The Shame Of Weight Loss Surgery - Episode 36

The Shame Of Weight Loss Surgery – Episode 36

What Is This Episode About…

More and more folks are getting weight loss surgery done and gaining back their weight. But why? In this episode, Cari and I will be explaining it all. In fact, Cari will be sharing her personal experience with weight loss surgery. We get down to the rules, the workarounds, and getting past the shame associated with the surgery.

Cari’s weight is under control, but no, that is not because she went in for weight loss surgery. In fact, though she did lose weight with the surgery, it caused so much damage in her body that she had to actually have it reversed. And then, keeping her weight down from that point was all Code Red.

For those of you that have failed a weight loss surgery and you feel terrible because you spent the money, there is hope, and Cari is a wonderful example of that. There is life on the other side. Please do not be ashamed, please do not feel embarrassed. It is not your fault. It’s a volume reduction surgery, but in all likelihood, you didn’t get down to the heart of the issue, which, chances are, is your food addiction.

You have to get to the root of the problem. And the weight gain is not the problem. It is a manifestation of a bigger one. The weight loss surgery, whatever kind you pick, is not going to solve that problem until you dig to the root.

You may be dealing with your anxiety, your grief, your loss, your stress, your happiness, sugar, and eating, all at the same time. While I never got as heavy as Cari did, I had my own battle with weight, and I would deal with many of the challenges I confronted, by eating.

A lot of people come to us and they want to be Code Red rebels, or they sign up to be Code Red rebels, and they are driving the excuse truck.

Well, you can park your excuse truck and get off because, in this episode, we’re going to talk to you about how things can be different for you. Stay tuned.

Key Points of Discussion

They are dealing with guilt and shame. They are struggling with the water requirement, and with how to go about this new lifestyle of real food, water, and sleep (3:14)
Cari has had three surgeries done to try and fix the damage from the weight loss surgery she went in for earlier (5:44)
Even that volume reduction surgery won’t work if you are addicted to sugar and to processed foods (7:19)
Take some time to be able to build-up to the gallon of water (11:41)
We don’t believe in three meals and two snacks (12:52)
Be purposeful about the water you drink, and about every bite that goes into your mouth (14:26)
You need to buy the Code Red cookbook (17:08)
You can make up your own recipes. Real food just in a different form so you can eat it… (17:52)
You need to pause your liquids before eating and pause them afterward and give yourself some time to eat (20:10)
Heard of noatmeal? If you haven’t, you need to try it (21:19)
Are you going to be able to say, “Oh, it’s Code Red, so I can eat all I want”? No, you can’t. (22:20)
We support you in whatever way it is going to work for you, but you’ve got to stick to the rules (22:57)
Just because you had surgery doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want (24:37)
You have to be okay with getting divorced from some foods (26:34)
If you have had gastric surgery, please stay in touch with your doctors (27:16)
If you need supplements, go in for good quality ones; don’t take crap vitamins or crap minerals (27:42)
We’re looking for people who have given up hope and we’re your last shot (30:16)
Take our hand and trust us while we get you through this process. But we aren’t going to tolerate any excuses (31:53)

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

Get the Code Red On-The-Go Guide here.

Join the next 10-Pound Takedown Challenge here.

When Was It Released…

This episode was released November 27, 2019

Episode Transcript…

The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

Cari: 00:00 It doesn’t matter what size your stomach is, it doesn’t matter how much of your intestines we take out, it doesn’t matter if we put a balloon in there, wrap it around and cut it off and flip your stomach around, none of that matters if you’re addicted to sugar and to processed foods.

Cristy: 00:15 That is so true because there are, I mean, ain’t nobody getting out of the rules, and when you are dealing with your anxiety, you’re dealing with your grief, you’re dealing with your loss, you’re dealing with your stress, you’re dealing with your happiness. With food.

Cristy: 00:34 I’m Cristy Code Red and you’re listening to Rebel, Weight Loss, and Lifestyle, where we believe food holds the power to heal or poison, and we believe our society has been misled regarding proper nutrition and weight loss. You’re in the right place if you’re looking for some straight-up truth because I’m here to shed light on the lies and brainwashing that has taken place over the past five decades. Thanks so much for listening.

