BigViffer

You know, now that I think about it; vent away. This is exactly the place to blow off the steam. Many times I vented on something that in hindsight was trivial. But in the moment, it's something that just needs to be said to get it out of your head.

That's a really good one for the obliques! Glad to hear you started with it as a base. No workout plan will (nor should) be identical for everyone. Try as I might, I just don't think I can continue much longer on the Starting Strength routine I have been doing. I just cannot take in enough food. The lifts are perfect for my goals, I just cannot do the plan as it is written. So I am working on and testing out a variation for myself. Keep it up man. Establish your habit so that becomes the replacement to your food addiction!

Do a quick search on this forum for "regret" or "cheated". So many people go through with the surgery and are no where near mentally prepared for the lifestyle change. To be honest though, I did not have to wait. In my case the sleeve surgery was a precursor to another surgery dealing with my spine. However, once it was done and the weight came off the other problem went away. So I was one of the fortunate ones.

I've pretty pretty vocal about my disdain for the NUT that was part of my surgical team. My surgeon does not even care for her opinions. She was completely unprepared at the three appointments I had with her and she consistently ignores things that were told to her either in writing or mentioned at the previous appointment. Things like food allergies should be front and center and she always forgot them. However, if I ever run low on printed out smoothie recipes, she'll be the first person I think to call. I am eating 2000-2500 calories a day and averaging 150 grams of protein a day. My surgeon is also into weight lifting as is one of his PA's. That is why I was going to discuss the product in the original post. Based on my workouts, he said I could go as high as 3500 calories a day, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I was wanting to use that product on the days I was hitting 2000. I am good on my macro's and eating patterns. I even have an example for people to review: Thanks for the advice, but I'm good.

I am already fairly liberal with my use of peanut, almond, and cashew butters. But I do not want to over do them since they are so very high in fat.Yes I realize that they are healthier fats, but the thought is still in my head fat+bad! It's easy for me to tell people not to sweat the fat content, but of course hard to follow the same advice. I will look into nuts as a caloric boost a little more seriously. I have already had my appointment with my surgeon, so I won't be seeing him again for at least a year.

Yes it is true. During the first few months I would be so bold as to say the majority of people cannot hit the protein goal every day. Couple that with the seriously reduced caloric intake and you have someone who is not as active because they are exhausted. We've both been on the board roughly the same amount of time, can you remember any guy saying they didn't lose any strength or muscle mass the first year?

@OutsideMatchInside - I had purposefully skipped this thread until I saw another vet's name pop up in the unread feed. So I finally read this thread and you pretty much said exactly what I was going to say. It's no secret that I am big into tracking: Every bite I have eaten has been logged. Even the alcohol I drank. Every homecooked meal has it's recipe added to MyFitPal library. I don't know about any one else, but it is of immense help to me. My wife measures everything when cooking and then when serving. She packs my lunch with measurements or barcodes so I always have as accurate information as possible. According to MyFitPal I have 653 days in a row logged. So yeah, logging is a good idea for me.

There is no way around it, you will lose muscle mass. I know I lost quite a bit. There is just no way during the rapid weight loss phase to take in enough protein to keep the amount of muscle we fat guys needed just to move. The most important thing is to establish the new habits that will endure the rest of our lives (hopefully). After about 9 months, that is when I started seeing body shaping. My shoulders and arms and dare I say, my glutes, started to become more prominent. Barbells? I started those at 6 weeks. It was pitiful. 10lbs and I would literally be panting by the time I left. Luckily the gym I go to is predominately senior citizens and just a few younger people that are in shape. No one judges that I have ever noticed. There are the occasional meat heads, but other people opinions carry very little weight so I was fine ignoring them. Though I don't see them anymore. Like most meat heads, they always injure themselves doing stupid crap. I recommend finding a good whey protein powder. Don't care what it cost, as long as it is a good one. What is a good one you are probably wondering? A good protein powder is one that has about 25 grams of protein per scoop. And it can be whey isolate or concetrate, but pass on anything taurine, soy, egg, and casein. They are decent proteins, but if you want to have muscle gains, there is no disputing whey is king. Oh, and the most important thing is that it is a powder that you will actually use. There are some damned expensive powders out there that IMO taste like crap. I personally use Gold Standard. Very trusted name and fair price. Oh, don't even consider GenePro. It's is utter crap. I've said my mind about that stuff plenty so I won't go into it again. My caloric intake right now is 2000-2500 calories. My protein is 150 - 200 grams a day. Here is an example of my tracking that I do, it should give you plenty of info:

Unless a person is taking caffeine pills, the water content of whatever beverage they are getting their caffeine from will be sufficient to counteract the diuretic affects. Of course, this does not necessarily cover the poisonous "energy" drinks. But coffee and even Mt Dew have enough water to counteract the caffeine. The bigger concern with pop would be the sodium content.

Hot damn, look at you! Fantastic results in such a short amount of time. You must feel like a million bucks.

Man, the thought of even attempting Crossfit fresh out of surgery is beyond me. I know that everyone is different and some bounce back quickly, but I was puny for several months after. I just checked my records and at about 6 months out I was able to eat about 1200 calories consistently. That is when the performance in the gym started to improve. During the weightloss phase it is going to be exceedingly difficult to build any muscle mass. So focusing on the cardio is a good idea. I would say by 2 or 3 months out you should be able to do any cardio as hard as you can handle. Unless of course there is a heart condition. As for sex, I'm thinking it was few weeks at least for me. Though I had some minor complications with a hematoma and partially collapsed lung.

Quite welcome.

I find it surprising that there are so many different "reasons" for people to avoid caffeine coming from their surgeons. The "acidic" nature of it is always hilarious to me. Your stomach has hydrochloric acid in it already. Like, as soon as they close your stomach, it's producing acid again. The diuretic nature of caffeine is nullified by the amount of water present in pretty much any caffeinated beverage, so that one isn't true either. The appetite stimulant is one I haven't heard before. Doesn't make sense to me either. Hell, all the diet pills and appetite suppressants on the market have caffeine as a key ingredient. So I would call bunk on that one as well. The only verifiable thing I could find on why bariatric patients should not have caffeine is because caffeine attaches to the same receptors that absorb Vitamin D and calcium; and those two are vitally important the first year. It is also common for caffeine to irritate the bowels in some people. And as a gastric patient, whether you have a sleeve or a pouch, you no longer have a reservoir to hold the coffee in before it seeps into the intestines. So you get a full dose pretty much right off the bat.

You can take this as a life lesson and an opportunity. These are the very people you can safely exclude from your life from this point forward. The best revenge is to be happy. Show them that their opinion means nothing to you. You won't just be able to say they don't mean anything to you, you have to remove them from your life. Otherwise they will eventually sabotage you. Not just in your weight loss, but at anything that makes your life happier than theirs.

Try and break the association of salad with lettuce. If you are going to enjoy salads, at least make them nutritionally worthwhile. I guarantee once you get used to dark hearty leafy salads you will wonder why anyone eats lettuce. It is so bland and banal to me that I spat it out last time I was given a salad by my mother in law. As it is now, I eat salad at least 3 times a week. Helps keep me regular and I still very much enjoy eating them. I buy a couple bags of Sweet Kale salad kit from Costco. Just go light on the cranberries and use your own dressing.

I guess I should mention that I am 2 years out. I am hitting 150-200 grams of protein a day. You won't always be limited to 2 ounce meals. There will come a time when you are able to actually eat about two cups (by volume not weight) of salad.

The trick to adding protein powder to hot liquids like coffee and herbal tea is not to add the powder to the hot liquid. It's just like how my mother taught me to make gravy. Take one scoop of your protein powder in a cup and add warm milk or water. Just enough to wet it! Like a tablesppon worth. Stir it together so that it becomes a little thick batter. Then add another tablespoon of your coffee or tea. That raises the temperature but doesn't make it clump. Once you have the powder turned into the consistency of cream, finish pouring your coffee in the cup. For broth, I would just add the powder to your cup, stir until dissolves, then heat it up.

