ItsMe2033

I have a desk job and I had surgery on Thursday, August 1st, and I went back to work on the afternoon of Monday August 5th. I'm pretty sure that I could have actually gone in to work on the Saturday two days after my surgery if I had needed to. I intentionally worked a half-day on my first day back so that if I started getting tired I would still be able to make it through the day. I don't think the speed of my recovery is common, but if you read around on here you will see plenty of people who can hop back up right away and lots of others who need a couple of weeks. Your plan sounds very reasonable. For the first few weeks after my surgery, I did get unusually tired around 8:00 PM, and that would last for an hour or two, then pass. After a couple of weeks I never noticed it again. I was already working out doing weight lifting for years prior to my surgery. My surgeon strongly recommended that I add some cardio to my workouts about a month prior to the surgery. I added about 5 hours per week of fairly intense cardio to my workout, and I feel that was one of the important factors contributing to my speedy recovery.

Since you are working out at the gym, it helps make sure that more of what you lose is fat, and less is muscle. Someone who is working out can lose a lot more fat and a lot less muscle than someone who is not working out. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to not compare your weight loss to the weight loss of other people. Other people may be losing faster because they are losing muscle faster, but that's not healthy for you.

I have some thoughts, but not any experience with this, so if someone later in the thread says they have experience with it, and what I've said contradicts what they say then you should presume that what they say is correct. So the overall result is that the 5:2 eating plan should help you lose weight and the cardio should help you lose weight. The effects from this should begin right away. The weight lifting will help make sure that most of what you lose will be fat and not muscle. Since you have just started working out, you are probably not yet working out with an optimal level of weights in order to reduce the risk of injury. I fully support that goal. It will take you a few months of lifting before you are lifting enough weight to maximize the fat loss vs muscle loss. To get the optimal benefit, once you have been working out for a few months, you should be doing any given exercise at 8 - 12 reps to failure, with one or more sets, or something like that. Don't settle for anything that just involves toning, which is what I assume Curves does. I would recommend only cardio for the fast days, no weight lifting, and then only a limited amount of cardio on those days. I think their recommended Protein levels are way too low. .8 gram / kg is far too low in my opinion. I think that any woman who is working out should get at least 80 - 100 grams of protein per day, and any man who is working out should get at least 100 -120 grams per day. I haven't done any medical journal research on this type of fast, so It may be that their plan works by causing excess muscle loss, I'm really not sure. I strongly believe that if you follow the 30 grams of protein recommendation on fast days that you will be at risk for substantial muscle loss, which will give you substantial weight loss, but it's the wrong kind of weight. I think the real question comes down to this. If you asked some people if they would rather lose 8 pounds of fat and 2 pounds of muscle over the next 6 months for a total weight loss of 10 pounds, or lose 18 pounds of muscle and 2 pound of fat over the next 6 months for a total weight loss of 20 pounds, a lot of people would choose the 20 pound weight loss. What would you choose? I'm not in any way suggesting that you not try the plan, but I am suggesting that if you try the plan that you raise your protein consumption above the levels they suggest, while still staying within the plan calorie restrictions. As an example, consider getting 60 grams of protein on fast days and 100 grams of protein on non-fast days. At least try that and see how it works. And be patient. When you are working out properly you will see much slower weight loss because you are losing a much higher percentage of fat.

I haven't read your other posts, so I don't know if you consider yourself to have an eating disorder or not. Not everyone who is overweight has one. If you consider that the primary responsibility for your weight was an eating disorder then I would give her a couple of more sessions, so you can see where she is going with this. If you don't think your weight is related to an eating disorder, then I would not go back to see her, but instead find someone else.

I think the key is to go to some place like Vitamin shop or vitamin world and buy yourself 15 or 20 different Protein drinks and try them until you find one you can enjoy. For me, my favorite is Premier Protein sold at Sam's and costco. You could also add some unflavored protein powder to pudding, yogurt, and many other things. Also you can drink some milk and add some powered milk to that to get additional protein.

I highly recommend Dr Ryan Heider. He's does his surgery at Lake Norman Medical Center, near Charlotte NC. The self-pay price is around $12,000 + whatever level of BLIS insurance coverage (from $200 to $2000 depending on how much coverage you get). Lake Norman is a top 10 hospital in the US for several different categories.

I'm two months out and I can eat about 4 ounces of hamburger or turkey burger. I can eat about 6 oz of chili because it is so much more moist. Even though I can eat 6 oz of chili, I usually restrict myself to 4 oz. Have you tried adding protein powder to pudding as one way of getting in more protein? Also keep scrambled eggs in mind as well.

Please add my surgeon, Dr Ryan Heider. I'm using firefox 23.0.1. I also tried in Internet Explorer 10 and had the same results. Whenver I type anything into the surgeons field, I don't get any auto-complete entries. It's just like a text box. This applies no matter what first letter that I type.

