Stevehud

Please stop cheating, especially stop cheating and laughing about it. While we all have lapses, having cheats this early on in your journey will make it so much harder later on. This is the honeymoon phase for you, when you can maximize your weight loss. It will slow down heavily later, if you fail during this stage you risk failure over all. You can do this!

Heres the most important tips you need to remember and go over it , over and over and consciously work at. 1. Make like a train, and Chew Chew Chew. You must chew each bite many times beyond what you used to. When you think its time to swallow, chew 5 more times to be sure. 2. Slow and Steady wins the race. Eating very slowly is your friend. the meal should take you 20 to 30 minutes. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2.

On average i have about 5 to 8 g of carbs a day, I keep it to a bare minimum and sugars to as close to zero as possible. If i do get carbs they are veggie carbs or a little brown rice ( like 2 tablespoons at most) with my protein but that is about it. if i push over 25 to 35 it slows down my weight loss a lot.

Cigna for me was less than 2 weeks. but then they denied it and ot took an additional 10 days to go through hoops to get the approval.

Guilty here, ive had to reallly focus on my seated posture, and my exercises, etc. it hasnt been fun.

Yeah, exactly what everyone else said.. lol truthfully. calories are such a non defined thing. You would think something we take so seriously would have a more definitive measurable quantity, but alas, not possible. even processed foods or canned, boxed anything is just a calorie estimate. even more so for natural organic foods. 1/2 cup of say broccoli, may be listed as one caloric amount, but its impossible to measure the active sugars in the strain your eating or that particular yield. I know for a hydroponics botany course i took, we had the lab test fruits from various supermarkets and found thatthe calorie amounts varied by as much as 25% from one to another. Due to things like soil, feed, climate, fertilizer, date picked etc. its such a subjective thing. Just another way to make it tougher on us. lol

It is hard when you see others not living up to the standards you set for yourself, but just remember what you see in them, I guarantee someone else thinks about you.

I got a bit blitzed, to the point i almost couldnt talk clearly off of two shots. so it does happen. Havent touched a drop since, and i weighed much more then. With all the Vitamins and Protein we take it, we put a greater need on our liver and kidneys to process the things we take in and as a result we dont filter alcohol as fast nor as completely over time as we used to. that why we get drunk faster. So just be careful.

Just remember at some point , you may end up being on the wrong side of these people, no matter what, unintentionally of course. but at some point someone is going to marvel at your weight loss and say, wow you look great, such a great job, how did you do it? or they will say wow great job and you did it without surgery. or as you mentioned hypercritical family members, gossiping, invariably one of them will say " see I told you that you didn't need surgery", and you will have to deal with that side of it as well. When it does eventually come out you had surgery, you do face the huge risk of really antagonizing these people from that side. It is a very difficult catch 22 situation. If you don't trust people to behave in an appropriate manner will be as upset that you didn't trust them with the information as well. Personally I'll tell everyone and anyone, I am proud of what I have done and anyone dumb enough to confront my choice, will regret it when I give them an earful, Being proactive about my surgery has helped me with a huge number of supporters, and keeps me focused in those tough times. Yes, for me encouragement helps.

Even with the fuzzy navel if youre using the shaker type cup you ned to shake it well, i prefer it in the blender, i use like 6 oz of Water for a full scopp for the fruit flavored nectars and 5 to 6 ounces of 1% or skim milk , or unsweetened almond milk with the sweets. I do reccomend the packets. Syntrax website which is www.si03.com does have the 15.99 special for the sample kit, which is almost all the flavors in individual packets. I liked them all some more than others, except the crystal sky, that was just weird, it was bright blue and well, i couldnt tell what flavor it was just kind of a mix. lol But i recomend any of them with ice, and when/if you ever want to add fruit, mango, and raspberries and strawberries all work great int he fuzzy navel .

Congrats! Nothing wrong with spark, its just caffeine and b vitamins, same as the other pre workout stuff or an energy shot, my advice is go with whatever is cheapest and taste best to you. theyre all just b vitamins and caffeine.

Just a little advice, take it not , your choice maam. When someone tries to help you write out a better more thought out post for all to read, since you posted in on a normal forum with no hint it was an update for specific people. You might not want to be rude afterward. Good luck in your goals. Im sure there is someone here who will be available to help you Have a nice day.

i too have low BP, and i know im not as hydrated as a should be, got the lecture about it again. my vit D is very low, im on 50 thousand units every 2 days now to keep it up and i take D daily as well, but im in new england and we dont getthat year round sun we need. . Iron supplements etc. B12 is one of the most common Vitamins by the way you get a lot from things like propel, or Vitamin Water etc. even your Protein shakes have tons of it. SO most times taking extra b12 is useless. When they did my 3 month labs, i passed out after they drew out 10 vials of blood. Doesnt help that I am a huge needle phobe who gets way too anxious while waiting for blood draws and IV's. I have t go back for my 6 month, they wanted me to do it during my last visit but my bp was low and i was dehydrated so they nixed that. I have to go back with my wife so she can drive as they dont want me driving after having the blood drawn for at least a few hours. Sigh. To give you an idea, my vita D level was at 3. lol Jamie i assume youve tried quinine sulfate with no results?

huh? Try seperating your thoughts a bit more, i am not sure what youre saying here?

