ItsMe2033

I guess one thing is to make sure that you are doing this every 30 minutes or even every 15 minutes if you can do it without getting nauseated. Just as an example, I drink the premiere protein shakes which have 30 grams of protein. If you could drink 1 oz of that every 30 minutes in 5 and 1/2 hours you could drink 1 shake, or in 11 hours you could get 60 grams of protein. It's worth it to make the steady effort to get these in if you possibly can. This will probably get better in a few weeks as you heal, and as you are able to eat more types of food.

You should get some relief much sooner than that. You might also consider chewing just one tums to see if it will help since that type of antacid takes effect right away. I would chew it, but hold it in your mouth for just a minute after chewing it before swallowing to let it dissolve better before you swallow it.

Are you taking a PPI or any other type of antacid? Also make sure that you are getting your fluids even if you can't get your protein.

Have you tried drinking 1 ounce then waiting like 30 minutes then drinking another ounce? Do you feel any nausea when you eat any other foods, or just the Protein shakes?

Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say that you cannot tolerate them. Do they just taste bad to you, do they upset your stomach, or exactly what happens?

Yes on crystal light, coffee, and tea, but avoid non-dairy creamer. Use skim milk instead. 3 months sounds fine. I'm sure you'll do well. When you end your low carb, I encourage you to do that gradually over a 2 week period instead of all at once.

My surgeon let me start the cross trainer two days after surgery, but I had to "start slowly and work my way up". He let me start doing weight lifting exercise at one week after surgery but I had to start at 1/2 my previous reps and 1/2 my previous weight and gradually increase. By about 6 weeks after surgery, I was up to maximal effort, except for abs, which I am still gradually increasing.

How did it go?

I also want to suggest that if you haven't tried ISOPure that you should. I didn't like the taste much, but it is formulated in a different way than all the other Protein shakes, so it should be worth a try.

There is no evidence whatsoever that ketosis is harmful to your liver or any other body system. You can find articles in the press by dietitians etc, repeating the myth that someone has told them but if you do searches on pubmed, you won't find that in the medical literature. Low carb eating is not for everyone. I've been on low carb for 13 years. The first time that I tried was about 15 years ago, and I didn't last two days on it because my sugar cravings were so strong. I spent a while cutting back on my sugars and carbs and the next time I tired it, it was easy. The breath from ketosis is often thought to be bad, but if you actually smell it, it has a fruity smell, not bad. It is true that when you first start a low carb diet, you can develop a bad taste in your mouth for a while, but this goes away, and does not make your breath smell bad. There are two major types of low-carb diets. One is the more traditional Atkins diet where you might get up to 50 grams of carbs per day, and the other is a ketogenic diet which strives to generate a maximal level of ketones in the body, so perhaps around 20 grams of carbs per day. Either one would work great for losing weight after being sleeved, but the Atkins type diet would be easier to sustain for most people.

I only told my girlfriend, two very close friends, and my mom. I think there are really two issues. 1) What do you tell people because you are going to be out of work for a while? 2) What do you tell people afterward after you lose a lot of weight? If possible, you should avoid telling people a lie that you might have to later admit to telling. Instead it will be easier and keep your options open if you tell people an incomplete truth. At work you shouldn't have to tell HR anything other than you need the time off for medical treatment or surgery. Your supervisor may be more curious, but you should just say that you are having surgery and if your supervisor pushes for what kind of surgery, just say abdominal surgery, but that you don't want to talk about it. Or, if you have lots of vacation time stored up, you could just take vacation time and if anyone asks just tell them that you aren't going anywhere, but just going to get caught up on things around the house. Depending on how important it is to you to keep this under the radar, taking vacation time will result in less chance of people finding out. Once you are back at work, I would suggest drinking lots of Water and Protein shakes in the most visible way you can. If there is a break room, drink some of them there instead of just at your desk. I suggest that you go at least a month or two and not eat anything at work, just drink Protein Shakes. You want to draw a little attention to the protein shakes, but not too much. If someone asks you if you are dieting tell them you are on a diet like the Slimfast diet where you drink protein shakes a few times a day and eat a small meal in the evening. If you want to keep this under the radar you do not want to be eating pureed food at work. Once you are back to eating normal foods you can eat at work if you want to, but I would keep this as out of sight as possible so as not to draw undue attention to yourself. Just the other day, at the nine week post surgical mark did someone at my work noticed that I had lost weight. It was when I had just reached the 65 pound mark that someone noticed. Even though you might think people would notice sooner, they don't usually. I did have a few people at the gym notice at about the four week post surgical mark, but at the gym I wear t-shirts which let people see the outline of my abdominal area in a more detailed fashion. Start walking at lunch and invite other people to join you. Once people start noticing your weight loss, you can simply accept their compliments and thank them and try not to become the topic of conversation too much. Do not tell people how much weight you have lost if you can avoid it. They probably don't know what you weighed before, so when you have lost 60 pounds and someone notices, if they ask how much you can tell them I haven't weighed recently, but I think I've lost more than 20 pounds. People simply don't know what you weighed before and they don't know what you weigh now. If they ask more about your secret to losing so much weight then just tell them that you are watching what you eat and that you are exercising. Ask them if they want to go walking with you at lunch. As you lose weight, don't suddenly start wearing a whole new wardrobe. Even if you go out and buy all new clothes, you can start wearing one new thing per week, and retire one of your old ones per week. Also, go to a thrift shop and find some used clothing in your new size, because when you wear something that's used, but "new to you" people will be less likely to notice it than if you are wearing all new clothes. You want to wear clothing that is moderately loose. If you wear very loose clothing it makes you look like you are flopping around in your clothes and it will make people think you have lost more weight. On the other hand if you wear things that are too form fitting it shows your new smaller size too much. Once you get several months down the road, you need to come back on here and post this same question from the view that you are several months post op and that you have kept it a secret thus far and you want to continue to do so to get some more tips.

