Busting Bariatric Myths

Music.

Welcome to the Former Fat Friend Podcast. I'm Kasey. I'm Lisa. I'm Allie. And together, we've lost over 370 pounds. We all know what it's like to be the fat friend, and now we are sharing the ins and outs of our weight loss journeys. Guess who's back? Welcome back. Back again. Oh, I was going. I was going Dre on that one, I think. Oh, I do this every time. Eminem. Yeah. Yeah. Shady's back. I don't even know. Is it Dre who I'm doing? Guess who's back?

Guess who's back? Now I can't think of it. Guess who's back?

There's probably some like copyright infringement that's happening. The whole podcast gets taken down. You sound too much like Eminem. You are getting sued. So on today's episode of the Form of Fat Friend podcast, we actually took to the gram, as I like to call it, and we asked you guys, because one of the things that I think all of us hear a lot and have experienced ourselves a lot is that there are a lot of myths and there are a lot of common fears surrounding bariatric surgery.

And so today we are diving into common myths and fears.

Years yeah i'm excited about this one i think this is one that uh that we can hopefully dispel some some rumors with to an extent i do always love to i think we all always love to say like we are not medical professionals we are not here to tell you um if you're ever truly concerned about something talk to your medical professional talk to your surgeon but i think we're excited to share how how these fears and myths have worked their way into our own journeys and what we've learned

and experienced along the way. Totally. I also find it interesting, as you were queuing that up, I hadn't put it together until then, that they are myths and fears, because most of the fears that we had going into these were myths, in fact. Is that strange? Why couple this together? There are some true ones on here, and I think we'll talk about those. Oh, yeah. There are some legitimate fears. I haven't seen the whole list. You don't have any fears?

Should we talk about our own fears first? I do have fears, but I think it's interesting to couple myths and fears because a lot of the ones that we are going to probably talk about are myths. Yeah. So, I mean, I can talk about what I was most afraid of going in. Yeah. I think for me, there was a fear of complications. Like, am I going to end up with a leak in my stomach and become septic and die?

Yeah, so quickly. Casual. uh hope you guys are enjoying this light-hearted podcast um she's fine guys she's almost three years post-op yeah yeah uh that's what they want you to think so i was definitely worried about kind of the medical side of it even though i knew from reading the research that complication rates are exceedingly low yeah it's still a possibility so i was certainly worried about that and then i think for me the biggest fear was like i was going

to be the one person for whom bariatric surgery did not work and i think that's pretty common across the board oh yeah that was one million percent my biggest fear same well this isn't going to work for me i yeah this what if what if this fails too that's still a fear of mine like that's the regain is all part of that.

Like the fear of regain to me is the same as like a failure at some point you know what's awful though i'm gonna have to find a way to reframe that because that that possibility as i'm thinking about it right now will literally never go away yeah there is never not a possibility that i could regain my weight loss like well I guess in my mind like I was worried I was going to just never lose the weight yet again with so now the fear is maybe a little bit different but I thought like you know

I will be the one person that bariatric surgery just literally doesn't work for yeah yeah I thought that too but then when I had success I was like no maybe it's just it was delayed that it won't work interesting okay it's temporary it's all gonna come back it's like a false hope then it's like surprise I definitely had the medical fears too but just about like generally being under anesthesia and not waking up I think it was like my honestly outside

of that I didn't really have a ton of reservations I don't think yeah yeah yeah I'm trying to think of I feel like I had a million oh you know what my other really big fear is uh stretching my pouch, or my sleeve or my tum tum is that still a fear of yours, You know what? I think that baby's done been stretched. I don't know. I know what you mean, though. I had so many moments early post-op where I was like, oh my gosh, did I ruin this?

Did I like mess up my whole surgery? Have I like undone what my surgeon did? I think people feel that way. And I think what I have learned is like. It would be extremely difficult to stretch out your stomach anywhere close to the size that it started, especially when you're newly post-op. Like, I think you'd have to eat totally Large, large amounts of food and being nonstop.

I mean, here's the thing. You know, if I take a moment to check the facts, I objectively my portion sizes are much larger than they were newly post-op, which is normal. That's supposed to happen. Yeah. And I also know for a fact that I still feel my restriction. And when I eat protein, I feel full a lot sooner than I norm than I would have like pre-surgery. Totally. So, yeah, I think it's all I think that's all normal stuff.

Yeah. But I think for a lot of people early in those early post-op days, it's like such an unknown. Like it's you've you have never experienced anything like this before. And like the feeling of eating is different. The feeling of being full is different. So you're constantly questioning like, yeah, is this normal? Was what I'm feeling normal or did I did I do something wrong? And you don't really have a good barometer to check that against because you've never done this before.

And depending on who you are and what circles you're in like for me i didn't have anyone in my life to talk to about it outside of like medical professionals who assure me like everything's fine everything's normal and i'm like well what do you know but like you're just a doctor it makes me feel any better i did have someone in my mom but every time she'd go they're letting you have that already like it was not so long ago i know but like she was on liquids for like a month or two or whatever.

