Fiddleman

Wise words. Thanks BTB. Now, I do know one day you rest and that will be tomorrow. Ha! I just gave you seven days of rest a week.

BTB - I eat about 70% paleo. There are lots of violations on my part, but it is my goal every day to eat as clean and natural as possible. As you can tell, I take liberties with fiber one, steel oats and protein. Nothing comes between my bowl o' carb and an afternoon workout. same thing can be said about my night time case protein shake.

The bad for me was learning how to eat at the right speed and right quantity as the dynamics constantly changed during the first 6 months. Lots of sliming and some throwing up during those early months. It was also hard determining what types of food your sleeve could handle after 1 month when most transition into solids. I never had trouble with eating and drinking at the same time. After 6 months, my sleeve chilled out a bit and became more accepting g of most foods. Today @18 months there is hardly anything my sleeve will reject except too large a quantity. The good for me was no more high blood pressure (been 110 / 70 for several months now), no more sleep apnea (disappeared during first month), no more pre-diabetic conditions and a much fuller life with my family in terms of quality time and activities. Food is no longer the boss of me and I have learned how to eat as an active athletic person of ideal weight.

Thanks CBT! Really good answer.

You have experienced death twice?

Definitely morning, naked after bathroom. During weight loss phase, I was on the scale almost daily. Now, at 18 months and maintaining since 2-2013, I typically weight about 1-2x a month. I can get all the feedback I need in terms of clothes and mirror.

Hi- for endurance running greater then 1 hour I typically eat a couple nuts.com energy squares before running. I will eat 1-2 more every 45 minutes of running. My runs are typically 10k-18k and about once a week. My pace is usually 55 min/10 k. For other days in the week, I may or may not do running as part of cross fit workout. It will be no more than 3 miles and is typically sprinting. Every day, without question, I eat 2 hours before working out a lot of good carbs. Usually it is 1/2 cup steel oats, 1 scoop hydro builder Protein powder and 1/4 cup of Fiber one pellets. This mix works really well for me to push and push hard during the workout. There are four parts. 1. Cardio warm up 2. Heavy power or Olympic lifting 3. metabolic conditioning workout (different every day). 4. Cardio cool down I do not think I could make it through the cross fit workout without carb loading ahead of time (the oatmeal mix is probably about 500-600 calories). I eat to fuel every day every 3 hours. I have been maintaining my ideal weight with an athletic body fat for about 8 months.

By "off" day, I really mean rest day. Typically I take 2 rest days a week and follow a 3 days on and 1 day off pattern. Sometimes this is Thursday and Sunday. Sometimes this is Saturday and Sunday. I have done this more out of principle then out of necessity. I typically never feel overly fatigued from my workouts the next day even though they are intense (it's cross fit!!) and most days involve either power or Olympic lifting for either heavy weight or high rep for different muscle groups. Feeling good is probably because I am pretty smart about supplements that help with endurance and recovery as well as long mobility / stretching sessions before and after the daily workouts. My question is that if your body feels good, should one be able to forgo a rest day or is the accumulative effect of losing a rest day no good? What is your philosophy?

Yes, I have had this exact same experience during the few surgeries endured so far. It is like hibernation on a computer - everything freezes in a state until the computer is woken up from hibernation. No sense of time passing. It is like anesthesia puts your consciousness into hibernation mode. Everything just freezes, yet you still breath and your heart still pumps. It is a fascinating process.

Great! You might find a meal of good carbs before doing these cross fit type workouts will help you with sustained energy during your workout. Every day I make this huge bowl of steel oats that is mixed with a scoop of my protein powder and 1/2 cup fiber one 2 hours before working out. Works great for sustained energy during the 1-2 hours of busting it out. A good whey protein drink afterwards along with Glutamine, as part of a BCAA stack, will help your body recover faster and stay out of a catabolic state. Keep drinking a lot of water (in liters) all day to flush out the toxins generated during your daily intense work out.

Every time I click next page button from first page in personal messages the BP app will hard crash. This bug is 100% reproducible, at least with my account.

My challenge for this month is to do 50 unbroken pull ups in a set . I did 100 in sets of 10 yesterday, each set unbroken. Slowly working towards my goal. Started out this month being able to do 5 in a row and would burn out after 4-5 sets. So making some progress. Long ways to go. Good luck everyone in reaching your goals for the month.

Birthing machine...lol. I think you are talking about the leg press machine. I always enjoyed that machine also.

Increasing your calories will "turn" off the weight loss. The weight loss ends when you have found a good number of calories to eat daily that will neither cause you to lose or gain weight within a range of course. Most vets will have a 3-5 lb bounce range and try to stay in that window. The number of calories you eat depends on your activity level, your BMR, etc.

OK - had my first rheumatology appointment this week. I did a DEXA scan to check bone density and also an xray of SI joints. DEXA scan came back fine indicating I have normal bone density for a guy my age and height. However, the SI joint xrays indicated wear and tear along with arthritis and inflammation. What does this mean? I am going to do blood work at the end of this week and they are going to give me an update after reviewing the labs. They still do not know why I have bone spurs and deteriorization in the spine. Some things that help my is wearing a special shirt that corrects my posture. I wear it all-the-time and the back and neck pain I have been experiencing in the last year disappears. Still need to figure out what an inflamed SI joint is and how that relates to the spine issues. Anyone know? I am 37 male so a little strange to have these issues.