Cristy: 01:00 Welcome back to Rebel Weight Loss and Lifestyle. I am Cristy Code Red, your official host. However, we are doing so many of these podcasts together. I should might as well just call it like the Cari and Cristy show, because Cari is on with me again today. So Cari, thank you for being with me.

Cari: 01:17 You’re so welcome. I’m waiting anxiously by the mail where I get my co-host hat. Did you mail that yet? Did you mail that yet Cristy? I am so excited to be here once again because this topic is near and dear to my heart.

Cristy: 01:33 Well, I liked the way you say, I wish I wasn’t so familiar with the subject, but she is in guys. There are some podcasts that can blow through by myself and actually really hit it home and it’s better if I do by myself, but most of them is so much better that Cari does it with me because definitely on this subject, I couldn’t do this.

Cristy: 01:50 I couldn’t talk about this subject without you Cari, because you are the expert in many ways.

Cari: 01:57 Thank you. I, unfortunately, it’s sort of like someone who has had open-heart surgery and knows all about it and you’re like, wow, you know a lot. And they’re like, yeah, I had to go through open-heart surgery or I had to lose a limb or I had to, you know, lose a kidney. It’s, you don’t want to be an expert on these things. But I am. I have learned. And plus Cristy, this is something that comes up in code red all the time, all the time. We’re seeing more and more people that are coming to us with these questions. And so I said to Cristy, I think this will be a good podcast subject because some people are not coming to code red and doing the code red plan because they think it’s not appropriate for me.

Cari: 02:35 And so I’m here to talk about that today. We are here to talk about that today.

Cristy: 02:39 Well guys, we are talking about weight loss surgery. We’re going to actually talk about a couple of different angles of weight loss surgery, the shame surrounding weight loss surgery, the shame of losing 150 pounds. And then gaining it back. It plagues a lot of people and then we’re also going to talk about how weight loss surgery. People just skirt the rules and they, you know, I ain’t nobody gets out of the rules you guys and no matter what plan you do and they skirt the rules and how you can really do this lifestyle. If you’ve had weight loss surgery show in like Cari shed, this was forced upon us to talk about this. This is not something we even really thought about it, but more and more and more people are coming to code red and they’re dealing with the guilt and shame deal.

Cristy: 03:19 They’re struggling with the water requirement. They’re struggling with how do I go about this new lifestyle of real food, water and sleep and it just needs to be addressed.

Cari: 03:27 It really does Cristy, and let me just, well, last, I want to talk about shame first because I was so shameful of having weight loss surgery that I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t tell Cristy, I didn’t tell my mom and dad. I didn’t tell a friend. I told only my significant other at that time and I didn’t tell anybody else, nobody else. And I saved my money. I wasn’t heavy enough to get surgery in the United States. I didn’t meet the requirements and you know, it’s quite expensive and I saved my money and yes, Oh yes, don’t send me emails. I went to Mexico and had surgery and that was a scary experience, especially being a nurse because of the crash cart, although they do excellent procedures in Mexico, not at all.

Cari: 04:15 Like it’s a bad thing to go. There are wonderfully qualified physicians there. I’ve taught many of them. Some of them will come back to the United States and you know, I’ve had a chance to interact with them. But the crash cart was like so old. I was like, Oh my gosh. There was no name bands. It was just different. It was just different than American hospitals. So it was very, it was very scary. And I did it. And let me just tell you the shame surrounding that was so much. I finally did admit it to my family, but you guys, when I went to work for Cristy, I had some sleepless nights until I came to terms with this. And I told Cristy, I said, I think I need to be honest about this. I need to just tell the rebels upfront. This is what my experience is because yes, my weight’s under control.

Cari: 04:57 But no, that is not because I did weight loss surgery. So I didn’t want anyone, later on, to be like, yeah, but you did weight loss surgery. I would be like, yeah, no it didn’t work. So I was so worried about it. Cristy, like I struggled with it. And now since I’ve been working for you, I’ve been completely transparent about my weight loss surgery and my experience, what happened to me, just an absolute nightmare path. It’s been for me to get where I am today.

Cristy: 05:21 So you, you did lose weight with weight loss surgery, but it caused so much damage in your body that you had to actually have it reversed. Haven’t had a, I dunno, like taken out or how do you know it caused so much damage, it caused just tons of trouble that you had to have everything kind of taken out or reversed and repaired and then keeping your weight down from that point was all code red, correct?