And like I had cottage cheese, I remember. And she was like, they're letting you have cottage cheese. I had to wait six months for that, whatever it was. And I'm like, yeah, we can talk about this. This didn't make me feel better. But yeah, actually, she did give me the pro tip, though, to add pickle juice, which I still. Oh, there you go. I remember that. I still need to try that. No, we were talking about pouch stretching. I remember I had my surgery November

3rd. So very newly after was Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I remember asking my surgeon, am I going to be able to have any Christmas food or any Thanksgiving food? And she was like, yeah, you'll be able to have turkey. You can have a couple of bites of mashed potatoes. You'll be all right. But we did a Friendsgiving with my friends in December. So I'm not that far post-op. And I have a gluten allergy. So most pies and things I can't have anyway.

I had a gluten-free friend come to this Friendsgiving and she made a homemade gluten-free pecan pie. And I was like, Like, you B-word. Why is this here? And I remember...

Being able to eat it and being and and and panicking like this didn't make me sick so you how how far post-op were you like about a month yeah now recalling it i'm like what was i thinking i was kind of thinking that too not no judgment deviled eggs we were like i think my sister and i were like i was like maybe five weeks or six weeks post-op and my sister was like maybe i don't know three or something but she was able to progress a lot faster than me and at easter we made like 40 deviled eggs

why i don't know we made a bunch of different kinds of deviled eggs too that had like crab and like oh baby on them that was it i had a half of one and threw up so uh well that was what made me panic is that i was able to eat the pie it didn't make me sick i don't think I had had sugar and then when I was able to eat it and I ate more than I am proud of and nothing bad happened it was like how was I able to do that something is wrong and

I have ruined everything yeah yeah I think that's I think the kind of the unknown of like what's okay what's not okay is where a lot of that fear comes from did you guys worry about what you would look like I worried I wouldn't lose all the weight that I wanted to lose but like one if you did what would you look like? Is that scary? No. I wondered that a little bit. You were worried you wouldn't look good smaller?

I just worried like, what if I lose all the weight and in my upper body and not in my legs at all? Or like, what if I lose it and my arms are still so big? Or like, you know, I just didn't know how it would work. Like you start losing weight or I don't know. I probably should have worried about what my boobs would look like.

I didn't. That kind of segues into a good common fear, which is the fear of loose skin. Yeah. It's a big one. Is it a real one? It's a, it's a real thing. It's a real thing, but I think if, I don't think it's something to be afraid of. And I don't, I don't say that to invalidate anybody's fear. If you, if that's something you're worried about, I think I went in, I knew I was going to have loose skin.

I knew what I was dealing with. And I, even just from other people's social media accounts that I followed, like pre-op and just knowing how much weight I had to lose. I, I had accepted that prior to, too. And I that is definitely something that I personally recommend anyone going into bariatric surgery do is come to terms with you might have loose skin. And I promise you, you'll prefer the loose skin over the excess weight. I also think it was way better than I thought it would be.

I have such a big tummy. I still do now like compared to the rest of my body. My stomach is still bigger that's just the way I'm built and I thought that like the skin like my belly hung down before and I thought that that would like my skin would still do that but it doesn't really anymore like if I'm really being picky about it I can like definitely find a spot where my skin is like folded over but it's really not present I think most of the time and bothers me far less than I.

Well, I guess I didn't know that it would bother me a lot. But I definitely thought like, oh, I'm going to be one of those people that has like rashes underneath because my belly was so I don't know what is it like an apron belly was so far down. And I look at pictures now and I I've had this conversation now with actually someone in our DMV group about like, but where did the skin go? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, because she was also like,

well, my tummy is so big, like hangs over. I'm like, no, no, no. Like, let me show you a picture of mine did too.

And I don't know where it went. it's not like that skin it does even if it doesn't snap back all the way at least in my case it was not the same it's not the same size as it was when i had so much fat in it yeah i think i mean i was a little delulu and i thought like maybe i'll be that one person who like magically doesn't have any loose skin and sadly that was not the case um but i think it's also really hard you just don't know

what it's gonna look like like you you can i tried to guess like if i have Where do I think it's going to be? And I thought I would have way more on my arms because I felt like I carried a lot of weight in my arms and my like upper body. And I really have very little on my arms, but on my legs, I've got a lot of loose skin on my legs. So you just, yeah, you have no idea like where, where and how you're going to have loose skin. I can promise if you lose a lot of weight, there will be some. Yeah.

And I would take it any day over carrying around the extra weight. You also don't know how you're going to feel about that loose skin. Like if somebody had asked you, you know, pre-surgery, Casey, you're going to have a lot of loose skin on your legs. Are you going to have removal? Your answer might have been different because until you've lived with it, that's how I felt about my arms. I was like, there's loose skin, but like I'm not doing that.

And the more tone that I've gotten in my arms, the more loose skin there is. And I'm like, yeah, no, I think I'm doing it. So really like until you live it, you just don't know how you're going to feel about it. That's my experience. Yeah. Well, so you thought you were going to be the one person to not have loose skin.

