Don’t Expect Change Without Making One!

Don’t Expect Change Without Making One!

Don’t eat bread! That latte has 45 grams of sugar! No macaroni salad. NO tortillas. No rice. Drop the crackers. You don’t need real sugar in your coffee! Don’t drink with your meals.

Lots of Support Groups tell you ‘its okay’ that you ate the potatoes & bagel with your eggs because ‘everyone makes mistakes’. We are not that group. Groups who tell you not to worry aren’t doing you any favors.

It won’t last without change

There is no delicate way to say this. We have always set ourselves apart from other bariatric groups in that we don’t look the other way while post ops continue to eat the bad carbs. We try and bring them back to the bariatric reality. We coax you to knock off the pasta, rice, tortillas or bread and often people get mad or try and justify it. For years we’ve watched people blow through this surgery and they all have the same story. Everyone thinks they are ‘Different’, that they can handle the bad carbs and the sugar (they don’t get sick!) and ‘because they have lost a 100 pound in 7 months they must be doing something right’.

The first hundred pounds is the surgery

Hate to keep making the same point, but your surgery did it, not you. Remember that you are not driving the car for the first year. Eating the same foods that grew you to 300 pounds, but in smaller amounts is not a good long term plan, as eventually you will be able to eat larger portions. Ask yourself why eating the same bad carbs would be a good plan. No doctor has advised you to eat the same way post op as you did pre op. Post ops pick this up somewhere, latch on to it and defend it, often to the bitter end of a total regain. You have approx. 6 months of restriction to help you get on your way.

No one fights for broccoli carbs!

It’s not that the bagel will kill you, it’s that these carbs make you hungry. They rapidly turn to glucose and burn… poof, gone, #Lookingformore. They don’t give you any nutrients. They don’t create a feeling of satiety or lasting fullness. The empty carbs work against what you are trying to achieve. If you were arguing for eating salad or green bean carbs, more power to you, but people are trying to hang on to foods without value. If this big argument was for VEGETABLES, well it wouldn’t be a debate as vegetables didn’t make us fat, it was those ‘other’ carbs. Did you ever meet an obese vegetarian and wonder ‘HUH?’, how’d they get obese if they are vegetarian? Same deal. It’s not the vegetables, it’s the other stuff, the processed carbs like Hot Pockets & Little Debbie Iced Oatmeal Pies, the fries, baked potatoes with both sour cream and butter, bread, macaroni, rice, tortillas and sugar!

Square peg… round hole

Stop looking for slightly better substitutes for bad choices and find new healthier foods to love instead. We keep trying to force that square peg into that round hole. Stop EATING crackers and chips, don’t find ones that you can justify because they have fewer carbs. Enough with the terrible fishy shirataki tofu noodles and chick pea macaroni. Learn to live without bread and pasta so it will not call your name. We aren’t changing the behavior or trend if we continue eating them, just slightly shifting it. Before long you’ve got your hand back in the Doritos bag and fork in the Mac & Cheese.

Look It’s Protein Cheesecake!

Don’t add protein to muffins and convince yourself they’re good for you. Stop with the Starbucks Creme Brûlée Lattes because ‘they’re your one indulgence’; they have 500 calories and thin people don’t even drink them. Stay the heck out of Wendy’s. I read a blog the other day touting all the ‘good choices’ in fast food restaurants. How about ‘stay out of them’. That’s the best choice of all! Why go to the place where you know there is danger. Before you know it, oops… there are fries in your bag!

You know people gain back weight, right?

In our first month of any new Facebook Support group I have cried for new members who have gained back all their weight. I am not immune either after fifteen years, three bariatric books and knowing better. When life hit the fan, I comforted my bruises in the way I knew best and it has taken me twelve months to lose fifty five pounds of it. People are having revisions, a lovely sounding word for a second serious body damaging operation. What will change with more surgery? Unless there is major change along with that new surgery, won’t it have the same result?

Step away from the bagel!

Own that there was and maybe still is something wrong with your food picker! Use surgery as an opportunity to change, not cheat. I used be bothered by the ‘word on the street’ that we were the carb or food police, but am now proud of it. If you want to promote the virtues of Everything in Moderation while eating half a Subway, there are plenty of groups that will help you do that. If you want to eat right and learn new behaviors to make the feeling of slipping on those skinny jeans last, we have a support groups and websites that’s a healthier fit.

Bariatric Surgery IS the easy way out

It’s a personal food cop that is always with us, that helps us push away from the table. We make it hard when we don’t live by the bariatric rules we’ve been given. There is nothing harder then gaining weight back after surgery. There is nothing better than losing it a second time. Control is empowering.
If you need to pick up and start losing again… If you need to work off a regain, it’s not too late and your pouch works just fine if you choose the right foods. Clean those lethal carbs from your life and go back to bariatric eating – protein first and lots of fresh salad and vegetables. We’ve got the support for you to make that change!