I wasnt enamored with them, personally, i truly love the Syntrax products my whole office is drinking them now. I use the Cappuccino with 6 oz of skim milk and a few ice cubes, blended it makes a coolatta like drink, which is great in this warmer weather. The fuzzy navel , and others are amazing as well. Especially if you like half and half aka arnold palmers, you can mix the lemonade flavor in with the iced tea flavor and Water and ice cubes and bingo. or if your allowed use unsweetened iced tea with the lemonade mix or crystal light lemonade with the iced tea flavored, and you have great drinks. You can watch my taste tests in the video section here on Bariatricpal as well. I will soon be doing videos of their new all natural line of Protein shake mixes soon, as they are sending me out some to taste test as well.

Much luck to you. We are with you in spirit. Keep us posted. Were here for you and wish you nothing but the best and safest surgery and recovery. You will do great!

here is a hint, skip the Protein bars of any kind until your well in hand with your eating habits , personally id say 6 months out minimum. they all have sugar and carbs, the big misnomer is that complex carbs are okay. they are and they aren't. they are better than simple carbs but still not good overall. Maximize your weight loss, minimize the carbs and eliminate the sugars. as little as 20 grams of carbs in a day will slow my weight loss down to a crawl. So i dont do it if i can help it. we all have lapses, but we work to minimize them as much as possible. This is such a drastic life changer, we need to embrace it and use it the best we can. I like to look at it this way, weight loss surgery is like a chainsaw. Sure it can cut big trees into firewood, But in the hands of a skillful user, it can make beautiful art. Make art with your surgery, not firewood.

Simply put at the three-month mark, my nutritionist was just fine with caffeine. but not before, they want to make sure you aren't having issues with acids. But i start off my days now with a medium black iced coffee and use the coffee mate sugar-free Italian sweet cream, its like sugar and cream in one, without the sugar or milk fats. Also i sometimes use energy shots an hour before a workout on some days to help power me through my workout. I have had no side effects from any of that. but best to wait for awhile. As to alcohol. there are several reasons not to imbibe. Or at least not often. 1. extremely high in calories. Even skinny girl drinks are loaded with sugar and calories. If you drink once or twice a week, you will not lose anywhere near what you could have without drinking, plain and simple. You have to make the decision is it worth the empty calories and the like, for a drink. 2. Alcohol, like any liquid, passes very fast into your intestines and as a result, can hit your blood stream a lot faster and in higher concentrations than prior to surgery. The common nomenclature is that it is about 7 times more potent to a bariatric surgery patient. 3. Bariatric surgery patients have a much higher risk of alcoholism. Whether it is through addiction transference. i.e. food to alcohol, or through depression tendencies, and stress, or through the increased effects of alcohol in the blood ( see above), no one is sure, but the numbers do not lie. I hope this helps.

Lol my primary care doc saw me for the first time since the surgery, about two weeks back, and he said, well were gonna have to getthat tummy tuck and breast surgery, but heck, at least youll be alive to have it.. ( said in a nice way) So ill take it. Ive already started saving up what i can for it. Wont be easy.

impacted, meh youd know it. i know i have standing orders from my surgeon, if i go 5 days and a laxative wont help. welcome ye old fleet enema. not the most pleasant thing, but when you use it, dont stray too far from the bathroom.

ill be honest ive looked at myself and see the bones etc and thought, " wow , i look sick." i know that's not true, but when the difference is so pronounced, its viewable. but what that person said is just plain wrong.

you cant cause a leak in your stomach by using your abs to help with a bowel movement. they dont have anything to do with each other. lactulose is good for long term prevention but not for releif. you may want to use a gentle laxative like colace with a stool softener.

Flinstones vitamins, simply put even my nutritionist agrees they are the best , and you can get them with iron as well, if you like. although i switched to the non iron ones and take a iron chewable that tastes great called veglife, its a vegan iron supplement and it tastes really good, suprised the heck out of me. heres the pic if you like http://www.vitacost.com/veglife-vegan-iron-chewable-berry-60-chewable-tablets?csrc=GPF-PA-Vitamins%20%26%20Supplements-076280810257&ci_gpa=pla&ci_kw=&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=076280810257&gclid=CNqN6ZGAl8YCFYoYHwodGV4A7A

ive heard good thing about that doctor, i went to dr mccluney over at steward in brockton. I have no idea what they want you to do in 6 hours. thats a little weird to me, but every journey is different.

first off, its not really true that your body WANTS more, your brain might make you think you want more, but you really only need to increase caloric intake if you are really heavily working out like 5 to 7 days a week for multiple hours. otherwise, you are fine.