I belong to an online support group run by Tracy Stevenson of My Tiny Tank, a fabulous blog about life with a tiny tank. Tracy is 13 years post-op (she had the RNY gastric bypass) who has a wealth of knowledge and insight to share with folks at various stages of the weight loss game, regardless of whether or not they’ve had surgery to facilitate the process.
One of the things that was posted in the support group today by another member was this prompt:
Describe your journey (pre-op, post-op, no WLS) in just 6 words.
I thought hard before I responded to the prompt.
What I finally came up with was this:
Thankful for the wisdom to change.
And I am, every single day.
It was about this time of year last year that I finally made the decision to have bariatric surgery to get control of my weight, my health, and my life. I had control of so many other things in my life, but not my life itself.
And now, one year later, things are so very much improved and different. For once, I feel like I have control of my health, my weight, and my life. And for that, I am grateful.
Today’s eating was good, save for the carbs. I went overboard carb-wise, so the next few days I’ll be reining them in and dialing back to 30 grams or fewer. I did get in 89 grams of protein today and 41 grams of fat. I think perhaps my higher carb days need to be confined to the days I work out, since I need the fuel for the intense exercise. My hormones are raging right now too (thanks, Nature, you suck!), hence the chocolate.
Today’s food choices, from upper right: pork “wing,” mashed potatoes and glazed carrots; roasted barbecue chicken breast; multivitamin and calcium supplements x2, iron supplement; Trader Joe’s Monterey jack cheese stick; Rudy’s ham, bacon, bean and egg breakfast bowl; Ghirardelli dark chocolate square. Not shown: dinner roll and piece of chocolate chip cookie.
La Guerra de La Gorda 
How do you manage to get in that much protein from just eating??? I can never seem to manage that!
I eat multiple small meals a day. My capacity does not allow me to eat more than about 3/4 cup, so to reach my protein goals without shakes or bars (which I refuse to use), I eat 4-5 times a day. I also make sure that I eat my dense proteins first, and that I eat about 3-4 ounces of dense protein each time. I also have to be fairly selective about the proteins that I choose–I eat a lot of chicken and turkey. If I eat beef, it is very lean beef–same with pork most times. But I always make sure I eat my protein first.