Rainbow_Warrior

Yes, lentil meals are not normal in Australia but I started adding lentils to soups and stockpots years ago. They are great value as good filler and very good nutrition. My wife and her mother have a few dishes that are centred on lentils. I must aim to incorporate more post-surgery.

Makes sense. I used both my ideal weight and goal weight times 2/3 and then 4/5 and kept coming up with figures in the range 49g to 62g ... so your 60g for men seems about on par! Thanks.

I'm sorry if this comes across as negative but what worked for me was to give up sugar and the sugar substitutes. That way, you taste foods as they (nearly always) naturally are. I have my 97% cocoa unsweetened block chocolate. It becomes quite okay by about the 5th or 6th time you have it. You get all the benefits, the anti-oxidants, etc but you give up the sugar and dairy aspects of it. By giving up sugar, sugar substitutes and salt, I have become reacquainted with the actual flavours of foods. A bit of lemon/lime juice or a drizzle of vinegar or some cracked pepper or turmeric is good for vegetables and salads. The sugars my body gets are in fresh fruits and some vegetables.

That is smart. I know you'd also prefer NOT to eat extra fats but could I suggest that a dessertspoon of extra virgin olive oil TWO to THREE times a day plus, maybe, three to five macadamia nuts or 55-85g cashews would help? GOOD OILS and NUTS are a help. The evidence is in: people who have 2oz-5oz of olive oil daily diminish their health risks by a huge percentage.

Luckily, that dingo eating people myth is down to Meryl Streep, Sam Neill and the film "Evil Angels". No self-respecting dingo would consider me to be food. (More likely, a playmate!)

Yeah ... I had the typical Australian version of the steak sandwich. 4 weeks back. The big carvery roast smorgasbord with roasted winter veges and several beers. 2 days ago. The massive Caesar salad with anchovies. 6 days ago. Prawn (shrimp) curry with wild brown rice. Twice in August. Chinese garlic beef platter. Late July. Three scoop gelato bowl. Early August. Mind, you, except for last Saturday's carvery roast smorgasbord, every one of those other days has stayed at my daily calorie limit of 2000 OR has only been 100-150 calories over. Saturday, on the other hand, went 1650 calories over as I "made a night of it".

Maintain your stoicism!

Vegetable water? Typo? Maybe vegetable eater?

A lot of me in this few words.

Well, it's Sun 10th Sept 10pm here in eastern Australia. I guess your surgery will occur in the next 24 hrs my time. Wishing you the very best experience.

My retirement brought a loss of 43kg (95lbs) until I withdrew from life for several months after my son's death. I was on a pretty good course of swimming 75-100 mins six days per week and diet diary on MyFitnessPal.

This was the middle of my life of 60+ years ... dropping out of sport/s but not winding back my food consumption by a commensurate amount. Many other factors though.

Quite candid. Kudos to you!

Was stout/stocky until mid thirties ... overweight by 4-9kg (9-20lbs) then a sports injury that meant that over the next two to three years I went from five sports/games per week to ZERO for a year then back to one for the next 6-7 years. The mould for obesity was cast long before: 1** I was a lover of meat and bread from my preschool years. My granddad and uncles were bakers to several small local towns. 2** Portion control. 3** Nearly always having "seconds" or extra serves 4** Always having a dad who insisted on a clean plate. 5** Never a binge drinker but a regular consumer of beer three or four days/nights per week from 17yo to 58yo 6** A massive Diet Cola consumer consumer 40yo to 58yo 7** Hot chips (i.e. French fries) 8** Average 3.5 cups espresso all my adult life. (Currently down to 9-10 mugs per week but weaning to cups!) The good news. (A) Other than the sugar in beer and a couple of desserts per week, I was a relatively low consumer of sugar. (B) When I overate, I generally overate lots of vegetables and fruit. (C) There is no time of my life where I have not have at least three veges per meal twice per day. (D) My snack foods were fruits ... TOO MANY fruits. I often had 6 to 10 serves of fruit daily. (E) Stopped drinking full cream milk at 13yo ... but have had about a litre (or more) of skim milk almost every day of my life since. Thanks to all that GOOD NEWS in the last paragraph, I have never had Diabetes 2 despite passing BMIs of 35, 45 and 55 on the way to morbid obesity. Thanks veges. Thanks fish. Thanks chicken. Thanks wholemeal grains. Honestly, I see myself as a GOURMET GLUTTON. My bad foods are minimal. My portions were high to extreme. Q. What caused my obesity? A. Largely QUANTITY of QUALITY!