I thought I was going to be the one person to not have hair loss, which I know is another super big fear. Yeah. I think I read, and don't quote me on this, but I feel like I read somewhere around like 80% of bariatric patients experience hair loss. Wow. I would like to talk to that 20%. So maybe that number is inaccurate. I remember looking it up. Maybe the others were at the Lulu. Because I remember, and it said like three to six months post-op, you'll notice that hair loss.

And mine came i was like four months in and i was still going strong and i was like maybe i'm the 20 like maybe it's not gonna be me it's not gonna be me um it was me yeah it was all of us right yeah i i didn't i had a lot of excess shedding and like just lost a lot of overall volume in my hair but i did not end up with any bald spots which i think was like my biggest fear i was worried i was gonna lose so much that i was gonna like

have you could like see my scalp at the top of my head and like stuff I was pretty committed to getting a wig if that happened my hairdresser and I talked about that beforehand and I was like if that's the case I'm gonna need you like early on to just be real with a sister and tell me where to get a wig because I'm not doing that like I don't want to stress about it and it's to me it was like never a thing I took very seriously.

Yeah I was like I can find another way to fix that I can't find a way to stop being so heavy yeah no I think that's a good point I also considered like wigs or like those topper things for your hair like oh if this gets really bad i guess that's what i'll do but it was stressful losing hair it started for me right around four months post-op and it was just like every time i took a shower so much hair came out and every time i brushed my hair it was just like and you feel like you're going

to be bald because it feels like so much is coming out all the time but it does eventually stop and you will not be bald and it grows back which is great yeah and And they make a lot of cool products to deal with it if you are having trouble. They do. And that's why I think I get that question, like, what do you do for hair loss? How do you treat it? And I think, honestly, number one, not a medical professional. Number two, there's no one size fits all.

And I think something I have been told is that when you overload yourself with too many, like if you're doing B whatever for hair growth in so many different vitamins and things that like your body's not going to absorb, but it doesn't need.

Need so yeah you know what i mean like there's only so much you can do about it you can be diligent with taking your medicine you can do separate hair growth oils and supplements and whatever and and there are things out there oh i was talking like wigs oh when you said products i was thinking vitamins you're right i shouldn't i shouldn't have said that i i was thinking like yeah like extensions wig i mean extensions are they're all expensive yeah but it's temporary to me.

Yeah. I got hair extensions because I was pretty self-conscious about how thin my hair had gotten and I had them for a little over a year and they were fun and I think they looked great. But. Yeah, they're very expensive. There are a lot of upkeep. I just got them taken out. And it's actually been shocking to me how easy my hair is to do now. Like, I like I washed it and dried it today. And I was like, wow, that was like, that was so fast.

No, my sister and I, well, my sister has really, really thick hair, and she lost some too. Actually, I think she said the other day, she's still losing. She's about, probably about a year and a half. I mean, she's about three weeks behind me. So she's almost a year and a half post up. She's still losing hair.

She's still losing hair. But she had like literally all three of our hair combined to begin with it's like it was a massacre so it was unfair but like also she had like we called her medusa in middle school and stuff but she always had this like giant hair anyway we would compete with like how long it took us to shower we'd be like shower to hair dried in 30 minutes because we had never in our lives been able to get ready in less than an hour because

it would take like 45 minutes to an hour to dry our hair before now nothing yeah it is very quick yeah i I have thin hair I just always had a lot of it and now I've definitely lost the volume for sure and I even like I got sad today because I put my hair up in a bun and it's just this like tiny little like bump now and it used to be this like very thick plop on my head well I do I do want to say um I feel like I don't know like if I were to see

either of you and I did not know that you had had weight loss surgery I would never look at your hair and think wow that girl has thin hair Yeah, you might think she's a lot of three-inch flyaways on my end. But honestly, both of your hair looks normal. So I think for you... And individually, it is difficult to deal with because it's a change for you. But it's not for most people. It's not going to be the kind of hair loss that other people see.

And they're like, wow, that's such thin hair. yeah my hairdresser also i objectively went in and was like i know i've lost a ton of hair and she was like okay she's like the sweetest person in the world so she's like grabbing up a ponytail in the back which is like the saddest way to evaluate the density of your hair and she's like okay i can say as your hairstylist um we're definitely experiencing like a little bit of a loss of density here and i'm like you could just say it like it's all

falling out sarah it's all gone i have eyes but she said the same thing she's like i don't think i would ever think that about you if i saw you that you had thin hair but i know that what it felt like before and it definitely does not feel like that now i can agree and i'm like okay thank you and now we do like the hair the hair dryer thing where she's like we'll pull my hair out and then dry it so you can down so i can see like all the all

the strands that are like three inches away from my head that are just like a full bob that's amazing i'm gonna need a picture of that next time yeah i posted one i'll share one with you guys at some point um okay any other physical ones physical ones like.

