Fiddleman

I carried a lot of weight in my stomach area before getting sleeved. By eating a low carb diet for post op, I believe that losing the visceral fat around my stomach was much easier. I did not eat any carbs that were not already part of my high Protein diet except for carbs found in the light soy milk I drink. Everyone is certainly free to eat in the manner that suits them, but I have found eating between 20-30 carbs a day, perhaps less, has really helped. Keep in mind I eat a fairly restricted diet that might not be suitable for everyone.

I am liking the feedback from my polar hr monitor. For example, today I did my usual Tuesday sprint workout:
10 min @ 6.2 mph (warm up)
10 min @ 11.5 mph 3% grade (30 s sprints)
10 min @ 6.5 mph (cool down)
By the 3rd minute (3rd sprint), my top hr was 157 and my recovery hr was 148 (delta is widening after just a few sprint workouts - yeah!). I thought to myself, "anything below 160 is dogging it" so I bumped the speed up .3 mph and the incline up .5. The next sprint saw max hr @ 163. I played this little game of tweaking the treadmill settings or just pushing myself a little bit more until I got the top hr up to 168. It is a useful training tool. Let me tell you, that 10 minute cool down felt so slow after the sprints. All in all, I love my little hr watch for how it can help me not dog it even when I feel like j am putting in my best effort.

I too struggle with inflammation at 16 months out.
I am by no means dismissing the advice of others on this thread; rather, I would like you to consider a deficiency in nutrition that might be leading to abnormal levels on inflammation.
While I am a younger guy ( 38 ), I think many of the same remedies may help you. Consider adding 1 tsp of high quality fish oil to your diet and also to target foods in your diet that are anti-inflammatory in nature. If I forget to take the fish oil, everything from my shoulders to hip will start aching. Some of this aching may have to do with the fact I am in Cross fit, but again, fish oil really does help. The more pure it is, the better. Make sure it is molecularly distilled and has high concentrations of EPA and DHA per 1 tsp. The brand I use is called stronger, faster, healthier and has 3100 mg per 5 g of liquid (5 g in a tsp). I take 5 g when I get up and 5 g when I go to bed if really bad. Normally, I just take 1 tsp a day to keep on top or ahead of inflammation.
As for anti-inflammatory foods, consider the following resource:
http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20705881,00.html Notice fatty fish is #1 in the list.
I make it a point of eating these foods in my paleo diet plan, especially fish, dark leafy greens, beets, garlic, onions and coffee. I do not eat low fat dairy or the fruit suggestions as they are not part of my nutrition plan.
For when inflammation gets particularly bad, I have my choices of meds from proxicam to voltaren gel. However, I do try and address inflammation with diet first before turning to the meds.
Hope this helps.

You will never get the first 6 months after surgery back. Take advantage of the most restriction and lowest hunger levels you will have to maximize your weight loss.

Trying to wrap my mind around this. You eat 1100 calories of good food (not carby or starchy), exercise and still regain 50#? What kind of exercise plan do you have going? Is your sleep good? Do you drink lots of Water and keep alcohol to a min? Is it true you are eating smaller meals over that 1100 calories or not? I did not get that out of the thread unless I overlooked it. Small to me means 200-300 calories at a time which means 4-5 oz Protein and perhaps 1-2 oz of veggie. What are your overall macros? Something like 50/30/20 (protein, carb, fat) or 40/30/30 or something else? If you are doing these things then Yikes. That is a scary scenario. Have you considered increasing calories? 500 below your targeted tdee will mean weight loss, but 1000 (or more) below will mean "starvation mode" and metabolic issues long term. Most of the time metabolic issues can be fixed by making calculated changes to diet, exercise and lifestyle - without something like a revision. Hormones need to be brought back into balance for proper metabolic response. I do hope you can find resolution.

