Fiddleman

I am about 80% open about the VSG surgery. All friends, family members and those in the medical industry will get complete honesty and, in fact, will get to hear about the glorious benefits of it. I still have not told work about it nor have I seen but one coworker since having VSG ( told her about my exercise and diet which is completely honest, just did not bring up surgery). I am not sure I will ever bring it up with my work sphere of people. What do others think about this?

Thanks Kristie! You inspire me as well. I cannot begin to count all the others of VST that are inspiring! Everyone, keep posting and coming back!

Susan- thanks! I am happy to hear that I am not alone in having to take PPI so far out.

Serenity - Thanks for your support. That is very interesting that you have explained a correlation between acid reflex and wheat. I have not heard of that before. Everyone will have their own diet variation post op ( mine, for example, has always been lacking any and all bread) so it is helpful to hear about "problem areas" based on different post op diet experiences. Thanks for sharing.

Hi all. I am still taking my daily PPI without fail daily at 1 year out. It is just 1 a day every morning with my other daily supplements. I am aware that we should not be needing to tak this any longer, but I still get some burn feeling on occasion in my throat after eating spicy foods. How does on stop taking the PPI? One less pill would be kind of nice, but not really a blocker for me. My PPI is 20 mg Omeprazole.

Not sure if these people mean it when they say they hate exercising. I love working out for short periods of intensity of about 20-30 min ( not including warmup, cool down). I used to love running earlier in the year for miles and miles. It was great and I enjoyed 2-3 10 k a week, but it was a muscle eater for me. Now I really enjoy cross fop it and body weight workouts at home. I still do run, but only as a warmup of 1-2 miles. They key is to find something you love and make sure it helps you achieve your short term or long term goals. However, be ready for change as you listen to what your body needs. Long cardio is not what my body needs at this time.

Here is what dropping 180 from 360 looks like from a couple months ago: I am 5'11". I have increased my lean muscle percentage since the after picture while maintaining about the same weight of 180 lb. Good luck pre ops! All is possible.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article, but just do not agree with the closing statements of dirty versus clean dieting being irrelevant to changing body composition. What is the author smoking? Otherwise, I found myself in agreement with a vast majority of it and even picked up a few very good ideas for improving strength while in a calorie deficit.

I agree with Amazon that 600-800 calories is a good target for calories by the time you are at month 2. Low carb and high protein is going to help you achieve the fastest and most consistent weight loss month over month. Be really careful about the type of carbs you do eat making sure they are low on the glycemic index. As for counts, a good goal Is to eat no less then 80 G protein a day and no more then 30-50 g carb a day. You will need to get your required nutrients from vitamins so do make sure you are taking a good one with 200% RDA on everything along with calcium, fish oil, vitamin d and b vitamins. Do keep in mind that around month 5 or 6 you re going to want to transition into eating more calories, slowly working up to TDEE - 300 for your height, weight and activity levels. It will take a few months of slow adjustment to reprogram your BMR after eating 600-800 calories a day for months so it is best not to rush it. That is my advise from one VSG post op to another.

Recently caffeine has been giving me stomach pains. Not sure why now. Beef seems to sit heavy in my stomach recently also and leaves me feeling a little unsettled. Has anyone lose got a feeling like kicked or punched in the stomach after eating something that used to be fine previously? Not that I have ever really been kicked or punched, but I am guessing that is close to what the feeling is like. I hope this is just a phase.

Laura- have you had Fiber One cereal before? I used to love their cereal in the morning every morning day in and day out. It was so good. If you like the original flavor it has a very good amount of fiber (57%) and calories are reasonable. It is very filling and good for the daily BM too, without fail.