I did a lot of pull ups today. 100 of them in sets of 10. What helped me prepare and get better at them is watching a 2 part video on you tube called " pull up virtuosity" in addition to the video I posted above. It clicked for me. Getting the kip right requires careful balance of tension in the body and the "power" comes from the transfer of energy when switching from "arch" form to "hollow body" form and then pulling at the precise moment when the transfer of power occurs. So this made my pull ups match easier today. It is also important to keep swinging to a minimum and head / trunk in neutral position. Do not pull your chest up or crank you head back as that changes the shoulder mechanics quite a bit (see video I posted above). I have a few new blisters. I have lathered my hands up with a product called "winnies rip fix" so I can be back practicing the pull ups on Friday. This stuff heals your hands really fast (better then "new skin" or neosporin). Next goal 15 in a row.

Muscle spasms sometimes occur when there is an imbalance between calcium and magnesium in the muscle cells. Magnesium causes cells in muscles to relax and calcium causes them to contract. This is especially important for the continual pumping of the heart. However, If there is too much calcium in your muscle cells, they will continually contract and spasm. If there is too much magnesium, then you blood pressure may drop too much. Heavy exercise can cause the imbalance (my case), but so can a lot of others things like dehydration. The muscles function best when there is a 2:1 ratio between calcium and magnesium. Since we take 500 m of calcium 3 x a day, you will want to counter with 250 mg of magnesium for every 500 mg of calcium. You may be able to source magnesium from food. I cannot so I take a magnesium supplement daily in the 2:1 ratio. The spasms I used to get are gone. Magnesium has many other health benefits, but the best one is relaxing the muscles. The best product I have found for sourcing magnesium is called Natural Calm. It comes in a few flavors, but I like the raspberry lemonade. I usually split the recommended daily dose over breakfast time and bed time. I do not find it makes me sleepy during the day, but the relaxed muscles may help you sleep better at night.

Popcorn - it is just not worth the empty calories and is too much of a slider food. I did have some popcorn at around 6 months out (a small at the theatre) and found it was way too easy to eat. If you are looking for something crunchy that will also benefit you, try some fiber one. It has a high percentage of daily fiber for 1/2 cup and is relatively low in calories.

How about just do cross fit WOD daily? Works great. A lot of the cross fit WOD can be done with just a pull up bar, a good pair of running shoes, a barbell with weights, a heavy kettle bell, a wall ball and a rower. If you only have, say, a barbell, you can go to town on thrusters, back squats, front squats, power cleans, clean and jerks, push presses, sn@tches, dead lifts, etc. If you do not have access to any equipment (which i think is NOT your case), there are an unlimited number of body weight exercise you can pull from to build a WOD (burpee variations, jacks, push ups, etc). Cross fit.com posts a daily WOD or maybe your cross fit friend can help out with some WODs (do keep them changing every day). Glad you found something that works for you.

Those doing the pull up challenge may find the following video on pull up mechanics useful:

Glad to help. It does take a bit of effort to find that magic balance point considering all the variables. Lots and lots of trial and error as none of the metrics (TDEE, BMI,etc) are specific enough to your set of circumstances, especially if you are active. And you need to adapt as your body mechanics are not a static fixture. I am finding my weight will creep and fall even though I seemingly and eating the same, drinking the same amount of Water, sleeping the same and exercising the same. By same I mean within a range of expected guidelines I have set for myself. The body is truly a dynamic system that requires constant adjustments based upon periodic measurements.

BBQ is definitely in your future. I would almost claim that a BBQ restaraunt is as close to sleeve friendly as you can get considering how protein rich the options are. We like going to BBQ post op and like to order pulled pork, beef brisket or chicken by the oz. We make it a point to discover and try new BBQ joints, but our favorite has to be Famous Dave's. If they put the meat on white bread, just skip eating it. Avoid corn bread. Choose a side that is going to be healthy like steamed brocolli instead of baked beans. Think low GI. I like trying different sauces, especially the spicier ones. Just be aware how much you are eating. Finally, consider how far post op you are and the toughness or density of the meat. I could not really handle brisket until after month 6, but could so pulled pork before then. Have fun exploring all the different BBQ options!

How has this challenge been going for folks? I have not been making as much progress as I would like, about 2 days a week I try and do some pull-ups. If they are not prescribed as part of a workout, I fit them in before (too tired afterwards). Sadly, I am still at about the same progress: 6 unbroken pull-ups. I would like to get over 10 soon (in 2 weeks) and have my eye on 20 after that. Practice, practice, practice!

A little tender today, but definitely manageable during my workout.

Globe - thanks for your advice. You are right, I do not think I do enough band stretching specially for opening up hips. However, I think this injury is not related to opening up hips. It is related to incorrectly mashing my left hip bursa sack. Fortunately, it is starting to feel better today. I have a lot of sprinting, wall balls and dead lifts to do today (later this afternoon) so do not need my hips holding me back.