I am liking the feedback from my polar hr monitor. For example, today I did my usual Tuesday sprint workout:
10 min @ 6.2 mph (warm up)
10 min @ 11.5 mph 3% grade (30 s sprints)
10 min @ 6.5 mph (cool down)
By the 3rd minute (3rd sprint), my top hr was 157 and my recovery hr was 148 (delta is widening after just a few sprint workouts - yeah!). I thought to myself, "anything below 160 is dogging it" so I bumped the speed up .3 mph and the incline up .5. The next sprint saw max hr @ 163. I played this little game of tweaking the treadmill settings or just pushing myself a little bit more until I got the top hr up to 168. It is a useful training tool. Let me tell you, that 10 minute cool down felt so slow after the sprints. All in all, I love my little hr watch for how it can help me not dog it even when I feel like j am putting in my best effort.

Great thread! I never really cared much about heart rate and tracking until recently and in fact just ordered a TomTom Multisport Cardio GPS watch today. I look forward to trying it out as well as stepping up the game on my training and such! Hopefully in a few weeks I will be able to add some real value to this thread with my own personal findings.

@@Fiddleman
Here was what mine showed today. I specifically wanted to run a progressive (HR) 10k focusing on % of max today. 75-85%, which is 140-160 for me. It was hot/humid and I'm slow: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/518110812

For me, long term success is definitely weighted on the side of healthy habits. It has to be. From a macro perspective, I believe this is how WLS is designed to work. It gives an individual 6 months of help where healthy habits can be formed. After 6 months, not so much. It becomes easier to eat larger portions, even those that are focused on the so called dense Proteins. If you figure out the good habits over the first 6 months, then it will not matter when restriction lessens or, in worse case, goes away completely.

I cannot agree with the others above more : exercise is a great anti depressant. From experience, I have taken my fair share of mood leveling antidepressants in the past (when obese), but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, feels better than finishing an exercise session. Endorphins are flowing, giving you a positive burst of energy for at least the rest of the day. And it gives you motivation to take another step in the right direction; make another change. Success is one small change at a time. You have done well so far and, yes, I do remember you from the beginning with all your knowledgable posts. Keep up your successes!

Bending bullets. Lol
220 minus your age is typically your cap HR. When you are fit enough going above it for short bursts is not bad but can be if held for extended periods. A problem I have, I have no issues pushing slightly above my max. When I am doing my workouts for time I won't wear my HRM so I don't know and can't look. Might slow down if I do, can't have that.

Trying to wrap my mind around this. You eat 1100 calories of good food (not carby or starchy), exercise and still regain 50#? What kind of exercise plan do you have going? Is your sleep good? Do you drink lots of Water and keep alcohol to a min? Is it true you are eating smaller meals over that 1100 calories or not? I did not get that out of the thread unless I overlooked it. Small to me means 200-300 calories at a time which means 4-5 oz Protein and perhaps 1-2 oz of veggie. What are your overall macros? Something like 50/30/20 (protein, carb, fat) or 40/30/30 or something else? If you are doing these things then Yikes. That is a scary scenario. Have you considered increasing calories? 500 below your targeted tdee will mean weight loss, but 1000 (or more) below will mean "starvation mode" and metabolic issues long term. Most of the time metabolic issues can be fixed by making calculated changes to diet, exercise and lifestyle - without something like a revision. Hormones need to be brought back into balance for proper metabolic response. I do hope you can find resolution.