Cari: 05:44 Oh my gosh, 100%. And if I had just listened to you a long time ago, I wouldn’t look like somebody stabbed my stomach over and over and over. Cause I’ve had so many surgeries, I’ve had three surgeries to try to fix it and then we just went ahead and took out. I had a lap band. You know, there’s a gastric sleeve, there’s gastric bypass, people can get a lap band, people can get like a pouch, people can get a balloon placed in their stomach. There’s all sorts of things. But guys, every single one of these surgeries basically has the same result. It is a volume reduction. Now volume reduction is volume reduction. Whether you’re reducing the volume of the amount of Twinkies you take in or whether you’re reducing the volume of good code, red quality food that you’re taking in. So when you reduce the volume, you’re going to lose some of weight.

Cari: 06:30 Initially everyone, I would say almost everyone on weight loss surgery, unless they, we heard about a guy that went and had a cheeseburger the morning after his weight loss surgery. He ruined everything, landed in the ICU. He was so sick. Like that’s ridiculous. But here’s what I was thinking, Cristy, when I got weight loss surgery, cause I just want, I want you guys to hear my heart here because a lot of you listening are going to get this and I’m gonna try and do it without crying. When I was flying to Mexico, saving my money and going to get the surgery, all I kept thinking Cristy was, maybe this will work. Maybe I won’t have to be 250 pounds. Maybe this will work. You have such hope. So for those of you that have failed a weight loss surgery and you feel terrible because you spent the money, the family knew the whole nine yards.

Cari: 07:19 Let me tell you something. There is hope. I’m a wonderful example of that. There is life on the other side of this. If you please do not be ashamed, please do not feel embarrassed. It is not your fault. It’s a volume reduction surgery, but you didn’t get down to the heart of the issue, which is your food addiction. Cristy, with this size stomach, I was still addicted to food as addicted as I was with this size stomach, and for those of you that can’t see me, I’m holding my hands up big like a softball and little like a golf ball. It doesn’t matter what size your stomach is, it doesn’t matter how much of your intestines we take out, it doesn’t matter if we put a balloon in there, wrap it around and cut it off and flip your stomach around. None of that matters if you’re addicted to sugar and to processed foods.

Cristy: 08:08 That is so true because there are, I mean ain’t nobody getting out of the rules. And when you are dealing with your anxiety, you’re dealing with your grief, you’re dealing with your loss, you’re dealing with your stress, you’re dealing with your happiness, with food and with sugar and with eating. And I am not, I’d never got as heavy as Cari did, but we are of the same ilk as far as we ate away are we come from my family that does this. And so I had my own battle with my weight and I would deal with my whatever by eating. And so many of you guys watching and listening right now are doing that too. So it doesn’t matter what you do there is just no, you have got to get to the root of the problem. The problem is that the weight gain is not the problem.

Cristy: 08:53 It is a manifestation of a bigger problem. And the weight loss surgery, whatever kind you pick is not going to solve that problem until you dig to the root.

Cari: 09:03 Yeah. And for us, Cristy, I don’t think it’s so much like any kind of strange thing in our past, I think we like food. That’s all I’m saying is we like food. I like to eat off my kid’s plate. Also, I was in a very unhappy relationship, so I think that is also part of it. But it’s not like when I was two my Teddy bear burned in a fire and I’m not making fun of trauma. I’m just saying like, yeah, I didn’t have any hidden meaning for being overweight. I love food. I love going to Sonic and I love when my kids would order their meals and I would eat half of each of their grilled cheese sandwiches and all of the rest of their tater tots and all of my meal.

Cari: 09:43 So I’m not just getting the 1500 of calories from what I ordered. I’m also getting the 2000 calories leftover from there. Let me tell you, I love to eat. So my food addiction was not solved by weight loss surgery. Okay. But sometimes weight loss surgery forces you to eat differently. So what Cristy and I find is that a lot of people come to us and they want to be code red rebels or they sign up to be code red rebels and they are driving the excused truck [inaudible] barn. I got the excuse truck eight and at first, Cristy will be like Cari, what? And I’d be like, Oh I got this. I got it. You know, get off the excuse truck because I’m not listening to any of it cause y’all, I’ve had three surgeries to try to repair this band before I landed myself in the ICU, almost completely ruined my stomach.