If salad dressing is your main concern, try your hand at making your own. I'll take fage greek yogut and flavor it with any marinade I think would go well with the salad I am eating. The marinades have very little in the way of calories because they use no thickeners.They are mostly spices and vinegar. The yogurt takes the place of the thickeners and mayo base. You can also make your own ranch dressing mix and blend it into plain yogurt. It's mostly buttermilk powder, garlic, dill, parsley and a few other things. There are tons of recipes online for yogurt based dressings.

I don't know of any protein powders that cannot be used in that way. If it is a whey based protein, you should be able to use it in baking without issue. We use it in "pancakes", muffins, protein cakes, etc.. I also have a tumeric bone protein that we use in chicken noodle soup or anything that calls for tumeric. What exactly are you wanting to make with the powders?

Excellent follow up question! They are difficult to digest in the fact that they take longer to break down than something as insubstantial as regular lettuce. If something like kale, mustard greens, collards and/or turnip greens are not chewed thoroughly enough to break the fibrous portions down to a more easily digestible consistency, you will pass undigested foods through your intestines and bowel. So while the food took up precious real estate in your stomach (or pouch depending on the surgery), you will reap no benefit to the consumption. I do not believe any sort of discomfort is associated with it. I do know that they will not cause constipation. As a matter of fact, they would help with keeping one regular. Regular lettuce could cause the explosive watery stool that leaves us unable to leave the house with any confidence. No joke!

Iceberg lettuce literally has so little nutritional value that it is a waste of space. They only time that eating it is a good idea is when you are constipated. For some reason, iceberg lettuce goes through most of us like fat through a goose. If you really miss salads, learn to love kale, spinach and other dark hearty greens. Even then they will be in very small portions. They are very fibrous and can be difficult to digest in the beginning. But they are at least nutritionally dense and worth the space they take up.

I know that it took a little while, but I have no issue with anything spicy nowadays. I did have to chuckle in the beginning when something as tame as mango habenero sauce would cause me distress. I would say by the end of the first year, I was back to normal in this regard.

I eat greens on a regular basis now, but in the beginning there just isn't room. The good news is that they will send you to the bathroom with a sense of urgency no matter how constipated you are, so keep that in mind when you haven't had a BM in a long time. Even though they are cooked, they are still pretty fibrous and that can be difficult on your digestive system the first year. I wouldn't recommend trying them without your surgeons or the PA clearance. I don't have a very high opinion of NUT's.

If you are doing all of that, then I wouldn't worry about the pre-portioned peanut butter. Those are at best 180 calorie Jiff cups I am betting. Those are about 2 oz, the other member was eating 6.5 oz a day. Much different! As for the 30 minutes prior, I don't do that anymore. When I was still in the first year though, I did it because it seemed like the liquid took forever to seep into my stomach. Now I can drink up until I start eating. After eating though, it is at least 20 minutes but usually more before I will take a drink. At 7 months out, I think the calories are a little low, but it isn't my place to tell you how much to eat. The size going down is encouraging to hear though.

Are you sure you are hitting the macro goals like you think you are? Are you really in cardio training mode or just walking? What is your daily average caloric intake? When I was in weightloss mode, my cardio was sustained 130+ bpm heart rate for at least 30 minutes 3 times a week. I kept track of all my lifts and my exercises as well as every bite I put in my mouth. If you are hitting your protein goal, are you doing so efficiently? Just the other day, by breaking down the macro's we discovered a member had been eating 1000+ calories a day in just peanut butter over 10 days. She nailed her protein goals those days, but the fats were awful high. My best recommendation would be to weigh all your food and keep a log of it. Being consistent is the most important thing you can do. Don't leave something off there because it will not look good on the spreadsheet or in the app. Being 100% honest is the best thing you can do because you will only sabotage yourself.