BigViffer

You guys need to be careful, you're precariously close to being a curmudgeonly vet...

Thanks! I do love my big viffer. Unfortunately I have not been able to ride her this season. It's been two months since I have even started her up. Family and work take up a lot of time. I really hope to devote some time to riding once my teenagers no longer think I'm cool. Right now I am enjoying being the cool dad.

This is really going to depend on what your end goal. Are you wanting to get as strong as you can or just be more physically fit and look good? There is nothing wrong with either goal, but the ways to get there are very different in their training and programming. Let me clarify that wanting to be "strong as you can" doesn't mean becoming an elite power lifter. I've been doing the main lifts for over 2 years and I am still considered a novice because of my paltry weights. Too many injuries make it improbable that I will move much higher.

I was fat for so long, I still cannot get that image out of my head even while looking in the mirror. So I always feel like I am fighting the battle even though most of my food habits are 180 degrees from what they were. So for me, Identifying as a WLS patient and living as though I am following that diet works. The people who hit goal and leave may go on and remain successful, but I am betting that many go on to regain a little or a lot and either are too embarrassed to come back or forget about this place. Some of the most successful vets from 2 years ago that I still have contact with have gained back far more than I would have imagined. And all because they hit goal and decided to live life "normal" which really means going back to the way they were pre-op.

Sure we meal prep, but the food I pack for work doesn't always get eaten. Or I just can't finish everything I packed. To me it works best if I measure/weigh before eating and the weigh after and log the difference if I don't finish. Inversely, I have spare snacks in case I eat everything and yet am still hungry. If I only logged once a day, I would most likely forget those things completely.

I don't see how logging food before you've eaten it works for anyone. Even this far out, I cannot say what I am going to eat for the entire day. When it comes to the godawful imperial measuring system (cups of spinach, or 1/4 of pork rinds) I always switch my scale to grams. The problem with the imperial system is many people/labels say 2 ounces (weight) instead of quarter cup when they are referencing fluid ounces (volume) . The metric system avoids that confusion with grams for weight and milliliters for volume. I am meticulous with my tracking and have been for quite a while. I find it a valuable tool to prevent me from overeating. It also helps me determine if the hunger is real or just in my head. If I am already at 2,000 calories for the day, it is most likely head hunger. However, if I have been exceedingly active that day, it would make sense that I am truly hungry and need the sustenance. The free version of MyFitnessPal is still pretty darn powerful if you are handy with spreadsheets. I just use their report and scrape the data from the HTML and enter it into my spreadsheet: Those pictures are from last year, but the file is the same today but with more data.

Actually, it is impossible to create new muscle tissue when you are eating fewer calories than your body burns. It's kind of a law. (Conservation of mass). If your BMR is 1500 calories and you can only eat 1000 calories, you absolutely cannot create new muscle tissue. Now you may be able to have the existing muscle tissue live up to it's potential, increase in size comes from blood and water engorging the tissue. As the muscle is worked, it can hold more. In the case of building new tissue, the above happens as well, but now you literally have more muscle fibers that are holding more blood and water. @Biggamehunter - perhaps the forum members suggest you get help because you are so angry and taking it out on strangers on the internet? I don't see this as a your side/their side situation. I have no bias one way or the other. I'm just here to answer a question. If you want help from these people, you need to be more personable. You are not endearing enough to make anyone want to help, only argue. Hope you and your wife can come to a consensus on what to do next.

To be clear though, I am a sleeve patient. There will be some differences in the amounts of food that can be eaten at one time. However, it has been proven that bypass patients can indeed lift weights successfully. The most famous example I can think of is Lyss Remaly: http://fabulyssfitlife.com To be fair to the OP though, the first year post op it is next to impossible to build muscle because of the lack of caloric surplus that is necessary to build new muscle. There will be atrophy and loss in size as the body breaks down muscle for the proteins needed for it to function. If she were lifting weights currently, she would be able to stave off some loss of size, but she would also be increasing the protein requirements thus breaking down more muscle, etcetera etc.. To the OP, give her time. 10 months is not that long. As long as she is having regular checkups with her surgeon and/or her primary physician to monitor her health, she will be fine.

Ewww... the stupid store changed my word fluid to a link to a beverage! Gross! That's the problem with tampering with member posts to push your crap products based on keywords. Context is everything!

Based on the thread title I was going to ask if you were diabetic or had really high blood pressure. When you said that you had to have an insulin shot, that pretty much cinched it. If it last any longer, I would recommend going to an opthamologist. The inner eye pressure can change the focal point in our eye to fall before or after the retina. In a severe case that a insulin dependent friend of mine had, they had to drain some fluid from the eye ball with a needle. Sickening thought!

Actually, that's about the best thing that can be said about it. Collagen/gellatin is about the most common protein there is, it's an incomplete protein that has a poor amino acid profile. Basically all of the amino acids that are at a surplus in your body already. The only difference between the expensive collagen protein powders and Jell-O (aside from flavors) is that the proteins have been processed further to break them down into smaller particles. Oh, and collagen won't gel. Nutritionally speaking, same thing. If you look on a box of Jell-O, it states that the FDA does not consider it a significant source of protein because of the low quality of the protein. However, since collagen is being sold as a supplement, it does not get regulated by the FDA. I know, I was upset too after buy turmeric bone broth powder to use in cooking. That stuff wasn't cheap! Tasted good though. Be aware that all of these benefits are so new they are mostly marketing speak. There was a time that cigarettes were toted as healthy! https://www.healthcare-administration-degree.net/10-evil-vintage-cigarette-ads-promising-better-health/

Yes it is true for other users. Junk food is not considered a basic necessity, so there is no deprivation. I think people just like to think of the most severe word they can find and use it. At best one should feel a sense of loss at the convenience of fast/junk food. However - in the context of this thread, people who post about regain AND eat common as dirt junk food on a regular basis deserve little empathy. IN MY OPINION. There, stating that as clearly as I can. Not stating it as fact, but as opinion.