Cari: 10:37 They nicked about, it was a hot mess. I know some of you have way worse stories, but I do want to say that I’ve been through it. So I’ve had all, almost all the complications and now I’m S I suffer from low blood count and vitamin B deficiency. So my battle is not over. It’s a lot better. But my battle is not over because of my decisions. So you are free from the guilt and shame, but unfortunately, you’re not free from the consequences and from having to make different choices. So that you can park your excuse truck and get off because I’m gonna talk to you today about how things can be different for you.

Cristy: 11:13 Well, and if, as long as we’re being completely transparent, Cari started off when I said, Cari, you need to drink a gallon of water. And she said, there’s no way that I can do that shit.

Cristy: 11:22 But she did because she parked the excuse bus and she started to, and then now she knows that’s the biggest, probably the biggest question we get with weight loss surgery is I can’t have all the water that you require. And Cari says, Oh no, I’ve been there, done that. This is how you do it. We just, we have a way of getting around and use, you know, smaller drinks at a time.

Cari: 11:41 Right. And Cristy, I’ll never forget the very first day I started drinking a gallon of water, I called you up and I was like, sick. You got go to throw up and could tell that you were probably going like this, but you did it. And you said, well, don’t make yourself throw up Cari like you dummy. And that you didn’t say that. You didn’t say that, but I can. I know you and you guys that took some time to be able to build-up to the gallon of water.

Cari: 12:06 You are not going to be a gastric bypass patient, a gastric sleeve or a lap band patient and very first day drink a gallon of water. It’s just not going to happen simply. It just won’t. You have to build up to it, but you can. You do it. Absolutely. You can do it. Absolutely. You can do it.

Cristy: 12:23 One of the big, and that’s a rule. You have to be able to drink the water and you can do it. You just have to do, you have to build up to it. You have to introduce slowly as opposed to somebody with a normal stomach like me who can just kind of cold turkey. Jump right in with the challenge rules. You’d be like, I’m doing this, signed up the night before you started the very next day with the, with the gallon of water. That’s just not gonna be the case, but you can do it.

Cristy: 12:42 Another problem we see is one of the rules for the challenge and one of the rules, or being a code red rebels, we only eat two meals a day. We don’t believe in snacking. We don’t believe in multiple meals. We don’t believe in three meals and two snacks. We don’t believe in a bedtime snack. The word snack isn’t even in the ball. The vocabulary, in fact, we don’t even use it, not even with kids. So what we noticed is weight loss surgery survivors, they claim that they’re only, and I guess this is true, they’re only able to eat small amounts at a time. So how would you get around that? A rural shift?

Cari: 13:14 I would say something that a very wise person said to me after my very last repair surgery, and this is Cristy Code Red said this to me. She said, Cari, and listen, listen here at weight loss surgery survivors, every bite has to count.

Cari: 13:29 So for you, for those of you listening that have had weight loss surgery, this is the word I want you to remember. Intentionality. Is that a word? I don’t think intentionality. Intentional ness. Intentionality. Okay. Maybe I should took a different light. For those of you listening, this is the other word you should listen to if that’s a pretend word, purposeful. Purposeful. So you need to be purposeful about everything. Sorry, you are now like me in a different category. You cannot at 5:00 PM go, Oh chug, chug, chug, chug, chug. The rest of your water you can’t say, Oh my gosh, I am hungry. I have not eaten. I’m going to have my meal too. And just shove it in. You can’t, you can’t eat on the fly. You can’t eat in the car. You can’t do any of that. And I’m sorry. That is, those are the consequences that you and I live with now that we’ve had weight loss surgery.

Cari: 14:24 So you have to be purposeful. You have deep, purposeful about when you start drinking your water, how you drink your water, what temperature your water is, whether you use a straw or not, you have to be purposeful about every bite that goes into your mouth. Because guess what? You can’t take as many bites. So it’s not okay for you to eat Oh meaning yet. But we don’t do that in any way on the code red lifestyle. But you know like you’re making dinner and you pop a couple green beans in your mouth. We don’t promote that anyway. But here’s the problem with that. You only get so many bikes. So if you’re not intentional about what you eat, you’re going to be in trouble and then you’re going to be hungry in two hours.

Cristy: 15:03 And also in addition to that, you want to eat something with the highest nutrients because you, you just have no, there’s just no wastage patients.