There were a lot there were a lot of fears about complications fears about like gallbladder and things like that and i i will say i know like my surgeon if you have a gallbladder when you go in for bariatric surgery she takes it out rapid weight loss can cause gallstones um so that is a real thing that can happen oh for sure it does yeah i still have my gallbladder never had any issues um i think it's interesting that your surgeon just automatically

takes it out i guess it doesn't do anything so you don't need it yeah i think i guess my assumption is the risk is high enough that she's like let's just yeah not have to worry about going back in and, and doing this again? So I think as far as the medical complications go, we are not the right people to speak on those. There are, with any surgery, there's risks and bariatric surgery is no exception. And you can certainly Google what the potential complications are.

But I think what I do know is that the rates of complications are pretty low.

You should talk with your doctor if you have any risk factors for those things, like make sure you know that going in but generally it is a considered a relatively safe surgery there's one that i remember coming in today that i i wanted to talk about because this person said the fear that they had was that because this was an elective surgery they would have to carry the struggles on their own and i thought that that was really that made me so sad and i this

is not like definitive but But in my mind, I just wanted to say, I do not perceive bariatric surgery to be an elective surgery. It's a life-saving medical surgery. I can understand what they're saying, though. It's like if something goes wrong and you need help, someone else might be like, well, you chose this. My sister was one of those people. Not in a negative, good or bad, but she did consider this elective.

She was like, well, you're choosing to do it. And it's like, sure, but I guess I don't quantify it and like classify it in the same way as like getting a butt lift or like a BBL, not like a loose skin butt lift, like a BBL or, you know, something.

It's not a cosmetic procedure. it's a yeah and i do think i think it's a tough one because i think people who who have never struggled with their weight often see bariatric surgery and any skin removal surgery that might follow as like they only see the physical change right so they see you doing it for the physical change what they don't see is like everything else that goes into it like the The health considerations and your quality of life and physical abilities and all that stuff.

And that's really hard to communicate with someone. And I think, I mean, I don't have a good answer other than you don't owe anyone an explanation. Hell no. I actually think I would hot take, I think overweight people who have struggled with their weight also think that.

That it's elective it's there oh totally yeah i think it's everyone that doesn't experience you just need to eat less and move more yeah and you will lose the weight right yeah i also i mean it must be our fault even okay i even if you were going i'm not saying i agree with this but even if it was elective like fine do people not see how much we struggle like i i don't understand that If I was going to have elective surgery,

like, for instance, let's say, heaven forbid, something awful happened and you had a mastectomy, not you, like somebody, right? And then you wanted implants from that. That is elective. But also, why would you make someone else feel bad about that? I don't understand that thought process still. Yeah, like and I have people in my family that have said things before to it like it's it's just I don't understand.

Well, the carrying the struggles alone thing is like I would encourage people to look for a community that they can be themselves in and that understands if they're struggling because the categorization of the procedure does not matter. It's the outcome that your friend, sister, partner, whatever is looking for that matters. And if you are going to support them, you need to support them, period.

I do get, because I remember like before I went to my first DMV bariatric meetup brunch, I didn't have anyone in my life that had any idea what I was going through. And I did feel like I was carrying it alone. So I totally empathize with that.

And just like Allie said, encourage you to find your people, find a sense of community, whether that's through social media or if there are other, sometimes even like, your surgery center might have like support groups and things like that just to have somebody it made.

Literally all the difference in the world for me to be able to have people in my life that I could say like this crazy thing happened and then be like oh my god me too that happens to me all the time like it's just yeah you're not alone and you feel so much less crazy yeah even if it's not in person like even Instagram totally it is I mean it's it is a way to to find a support system even if they don't know.

There's one girl on Instagram and I remember I specifically was seeking, I was looking for somebody who had surgery around the same time as me because I felt like everybody I followed was on the other side and like was in maintenance and doing really well. And I'm like, I want to go through this with somebody. And I found a girl who had surgery two days before me.

And I literally messaged her and I was like, can we just be like surgery friends and like go through this together and we still that was over a year and a half ago like we're still talk all the time and like um so yeah people are out there yeah you got to find your community for sure yeah all right um this one is the the fear that around hunger so on one hand there's a fear that you won't ever feel hungry again or happens you let me know that something is wrong if you do feel hunger cues?

I actually had that fear of, because I never lost my hunger cues. I was hungry right away. And I remember my surgeon was like, oh, it's because you're on the liquid diet. Once you start like incorporating soft foods, da, da, da, da. And I never lost my hunger cues. And I was, I remember two things. I remember being like, are you kidding me? Like, I'm really going to have to do all the work, aren't I? Yeah. I mean, I had a brief period of time post-op where I did not feel hungry.

But my hunger cue started to come back probably around three or four months post-op. And I remember being like, what the heck? I was told this wasn't going to happen. But for me, it's been, I think, a very good thing because it's allowed me to really learn how to eat intuitively over the last three years. And I think that's the the kind of habit and like lifestyle that's going to sustain me long term.