I agree whole heartily. I just don't think that skipping the crappy fast food, snack chips & cakes counts as deprivation. If one is going to eat unhealthy or off diet, then at least make it something worthwhile. Case in point, I had fried chicken livers today. I have it once a year on this day in a festival near by. Sure it's high in protein and iron, but it is also super high in fat and sodium. As much as I love them as a comfort food from my childhood - they are readily available at KFC and Lee's Chicken - I never get them except for this festival because they are just that good and it is a special treat. I literally had my entire days worth of calories on one plate! I ate it for lunch, snack, and dinner today. (Day old liver is no bueno!) The types of people I was referencing are eating pizza, tacos or nachos, rice and pasta, & booze all the time because they deep down believe the surgery is a magic thing that will save them. They are probably drinking calories too like you said, but that is just reinforcing what I said, people never made a lifestyle change during the honeymoon phase.

I only seem to notice the regain post from the people that never took the surgery seriously and continued to eat whatever they wanted. The pizza, tacos or nachos, rice and pasta, booze, goddamned marshmallow peeps... "it's all ok because now I have a smaller stomach and can't get fat!" And then the honeymoon is over and they learned nothing. Then they blame everything else in the world, life got in the way you know? You can't save everyone and you can't help everyone either. Let them fail on their own and focus on the ones that really putting the effort in.

I am a sleeve patient and I have been on Voltaren non-stop since surgery. I just take it with omeprazole. I literally cannot move without pain unless I take it. In my opinion it is a miracle drug. It is similar to Meloxicam, but I cannot remember why the same doctor will prescribe one over the other to patients. You may want to ask your doctor about those two as an option.

Believe it or not, I don't count this as "cheating" per se. There are few things that I will indulge in, and cheesecake is one of them. It can't be a walmart cheese cake sampler of course, but if it is a homemade cheesecake I find no guilt in having some. Tres Leche cake, pecan pie, & cheese cake, those are special occasion indulgences that I never feel guilty about. You are still close enough to your surgery date that your weekly average calorie deficit should more than cover the cake. As long as you count it in your calories for the day and don't make it a common occurrence, be proud that you had a sensible portion instead of a Cheesecake Factory single serving. I will admit that I am surprised that there was no dumping though. As awful as it is, it is a wonderful pavlovian teacher.

Just with my own discussions with my surgeon, there is a big difference between skin removal and plastic surgery. I can get skin removed from my belly because of the problems it causes, but it won't look as nice as if I had plastic surgery. Plus my chest wouldn't be covered at all. I've been stable for about 2 years and the desire to get rid of this skin is getting stronger every month.

Actually most of my activity anymore comes from people PMing me. Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

That's because every new wave of patients & forum members brings a deluge of fragile or hostile people who don't want information and talk from members with experience. They want validation, *hugs*, and immediate results/responses. In my opinion as an older member, you can only take the verbal lashing and emotional outbursts for so long before you just don't care about helping anyone. Escalating and explosive replies with the sole purpose of shocking or generating more knee jerk responses has become the norm across all social media as long as it is done in the name of social justice. I can say that I have seen so many of these people come on here and spout off, gather a group of sycophants, then fade away because they have wasted the honeymoon phase and never established their own healthy habits. They never reach goal, they develop a transfer addiction, they gain it all back, they develop a new eating disorder... I've pretty much seen it all. Why should a vet invest time to help people when they don't want to be helped?

That is incredible! Major kudos to you! Was that a 1 rep max or a 5 rep work set? You beat my PR 5 rep set by 20 lbs!

That will never happen here. This site exist to sell products and for ads to get impressions and clicks. If random internet strangers cannot see a page or thread, that is a missed opportunity for revenue. All of the duplicate threads repeating the same thing, over and over and over ad nauseam help boost this sites organic search results. That is why the male/female sections cannot be cordoned off, that would prevent unregistered people from seeing content that has ads attached to it. It's not personal, it's just business.

Collagen does absolutely nothing for tissue repair. It is an incomplete p.rotein. The FDA requires foods high in only collagen protein to have the disclaimer staying the the f.ood is not a significant source of protein. Collagen is still nice to have and I'm sure there are some benefits to it, but you can just buy g.elatin. It's pure collagen and added flavor. edited for spelling and to remove the damn hyperlinks this place adds when you say trigger words.

How funny, that is what my mom gave us; an old black & decker. I just assumed they were cheapies. Maybe they are better made than I had thought.

Oh man, I wish I would have bought a stick blender years ago. I always thought they were gimmicky. After the first time using a cheapy one given to my wife by my mother, I am sold on them. Gravies/sauces that need to be smooth - the wand is indispensable! Do you have any recommendations on a good stick blender?