Cristy: 15:11 So you need to extract all those. Your body needs to extract all those nutrients from whatever you’re eating. So be militant about what you eat because it all has to count every bite. There can’t be any waste here. There can’t cause you just don’t have the room for it. I mean, you got to get the most bang for your buck. You are going to be hungry at first.

Cari: 15:32 I mean you just are. And that’s because your body, you guys, let me, let me, let me backtrack. Do you know one of the most interesting emails that I get wanting help with this and this is it, Cari. I can’t eat anything. Well, I’m going to be crude. Are you ready Cristy? Well, you eating something. I like the [inaudible] if you’re eating something. Otherwise, I actually said to a lady that was very belligerent with me. I said, well then why do you need code red if you truly can’t eat a thing?

Cari: 16:02 Why do you need code red? So get off the excuse bus. I don’t want to hear it and I’m sorry to be so forceful, but it is true. I don’t want to hear it that you can’t eat anything. You guys, I lived on Cheetos. I sucked them down and ate them. That’s how I got fat after bypass surgery, after failed weight loss surgery. So you’re eating something and usually if people email me and I say, well then what are you eating now? They’re very honest Cristy, they are like I live on cheese and carbs. Yeah, I get it. I need to know what you’re doing now and don’t give me that you can’t anything. Can you eat a day down steak? No. And you may be a while until you can, can you eat a big thing of broccoli? Like I’ve seen Cristy deals with butter and salt.

Cari: 16:46 Cristy’s like cauliflower, broccoli queen. I love to watch her eat it. I mean it’s so good for her. She cleans out every cell in her body. I can’t do that. You guys. I can’t sit down and eat a cup of broccoli. I can’t do it. It will not work for me. So again, going back to being intentional, this is one of the best things I give to everybody who asked me this question. Well, you need to by the Code Red cookbook. But you know, in the cookbook, we have shakes. Now we do not believe in shakes like [inaudible] and yo yo yo Lolo yeah, yeah, yeah, no prepared shake. So when I say shake, I mean a blended real food, a blended real food. Let me give you an example. Unsweetened cocoa-nut milk, a scoop of nut butter. Of course in the code red lifestyle, everything’s weighed and measured.

Cari: 17:34 But I’m so I’m just giving you examples. You might throw an avocado in there and you might put again some almond butter mix set up and that’s what you’re going to eat guys, because I all, I know that all of you can get down with liquid because I could get down liquid. So you’re going to do that and you can make up your own recipes. You can put spinach. So I’m not talking about a meal replacement shake. I’m talking about real food just in a different form so you can eat it. That’s what I want to see. I want to see you putting coconut oil in your shakes. I want to see you putting, if you’re going to drink coffee in the morning, I want it to be a good coffee with lots of good fat in it. That will keep you full longer and your body will start to adjust to eating twice a day.

Cari: 18:19 Your body will adjust the water. And here’s the really good thing about being a weight loss surgery survivor. You have an advantage. Yes, you do because you, I mean come on. Volume is volume. You can’t eat as much. So once you get this water thing down, you’re going to be full from the water. Let me tell ya. And then you’re going to throw a couple of shakes in there, maybe some cooked veggies down, cooked down to where you can eat them. Make a mushy. That’s okay guys as okay add butter and Redmond’s real salt, you’ll be fine. Once you get that down, you’re going to lose weight like it’s going out of style because when everybody else is going, bring me another three cups of broccoli, you cannot do that. So you’re going to do great on the code red lifestyle that you’ve got to get your head right and get off the excuse boss.

Cristy: 19:03 Wow. Wow. Sorry. You mentioned Cheetos. It was funny because Cari, I remember, I remember you said that about Cheetos and then I remembered that you and I had done a little bit of research and we found out that the manufacturers of the Cheetos, it actually has a melting point and is designed to melt a certain amount and dissolve in your mouth before it even goes down the esophagus. Therefore you don’t ever quite feel full and you can continue to eat and eat and eat and then continue to buy more Cheetos. So it does that on purpose to where it doesn’t take up the room in your stomach.

Cari: 19:35 Yeah, I mean you guys, let’s just say it, 200 calories of broccoli and 200 calories a Cheetos are going to feel totally different in your tummy. And again, this is why, I mean I’m not, I’m not introducing a new nutrition science here.