I'm not sure how far you are past surgery, so some of these may not apply to you depending on your dietary guidelines. Skim milk with powdered milk added to it for extra Protein. Yogurt Scrambled eggs Cottage cheese Cream Soups with powered milk added

If there is one message that I think people need to hear it is this. Consider gamergirl's experience: 6 months of hard work to gain 13 pounds of muscle, and it could be easily lost in two or three weeks of low Protein consumption and not exercising. I think that preventing muscle loss is one of the key elements of success with this surgery. We all know these rules: 1) Get your fluids 2) Meet your protein targets 3) Meet your calorie goals But right after that should come 4) Get your exercise But I think many people don't give it the same emphasis that they give the first three items.

If you were eating a reduced carb diet before and switched over to a low carb diet then the ketostix may not be accurate because of the reasons that I mentioned above about ketostix not measuring the right kind of ketones. You could have your doctor test for ketones in your blood which is much more accurate. It probably would not be covered by insurance. You should check your ketostix to make sure they have not expired. Can you tell me about how many grams of carbs you are getting per day, and what types of carbs you are eating? Are you still taking chewable or gummy Vitamins and supplements, or have you switched over to pills and capsules? What is your total consumption of Protein and calories per day. It's important to know that some excess protein can be converted to carbs in your body. I encourage most women who work out to consume about 80 - 100 grams of protein per day, but in your case unless you are working out hard, I would encourage a protein consumption in the range of 70 grams of protein per day, at least for a few days. Finally, are you craving carbs? If so, you may not have reduced your carb intake enough. If you are not craving carbs, it suggests that you might be in ketosis and it's just not showing up on the ketostix.

I can't say for sure, but I think your NUT may be wrong. I believe that if it had a known potential to cause cancer, that other NUTs and doctors would know that and I don't think I've seen that warning on here before. You have to make the decision if you are going to override your NUTs advice on your own or if you are going to try to get the advice of another NUT. If you decide to take it, I think anywhere between 5,000 and 20,000 mcg/day would be a good dose. I think it's not too late to start taking it, but clearly the later you start taking it, the less benefit that you will get as regards hair loss. Once you are about 8 months past surgery, if you want to continue taking it, I think a dosage of 1,000 to 5,000 mcg per day would be fine. I did a search at pubmed and did not find any suggestion of Biotin being a carcinogen in the first several pages of results. Typically if something like that had been shown, or even been suspected of being a carcinogen it would show up on the first page of results. According to an official British Government publication, there is no indication that it is a carcinogen. At the site http://www.food.gov....fs/evmpart2.pdf it says

It's fairly normal to lose some "casual friends" and gain others at a time like this, but I recommend that you minimize this to the extent you can. I recommend that you make extra effort with anyone that you consider a friend. If you end up losing some friends after the extra effort then you know that you would have lost them no matter what you did and it wasn't your fault. On the other hand, if you make the extra effort and you keep the friendship, then you will likely have an even stronger friendship than before. It's important to keep in mind that your friend may feel that the friendship is threatened by your surgery and your actions to get healthy. As just one example, if you and your friend both used to go eat fattening food together and now you have improved your eating habits, it's perfectly natural and should even be expected that your friend might think that you will want to spend less time with them. They can't read your mind, so it's important to give them reassurances that you value their friendship and you want it to continue.