I can't imagine how difficult it would be to have to like still set myself a timer to remind me to eat. I wonder though, do you know a lot of people that have had bariatric surgery that don't feel hunger even as a year out or whatever? I'm sure it happens, but I think it's much more likely that people do feel hungry. I think so. And you should. I mean, those leptin and ghrelin hormones are suppressed, you know, when you first have the surgery, but they're not meant to go away forever.

Just like you're not meant to eat 500 calories a day forever. But I and I don't know, Casey, you've talked about this and I experienced the same thing of like now these days. When I'm hungry, you need to feed me immediately or I will literally die. I was with my mom on vacation recently and I let it go too long. And I literally just had to turn to her and I was like, I don't. We went to go to this like really popular local pizza place and it was a 75 minute wait.

She said we wanted to get a table and she was like, it's about an hour wait. And I turned to my mom and I was like, I don't care where we go, what we do. I need food immediately.

Yeah. Like I will die. Yeah. yeah i'm going to a grocery store for i i have learned to always carry things with me like, chomp sticks which are like meat sticks protein bars because there are times where it's like i everything i have to eat right now i just cannot not eat yeah i'm also always like super super angry when i say i'm hungry casually in the car and cory doesn't immediately.

Scur off to any restaurant or wawa or anything i can get a freaking cheese stick or something how dare he I was so mad reason actually didn't I send this to you guys I was so angry at him I was texting you guys I think that I was like divorce immediate divorce because I had said it twice and we hadn't stopped yeah and I think like within a few minutes of saying it the second time he like reached back in the back he's driving he reaches back would not tell me that there was

a cooler full of snacks in the back for me but he reached back and was like would you like this or this and it was like like turkey or like a cheese stick or something and i was like wait that was there the whole time i love you thank you for packing me this cooler but i the the rap like the speed with which i went from divorce to like crying with joy that i'm the luckiest woman in the world was like over like a period of one second yeah it is weird how that happens well and it's

so hard though because i had tons of stuff with me but it was dinner time and i was like, I don't want to eat one of these things in the car and then not have an appetite for dinner. And like, I find that all the time that I like I get too hungry. And then I eat other things making my dinner and then dinner is ready. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna have two bites of this. And now I'm full because I know these other things. Yeah, that happens.

I do put I think less pressure on myself to eat traditional mealtimes now than I did before, though. My husband always said that stuff like he would, I would be like, the kids are gonna need whatever. And he's like, Like they can miss a meal, Allie. Like they're not even saying they're hungry. And I was so fixated on like, we've got to have this. Like, and when the kids and stuff like aren't home now, like I'll have like,

I don't know, like frozen grilled chicken breasts with like a can of beans. I don't care. It like, I used to, I would never have done that before. Like I would have had to have like a very structured dinner time or breakfast time or whatever. And now I'm like, eh, figure it out when we get there. When I'm hungry, I am hungry, but it's not...

The regimented like eating times or like the enjoyment i think of that is a little it's not something i look and look for a need every day like i used to yeah yeah i think i go through phases where i'm like sometimes i'm like why do i have to figure out what to eat yeah what do people eat yeah what do people eat every day so many decisions to make and then other times i like really want certain things and i love food and yeah totally were

there any foods that you were were worried you would not be able to have again yes I remember thinking so insomnia cookies made these cookie sandwiches with like buttercream icing in between two cookies and it was like my favorite treat of all time and I can very much remember going before my surgery and getting one and being like this is the last time I'm gonna ever eat this I have had them since surgery but But I think in my mind, like,

that was a real possibility that I might never be able to eat something like that again. Yeah. As it turns out, I can eat just about all foods without any issue. Did you guys have, like, a last meal? Hell yeah. I had, like, three. You know what I did? I went to – oh, this is terrible.

I'm going to forget the name. what's the what's the indian restaurant indigo no no no oh um rasika rasika i went to rasika with my friend and and i have a gluten allergy and i literally ate everything on that menu when i had like garlic naan and like every i i don't know that i've ever been so full in my entire life did you get sick from no i didn't oh yes sorry i thought you meant just like sick like from eating too much. Oh, no, from the gluten. Yeah, I felt like absolute trash. Okay.

For me, it was like, oh, I'm never going to have a buffet again, which still might be true, or certainly I won't do a buffet in the same. I guess you have them, but they're not, I don't ever feel like I'll get my money's worth out of a buffet again. Oh. Maybe I'll say that. Yeah. Because it's just not, but there were things, like I didn't ever think I would have sushi again, and I've definitely had sushi.

I just thought the rice would be too much, but I just do more like sashimi and edamame and I'll do some rice. I got sushi with I'll do some rice. I got sushi with a friend the other the other like last week and I think I had like three like. Of the rolls and then just focused on protein and edamame, like not three rolls, three pieces of like an eight piece roll. Oh, I can put down a lot more than that. Sushi girl. Oh, I had more than that. But in terms of.

I don't think I cared. Like there was I was aware that there might be things I wouldn't have. But the trade off to me was so greater. I was so exasperated. And I was to the point where I was like, I have literally done everything. I do not care. Yeah. Yeah. Because I didn't think I would ever be the honestly, the things I was most concerned about were carbonated drinks and never being able to use a straw because I have really sensitive teeth.