I have read over and over about the need to eat carbohydrates with the Protein or your body cannot process protein well. It will not matter how much protein you eat (e.g. >300 g). Without a 2:1 or 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein, it will be wasteful. I like to eat about 60g of good carb with 30 g whey protein for first meal and 80-100 g of fast burning carb with 25 g protein post workout (around 5 pm). Minimal carbs for the rest of the day. 50 % protein, 30% carb and 20% fat has worked out really well for me and is very manageable spread out over 1800 calories. I eat a total of about 255 G protein a day on strength days, a little less on cardio days. It has been working well in terms of building up muscle. And of course you have to give your muscles a reason to eat, so push the Iron hard in your program. For the last 3 months, I have been doing p90x and that is a superb well rounded program to body build, as long as you bring the challenge. I am now going into more of a functional body weight program for a couple months, to give myself a change from isolation based exercises of p90x. It is called EFX by Mark Lauren -superb! Also check out "you are your own gym" by the same guy. I never get tired of those workouts. They are short (20-25 min), but really effective for building a strong athletic body. Functional over isolation may be what you are looking for to build a balanced muscular body for 3 days of strength training a week. As for cardio, I am doing fat zone cardio on my 3 strength days and a combination of high intensity / medium intensity on my 3 cardio days. One rest day.

That was my thought too about buffets until my wife convinced me to think differently about buffets. The automatic conclusion for most is that eating at a buffet equates to stuffing yourself to the gills in order to "get your money's worth." That is definitely the way I used to think about buffets. Now I think of a buffet to take a little of the best Entrees, skipping over ones that are not that appealing or do not offer much in nutrition density. In this manner, you can still eat a bunch of different foods, but you will neither violate your WLS way of eating (for me, 4-5 oz food) or waste money. The reason I state money is not wasted because your plate will contain high quality food that meets or exceeds the value of the buffet (for this discussion, let's say the buffet price is $7.99). You do not even need to finish the contents on your plate. Just eat until satisfied, eating the Protein first. We do this approach with Indian buffets, focusing on the inclusion of high quality, high value foods like chicken tika or chicken Marsala. Indian food is delicious and we can eat at a lunch buffet with this strategy.

That was my thought too about buffets until my wife convinced me to think differently about buffets. The automatic conclusion for most is that eating at a buffet equates to stuffing yourself to the gills in order to "get your money's worth." That is definitely the way I used to think about buffets. Now I think of a buffet to take a little of the best Entrees, skipping over ones that are not that appealing or do not offer much in nutrition density. In this manner, you can still eat a bunch of different foods, but you will neither violate your WLS way of eating (for me, 4-5 oz food) or waste money. The reason I state money is not wasted because your plate will contain high quality food that meets or exceeds the value of the buffet (for this discussion, let's say the buffet price is $7.99). You do not even need to finish the contents on your plate. Just eat until satisfied, eating the Protein first. We do this approach with Indian buffets, focusing on the inclusion of high quality, high value foods like chicken tika or chicken Marsala. Indian food is delicious and we can eat at a lunch buffet with this strategy.

I sometimes miss the memory of certain dessert foods like cold stone, top food donuts, cheese cake factory chris' crazy cheese cake, etc. Do I really want them? Not really. They are just memories of what I used to enjoy 2+ years back. If you have been on this bandwagon for a long period, you will find cravings are not there. Just memories. And even those have faded with the passage of time. The more we practice healthy lifestyle, the more our body craves that.

Sprinting is known to really increase the T for leaner, stronger and more fit bodies, so I thought, why not. Strapped on my hr sensor and put on my polar watch.
Resting hr: 55
5 minute dynamic stretch (up to 95)
5 min warmup @ 6.0 mph (up to 125)
For 10 minutes (got treadmill up to speed before starting)
Jump on
Sprint 30 @ 12.5 mph and 3 incline (up to 161)
Jump off
Rest for 30 s -- (down to 155)
5 min cool down jog (down to 99)
Static stretch ( down to 75)
As you can see, I just barely went anaerobic (160 is bottom of my anaerobic zone) during the sprinting which means I need to increase the incline a tad. Speed is already booking. By sprint 8, quads were feeling the burn. But hey, we can do anything for 30 seconds. The interesting part is my hr did not drop below 155 even when resting for 30 s. Man oh man. It went by so fast (5 minutes) , yet gave me a REALLY good fast and furious cardio day. And because sprinting really requires you to be focused (especially on a treadmill), no boredom. It is over before you know it.
There are many articles correlating sprinting with higher levels of T. Kind of like cross fit where workouts usually max out at 20 minutes, but are oh-so-intense, pushing you into that magical anaerobic zone.
Don't just take my word for it.
Here are a couple articles:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/353949-sprinting-testosterone/
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/8-hacks-to-naturally-increase-your-testosterone-levels.html
And my personal favorite by mike Mathews (great guy and great resource for thinking outside the box on body building and fitness in general):
http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-increase-testosterone/
Less work for greater benefits? That's an A in my book. Try it out.