It's one of the big reasons why some people lose more weight than others. During the preop diet, and the first month after surgery people can lose weight faster than later on without necessarily losing extra muscle as long as Protein intake is adequate. During the preop diet the body is undergoing glycogen depletion, which can result in about 8 - 10 pounds of Water weight being lost. During the first month after surgery, many people are eating substantially less than than 800 - 1000 calories per day. Since they have a greater calorie deficit they will lose at a faster rate. Also during the first month postop, you will be exercising less or not at all due to post-surgical restrictions, so naturally you will lose some additional muscle mass during this time. After the first month postop, the weight lost is a function of the calorie deficit and the type of weight being lost. The calorie deficit is the calories consumed minus the resting metabolic rate and calories burned through exercise and activity. As an example, let's first consider the case of someone who exercises a significant amount. If someone ate 1000 calories per day and had a resting metabolic rate of 1700 calories per day and they burned 300 calories per day then they would have a calorie deficit of 1000 calories per day. If that person lost all that weight as fat, they would lose 2 pounds per week. If they lost all that weight as muscle, they would lose 15 pounds in a week. In reality you never lose all fat or all muscle, but you lose some of both. If you have enough protein intake and exercise a lot you might lose about 95% of it as fat, and 5% as muscle. This would work out to be losing 1.9 pounds of fat and .75 pounds of muscle during the week, or about 2.7 pounds per week, or around 11 pounds per month, and most of this is fat. Now consider another individual with the same calorie intake. Since they don't exercise their resting metabolic rate is lower, let's just say 1500 calories per day (There's some controversy about how much exercise raises resting metabolic rate, but I won't bother with that here.) So the person eats 1000 calories per day and and has a resting metabolic rate of 1500 calories per day, for a net calorie deficit of 500 calories per day, or 3500 calories per week. If the person lost all of this as fat, they would lose 1 pound per week. If they lost it all as muscle they would lose 7.5 pounds per week. Since they are not working out, they will lose more of it as muscle. Let's suppose that they lose 50% of the calories as muscle, and 50% as fat. In that case the person would lose 1/2 pound of fat and 3.75 pounds of muscle during that week or a total of 4.25 pounds per week or about 18 pounds per month. So roughly speaking, the person working out loses only half as many pounds, but loses twice as much fat. That's one of the main reasons that people shouldn't compare their weight loss to the weight loss of others.

The number one thing to get what you want is to have a protein intake at the upper end of your target. Some NUTs are a little conservative about this upper end. I would recommend that you talk to your NUT and see about a protein intake around 100 grams per day. Since I'm a male, I target to get 120 grams per day. The next most important thing is working out using weights or machines. Aerobic exercise is great for your health and will help weight loss, but it does not build muscle.

There's another element to it as well. I'll use bodybuilder terms for this one. When you are building muscle, you are in what's called an "anabolic state." And when you are losing weight, you are in what's called a "catabolic state." According to everything related to bodybuilding that I have ever read, you can only be in one state or the other, never both at the same time. The only exception to that is what bodybuilders refer to as a "fat beginner." According to bodybuilding materials that I have read, a "fat beginner" can build muscle and lose fat at the same time if they work out very hard, if they've never worked out much before or not in a long time, if they are substantially overweight, and if they have a moderate calorie deficit (150 - 500 calories per day deficit). I think that the calorie deficits that we have as sleeve patients puts us out of that range. Bodybuilders usually go through alternating cycles. First there's cutting where they try to have a small calorie deficit and they workout less where they are trying to lose bodyfat, followed by a period where they eat more calories than they need, and workout more to try to gain muscle. This is called bulking. (Many amateur bodybuilders screw up this stage and overeat too much and end up gaining back all the fat they lost during their previous cutting stage.) Usually bodybuilders do cutting and bulking cycles of 2 - 4 months each. I'm thinking of my sleeve journey as being a 12 - 18 month cutting cycle.

Thanks for mentioning that. That is one of the most fundamental truths that many people don't realize. Muscle contains about 450 calories per pound, and fat contains about 3500 calories per pound. That means that if you are burning 7000 calories per week than you are taking in, that can show up as a two pound fat loss, or a 15 pound muscle loss, or something in between. Unfortunately your scales only tell you how many pounds you lost, not what type of loss. The big issue is that muscle is so easy to lose, and so difficult to regain. Overall, the lower your percentage bodyfat, the healthier you will be, and the easier it will be to keep weight off. I get very concerned for some posters when I see them having these high rates of weight loss after the first week or two after surgery and they are also talking about their low Protein intake because I know their loss is probably mostly muscle. I realize that some people just can't meet their protein needs due to nausea, and post-surgical swelling, but I've also seen many posts where people just pay lip service to getting enough protein. I met my protein goals on the third day after surgery, and I'm always at the high end of my allowed protein intake. I realize that this has made my weight loss slower than for some people, but I'm still very satisfied with that tradeoff.