I've had a mental plan of my gastric sleeve surgery for about three months now. In the last 15 days, I have been doing lots of reading and watching many videos about bad outcomes, fair outcomes, good outcomes and excellent outcomes post operation. I have handwritten lists of things that work most often ... as well as a shipload of "DON'Ts". The mental prep is becoming quite advanced. I also started the vitamin and the shakes routine a week early. Forearmed? My only lapse was last night but it was deliberate and to a plan ... four beers, a large carvery roast with baked veges and a slice of birthday cake at my sister-in-law's 60th party. Back to normal today. 31 and a bit days to the new reality!! I think I'm beginning to feel quite "that way" that you asked about. Cheers, CJ Sunshine.

Very true ... but the exception rather than the norm. Not all fat/obese people have sleep apnoea either but the most common factor of those with sleep apnoea is being overweight. Nearly all the morbidly obese folks have severe to very severe sleep apnoea conditions. My wife is 30kg (66 pounds) lighter than a year ago and is having much less of a sleep apnoea problem but is almost always wearing her CPAP machine mask.

Very similar to what I advised in this thread yesterday, James. My words were, as I recall: "The shakes may not be perfect but they are a way of doing a job." "They are there for your greater good." "I just psyche myself up and take it."

Yes. Ditto the other respondents. See your doctor for a review ASAP ... sooner rather than later.

25th minus 9th (today) = 16 days. 16 days times 2 sachets per day = 32. Easy.

Good news then, Ray. I'm also wide-eyed with anticipation. I was told last Monday Sept 4th that the operating theatre is booked for Thursday Oct 12th. Good luck and best wishes to you.

That's the next Monday after mine on Thur 12th Oct. Best wishes for your op!

The stark separation of the red goal weight from my 36 years of overweight in the blue is powerful/ A column graph of the equivalent POUNDS with the red goal line across it somehow does not look as damning. You judge: same data, changed mode of graph display.

I just took some old weight data from my diary and added to this post from Thursday: I did some spectacular losses like A. 149.5kg (329.6lbs) to 112kg (247lbs) in 1997 aka [23.54 stones to 17.64 stones]; B. 172kg (379lbs) to 120.3kg (265lbs) in 2002 aka [27.1 stones to 18.94 stones]; C. 191.8kg (423lbs) to 133.8kg (295lbs) in 2006-7 aka [30.2 stones to 21.07 stones]; 176.2kg (388.5lbs) to 130.8kg (288.4lbs) in 2015-6 aka [27.75 stones to 20.6 stones] ... So, I plugged that and more into EXCEL and can see my yo-yo past. The RED LINE is my GOAL weight/mass.

Well, it's NOON on Saturday 9th Sept here in eastern Australia ... with "real" spring less than a fortnight away. You've had your surgery, I guess. NOON Saturday here = 10pm Friday New York = 4am Saturday London, UK UK = 8 hours behind us USA eastern = 14 hours behind us.

These three points! Yes! A. Most surgeons suggest a blanket ban for life. B. We SLEEVE people are working with a reduced stomach space. Why ask that reduced space to deal with extra gaseousness? C. Soft drinks (sodas) are a slippery slope ... trashy empty calories. If I could tell my five year old self any advice (after I get my time machine), it would be ... (a) have nothing to do with any sort of commercial breakfast cereal. They are all carb 5h1t and most are loaded with sugar. ... (b) you will NEVER really need a carbonated soft drink. They are all junk food. And the diet soft drinks are the worst of false hope.