It is a bit unfortunate when the thought of needing "to be vigilant for the rest of our lives" sinks in.
Being almost two years post op, these thoughts are starting to permeate my thoughts. Sure I can say no to certain food now and make every attempt to exercise daily, but, man, it is going to be a lot of work, a futile rat race that can never be won. If you want to metaphorically talk about this, it feels like doing laundry or cleaning dishes every day. It is not something that is particularly enjoyable forever (unless you get a kick out of doing these chores; I do not), when repeated over and over again.
Does it really need to be this way?
I know we are stuck with our individual genes, have certain metabolisms and have a set number of fat and muscle cells. Just as one cannot turn Water into gold (well, earthquakes can but you get my drift),we can not turn fats cells into muscle cells. Or can we? My google research indicates we cannot, but I would love to be told otherwise. I guess we struggled with being overweight before because we have more fat cells than muscle cells and those fat cells are just waiting " on call " to be refilled. I think CGJ mentioned that we can remove fat cells through plastics, but not all of us can afford plastics nor want to go through with the surgery.
Carb blockers, fat blockers, magic pills? I jest a little, but deep down I wish there was a way to finish the proverbial load of Laundry and be done with it. Forever. I am in a good place today in terms of bmi weight, low bf %, etc, but I kid you not: it is a lot of mental and physical work. Daily. Some times I just want to have that bar cookie or brownie, dammit, but I do not want the few days it takes to steer my body back in the right direction. The few minutes of sweet endorphin pleasure is not worth the days of course correction. Also, I want to be able to eat a nice dessert without thinking that the body is going to puff up or rage after being deprived for a while. My body is just not nice to me in terms of giving me free passes on pleasure food (read: sugar). I have to be vigilant. Sigh, no easy answers.
Let me know your thoughts if you have been through this mental stage as a vet or maintainer. I know it is just a phase, but it bothers me nonetheless.

Someone suggest a love this button. Great job as always Fiddleman!!
Btw ... just so you know ... for most women, whether or not you have T in the body is not as important as $$$ in the bank. LOL I couldn't resist!

Sprinting is known to really increase the T for leaner, stronger and more fit bodies, so I thought, why not. Strapped on my hr sensor and put on my polar watch.
Resting hr: 55
5 minute dynamic stretch (up to 95)
5 min warmup @ 6.0 mph (up to 125)
For 10 minutes (got treadmill up to speed before starting)
Jump on
Sprint 30 @ 12.5 mph and 3 incline (up to 161)
Jump off
Rest for 30 s -- (down to 155)
5 min cool down jog (down to 99)
Static stretch ( down to 75)
As you can see, I just barely went anaerobic (160 is bottom of my anaerobic zone) during the sprinting which means I need to increase the incline a tad. Speed is already booking. By sprint 8, quads were feeling the burn. But hey, we can do anything for 30 seconds. The interesting part is my hr did not drop below 155 even when resting for 30 s. Man oh man. It went by so fast (5 minutes) , yet gave me a REALLY good fast and furious cardio day. And because sprinting really requires you to be focused (especially on a treadmill), no boredom. It is over before you know it.
There are many articles correlating sprinting with higher levels of T. Kind of like cross fit where workouts usually max out at 20 minutes, but are oh-so-intense, pushing you into that magical anaerobic zone.
Don't just take my word for it.
Here are a couple articles:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/353949-sprinting-testosterone/
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/8-hacks-to-naturally-increase-your-testosterone-levels.html
And my personal favorite by mike Mathews (great guy and great resource for thinking outside the box on body building and fitness in general):
http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-increase-testosterone/
Less work for greater benefits? That's an A in my book. Try it out.