There's a couple of things you can do. 1) You can continue at 40 grams per day. 2) You can go up to 50 grams per day. 3) You can get some ketostix to measure your ketones and see at what level your body actually stops producing ketones, then back down about 10 below that level. The ketostix method is the best when you first start low carb , and they are somewhat reliable, but not always. If you have been on low carb for a while ketostix lose their accuracy. I found an amazingly detailed blog post about this at: http://ketopia.com/w...-your-ketostix/ In a nutshell, here's the highlight of what it said: So I think that 40 grams or 50 grams either should be fine, with a few caveats: 1) If you start craving carbs, even a little, you are eating too many carbs. 2) Try to minimize starches, or anything with added sugar 3) At every decision point, choose the lower carb option if you will get as much satisfaction out of it. As an example I use the Heinz sugar free ketchup, which has about 1/3 or 1/4 the carbs or regular ketchup. 4) If you are going to splurge on carbs, try not to exceed about 20 or 25 grams at a time 5) The worst combination of food groups that you can possibly eat is a fat and a carb at the same time. Items such as french fries and cake frosting are examples. If you are going to eat 20 or 25 grams of carbs in a meal, let it be just carbs, or a Protein and carb combination, without much fat. If you are getting 10 grams of carbs in a meal then it won't matter as much if it is combined with fat 6) If you are still using chewable Vitamins or supplements, or gummies, switch over to the pills if possible. You should be far enough along to take the pills without crushing them.

I was on low carb for 13 years prior to being sleeved in August, and I'm still eating low carb now. The transition to low carb may not be as difficult as you think, since if you are still losing weight you are at least partially glycogen depleted, and that's a much easier starting point. You probably won't see the dramatic weight loss in the first week or two that people normally see on low carb because you have already lost a lot of the water weight, but you will probably see more weight loss than you are seeing now for the same number of calories. I suggest that if you can handle it, you should aim for 25 grams of carbs per day for the first two weeks, then 50 grams of carbs per day thereafter. And avoid any fruit or starch or sugar for the first month even if it would fit within your carb limit.

GomeKast, I suggest that you up your Vitamin D intake to 10,000 IU per day. You can see on this page that optimal levels of Vitamin D are around 50 ng/ml. http://www.vitamindc...-for-vitamin-d/ You can see on this page that the standard dosage is 4000 IU, but it is safe to take 10,000 IU per day. http://www.vitamindc...-my-body-needs/

I don't know if you know how to play the card game Bridge or not. One of the rules of thumb is that if you need your partner to have a certain card in order for you to win the game then you play the game as though your partner has the card that you need. If you don't play that way then you lose the game for sure. If you do play that way and your partner doesn't have the card, then you would have lost no matter what you did. If you don't play that way and if your partner does have that card, then you lost when you could have won. If you do play that way and your partner had the card, then you win. I think that's what you should do here. You should not take this personally. Just assume that the problem is something that your friend is going through, and be supportive and understanding. In other words be a friend. If you're going to lose the friendship anyway, then you'll lose the friendship. On the other hand if it's possible to save the friendship by being there for your friend, and you are holding back to keep yourself from being hurt as badly, then you might lose the friendship when you could have saved. If it's a good friendship, it's worth taking a lot of emotional risk to save it.

Only a few people know that I've had the surgery. Right from the start my girlfriend and I discussed that it was important for her not to be the food police. The other people that I've told are close friends and they haven't tried to control my eating in any way. My suggestion is to not be overly sensitive about it. If you have told people about it who don't know you very well, extend them the benefit of the doubt. If they say something that you feel is critical, thank them for caring enough about you to say something, and appreciate the fact that they care enough about to say something. If you feel that they are saying it to be mean, take the high road and thank them anyway. Insofar as managers and waiters at restaurants, if they ask you if everything is OK because you didn't eat much, don't take this personally. They are showing concern for you as a customer, because sometimes people don't speak up when there is a problem with a meal. Just thank them for their concern and reassure them that the food was great but you just weren't very hungry. You can prevent this from being a problem if you ask for a to-go box to be brought out when you order your food, or when the food is brought to the table.

If you want to lower your blood sugars as much a possible, please consider a low carb diet between now and the time of your surgery. It will allow you to keep a tighter control on your sugar levels than on a diet with carbs. You should ask the doctor that manages your diabetes what they think about that. If you have the time, get a copy of the book "Dr. Bernsteins' Diabetes Solution" so that you can understand how to achieve the tighter control. Of course you will be using less insulin, so you may need to test more often than usual for the first several days of the low carb diet, so that you can maintain the tighter control without going low.

Do you know what your vitamin D level is?

It sounds like you have the right attitude for success. You asked your question and you got your answers, and you listened to the advice of the people who have a lot of experience in this area. This shows that you are willing to do what it takes to be successful with this surgery. Good for you!

It doesn't sound outlandish. They are providing things that they feel are necessary to give you the best chance of success, but that might not meet the guidelines of being medically necessary in the eyes of the insurance company. You do want the best chance of success, don't you? If you don't like it, the best thing is to contact some other surgeons offices and see what their fees are and also see what your total out-of-pocket costs will be if you use the other surgeons. If you find someone who will give you a better deal, then go with them. If not, you know you are getting the best deal you can get with your current provider.