WLS and QoL

[Guest guest]

I have been following all the replies to that his ill-advised

21-month braggadocio post engendered. I had the DS 32 months ago,

but, as " they " say, " Some of my best friends are RNY-ish, " and I have

had dinner with them and find that they can pretty much eat what I

eat, though usually a tad bit less of it. That having been said, I

wanted to relay a week-long gastronomic experience to celebrate that

at least for me, the quality of life (QoL) after WLS is far from

bleak.

I was in Beijing all last week for an important Internet event to

which I had been invited by the Chinese Academy of Sciences as an

honored guest. Our group of visitors (American and Russian) were

wined and dined at many different ethnic or specialty Chinese

(northern, Cantonese, western, duck, etc.) restaurant banquets. I was

going to keep a food log, but I gave up after the first banquet,

because there were so many little dishes served that I just could not

keep up, and I did not even know what some of them were (and was

afraid to ask!). At one very famous (in China, anyway) restaurant

not far from Tienanmin Square, duck is the specialty. They roast

Peking duck by the hundreds, if not thousands every day, and then

tend to use up as much of the ducks as possible. One of the hors d'

oeuvres that were served were bite-sized morsels of a lightly-breaded

and flash-fried " duck meat, " or at least that's what I thought that

the server had said. I wound up eating 10 of them, because they were

so darned tasty, and nobody else seemed to want more than one.

Later, I learned that they were actually " duck feet! " There were all

sorts of other appetizers, too, and then the main attraction, Peking

duck (crispy skin and duck meat rolled up in a crepe-like pancake

along with green onion shoots and soy-paste sauce). With all that I

had eaten, regrettably, I could only fit in two of the Peking duck

pancakes. And, then, only a few small pieces of melon for dessert.

At other restaurants, I was similarly cavalier with what and how much

I ate, including frogs' legs in a vegetable stew, bone marrow in a

fondue pot, baked eel, and all sorts of pedestrian dishes based on

beef, lamb and pork. At our hotel, breakfast was served buffet

style, and though the quality of the food there was only so-so

(typical " hotel food " ), I ate two-to-three times as much as I

normally eat at home for breakfast. I hardly ate any rice at all, as

I did not want to use up precious room in my stomach that was

earmarked for the other courses. Also, I did not shy away from the

obligatory toasts with wine and Moutai (Chinese firewater), though I

drank **much** less than I would have pre-op--no more than one or at

most two glasses of wine and a few thimbles full of Moutai at any one

meal. I also had some sweets (cup cakes, chocolate) during tea

breaks at meetings, but probably less than I would have indulged in

at home.

Did I get exercise that week? Some (gym and pool in the hotel, but

time to really work out only once) including limited walking, as we

were driven most places.

Could any other WLS postie have eaten the variety of things that I

ate? Probably. I am really not sure.

Could any other WLS postie have eaten as much as I did? Probably

only a very few of them. But, so what?

Did I gain any weight on that trip? [Drum roll, please . . .] NOT

AN OUNCE! In the 1990's, pre-op for me, I managed to gain more than

100 pounds with frequent trips like these: little or no exercise,

time zone changes, serial official banquets, etc. Gain a pound or

two here, and a pound or two there, and the next thing you know,

you're SMO. But, mercifully, post-DS, I came through this eat-fest

unscathed.

Now that I am back home, my bowels have taken their revenge, and I am

gassy and stinky. That may be the result of a big pot of split pea

and kidney bean soup that I whipped up (pass the Beano, please), or

it may reflect the 13-hour time shift from China and the fact that my

innards have no idea what time of day it is. But, this, too, shall

pass.

OK, seems that I can do this for a while and get away with it, and

**maybe** DSers can get away with more of it than other WLSers. But

I dare say that others, too could have indulged and come away not too

much the worse for wear, though I suspect that some of you would not

want to even try to be as deviant as I was. Bottom line for me, once

again, is that THERE IS LIFE AFTER WLS!

Cheerz to all,

Steve