PorkChopExpress

I had a couple crates of stuff that had gotten way too small for me over the years. I waited until I had hit a couple of new belt loops on my belt and noticed my t-shirts were getting pretty big, and dug into them (this was about two weeks ago). I found that about half of the stuff fit me perfectly. So I took the "big" clothes and donated them, and started wearing the stuff I'd pulled out of storage. I think in about a month or so, I'll be getting into the rest of the stuff that didn't fit and doing it again. After that, I'm going to have to wait until those clothes are clearly too big and then start looking at Goodwill...because that will mean I'm into 2x territory again, which is a size I haven't been able to wear since I was probably twenty years old. That's going to be exciting.

I'm looking forward to moving back to my home state of Colorado this weekend. We split the family up about eight months ago, as my wife was able to find teaching work and have help with the kids with my parents, rent-free in my home state. I stayed behind, as I work in the entertainment industry (video editor) and the thought was that I could make more money to help us pay down the debts that way, and come visit regularly. It hasn't worked out that way though, and it's been harder on everyone than expected. So I started putting the word out in the Denver area that I'm coming available, and I've had a few encouraging meetings with local production facilities and boutiques. No job yet, but I will be doing rideshare/delivery driving to bridge the gap. Thank goodness for the "on demand" economy. It has been a benefit and a difficulty, enduring the recovery from surgery alone. I had my wife here the weekend of surgery and my mom came to help the first week, but since then it's been all me. It's been good, in that my schedule could be much more regimented and I was able to make sure I was getting everything when I needed it, both meals and Vitamins. When I visited them for four days over Halloween weekend, it proved to be WORLDS harder to get everything, there was just too much going on. Plus, I was much more tired than I expected, dealing with our three kids and doing/going/etc... But I'll have a couple more weeks of recovery on me this weekend and I'm feeling pretty good. The vitamins and mealtimes will just have to become a routine amidst the relative chaos of family life, again. But I've missed my wife and the kids, and I know they've missed me. So it's going to be good to reunite the family and keep forging ahead with the financial battle, as I fight my fat loss and fitness battle. It's a battle I think my wife expects to join me in, this coming summer. I think it's good that I went first, so I can help and advise with her recovery, and the mental challenges. In the end, the situation should work toward the good. In some ways, leaving LA behind after building a career here and living here a third of my life is weird, and a little nerve-wracking, not knowing what the future holds...much as I didn't love it here, I'm used to it. But whenever I go visit CO, I feel "at home" and I've never felt that way coming back here. So I'm sure I'll get over it. Lots of changes in life, this year...and a lot more to come, next year.

You look like you're fixing to redefine your username now, in those "after" pictures, @@BigReid21 Nice work.

Isopure protein drinks, you can get them at GNC. Clear liquid. They suck, but you'll get your protein and it's only one day

I'd go skinless before you eat them with the skins.

Probably depends on the medicine. You may want to try putting just a little something in there (a swallow of Protein shake or something) before you take the medicine. Otherwise, mention it to your surgeon.

No, I had done all the prerequisites under the Blue Shield program for like a year, and I was paying out of pocket for that policy through the exchange, so I figured I'd better try to get some of my money back out of the insurance company!

It took me a year from the day I started my education/supervised diet (6 months of monthly classes) to when I finally was able to get it approved and scheduled. My insurer had a lot of prerequisites and then I just needed to find a good window of time where I could get it done.

Providence St. Joseph's in Burbank, CA.

Can't wait till I crack 300. Shouldn't be long.

@@morningangel79 It's really not as bad as people think it's going to be, usually. The recovery isn't the most fun thing in the world, but the actual surgery, you aren't even aware of.

I suspect your nutritionist will also tell you that fats should be the smallest percentage of your diet, right now. Protein > carbs > fat. If, however, you wanted to be in ketosis...then you'd want protein and fat with almost no carbs at all. But it's not all that healthy to stay in ketosis for long periods of time. Some people do that to jump-start their metabolism too, though. In the end, nobody is going to be able to give you a magic solution to breaking a plateau, though - not your nutritionist, and nobody here. Everybody's body reacts differently to calorie restriction and even the breakdown of your macros. To some extent, you'll have to try different things. But I would first try restricting fats and boosting carbs a little bit, personally...because what you know for sure is that your current breakdown isn't doing the trick.

Yup! Try it sometime. They always put it in the same container as the pintos & cheese, when I order it.

No sugar, no carbs, everything non-fat. Protein shakes 3x daily (low-carb) for at least 25g/protein per shake. 64oz of Water a day minimum. Low-sodium as much as possible. You WILL lose enough weight doing this. In fact, since I suspect this is because you slacked on what you were supposed to be doing and this is what has caused the big emergency, you probably have at least 5 pounds of water weight that will come right off. So it's not as bad as you think. But you WILL have to be ultra-disciplined for the next two weeks and not cheat at all.

You are going to be the one that has to take it all the way home. The surgery itself isn't going to get you all the way there. The sleeve doesn't create long-term malabsorption issues, which in my view is a positive because that is only really valuable while you are losing weight. After that, it will become a hinderance. The sleeve will create a serious restriction and help you re-learn how to eat, and create a new relationship with food. That's critical if you're going to reach your goal. At 5'3" I think you'll find most BMI/weight scales would still classify you as overweight at 160lbs. You'd be looking more at 130-140 to be a "normal" BMI/weight. Totally do-able, but you have to be prepared for the fact that it's going to require you to master your diet, get consistent with exercise, and really be disciplined. The surgery isn't a magic bullet.