Cari: 19:48 It’s not like Cari’s like, Oh wow, she’s on the cutting edge in nutrition. Let’s be honest. I mean, you guys know what I’m saying? But they are smart when they manufacture these things. That’s how you get to the bottom of a bag of those kinds of processed foods. And you go, oh, I could probably have some Oreos now. I mean, I’m hungry.

Cristy: 20:06 There’s some of the smartest chemists on the planet are working for these food manufacturers.

Cari: 20:10 Oh yeah. Oh boy. Howdy. So that’s the only thing I wanted to say is that you have to be careful with your liquids. Rebels. You need to pause your liquids before eating and pause them afterward and give yourself some time to eat. Also, your meals, like I said, a, it needs to be pre-planned. Keep your fat content high. We teach you this stuff on the challenge and again that word, that’s probably not a real word.

Cari: 20:35 Intentionality, purposeful, militant. You have to guard your eating. There’s no more Heating you. You can’t, you can’t. I know with usage you have to be very relaxed when you eat and one thing and you have to eat slow, and I know this about you. If you are upset or stressed, you cannot eat. It is sick, it will make you so yeah like it’s so fun. I don’t know why you’ve been real guarded with your eating. You like to sit down, you have a certain routine as not, you don’t eat while you’re standing up. You don’t eat when you’re anxious or stressed and you have to, or you’ll throw throat, you’ll throw it up or you’ll, you’ll get real sick or something. It’s really, so that might be you guys listening and you guys heard of note meal. If you haven’t, you need to try it.

Cari: 21:22 We talk about it at all of Cristy’s Facebook pages. You could probably put in the word N, O, A, T, M, E, A, L, and you’ll find a ton of recipes. But no, oatmeal is chia and flax, a chia, sort of like a, like a chia pudding, like tapioca but illegal tapioca. We use nut milk. You guys. I eat it every day. First of all, it keeps me pooping. I love it. Second of all, it is a food that I can get down in an inappropriate quantity. It keeps me full for a long time. So there are tricks out there and there are tips out there and then when you, when you come on with code red, we talk about these things. So many emails I get Cristy, I’m with one of the code red certified coaches looped in and a three-way email with a custom program clients and they’re saying, I need help Cari and I’m like, let’s do it.

Cari: 22:07 But I felt like it was important to come to your podcast audience to say, Hey, we got away around this. Is it going to be easy? No. Sorry, we’re in a different category. Is it going to be perfect? No. Are you going to be able to say, Oh, it’s code red so I can eat all I want? No, you can’t. You’re volume reduction is still going to be the same, but we do have ways around it.

Cristy: 22:29 Absolutely. You need to understand, guys, that ain’t nobody getting out of rules. You get, it doesn’t matter if you choose jetty Greg or weight Watchers or Nutrisystem or paleo or Atkins, or you have food delivered to your house, or you wear the stupid patch, or you have the Shakeology shakes. It doesn’t matter if you do the detox cleanse through Isogenic. It doesn’t matter if you only buy high quality expensive.

Cristy: 22:51 Our bond products, every single program has rules. Everyone you choose has rules. We support you in whatever way it is going to work for you, but you’ve got to maintain their rules. Nobody gets out of that. It doesn’t matter if you’re Oprah or you’re Barack Obama, if you’re me, if you’re my dad, or if your Curie, like every one of us, has rules and code red [inaudible] what? We have to weigh ourselves every day. Yeah. That’s one of our rules. We weigh ourselves every day. You want to go to WeightWatchers. They weigh themselves on Fridays. You can go do that, but you still have to way, you know? And so there are rules to everything you do. Well, I can’t believe that I should genetics well, guess what? It’s $150 a month. Shake membership. There’s one of your rules. You got to drink them three times a day. You know you’ll gain your weight back if you don’t.

Cristy: 23:34 So Hey, is bariatric surgery patients, any weight loss surgery patients? They don’t realize. I know they get counseled pretty heavily with where you do it. Like you have to get counseled, you have to sign up for saying, I know the rules, but it’s like they’d forget your some exercises of a NyQuil cup like you can’t do the things you used to be able to do.

Cari: 23:54 I think you’re absolutely right Cristy. And I think part of it is that you’re just so hopeful that this might work. That you are like, yay, that’s okay. It’s okay, I’ll do that. I’ll do that. Okay. I can only eat four refi beans at a time. That’s fine. And you’re like, what? Like Cristy, I lived on Cheetos and refried beans cause that was the only thing that will go down when I was stressed out, especially when I was stressed out.

