FluffyChix

Ok, so this was my first official birthday in maintenance! I'm pleased to report that after eating in birthday celebration mode (and drinking) for the past 2 days, I'm right back smack at goal. Scale this morning showed a very reassuring 130.6lbs. Yay Tiny Tool!!! Woot! Oh and we saw Downton Abbey yesterday and my sissies gave us pedis, lunch, and dinner! Wowza! Happy Birthday! Right? But today it's back to TCB. I'm eating lean and mean and green today cuz we have a business event tonight. This is gonna be an interesting week cuz we have another business event tomorrow night! Oh forgot to add, I had a non-WLS surgery with IV on Friday and was only up 4lbs from it. Then am back down to goal weight today including the 2 days of celebratsions!

Woooohooooo! Own it baybee!!!! Way to make that scale your little bio*ch! I bet you feel great?!!! Congrats.

Good gosh, everyone looks ah-may-zing!!! Congrats on the great work and darling outfits! It's official. I wanna be @Cheeseburgh or @ms.sss or @Healthy_life2 when I grow up. I'm so impressed by all of our shrinky dinkers (oh you know who you are) and am LOVIN' seeing your transformation outfit by outfit. I can literally see y'all shrinking in front of my eyes! Cudos!!! Crunches and bridges, and planks--Oh MY!!! Welcome to our new token dude! Cuz every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man! Congrats to you on your work and sartorial style.

Yeah, I'm not a purist, nor a super athlete or endurance pro (or trainee). And I too find OMAD difficult to do mentally cuz I "feel" like I'm trying to force more food into me at a single eating window like 60-90 minutes. And I feel longterm, trying to do that too frequently, I'd end up overeating and possibly stretching my stoma. So I will do it once in a while or as part of ADF. And when I do it, like the others said, I try to shoot for satisfying minimums. About the minimum for me on protein is about 43-46g or protein per day. So that's pretty easily satisfied by 1 Premier Protein drink, plus a normal size bari meal with 3-4oz protein + 1-1 1/2oz al dente veg + 1 tsp healthy fat. It will be a super low cal day (ADF). I defer my vitamin window as long as I can until I can still get all my vits for the day. Vits like Calcium and Magnesium might stop autophagy. But, like normies, I believe on the days we totally fast, then the breakdown of stored nutrients will sustain our vitamin and mineral status. I take my vitamins in 3 sets, spaced 2 hours apart in order to maximize absorption. So if you want to get technical, I probably break my fast in an 18:6 window, since I start taking them in the afternoon on the days I OMAD. (Oh and I will also often add a splash of Premier Protein to coffee, or an HerbOx bouillon during the fasting period--I'm on purist and was in it for the weight loss more than autophagy--although now I'm in it not for weight loss, but rather for autophagy, so rules are changing for me.) But that's when we actively have excess fat on our bodies. Once we reach goal, or are very low in fat stores, EVERYthing changes...and entering into long term caloric deficit has detrimental potential, with protein status as well as vitamins and minerals. But when we have lots of extra fat--no issues. I do believe that done correctly, we can have periodic episodes of severe caloric restriction (without vitamin supplementation) and be perfectly fine. In fact it helps longevity. But that is something done once a month or quarter depending on your health status. Hope that helps.

Well, I have no pain. I make sure to keep my vitamins going per my doc and per my labs. So that is SUPER important. And I KISS with food. I purposely keep to lean, simply prepared proteins: fish, shrimp, chicken, turkey, lean pork, lean beef/deer/lamb + al dente steamed veg + a small serving of healthy fat per meal. By doing that, my hunger is pretty contained and controlled. I follow this plan between 80-90% of the time now that I'm at goal in maintenance, and during WLM, I was pretty fanatical about following the KISS plan. I tried to give my lizard brain (hypothalmus) as few "hits" of opiod pleasure responses as possible so I could re-hardwire my neural pathways with regards to food.

Wow! Hard core dude. LOL. Great it's worked for you and your bro. Congrats on your weight loss. I do agree that from my viewpoint, you have to be willing to say "screw food" -- at least in the WLM--in order to lose the quickest and get to goal without potentially setting yourself up for stalling out too soon and losing focus. I do think many of us have to completely change and break up with the foods that contributed to our poor eating behaviors. Otherwise, like alcoholics, we run the risk of recidivism. The beauty of the initial weeks out from surgery and the honeymoon period is that it presents an opportunity to break up with old habits and almost painlessly build new healthy habits and learn new food ways of eating. Thanks for showing us your plan!!! p.s. I never really had ANY post op pain or pain in refeeding...

Also, when in doubt, drink a glass of water as quickly as you can for your particular stage of healing! Then wait 20 minutes. Often thirst masquerades itself as hunger. So hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. And even now, I have hungry, hungry, heifer days. They are tough to get through, but I make sure my carbs are low, protein adequate and that I'm staying in my caloric goal for the day and I drink lots of water, and exercise (walk) and deep breathe when those times come. It helps. Welcome!