And I was like, but I was like, I'm just going to suck it up. Yeah, that was a big deal for me. And then within three weeks, I was using a straw again. Yeah. And then you told me I could. So I did. My surgeon was like, if it doesn't bother you, it's it's person specific. Yeah. That it's creating gas or whatever. Yeah. But I thought, yeah, I was like, I'm just going to have to adjust to life without straws and it will be worth it.

Can you guys drink, this is a weird one, but can you drink out of the straw or actually at all laying down or at all like in that position? Like you're laying on the beach without a chair, you're on the sand and you just want to like lift your head up and get a drink. Can you do that? I don't know that I've tried. I don't think I've tried. That makes me feel like I am going to explode with vomit.

Really? I can't drink or eat and then lay down. And I remember my first dietician telling me, like, whenever you consume, I need you to stay upright for two hours. Interesting. And I remember the first time it was on the boat. Well, what do you do at bedtime? What time do you eat dinner? I ate...

Not less than two hours before i go to bed oh i always do i mean think about like if i lay down with the kids i'm making dinner at like 6 30 ish we eat at like 7 and then i'm laying down to put them to bed at like 7 30 7 45 and sometimes very frequently i fall asleep with them yeah at like maybe 8 8 30 at the latest and we're like definitely yeah no i'm definitely having snacks after dinner. So like, what am I? You guys kidding me? Don't snack.

I had a hard time with that. When I was more newly post-op, I couldn't eat close to going to bed because I had I dealt with some acid reflux. Yeah. That has that's gone away. So I'm fine now. But it was definitely a thing like if I ate too close to bedtime, that would be an issue.

That's crazy burps all the time. And I remember being like, Oh my god, when are these going to go away and i can't even tell you now when they did now i only get burps if like i eat too much yeah wait i forgot because of the sleeve too that's also probably part of the not laying down right yeah i think so but i feel like i remember eating food on the boat and then laying down to tan and being like and turning to my mom and being like oh this is why she told me i had to stay up for two hours

like i could do it i feel comfortable when i do it but uh i definitely cannot and i can okay i can eat and drink at the same time i'm not sure if that's popular or i should say it and when i'm trying to like really make sure that i'm being focused and feel restriction i don't or i try not to but i can eat and drink fine one thing i can't do is like i can't take two sips of water back to back i have to like put it down

and do it again which i'd have i've had somebody ask me my sister can like chug water i can also chug water i cannot i literally like with two maybe two sips and I cannot do it. And I, the morning of my surgery, I chugged my Stanley, the 40 ounces. Cause I was like, I'm never going to be able to do that. That was like my last meal. Like what I want, I love, love chugging water.

And I have not done it for a year and a half. That was another one of those things where I was scared that something was wrong or I had messed up. And I asked to make sure it was okay. And my particular surgeon, dietician said I was fine. But I can literally like, last night before bed, I was really thirsty. And I think I chugged like six ounces of water right then and there. I was making my beam. But I was like, I'm so thirsty. I need like to quench this thirst.

And so I drank the water I was about to heat up for my beam and then refilled it up. But it doesn't. I could never do that with something carbonated. Carbonated, I have to say. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And generally, too, I prefer to like pour it into something else or like let it sit for a little bit. So it's not as fizzy. You're not just shotgunning it out of the can. I'm not, you know. That's the thing. Actually, I will truly never be able to shotgun something again,

probably. Yeah. And that's okay. I'm fine with that. I'll never do a keg stand again. Honestly, at our age. Maybe I'll do it and just, I can't say goodbye to it yet. I probably have done two in my entire life. So it's not like it's a big part of my life. I was never small enough to do a cake stand. I never did a cake stand in my whole life. I wasn't either, but you were hanging out with the wrong people then, my friend. You should have been hanging out with the football team. Yeah,

nobody was ever lifting me up. I don't think you missed out on anything. Okay, so I think we've kind of touched on like the never being able to eat certain foods again. But this one kind of goes along with it.

It's the fear that you will never live a, quote, normal life again. No way, dude.

So to me my life feels incredibly normal same but more normal yeah in a lot of ways way more normal but I think objectively it is a new normal so that's an important thing to know like it's not yeah you're not going to go back to the way you were before surgery and that's probably a very good thing yeah I wouldn't want to it's what your what is your definition of normal because like Like, mine was not what I was doing before surgery. Mine was what other people were seeming to do and be fine.

Sure. And there are certain things like... I never in a million years would have instinctively prioritized protein pre-surgery. I was never thinking about how much protein am I getting and let me be protein forward meals. And now I do it instinctively. If I'm looking at a menu, I'm like, oh, pasta, skip, risotto, skip. I'm looking like where can I add protein to this? Oh, I was never cognizant of that. So it's a new normal because it's not what I did before, but it's new and improved.