Cari: 24:15 So you know even I have a set of rules. Guess what? I went and got this morning I went and got my monthly B 12 shot. Do you know why I have to get a monthly B12 shot because I had gastric surgery, multiple gastric surgeries. Yeah. Those are the rules I follow now for the rest of my life. And again, I’m not ashamed of that, but I want to be honest with you guys and say that just because you had surgery doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. And I think that Cristy, that I went through, Oh, I went through a mourning period after I had surgery. And I realized I couldn’t eat whatever I wanted. I’ll never forget this story. It was after one of my repairs that didn’t work. I was starving. It’s before I got it under control with code red and I went and got an ice cream sandwich and I ate it cause I was really hungry and I wasn’t eating.

Cari: 25:03 I should have had noatmeal, I should have had, you know, something calorie-dense, a great quality product. But no, I didn’t do it. It made me so sick. My stomach was distended and my weight went way up the next year, next day. And I remember standing on the scale and saying to myself, Oh, I just had surgery. What is going on? I deserve to be able to eat. And I was saying that to myself, Cristy, like I don’t have to watch what I eat because I had a repair. What? So that just made me realize there is a mourning period where you’re sad you cannot have your cake and eat it too because you had gastric surgery of some type. And I’m sorry because that Cari, yeah, I totally get it. I totally get it.

Cristy: 25:47 And I remember when one of Cari’s repairs, she was in the ICU for five days and I remember she was sick and she wasn’t able to eat anything.

Cristy: 25:55 And so she said, I’m just gonna have the saltine crackers. And I remember saying this to you, you don’t get to get out of the rules. You can’t have those saltine crackers. But it would have been so easy to be like, Oh, just eat the saltines. Like who cares? But knows this. You don’t even need, you don’t need that. That’s not going to make anything any better. That’s just going to feed into, we forget the ingredients in those hospital foods. They’re terrible. And so even in her state of being so sick and so miserable and so down, I was still pretty hard on her about no sickness. It’s not gonna do you any good to have that?

Cari: 26:27 No. And it doesn’t. It absolutely doesn’t. So you have to change your mind. It’s really a mindset thing. You have to be okay with getting divorced from some foods.

Cari: 26:38 That’s what happens. You have to say, okay, I’m not with these foods anymore. Does it mean forever? No. It means I need to get my weight off. I need to get my food addiction and my sugar addiction under control. I need to lose the rest of this weight and learn how to make it work with my gastric surgery and then I need to revisit it later on. Am I saying you can never have a bite of a prey lean pie again? No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying let’s get your weight off and then down the road, you might want to, but you guys, dumping syndrome is a very real thing. I cannot eat certain foods cause of my blood sugar will dump like nobody’s business if I try. The other thing I want to mention, Cristy is I really want you people that have had gastric surgery, please stay in touch with your doctors.

Cari: 27:23 Please get followups. You guys, I was feeling so terrible. We were moving and so I was in between physicians because of, you know, the army assigns you to a new area and then you go there and get a new physician. And I didn’t realize how low my iron had gotten. And how low my B-12 and I’m fighting my way back out of it. But please, if you need a supplement, take your supplements from your doctor. Do what your doctor has asked you to. If they tell you to take by attendant, they tell you to take vitamin-D, you know, please follow what your doctor says as far as staying in the loop and getting your blood work done. You will be able to lose weight and you’ll feel better-faced in the future if you have your body chemistry evened out.

Cristy: 28:01 And if you don’t know this code, red does offer a code red branded vitamin D and magnesium from the company Xymogen and it’s a high-quality supplement.

Cristy: 28:13 Remember, Magnesium is a mineral and vitamin-D is a hormone, so these are not vitamins. We just kind of call them that loosely because that’s what you can kind of relate to. But this is a great way to get a good quality supplement, but without, that’s a great price that has a great absorption rate, right? It doesn’t absorb the wrong way. We don’t want, you don’t want your supplements to absorb in your stomach. You want them to absorb in your intestines. That way they can best utilized by the body and it’s a great price. You can always go to our website coderedlifestyle.com, click on “shop” and right there, at the top, you’re gonna see our code. Red bride had mag and D3 and Cari, we have lost proof of that. The Mag and D3 being so very good.