So the original "keto" as developed in the 60s and 70s by Dr. Atkins was much lower than todays' present iteration of the diet. For a normie Keto Diet based on Atkins 72, most fat % were in the 60-75% range. When I followed it as a normie, I had to be between 55-65% fat in order to lose the best. Most of the LCHF/keto docs agree that the amount of fat in your diet entirely depends on the amount of adiposity on your body. That means, that even with a keto diet, you still must operate in a caloric deficit so that you burn the fat stores in your body rather than the fat in your diet for energy. And for the most part, you must expend the energy from your diet before you tap into your fat stores. As @AZhiker and @KarenLR75 say, there is no need to inflate our fat to "today's keto" range. For most of us PO, it would be difficult due to surgical malabsorption. Even VSGers can have difficulty with higher fat. By simply reducing carbs to 20g net or below per day and putting your personal prescription for protein into the equation (given to you by your surgeon), then you can back into your target calorie goal and figure out your fat grams/percentage based on that. Any additional fatty acids you need (and the ketones produced through lipolysis) will then be able to come from the fat strapped to your booty and middle (and total body) rather than the fat bomb or MCT oil, or butter coffee -- or whatever ridiculous bolus of exogenous and unnecessary "keto bs" you consume. I knew that in order to lose I needed to maintain a range between 650-850 calories/day. I know, because when I got to 850 calories or above, I would stall out and not lose anything. I also knew from my surgeon and RD that I had a broad protein range (in the early days) of between 60-80g protein daily--with an optimal amount at 74g for my LBM and are based upon height, sex, age, physical status. Males and females of a different size will have different macros. Here are the macros I've used to lose 157lbs:

Dang woman! I lost the lottery! Two days? That's got to be a new record. Congrats on TCB and nipping the vacay bounce in the bud!!!

Duddddddeeee!!!! You look ahhhh-MAY-zing!!! Congrats on your transformation, perseverence, and great attitude. So inspiring!

WB!!! We misssssed you!!!!

Ouch! So sorry to hear this! It kinda sounds like a medical emergency/complication of a prior surgery. Don't most insurances including NHS cover that? Like if you had to go to the ER with it? Is it excessively painful and keeping you from keeping liquids down or being able to eat? It honestly sounds like the band slipped and may be causing problems with your esophagus which could be very very bad over a 3 week period. Whatever you do, don't eat a lot. ((hugs))

Omg! I KNOW!!! My preciouses! *snort* And to add insult, they shaved a 1 1/2 in crop circle in mine on Friday. So it's even more "special." ha!

Hahaha helarious on the first! And brilliant game plan for walking while eating gelato!!!

Oh so glad you took a break and had a blast! Hope you came back refreshed and ready to meet life head on with new vigor and a relaxed mind!!!! You rock woman and can't wait to watch how quickly you vanquish your vacay bounce! I'm betting 1 week--maybe 9 days. That's my official position. We missed you!

I wish we had a MUAH emoji on our "rating" emoticons. You rock girl!

Dang mamacita! You look fabulous!!!

Wow! How cool, right? It's like reinventing yourself with a proverbial "clean" slate. Nothing that could potentially bias. Good for you!!! And wow, what a vocation! TY for all you do!

Wow! Congrats to you hon! That is soooooo impressive! So excited for you about your success and for being active and healthy!! Mine was 45 in the hospital this past Friday before surgery. I "rawlk" (run slowly at 3mph LOL *snick*) for an hour+ per day plus do core exercises 2 x per week. The doc said if I'm not symptomatic then no need to worry. The only thing I do have is my ankles/feet are swelling (they think from venous insufficiency from the weight loss), but also sometimes my toes and balls of my feet ache tremendously (beyond my neuropathy from chemo). Do you have any toe aching or discoloration or swelling in your feet or toes? I think it may just be a "thing" with bariatrics who are active? Will be interested to hear from others!!

Just beautiful! The outfit and the girl! And I'm mad jealous of your darling hair!

Hahahaha! Goats!!!!! How adorable! Do their little feet hurt? Look at you skinny girl! Beautiful! (I'm guessing those aren't Sugar Babies on the ground behind you, are they?)

I'm so so excited for you! Gosh it's gonna be here so soon! Are you only doing the arms? Or boobs too? Your workout ethos is commendable!!! ?

Gosh, you're not kidding girl. So hot. But NY in August is pretty miserable too, right? Choose your hard. Ha! No I was keeping my cals pretty much the same. I fluctuated between low and high (to me = 1000-1300) on the weekends. It just started coming off. I did nothing different. Other than I quit stressing about what the scale would read the next morning and if it would ever go down any further. Or the drive to "get" somewhere.

I just wonder if you aren't misunderstanding the instructions perhaps? They can be confusing. Maybe they mean 1 week of protein drinks and 2 days of clear liquids before the surgery?

ditto!