That's great that my brain automatically does that now do you guys wonder how much a person who didn't ever struggle with their weight thinks about the stuff they eat i think about that all the time like do you think a person who just never struggled would instinctively sit down and prioritize protein by accident or without thinking about it i have no idea it depends on the person it's just i would be fascinated to know what goes through the mind yeah when

it pertains to food i mean it's never struggled It's interesting watching Bill eat because he rarely finishes a meal. He leaves food all the time and he just does it instinctively. I do it because I get full now. I don't have physical capacity. But before, I finished everything.

I can't even tell you when I had leftovers. overs well and like speaking of like new normal you said casey recently i remember you saying to us that you never expect to finish a plate like if we're out and you're ordering something you're just like oh yeah i just know yeah which is so different from yeah i get alarmed if i do i have and i become very alarmed if you do finish something i have done i just told we it was the same conversation i like made a build your own bowl

at work it was like catered and i was like oh girl you took too much what are you doing and then i ate it all and i was like.

But restrictions different every day you know it is yeah but it's i can remember like i used to be able to eat an entire chipotle bowl with chips and a drink yeah and the first time that i got chipotle post-surgery it was like shocking how little i could eat of it and now i still get chipotle because it's good but it doesn't even register in my brain like oh this is a weirdly small amount of food because it's like i'm just eating what i need and it's like it's just you're it's amazing

how fast your brain rewires itself to this new normal even with like feeling full i remember the first time i ate food post-surgery like you you were on liquids and then um and for me it was just liquids and then soft foods but like that first bite of food feels so bizarre are. It does not feel full like you have ever known full to feel before ever in your life, but it's cool how quickly your brain adapts and it's like, oh, this is what full feels like now.

And what I feel now today, my brain says like, this is when you know you're full. But three years ago, my brain was like, what is happening? Like, what is this feeling? It's just so interesting to, It's very interesting. I remember taking, I had, I was eating cottage cheese out of shot glasses with baby spoons. Oh, yeah. Like my first couple weeks out of surgery. But I would get worried because I don't know that I really felt full from that.

I just knew that that's what I was like an ounce or whatever, whatever that was. A couple tablespoons was what I was supposed to eat. And so I would. Now, like I joke about it, there are times I can like really still put some volume away.

Way but i'll get like to your point casey like i'll get the kids chipotle kids meals and i'll get one too and if i finish that i'm still having the same alarming like oh my gosh how did i just finish all of that there's like that's scary and then i have to like logic myself out of that really quickly that it's a children's right like that i would have gotten five other things and had six other meals with it before you know whatever and like yeah exactly my sister and I talk about that a lot,

like, she'll get nervous. And I'll have to be like, it's easy when it's not you. I'll be like, well, what you would have had that plus four other things from there before or whatever. Right? It's like, oh, okay. The logic doesn't feel the same when you're talking to yourself. Well, you're and you're like, it's also scary, because like, the goal is not to be like your old self. So yeah, okay, I'm eating less than I did before. But am I eating a normal amount? It's just so do I feel satisfied?

Right? You don't know? I don't know. And then is that what a normal person my size should eat? Or like, what? It's just there's so many unknowns.

I get get why it's I get why it's scary even at the beginning but I also think again I don't know do we just blanket say it like there's none of the there are none of these things that are scary or hard enough that make it worth considering not doing in my opinion and that you made me realize Casey when you were saying like that your brain hasn't thought about it I used to be so self-conscious about how little I was eating like if I was on a date or I for a.

So like for quite a while after surgery, most people in my life didn't know. And so I was like trying to hide it. And I was single and trying to date and doing all these things. And I was so self-conscious about it. I don't even give it a second thought now. The other recently, my mom was like, are you done? You hardly ate anything. And I'm like, oh, I didn't. I ate till I was full. I'm not. I just realized literally in this conversation, like I don't pay attention.

Well, sometimes I do if I eat more than I'm expecting I will. But I'm no longer concerned concerned that other people are paying attention to how little I'm eating. I think the only times I notice it is when I'm with other bariatric patients. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm like checking in to be like, am I doing this wrong? I really can. I joke about it. But I really can eat pretty much I think like a normal person at this point. Like, I mean, maybe a little bit less.

But like if I'm on like a bachelorette or whatever, like that the the amount that I can eat is pretty similar to everybody else. I just usually need more time to do it, to be honest. But I think far less about eating in front of people, even when I could eat like five bites of something. I think far less about it now than I did before surgery. Because even then it was like, you can't win when you're fat and you're going out to eat.

Either you're eating a salad and you're eating a little bit of something and you're thinking like that maybe other people are thinking like, oh, good for them.

They're on a diet but it's not working or you're thinking that other people like or you get what you want that actually is like makes you feel full or whatever it is or something that you really like or enjoy and then it's like oh my god slow down like right you're doing too much so no wonder she's so fat right exactly so i actually find now like the the shame or like worry around eating out um and eating in front of other people is like almost completely gone.

I notice a lot. Like I will tell you guys, like I noticed that I eat more than you at a meal or whatever in that meal if I do, but like I don't. I don't have any like shame about it. It's just an emotion. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Okay. We want to do one more. Yeah. Okay. So there's, there's two, they're kind of related.