Another good week on the transformation plan. I am down to 180 lb this morning and really like my efficient workout plan during the week. It does not seem like a lot of work. Dropping about 2-3 lbs a week on average. Yet increasing my strength and lean muscle. 180 is my ideal body weight for my height. Tuesdays and Thursdays are Cross fit with my PT for 60 minutes. Usually 10 minutes warmup, 15 minute strength and technique, 20 minutes for WOD and the remainder for cooling down. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are "you are your own gym" body weight strength training. Again 20 minutes of warmup, 20 minutes of body weight exercises and 20 minutes of cool down and flexibility. Warmup for me is usually about 12 minutes of 6.6 mph running, some quick reps of heavy dumbbell dead lifts, a cross fit like warmup of dynamic planks, sumo squats, jumping jacks, lunges and sit-ups and then special full body stretches to prepare for "you are your own gym" workout. I am transitioning into intermediate level next week and then will transition into advanced in about 3 weeks after that. I am thinking about getting into yin hot yoga this next week as a way to gain flexibility and mobility. However, the hot yoga power flow vinyasa sounds intriguing as well in 105 degrees. And I thought I am a good producer of sweat Already. Lol. Probably only 1 night a week of this, maybe 2. The 20 minutes of balls-to-the-wall intense full body compound body strength exercises from all workouts are very effective. Short enough that I do not feel like I am bored. Really focused. Let me tell you, when I am done my strength feels zapped. Totally fatigued not from muscle soreness necessarily, but from lack of energy ( fatigued?) . It is like I can feel energy leaving my body rather then feeling energized. From only 20 minutes?? Feels like army boot camp. correction: special ops boot camp. I do eat 40 g recovery Protein shake afterwards and some energy squares to replenish carbs. I eat about 2 hours before working out. It takes about 20 minutes before my energy starts returning and my drained feeling goes away. As stated before, I eat a lot (paleo style) during the day to keep the transformation moving along towards fitness goals. We are over 1/2 way through the program. I really like the transformation results so far in terms of physical and mental strength. Totally unrelated but I got my annual performance review back today and got "Exceeds expectation" on my first year with them. This is a big deal in a huge corporate company (105000 employees) where there is only a certain number of points to go around in each division. Crossing my fingers that this turns into something tangible. The focus i have gained from working out hard has helped me have good performance at work. Hope everyone else is having a good time on their transformation.

Wow. I think I have a new fitness goal.

Heather - I know it may be hard to believe, but the surgery gives you the tool needed to literally get past that fail point that we all often hit over our diet filled lives. I hit them hard and often too, but what I needed was a complete reset. I needed to change my relationship with food, fitness and people before it was too late. Surgery provided that and then gave me the time to adequately change my relationship with food, people, fitness, and more importantly, myself. I hope this offers some glimpse of hope.

Space dust - good luck on your upcoming surgery. I know you have been preparing for a long time and it must be really exciting to have the date so close.

Have fun!

Ah0505- I did not find any bands in my home gym area. I could have sworn I had some. Instead, I used my wife as a prop. First she made sure my leg was straight as i lay on my back- and slowly raised it until the intensity was enough. We are going to work at this stretch after my at home workout as that would be best in terms of warmed up hammies. I see a limber future ahead!

Louise - i went and checked out the hot yoga facility yesterday as an information gathering exercise. It looks fairly enticing. Timing is excellent as they offer a lot of their classes at 6:30 pm or later. It is a 10 minute drive from my house. I liked the facility as it was really clean and has very fashionable interior design. The monthly dues are kind of high so that would be the only negative. However, it is less then the other yoga studio i attended a couple months ago due to grand opening. I do not see myself going every day. In fact, I would probably go only 1-2 days a week, max 3 days a week. For this reason, it might be better to purchase a set of classes rather then paying a monthly due for unlimited access. What do you think ? I like their mission statement (on the home page of the link below): http://sparkhotyogastudio.com/index.php

Question for all of you: Would 5:2 diet be a good way of eating even if I do not have any scale weight to lose? One of my present goals is to lean out more for increasing lean muscle body composition. however, i do not wish to drop any scale weight beyond maybe 5 pounds. I want to be fairly honest about one thing. I eat all the time. Every hour or two I try to eat some lean Protein in order to feed the dietary needs of muscle (.92 * 180 ideal weight = 170 g a day). My current weight is 180 and I have good body fat composition of 15%. However, I am always on the look out for trying better and more efficient approaches to maintaining health through diet and efficient fitness. Not eating much on two days would Los help my budget as eating lean protein and drinking shakes is expensive. I could not imagine *not* eating for long periods of time. As stated above and in other threads i really do try and eat TDEE - 300. However, I do end up falling short due to most of my diet consisting of lean protein through meat or supplementation. It is a Paleo diet that works fairly well for me. Would this fasting 2 days a week actually benefit my fitness goals and also promote even better health? I am not a gym rat ( not for me), but do put in 20 minutes or so a day of hard core fitness exercises at home with 20 minutes on both ends to warm up and cool down in addition to 2 cross fit sessions a week (also has roughly a 20, 20, 20 timing structure). How would there be energy to be active on those fasting days? I primarily do body weight fitness exercises now which is very intense, yet extremely effective in terms of time management. Appreciate any insight you have as the non scale health benefits of 5:2 you all talked about in the last few days sounds intriguing.

How was the c25k today Laura? Besides being almost impossible. Is it getting easier? Is breathing improving? Less sore?

Hey BTB - that is a pretty clever ( correction: really clever) approach to reusing the structure of c25k as a running vet who can already run 5 k, 10 k and 1/2.