- Being able to eat just about anything! Hooray!
- Vomiting from eating too quickly or getting air trapped. I thought most vomiting issues were related to food tolerance problems.
- Dumping not being the horrible, please-let-me-die-a-quick-death experience I thought it would be. For me, dumping involves getting the shakes, feeling cold, weak, lightheaded and just overall “icky” and fatigued.
- Needing new jeans so quickly. As of today I’m in a size 24, but my waist and hips are more of a size 22. Damn thunder thighs!
- Weight stalls at 3 weeks, 5 weeks and 7 weeks post-op. I know weight stalls happen, but why so quickly?
- Feeling more obsessed with food than ever. Only now the obsession is about getting enough in.
- Having such a battle with consuming enough protein. I suck.
- Having random people, servers, etc., give me weird looks or ask questions outright about why I’m not eating or eating a certain way. Example: smearing a bagel with cream cheese, then taking tiny nibbles of the bagel (bread is sometimes iffy for me) while eating generous amounts of cream cheese. Or people just finding it strange that I eat teensy portions. I feel like they’re judging me as the fat girl who is so desperate to lose weight that she’ll starve herself (in public, at least).
- Feeling so fucking awesome after losing just 30 lbs.
You know how people say, “Oh, if I eat one more bite I’ll explode/get sick/throw up?” Well for me, and presumably other gastric bypass surgery patients, it’s TRUE. There have been many times where I literally had ONE bite too many, and had to throw up. There have been many other times when I’ve thought twice about a bite of food that was on my plate, on my fork or even in my mouth, and opted for throwing it out or spitting it out, rather than swallowing it and inevitably getting sick.
Ah, the quirks and such that go along with weight loss surgery…
But you know what? They are OH SO WORTH IT! I’m down 81 lbs. and couldn’t be happier. 
In less than twelve hours I will be officially seven weeks post-op. Holy crap does time ever fly. I vividly remember being 1-2 weeks out and thinking wistfully of how great it would be to be seven weeks out. And then I’d feel bummed, because seven weeks seemed like such a long time away! But here I am, seven weeks out and I am doing absolutely fantastic. I’m finally feeling back to my old self, which means no more slacking on writing projects about bridal shower games, writing assignments and general sponsored content and product reviews.
So, seven weeks… I can eat normally, even though the portions are teensy, I’m leery of most breads and I don’t even bother trying to eat most beef products, since beef tends to be rather fibrous and stringy. I’ve been keeping in touch with one of the women that was in my pre-op support group, and she’s doing great too. I have to admit, I’m slightly jealous — she’s four weeks old and has lost 30 lbs. I’m seven weeks old and am “only” down 34 lbs.! Pfft, what’s up with that?*
* I’m kidding. I know that everyone loses weight at their own rate!
I’m still having inadequate protein issues, but I hope to order some protein shots either this week or next week, so that should definitely solve that problem!
I can eat bread (toast, grilled cheese, the crustier parts of oven-baked rolls), and I can eat soft pretzels. But I can’t eat pretzel bread. Seriously. I’ve tried it twice now, and both times it sat in my stomach pouch like a big lump, and then the profuse salivating started, and then the harsh vomiting that took two tries to clear everything out.
Blah.
Oh well… I’m more into bread and pretzels by themselves! 
To date I have thrown up…
- in my house
- in a Target parking lot
- on the side of the road
- in a McDonald’s
- in a Burger King
- in a Panera Bread
I am definitely having major issues with bloating/excess air, which causes a lot of discomfort and pressure that I can’t always tough out. It isn’t the food, as I’ve thrown up after eating all sorts of things, and I’ve been able to eat those same things just fine on other occasions. It’s the air. I have been able to tough it out before, which resulted in the food finally settling down and staying down. But when your stomach pouch muscles are contracting, your throat feels thick and you’re salivating profusely, trust me, you’ll WANT to vomit just to get rid of the unpleasantness of it all!
I can do spaghetti-style pasta (I had chicken lo mein on two different occasions).
I can do elbow macaroni, the thin macaroni used in Kraft mac & cheese (I tried three bites on Monday afternoon) and the thicker, rounded shells used in Velveeta-style macaroni and cheese.
But I cannot do ravioli. I thought I’d have one — and the ricotta cheese inside of it — for dinner. Hah! Not long after it was down I got the urge to vomit. Then, excuse the TMI, I started salivating profusely. I tried to vomit it up, but only a bit came out. The horrible gotta-puke-NOW pressure and salivating continued. Went back to the bathroom, nothing. Went back a third time, and finally forced it up and out. That ravioli was seriously STUCK! I was salivating and practically foaming from it. Ugh, it was gross. It was also scary, because for a split second I thought that it was actually stuck and I’d need to go to the hospital to have it endoscopically removed. But thank freaking god, I got it up after that.
In summary: no ravioli for Jenn, ever!