Yeah your fat numbers and carb numbers are flip-flopped. Should be the other way around...and if you really want to kick start yourself, cut the carbs for a little while, too...and make sure they never consist of fruit. Always vegetables, preferably non-starchy. Also, you may want to re-evaluate your TDEE and make sure you're actually in a decent caloric deficit every day, to begin with. If you're not getting the exercise you were, get back to it. If you're at the same intensity level you were a week or two ago, boost it. Also...water, Water, water. Everyone's body reacts differently but one thing is for sure, if you're stalled out you have to try some changes and I would try cutting the fat content of your diet in half for a week. If that doesn't see results, then boost your non-fruit carbs. Beans and such. It's trial end error, busting plateaus. Sometimes, counter-intuitively, it can even help to boost your calorie intake for a week, to kick-start your metabolism.

I've never heard of Sheetz before, but it sounds like fast food and fast food is tricky. A lot of things seem to set peoples' stomachs off after surgery. Might have been a sauce, or maybe the cheese...who knows. I have some safe go-to things now for when I have to resort to a meal out. Taco Bell pintos & cheese and a side of chicken or steak, and a side of green beans and chicken or mushroom chicken at Panda Express. Those both work well for me.

@@SalOdyssey Not really, everyone's body loses fat at its own rate. What you care about mainly is the trend over time, and the average per week. Just track it over a period of a month or so, that's a better gauge of how you're doing. But the body doesn't go on a 7 day schedule like most of us weigh. You may drop two pounds the day after you weigh, as your fat cells had been holding onto Water that day and then expelled a bunch of their contents the next. @@Ignatius Nice! I wouldn't sweat the scale for a few weeks post-op though, the healing process combined with other hormonal issues can cause water retention and so you may find that you don't lose as much as you THINK you should have, given the restriction...but it'll catch up. It's awesome not feeling hungry though, that has really been the key for enabling me to fight my mental demons, because I'm not battling that hunger and the compulsions it has traditionally caused in me. You will probably go through some "feels" about eating, your old habits, fighting against a desire to go back to some old behaviors...there WILL be some psychological hurdles. Probably not until you start eating "real" food again and are feeling more healed up, but I went through some stuff the first couple of weeks, as a kind of mourning period over my old relationship with food. I'm going into week 7 now and I feel real good though, it's been empowering. But yeah, I also have to be mindful to even eat, and although I like what I eat, it's really a totally different thought process now. It's an awareness that I need to get my Protein in for the day, I need to get my dietary needs met...but there's not a big "entertainment" component there. I want it to taste good, but it's not being done for fun, or to soothe, or whatever. It's just to feed the body. That's a pretty major change.

Yeah, this behavior is one simple step removed from bulimia. Disordered eating is what we're trying to get away from, here.

I was cleared for "mushy" after my first two weeks and on the menu were turkey meatballs. I was ecstatic. I chewed it to within an inch of its life before swallowing of course, and I found that meat sat heavier and took a little longer to digest at first. But I was really happy to be eating something more normal, personally. Then again, I never experienced the effect a lot of people talk about, where my taste buds changed or I started disliking things I liked before. I think the only thing I've experienced is a "refined sugar detox" where I don't have a physical craving for that kind of stuff anymore. I still get the occasional mind-nagging about it, but that's easy enough to ignore now. Especially because I don't feel hungry.

GAINS! Muscle has memory. We have a lot of it as obese men, in our lower bodies...and so even though the extreme calorie restriction will cause us to catabolize a bunch of it and reduce our strength, we can get it back, and then some. NO LIMITS

A LOT of bodybuilders take major issue with this theory and say it doesn't hold Water in practice. There is a practice among a lot of bodybuilders called "intermittent fasting," which is being used to continue building muscle while "cutting" (losing fat). This practice involves eating all of your day's calories within a limited window...and fasting the rest of the time. So a lot of guys are eating hundreds of grams of Protein within a six or eight hour period, and each of those meals exceeds 30g of protein. They claim that if it were true that the body could only absorb 30 grams "at a time" (and there is great debate about what exactly "at a time" constitutes) then there's no way intermittent fasting would work. Honestly, there's a great deal about how the body works that dieticians and medical science don't really have figured out. But on something like this, bodybuilders put a TON of trial and error into finding out what works and it's pretty well-documented online, so I tend to believe that the 30g/protein "at a time" thing is a bit dubious. But I do think it probably has a lot to do with your activity level and metabolism, too. So maybe for us, 30g/protein per sitting is more reasonable. I don't think that's one size fits all, though.

Hung out with a friend of mine today and had my first awkward moment, when it comes to food, post-op. He suggested we go hit In-N-Out (a well-known SoCal burger chain, for those not familiar with the place) and I had to explain that I couldn't really eat there. Since I haven't spread it around that I had the sleeve surgery, he was pretty befuddled by that reaction, coming from a guy who would have been all about In-N-Out only a couple of months ago. I had to explain that I'd had the surgery, that I wasn't spreading it around but that I did need to make a healthier choice. We ended up at a Korean BBQ place and we were both happy with that choice. It officially got weird for me today, I guess. I felt self-conscious that I had to explain it, and that I no longer have the freedoms other "normal" people have, when it comes to food. I cost myself that freedom by being irresponsible about my eating for so long. He didn't react too weirdly to the news that I had surgery, but also seemed to not know exactly WHAT to say about it. "Congratulations" doesn't seem quite right, I'm sure...and "Good for you" also doesn't seem like the right sentiment. So it's weird for others who know me, as well. Just another new wrinkle in the experience. But it ended well, anyway.