Cari: 28:52 I take both and let me tell you, I’ve always had suboptimal or clinically low vitamin D levels and this last time after taking code red vitamin D, I know I sound like a commercial. I don’t mean it, but honestly you guys, it is better than anything that doctors ever written for me for a prescription. My vitamin D levels were actually double what the high end or what the, you know the normal is. So I’m making this up. It was five then, mine was 10, I don’t recall what the number was. Don’t write it in and be like, Cari, no one has a vitamin D of 10, I’d be like, Ah, I was just doubling the easiest number. Don’t make me do that in my head, no, but they’re excellent. They’re very bio available. Like Cristy says, they’re absorbed in the correct place and you’re really going to get bang for your buck.

Cari: 29:34 Do not take crap vitamins. Please don’t. Don’t take crap minerals. They don’t work. And I just want you to take a good one and just make sure you ask them what’s your bioavailability? That was my very first question before we joined up with this company. I was like, tell me about your bioavailability. So you’re really, it’s worked on me. And remember, I don’t have much of a stomach, so we’re great.

Cristy: 29:58 Right. And guys, if you have had weight loss surgery in the past and you have gained back your weight or you’re having a hard time maintaining your weight loss, or if you haven’t and you’re just thinking about joining code red, please understand that this is not a numbers game for us and we’re not looking for just any old person. We’re looking for people at rock bottom where we’re, look, we’re looking for people who have given up hope and we’re your last shot because the last thing and we’re going to do it and I’m going to tolerate is you arguing with us.

Cristy: 30:23 I’m not going to tolerate that. You can’t come on to this group. You can’t come into our lifestyle and the door tribe and then argue with the experts. We are the experts. We know what we’re talking about. We have created a program that has proven itself. We have almost 40,000 people that have come through our challenges and several thousand have done custom programs. We got this, you don’t got this, so you want to join us. We would be happy to help you in the best place to start as a 10 pound takedown because it’s $47, and you can dip your toe into the lifestyle and get to know me and my coaches and Cari and find out if we’re a good fit for you, but don’t come into our groups and come into our tribe and community and make trouble with us. We’re just going to kick you off.

Cristy: 30:59 We’re not going to tolerate that. Life is too short, and that means you’re not ready. So unless you’re, if you’re ready to park the excuse bus or turn it back into the rental place, then yeah, then we’re ready to have you. But if you’re not, then come to us when you are ready.

Cari: 31:13 Yeah, I agree with this 100%. I get a lot of people: protein, me, me, me, me, me, and I’m like, okay, focus. If your plan was working, if your plan that they set out for you was working, then you wouldn’t be talking to me right now. And again, no shame, no judgment. We love you. We will help you through it. But you’re going to have to be willing to face the food addiction and the sugar addiction facts so we can move forward and get you better.

Cristy: 31:40 And the good thing is we also have counseling programs to back this up.

Cristy: 31:43 We have a visual online course that you can take written by a licensed counselor and that they’re highly effective. So, we have tools to get you through this, but you’re going to have to give in. Reach your hand up, take our hand and trust us while we get you through this process. We will love you until you can love yourself and that’s what’s great about the tribe and the community, but we won’t tolerate your and we won’t cuddle you. We aren’t going to tolerate any excuses from you. It’s time to get tough, it’s time to become a rebel. We hope you loved this podcast. We sure appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for the rate and the review. Thank you, Cari, for being on here with me.

Cari: 32:17 You’re welcome. Thank you for letting me come to you and be vulnerable, you guys. This is just real honest us.

Cristy: 32:24 I do appreciate you being vulnerable. I know it’s not easy. I need some. I have to change a share things from my past. I know that it actually makes my stomach hurt a little bit like I just, I don’t like it, so thank you for doing that.

Cari: 32:34 You’re welcome. You’re welcome.

Cristy: 32:35 All right guys. We’ll see you on the next podcast.

Cristy: 32:40 Thanks so much for listening to Rebel Weight Loss and Lifestyle. If you’re a Code Red rebel and you haven’t already downloaded your free Code Red lifestyle on-the-go guide, then now is your time to get a copy. This guide will teach you how to stay Code Red-approved even with your crazy tight schedule. To get a copy right now, all you need to do is open your podcast app, go to this episode, show notes, and click the link to get your Code Red-approved on-the-go guide. So, I will see you on the next episode of Rebel Weight Loss and Lifestyle.