etc. etc. etc.

I went with Unjury, which was recommended by some folks here. It doesn't seem to taste at all, which is ideal. You can't order it from Amazon or find it in stores as far as I know. But it's on their site, priced reasonably (for what it is anyway) and they ship fast. Really though, everyone is going to swear the one they use is best. That is standard. The only one I warn against is Genepro, which claims to have 30 grams of protein per tablespoon... and there are 14.3 grams in a tablespoon. Some folks here love that one too and swear it's great, but that one makes me wary.

I seem to eat pretty similarly to jess9395. Lower carb, but not hardcore anti-carb or anything. It's not really that hard if you can just avoid breads, potatoes, rice, and unnecessary sugar. Some people are probably laughing, because the default diet these days is so heavy on those four things. But there's really a pretty wide world of meats, veggies, etc. that work for this diet, so it's easy enough to get used to doing.

My wife has this way of making chicken soup that makes for a whole batch of meals. She cooks up the stock with chicken and veggies, then removes those making a chicken salad out of some of the veggies and salad that she eats. The rest of the chicken she shreds and I eat it with barbecue sauce and some chunks of polish sausage mixed in, which makes for a pretty lively flavor, even as it's light. She and my kid cook up noodles and eat it with the broth as soup, but I just treat it as bone broth, mixing in protein powder (I still have some to get rid of from my liquids phase). It's nice in the wintertime.

What I'm interested in is whether any of you have folks in your lives who are also heavy who are taking your success to heart and thinking about also getting sleeved. Frankly, I sort of assumed there would be, as I have several truly heavy friends and family members. But nope, no one is into this at all. Even the heavy people who are supportive of me don't seem to be considering doing the surgery themselves. They're continuing to double down on new gym regimes, new diets, etc.

People resent you getting fit with the help of surgery because they feel you didn't suffer enough to get there. They want you to suffer for being fat. They also are threatened if you go from obese to more fit than they are. In short, people are the worst.

Another thing I've found is that I really and truly have to separate drinking wine from eating. It can be a little uncomfortable to drink liquid too close to eating a meal. But if that liquid is alcohol, holy toledo that hurts.

The Crock Pot pizza is also pretty cheap to make, at least compared to the specialized crust or frozen options.

I make this slow cooker crustless pizza regularly. This weekend, I made it with ground turkey instead of sausage or beef, but I mixed in some mushrooms to improve the taste/texture. It worked out well and was lower cal and a bit lighter. https://www.recipesthatcrock.com/crock-pot-crustless-pizza/

I have been drinking the occasional glass of white wine (and very occasionally two) for a while now. But last night, I had red for maybe the second time and it did not go so well. I woke up in the middle of the night with congestion so bad that both my nostrils were entirely blocked. I stayed in the bathroom flushing with saline and blowing my nose for maybe half an hour. I eventually got back to sleep, but when I woke up, I was exhausted and not rested at all. I also had diarrhea. My wife reminded me that the last time I'd had red wine, I also had trouble sleeping. So I Googled "red wine congestion diarrhea" and immediately got page after page of results on red wine intolerance/allergy. Apparently, the amount you weigh has a lot to do with the quantity of red wine that will affect you. And so, being about 40% smaller... you get the picture. So I've given up beer and sparkling wine, most mixed cocktails, and now red wine. It's a good thing I like white wine. I don't have much else left. Not that drinking is that big a deal to me, but socially, it's nice to have an option.

I do 85-105 grams of protein a day, 1200-ish calories. I only work out two to four times a week though lately. I am six and a half months out. I am six foot tall.

Something funny I have noticed. Now that I'm within 15-20 pounds of being done, people who are 15-20 pounds overweight think I have "lost enough." I still have a belly and visible love handles, so it's not like I'm thin and am just going overboard. But people have this funny thing where they seem shocked and horrified at the possibility that I will go from morbidly obese to thinner than they are. I also have a deal with my wife where if I get below 200, she has to quit smoking. I'm at 205 now and she keeps suggesting I can stop losing weight because I look great. Heh. I don't think she thought I would get here when we made this deal.

My bad. I think I clicked onto the nutrition label for the powdered version by mistake. The one in the bottle does indeed seem to be just 6 grams of carbs. That's not so bad.

17 grams of carbs is a lot of carbs... if you're doing low carb.