One is the fear of losing too much weight. And then on the flip side, the fear of this has hitting maintenance too early or potentially not losing as much weight as you had hoped. Hmm. I mean, those are real fears. I actually, the hitting maintenance too early kind of made me think of you. Not that you did hit maintenance too early, but you, you, you reached, you lost the majority of your weight very, very quickly. Do you want to talk about that at all?

Um, so I, so if, yeah, I lost all of my weight in like six months and plus some, cause I gained a little back when I started being normal, I would say. Um, but what I wonder is the fear of reaching maintenance too early, maybe as in you didn't finish losing all of your weight. And that is scary to me. Or like hitting a like an extended plateau, potentially. I felt like I was the luckiest person in the world losing weight as fast as I did.

I had no issues with it and was like, loving the fact that I could get to a place of normalcy very quickly.

I was definitely nervous that like because it happened so fast will it not stick like you know um but really the goal is maintenance like that's what we're all living for so uh and working for so logically i know that but as it was coming off really quick i was worried about that a little bit i guess um but not worried about the speed i was worried about the longevity or the whatever yeah the um, What was the other thing? Losing too much. Oh, I can't relate.

I mean, realistically, I'm sure it happens for some people, but that is... Not common. I think if anything, it's much more common the other way that people don't lose as much as they are hoping because statistically people lose between 60 and 70, 75% of their excess weight. So excess weight is, I don't know how most, I don't know how those numbers are defined, but I would imagine that it's like, you know, the proportion above a, let's say normal BMI.

So that means for most people, not even getting down to a normal BMI, if you're talking 60 to 70 percent of that excess above it and I think most people probably go into surgery wanting to lose a lot more than 60 to 70 percent of their excess weight and they may not and like. We have talked about this before but like that doesn't that doesn't make it not worthwhile and it's that 60 to 70 percent excess weight loss is like completely life-changing completely Completely. It is.

And I get the fear. I so get the fear because I have said in real life, I have said on this podcast that I would have felt like a failure if I did not hit my goal. So I get it. Like when I tell you I get it, I truly deeply in my soul, I get it. And at the end of the day, the longer I've lived in this newer sized body and realized that. Yes, this even if it's, you know, the tail end of that weight loss doesn't come. I am so, so much better off than than I was before.

And there is so much to be proud of. And there's so much success to measure there. Yeah. I also think like on the fear of not getting to your goal, I felt really great at 210 pounds or 200 pounds. I felt when I crossed over 200 pounds, there was not a single person on this planet who could have told me I wasn't a model. I'm not joking. I was so freaking happy with myself. It was unreal. Almost like more so than I am today. Like it just felt so new and like amazing.

And it was so fresh and fast that I felt like a feather. And so I think there are wins throughout the process personally, but I, the fear of losing too much weight never occurred to me because I was just so hung up on the fact that it just probably wouldn't work for me. Like that I would just be fat forever anyway. Yeah.

And I would also say, like, I think one of the really great things that's, I think, newer in our bariatric community is the acknowledgement that bariatric surgery may not be the end of the road for treating obesity. And so if you don't reach that goal weight that you had in mind, or you're not happy with the 60, 70% excess weight loss, and you do want to do more, like there are options for you. You can get on medications or, you know, you can consider other things.

So it's not it's not like I think I went into bariatric surgery being like this is a last ditch effort. Like if this doesn't work, I'm done. Like I'm just going to be fat forever. And I don't think that's true at all anymore. But at the time I can see even when I had surgery, I had never heard of any other treatment except for like the many weight loss type things that you had told us about before.

Yeah, I actually there's a bariatric surgeon on Instagram who I think he's out in California, and I'm pretty sure that he incorporates like GLP-1s. For like most of his bariatric patients, which is really interesting. It's like part of the program and it's not right away. It's like maybe six to eight months post-op or something like that, but he starts them on GLP-1s. And I think it's a fascinating concept because obesity is a chronic disease and it just requires treatment.

And so anyway, I guess I would say like, Like, don't discount the weight loss that you've had if you're feeling like you didn't get to that, you know, whatever number you had in your head goal. But also know that if you do truly feel like you need to lose more weight, like, there are still other options out there for you. You're not stuck. And I think overall, just like the theme of the episode, every surgery comes with risks. And it's normal to be scared. The unknown is scary.

And at the end of the day, you got to take a leap. You got to take a risk and you got to do what is best for you.

And I think some of these things are unavoidable for most people when we talk about hair loss and and certain things. But yeah, not a day goes by that I regret it for a second. Same. Yeah, absolutely. All right. I think this was a good one, guys. Yeah, I'm into it. Yeah. Thanks for helping us guys. Yeah. Thanks for sending in those, those thoughts and fears and myths and things so we could talk about it. And hopefully you found this interesting and maybe learned something new.

Um, and we are excited to keep the conversation going next week. Um, yes. If you want more, you can find us on Instagram and Tik TOK at former fat friend pod. You can find me at leaning into Lisa. I'm at maintaining Casey and I'm at alleys losing it. Music.