lifetime diet. They require everyone to lose weight before surgery and put us on the same diet we will be on for life, which is high protein/low carb with zero sugar, zero starch, no carbonation or caffeine. As you might notice, I lost quite a bit of weight prior to surgery on this diet. More importantly, it broke me from a lifetime addiction to sugar and carbs. The first few weeks were hell. I literally would have gotten in my knees and licked the floor if I'd found sugar on it! But after that, it was easy. It was never hard to avoid eating my trigger foods, and if I had a craving, I could always find a way to substitute healthy things and still eat what I wanted (pizza made with cauliflower crust, spaghetti made with spaghetti squash or zoodles, protein chips, etc.) Then, after a time, my tastes started changing, and I now like things I never liked before like Brussels sprouts and tomatoes.
The real trick to this and the thing that made it so easy for me was that I NEVER cheated. I never ate sugar or starches, because if I had cheated, it would have not only stopped my weight loss, but would have made me go through withdrawals again. I saw this with my sister who was strict for herself for two weeks, but every other weekend would have an ice cream cone. With this one difference, she lost 25 lbs in the same time period I lost 65 lbs, and she was constantly miserable while I was completely satisfied.
I know those of you who are struggling with weight loss in spite of surgery and are eating sugary, starchy things may think there's no way you could adhere to a diet missing the starchy and sugary things you love, but you really can. You can even make no carb bread out of eggs that is pretty good and a good substitute. Proof that this lifetime diet works is the amazing success rate of our bariatric center. More than 95% of people who have their surgery through there and continue to attend support group and see the dietician and exercise professions reach their goals and keep their weight off long term. We have people in our support group who are eight years out and still at goal.
Just some food for thought. I know I've only been post surgery for a month, but I've had six months to research, observe and ask questions of the hundreds who've had surgery there, and I think the information is solid. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
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