It's different for different people. I'm at about 1200 a day now. Sometimes a little over, sometimes slightly less, but right there. I'm tall and a guy so that may be partly why they have me so high. I'm losing about 1-2 lbs. per weeks too, about six months out. I think it's normal to slow down some at this point. I don't think I could lose more than another 20-25 without looking weird anyway.

I feel you there. My kid's scout group had an overnight at a place with an indoor pool and I didn't realize until packing that my only suit was a 3XL. I'm an L now, so that meant I had to watch while they swam without me.

The one I really wonder about is Wink, which is insanely low carb and low cal. It has 100 calories and 20 carbs (16 of which are fiber) in an entire pint. I've seen it advertised online, but no one near me seems to sell it. https://winkfrozendesserts.com/products/vanilla-bean-1 Not sure if I even believe something with that small a calorie/carb footprint can even taste good, but I wouldn't mind trying.

As of this morning, I weigh the least I've weighed since I was a teenager. (And I'm 42!) About nine more pounds to onederland.

I love **** out of Halo Top, but I have to make sure I only buy it sporadically, as it's addictive. Even though it's not so bad nutritionally, it's probably not a good thing for me to be eating sweets four days in a row, much less planning my whole day around making sure I have enough carbs left. I dunno. I think it's awesome, but I still have to make sure I treat it like a special treat, not as a regular thing. The grocery here Mariano's has a brand called Low Cow that is pretty much the same deal but $1.50 cheaper. Mariano's is owned by Kroger, so it may be elsewhere too.

What is the best thing you've eaten lately that was on plan for you? (Not something from a cheat, but something that was in line with what your current plan is.)

I was in by 10 am one day and home by 5:30 pm the next. My stay was a bit like sillykitty's in that it could have been shorter but for hospital foot dragging.

Yesterday was a rough day. We went to another couple's place for brunch, and while they had mimosas, I had two and a half glasses of wine. I spaced them out over a few hours, drank water in between, etc. I was never drunk or even tipsy and felt fine. Then 5 or so hours later, other friends came by our house and I had two more glasses of wine. I got shaky and ill and had to hurl. I ate some carbs and was able to feel better, but I was still totally spent and had to go to excuse myself and go to sleep. So it turns out that even having a long break and sobering up in between doesn't change help me stretch my tolerance for the day. I can only drink what I can drink. I haven't really tried to go beyond that before (and I don't even drink more than one glass very often) but it looks like I have learned I just can't. The real bummer is, I blew my diet for the day yesterday (I didn't eat anything ridiculous, but I passed all my numbers for calories and carbs and then some) and I'll have to be extra careful for a few days to make sure I'm back on track. Live and learn and all that, I guess. Can't be perfect every day.

I'll start! Last night, I tried making breading out of crushed pork rinds and grated parm. It worked out fantastic. I crushed about a cup of spicy pork rinds as small as I could get 'em and mixed them with an equal amount of grated parm. We then took some boneless, center-cut pork chops and pounded them thin, tossed them in the "breading" and washed them in eggs (twice for each) and then pan-fried. The result? Zesty carb-free pork schnitzel. It was awesome, much closer to the real chicken-fried deal than I had any right to even hope. Each little chop came out to 253 calories, 32 grams of protein and zero carbs. It was terrific.

I can eat it... now that I've learned how to do it carefully. The first time I had it, the fattiness of it was overwhelming and I got nauseous and threw up. The next time, I shredded it more and ate a smaller portion, pairing it with some fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers to help it hit my stomach more mildly. That worked great and I've had it the same way several times since then.

I'm around 20 pounds from my goal, too. I had a stall around the last week of January/first week of February, but I think it's moving slowly along again. In my case, I think I'd gotten a little too loose with my carbs. I was trying to get more fiber in, so I was eating some of those Atkins bars. They talk that sweet-sounding line about "net carbs" and I wanted to believe it. It turns out that as soon as I gave up on those and went back to keeping my actual daily carbs (not my "net") to around 45, it started going back down. Are there any small adjustments you've made lately you think might be the cause? Or are you just plain old stuck?

My lunches have gotten insanely repetitive: packet of tuna, with some hot sauce and ginger paste squeezed in. It's boring, but it's so low cal/carb that I can relax a bit and have a nicer dinner or a glass of wine at night.