Fiddleman

Long term severe reduction of calories will kill your metabolism. No way around it. The body will adapt to whatever is required to maintain homeostasis. If you eat 500 calories all the time for the remainder of your life, your body will reward you with burning fewer calories and down regulating the efficiency of your metabolism. Homeostasis for your body will become 500 calories a day and this is not enough long term. For the masses, this is packaged up nicely as"starvation mode." Everything needs a nice label right so it is easier to discuss, no? In reality, your body is the most complex system ever conceived that is constantly balancing itself through complex anatomy of interactions controlled by hormonal communications. Calories in versus calories out is the most basic way to think about reduction of body fat, but oversimplification is prone to fallacy when trying to precisely control desired outcome. Considering the hormonal responses in the body, you really need to be thinking about the impact of nutrition and supplementation on hormonal communication, a very deep dissertation not to be taken lightly. Understanding and addressing the hormonal imbalances in the body through delicate attention to nutrition is going to be 90% of the effort in eliminating stored fat. Also important is to reduce the overall inflammation in the body by eating foods that increase the pH levels (eg reduce acidic levels) at the cellular level. Fortunately, the initial post op diet of high protein and low carb has much of these characteristics built in. It is important to determine an approach to balanced eating after the initial post op diet to create the ideal metabolic response. Might I suggest researching topics that simplify control of the hormonal responses like eating low glycemic foods, intermediate fasting (5:2 diet is a form of IF) and eating glutton free foods. For me, a paleo diet has created an ideal metabolic response in the body after the initial 6 months. As for a plan to increase daily caloric load to minimize entering into "starvation mode, " you might consider: Month 1: 300-500 Month 2-3: 400-700 Month 4-6: 600-900 Month 7-8: 900-1100 Month 9-12: 1200-1600 Post 12 months: 2000 Slowly increase calories over the months to reset homeostasis in the body every couple months to a higher daily caloric load. You want the body to get used to eating 1600-2000 calories a day long term where you are neither gaining or losing weight. This assumes a standard amount of physical activity. The calories may need to be higher to fuel more intense physical activities. All in all, remember that nutrition is going to have a far greater impact on body composition then physical activity. These are just my thoughts on the subject.

It was an incredible movie experience that transforms all expectations one has about the emotional responses a movie can trigger. Total immersion. The last movie that did this for me was Avatar. Sorry, I can not give you a synopsis as not wanting to ruin it for others before they have a chance to see it. Definitely go see it in IMAX 3d if you can.

It was an incredible movie experience that transforms all expectations one has about the emotional responses a movie can trigger. Total immersion. The last movie that did this for me was Avatar. Sorry, I can not give you a synopsis as not wanting to ruin it for others before they have a chance to see it. Definitely go see it in IMAX 3d if you can.

Fringe was pretty cool to watch on Netflix. I also liked house of cards.

Fringe was pretty cool to watch on Netflix. I also liked house of cards.

My wife are about to watch the gravity movie, in 3d imax, and we were talking about good movie munchies we could eat that would be vsg friendly, maybe. We talked about taking a cookie dough Quest bar, breaking it up in small pieces, rolling those balls into melted SF 80% cacao. It would be a very thin layer of really dark SF chocolate. Yeah, SF Protein chocolate chip cookie dough theatre munchies!! A winner? Side disclosure: I used to buy the boxed cookie dough munches (and butter finger bites) at the concession stand in past life.

My wife are about to watch the gravity movie, in 3d imax, and we were talking about good movie munchies we could eat that would be vsg friendly, maybe. We talked about taking a cookie dough Quest bar, breaking it up in small pieces, rolling those balls into melted SF 80% cacao. It would be a very thin layer of really dark SF chocolate. Yeah, SF Protein chocolate chip cookie dough theatre munchies!! A winner? Side disclosure: I used to buy the boxed cookie dough munches (and butter finger bites) at the concession stand in past life.

Even more impressive!!

Even more impressive!!

You ain't seen nothing until big country and pokey chick banter about gravy and bisquits.... Oh the horrors. Lol.

You ain't seen nothing until big country and pokey chick banter about gravy and bisquits.... Oh the horrors. Lol.

Wow, you are so precise, down to a 10th of a mile.

Wow, you are so precise, down to a 10th of a mile.

At 4 weeks, I was eating canned salmon, small amount of scrambled eggs and protein shakes. The scrambled eggs were still hard to eat even in 2 ounce quantity. If you like salmon, the canned wild salmon is good where you can scoop out 1-2 ounces. I think I was still mostly a shake-aholic back then with the occasional tomato protein soup thrown in when needing a break from shakes.

It was from a package of pre cooked roasted beets from costco. I surprised myself this morning in preparing this. I am no chef and definitely no aspirations to be one. My wife wears the chef hat in the house. However, I found myself wanting to prepare it this morning instead of the usual quick lean Protein (eg chicken) grab. Watch out. I could give the chefs on "the chew" show some competition.

I started out eating about 20-30 g carb for first 5 months and then increased it to 50-100 once starting to run daily between month 5 and 7. After that I stopped counting carbs because of my fitness routine. However, do know the carbs I eat now are complex variety and are still controlled in the sense I only get carbs if I am planning on eating them with a meal (I have had the occasional carb slipup, but it is short lived). I would say my diet is still "low carb" because if you are an athlete or lifter, you should be eating massive amounts of carbs. I do not. Nor do I eat bread, fruit or dairy. Carbs come from veggies and grain food like steel cut oats and quinoa. Also want to add that I was a huge fan of the Atkins diet. Lost 100 lbs on it without much struggle back in 2005. I think my body is made to get by with low carb. Atkins is super if you can successfully transition into long term. Unfortunately, I could not and dived off the deep end when the weight dropped, just because I could, without seeing immediate increases on the scale, until it was too late. That is what I love about the whole vsg process. It teaches you life habits during the honeymoon phase so you don't dive off the deep end when passing out of the honeymoon phase. That is key. Take advantage of when you cannot eat much and cannot eat bad food to put a life plan of good nutrition in place. Fitness will follow after the weight begins to drop.