First congrats on doing such a great workout. Please keep it up. Here is the important thing to keep in mind, it doesn't matter if you build muscle or not, as long as you lose the least muscle possible while losing fat. Consider the following situation. There are three people who each weigh 300 pounds and have a lean body mass of 150 pounds, so each has 50% bodyfat. Let's consider what happens when each of these people loses weight. (These examples are a little unrealistic just to illustrate the concept) Person 1 doesn't exercise, and so loses both fat and muscle, but lots of muscle. At the end they have lost 70 pound of muscle and 30 pounds of fat. They end up with 80 pounds of lean body mass and 120 pounds of fat, so they end up with 60% bodyfat. Person 2 exercises some and so loses fat and muscle in equal amounts. They lose 50 pounds of muscle and 50 pounds of fat. They end up with 100 pounds of lean body mass and 100 pounds of fat mass, so they end up at 50% bodyfat. Person 3 exercise a whole lot, and loses more fat and not as much muscle. They lose 90 pounds of fat and 10 pounds of muscle, and so they end up with a lean body mass of 140 pounds and 60 pounds of fat, so they end up at 30% bodyfat. So the issue is not really if you are going to build muscle or not. The issue is really that as you lose weight, your percentage of bodyfat can increase or decrease even if you are not building muscle. So I would think that most people would like to be person 3 above, and not be person 1.

Do you feel tired or sleepy during the day. If not, perhaps you don't need 8 or 9 hours and your body just won't let you have it. If you do feel sleepy during the day, Google the term "sleep hygiene" to see if that applies to you. I personally find my sleep greatly improved by a sleep mask and earplugs. If you get a sleep mask, don't get a cheap one from the drugstore. Instead get one of the nice ones made by Bucky for around $20 or $25 dollars.

My surgeon cleared me to start using a cross trainer two days after surgery, but I had to start slow and work my way up. He cleared me to start using machines at the gym at one week after surgery, but I had to start out at 1/2 of the weight and 1/2 of the reps that I used prior to surgery and gradually work my way up over the course of a month.

The biggest issue that I see is not the spices, but to make sure that you really chew the food up very very well. I think that the first time that you eat them you should not eat them as you normally would, but instead eat them with a knife and fork. I think the way wings are normally eaten will encourage you to take bites that are too big. It is very important that the skin be chewed completely.

The concern with rice and bread is that it can form a "dough ball" in your sleeve and block things up. I eat low carb, so it's not a concern to me. In the guide that my surgeons office gave me, they prefer that you wait a long time (6 months or a year, I can't remember) before eating rice or untoasted bread. I'm sure that if you ate some of the chicken from the casserole and got a few grains of rice on it, it wouldn't hurt your, but especially since you are only one month out, I wouldn't eat anymore than that of it.

I don't think you have stretched your stomach. Just stick with the program, continue to get your Water, Protein, exercise, and calorie count, and you will probably continue to lose for a while longer. Don't be concerned by how much your stomach can hold, but you might experiment to see if you eat smaller portions you still feel satisfied. Also one thing that I have found useful is to wait about 2 hours after eating before drinking. I find that I stay fuller for much longer when I do that. It's not an absolute rule. If I feel thirsty 30 minutes after eating I will drink something. Before I started doing that, I was waiting 30 minutes after eating, then drinking something more as a habit. It was a very easy change to make.

Awesome progress. Start that exercise as soon as you can so that what you lose is fat and not muscle.

Insofar as the ridges on your nails, are you taking a biotin supplement? For thrush, I recommend probiotics, and eliminating any sugar. Also are you taking any antibiotics?

Each surgeons plan is different, but in my case, even though I can have those types of things, there is a caution that nuts, and leafy vegetables might be problematic for many months after being allowed to eat most everything else. I can't really offer any suggestions regarding a plant based diet.

I'm only trying to help by pointing out the following things. There were several things in this post that concerned me. First, it would be good if you could post a log for a full day detailing everything that you actually ate in a day including portion size and calorie counts. There are a lot of vague items in the list above. "but i'm not eating a lot of bread" At this point for most surgeons plans you probably shouldn't be eating any bread at all. I don't know what your surgeon has said. Bread is almost all empty calories, and it can make a dough ball in your sleeve. "(except potatoes I guess)" At this point your intake of potatoes should be minimal. They are mostly empty calories with minimal nutritional value. "I feel like I'm getting in enough protein (but maybe not since I don't actually count after lunch)" Given your situation, I strongly suggest that you should count your protein all day long, and your calories as well. At meals where you are eating potatoes, are you eating your protein first, then eating the potatoes afterward? Are you eating any meals that do not have protein? Unless you are eating just a ton of food, you will start losing again soon. The issues that I asked are important now, but they will be more important as you continue the journey. Right now, it's almost impossible to keep from losing weight for any length of time, but eating the protein first, and adequate protein consumption, and minimizing consumption of empty calories will determine if you ever get to your goal or not. Right now is the best time to establish good habits. Also, I didn't see any mention of exercise in your post.

I think full disclosure is important, but not on the first few dates. I think that if you could reveal the information in a light-hearted way it would be best. It might scare some people off, and that would be OK. It's not that those people are bad for fearing that you might regain the weight, they just simply don't know as much about the surgery as we do.