Justinh125

Put the work in now and think of it as an investment in your future. If they're concerned about your liver, ask what you can/should do to help shrink your liver before surgery. I know it's not easy. It wasn't easy for me...I hated every minute of it, but I kept reminding myself about the payoff. And the payoff is worth it!!! You're going to be blown away when you have a tiny portion of food and feel like you've eaten a buffet!!! And you'll love it when your pants fall down because your waist keeps shrinking....and then you'll look back on that (pain in the a&*&) diet and remember that it was worth it

Back when I was a distance runner in high school, the week before the state finals our coach would put us through "hell week." It would be the most brutal, intense, painful workouts of the entire season, and we all would feel like our bodies had been beat down by industrial machines. But when the state finals would start, suddenly we found we were all running the fastest 5K of our lives....most of us posted the best times we'd ever done, and were full of energy. I guess the point is that "hell week" wasn't even slightly fun. But it was worth the payoff to run the best race of my life. I didn't enjoy the liquid diet at all, but I saw it as the food equivalent of "hell week," and I just saw my doc today, and I've already lost 31% of my "excess weight"...a very large amount relative to what they usually see at 6 weeks. So I'd say my food equivalent of "hell week" was totally worth it. To use a quote I used to say to the freshmen on our team: Pain is temporary, pride is forever.

Some friends are going to play trampoline dodge ball tonight. On the one hand, it sounds like fun, but on the other hand, I'm not even 6 weeks post-op. Think I've healed enough to bounce around on trampolines?

Would you really have to puree it much? Maybe just the crust would have be pureed. Mmmm.cheesecake.....

Yeah, I see my surgeon on Monday for my 6-week follow-up anyways, so I'll talk to him about exercising (more than walking) then. Not worth jiggling organs around, though I'll have to do it next time my friends go, it sounds awesome. Plus, the skin around my abdomen is really loose, so I don't know if it would just shake all over the place or what. It used to be firm, but not anymore. (TMI?)

Doesn't sound like much to me at all. I eat much more than that every day and I'm rapidly loosing weight.

Note: I don't have stitches anymore. They either dissolved or the skin is healed over. Not sure if that makes a difference.

Hey, that's a big accomplishment too!! Don't short-change yourself. Try to remember the healthy things you've been doing to get to this point (your best in 4 years!) ... and keep up the good work.

Be sure to check your state's laws. Some states do not honor living wills, and require other types of documents. Other states won't honor your advance directives while you are being worked on in surgery.

I burped all the time anyways before surgery. I was told years ago it was because I had a hiatal hernia, but when they went in for surgery, it turns out there was no hernia. It was a phantom hernia. Of course, there's no good explanation for the GERD now.... Still burp, and it usually feels nice.

Barix Clinics makes a book you can buy for about $20 that has tons of answers, recipes, and good information.

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

Ooh, here's another good one: I was told to never chew gum again. But like 5 days after surgery, I totally got some gum and chewed it anyways. Oh yea, I was a rebel.

Sometimes I gulp instead of sip fluids. I'm a bad, bad man

Most of the food we eat is artificial anyways. When I worked in the sciences, I was frequently shocked at things that could be called "natural" but were as synthetic as it gets. Another urban legend: "organic." It doesn't really mean anything. A good friend from college started an "organic" farm and makes a fortune by putting the right labeling on things, but it's no more organic than any other commercial farming operation.

I think when it fluffs up, that's just air and water. So it's probably fine. But more importantly, I think it takes more food and more time to actually "stretch" your stomach out. I think it's very smart to measure your food, and you'll probably do very well as long as you keep making sure to have reasonable portions.

Have you tried Premier? It's about the only protein shake I can deal with.

My doc says use the strainer rule, but I accidentally had a few pieces of food and I don't think it caused any problems. You are probably fine...docs have to plan for the worst case scenario, so they want to error on the side of extreme caution.

Spices shouldn't hurt anything, but if you're concerned, try a little and see how it fits for you. I've been spicing everything--oddly the sleeve has made me crave salt really badly. So I salt the crap out of everything. I think maybe my blood pressure is actually getting too low and my body is trying to compensate or something.

Back when I was consuming copious amounts of various hallucinogens, I heard somewhere that aspartame caused hallucinations if you consumed enough of it. Some friends and I went to one of those bulk stores and purchased an enormous amount of it. We all took the equivalent of maybe a few hundred packets of the stuff each. Unfortunately, nothing interesting happened at all. One of my friends got diarrhea. That was the most interesting thing that happened. No hallucinations at all. Not even an acid flashback.

Well, first of all, Stevia is made of steviol glycoside which is an artificial sweetner, just like sucralose or any of the others... Of course, 100% of artificial sweeteners are as "artificial" or "real" as you want them to be depending on how you define those terms (they aren't defined well by the FDA or anyone else.) The article doesn't cite what research actually suggests there's any truth to that. It just says "research suggests." Often, these articles are supported by companies like Monsanto, which have lots of money invested in you using fructose instead of artificial sweetener.

Hmm....let's round up a group and head over to (where?)....

I respectfully dissent. It is true that if you give a rodent about 100X the amount of artificial sweetener that any human could consume in their lifetime, it will cause tumors. But there is no evidence it can do that at the levels humans could reasonably consume in their lives.

Your body needs protein to help keep your lean mass at a decent level. It can't do that with sugar and carbs. Fat is a higher-efficiency macronutrient at 9cal/gram. But starch will also mess with your blood glucose. It's another reason to avoid it. Finally, your liver will turn excess sugar into artery-clogging fat.

So we gonna play like spin the bottle or truth or dare or something?