Well, the guy makes snide remarks about men too, I think that is just his style.
What I took issue with is the presumption that all women workout for the same reason - to look hot for guys. While that may be MY motivation I am sure there are a few women who work out to feel good, improve their health, get stronger, lose weight, improve their aerobic conditioning, live longer, remain more mobile and limber, meet athletic goals like running marathons etc.
So, he used the example of how awful runners look, which is bull because I happen to find a lean, long muscled look very attractive. To say that runners have high body fat is also kinda a nutty remark really. He also leaves out the genetic component of results. I always thought I must be strong because i have visible muscles - nope - turns out my genetics gives me that defined muscle look from working out and doesn't mean I am fitter or do a better job of working out then the next woman making mistakes at the gym...
I do agree that many people don't have a clue when they work out though and therefore don't get great results. I have made the mistakes of following alot of general guidelines that didn't really pay off that well.
My uninformed opinion, based on my personal results only - the best results are garnished from a combination of high intensity interval training and doing workouts that use your own body weight as resistance like TRX, boot camp style (or crossfit style) type stuff as long as you don't kill yourself in the process. Long duration exercise gets you other benefits, but shorter duration high intensity helped me lose weight and at least appear more tones.
Yeah, my bodyfat % is still about 27%, higher than I prefer but well within the range of normal for a 49 year old woman who used to be morbidly obese.

T25 is a great program as are the other beach body programs (p90x, p90x2, p90x3 and insanity). Definitely dive into t25 if you have the dedication for it (think it is 5 days a week). The good part is it is only 25 min a day. Do make sure you have good knees as there will be a lot of jumping. You might also consider cross fit, "you are your own gym" DVD. Anything that is really intense will work to get those last pounds off. You will probably find yourself eating more calories, more Protein and more carbs. No worries; it will be needed to get through the intensity. Good luck!

T25 is a great program as are the other beach body programs (p90x, p90x2, p90x3 and insanity). Definitely dive into t25 if you have the dedication for it (think it is 5 days a week). The good part is it is only 25 min a day. Do make sure you have good knees as there will be a lot of jumping. You might also consider cross fit, "you are your own gym" DVD. Anything that is really intense will work to get those last pounds off. You will probably find yourself eating more calories, more Protein and more carbs. No worries; it will be needed to get through the intensity. Good luck!

T25 is a great program as are the other beach body programs (p90x, p90x2, p90x3 and insanity). Definitely dive into t25 if you have the dedication for it (think it is 5 days a week). The good part is it is only 25 min a day. Do make sure you have good knees as there will be a lot of jumping. You might also consider cross fit, "you are your own gym" DVD. Anything that is really intense will work to get those last pounds off. You will probably find yourself eating more calories, more Protein and more carbs. No worries; it will be needed to get through the intensity. Good luck!

Today is my FOUR YEAR SURGIVERSARY! It's hard to believe how fast these years have gone by! I'm very thankful and grateful that I was able to have VSG and it completely resolved my weight and health issues including High Blood Pressure, sleep apnea and knee/joint pain.
I'm at my original goal 148-150 and even though I've hit a few "bumps" along the way (regain of 27 pounds in year 3), I've managed to get back up, figure out a way to succeed and continue on!
I'm at a stage now where, knowing me, I've got to continue to make wise food choices. I tend to do really well for a while and then slowly allow junk to sidetrack me. I know by the way I feel now (tired) I am eating too many carbs and sugar!
BUT - I am four years out, completely a new woman in MOST WAYS and so very thankful for this day!!!!!