Alpaca55

I’ll do a screen capture in the morning... thanks Fluffy ... it’s 9pm in London and I’m relaxing trying to de-stress ?

Thanks GT ... I will go explore... good news ... my heart is racing at the moment in afib (160bpm) and that’s when I have to pee a lot so maybe I’ll drop a micro-pound by the morning!! ?

Also have downloaded a couple of meditation apps which help on particularly bad nights when I struggle to sleep ... you are very perceptive Ms FC ?

Ok will start one in the lounge ... now I just have to figure out how to post my daily food stat diary from MFP... I guess I can’t do it from my phone?

I’m insanely busy at work.. I butcher employees for a living (not really but I have to keep them in line or fire them and I’m not great at it) so I work long hours and get stupidly stressed and have to manage a barking mad chairman diagnosed as a psychopath- so maybe stress levels come into this... my afib is trying to settle down and my prolapse disc and surrounding area is just very creaky as it heals... where’s the best place to post MFP daily meal stats as I would dearly love to get input but I don’t want to hog the forum ?

Hi Fluffy... your body is so sensitive! It is so frustrating... I’m the same with sodium... I will start posting my food stats as I think seeing yours is really helpful ... and will help me understand what I can change to get back into weight loss... the only thing I have been reluctant to give up is my evening mug of 38cal hot chocolate... just 38 measly calories and I shall be gutted if that is preventing my weight loss!! I have nothing else that looks like the culprit... I feel like I’m in a frigging nunnery on bread and water only it’s meat and water...

I’m feeling grumpy and a bit defeated ... I seem to be on a stall! Just as I started the challenge! Maybe it’s psychological... or maybe it’s those damn metabolic control- freak spirits trying to test my metal!! “Huff”

Thank you GT... I know you’re right but it’s so damn hard and frustrating... my body seems to have turned into a ridiculously sensitive hot mess ... you’ve done so well! I’ve been so impressed! ?

Hi guys I've now bought some ketone test strips and I'm definitely in ketosis... the reading is up around 8 ... but, I'm losing the plot... will this help with losing the right kind of fat? rather than eat away at the good stuff? When I did Atkins 7 years ago (successfully) I didn't really worry about ketosis as I was down to about 5% carbs so it was a given...and it suited me very well. I was blissfully ignorant as it was so easy - I just ate meat, fish, eggs, bacon, ham, heavy cream and cheese. so simple. Now, the more I read up on stuff the more I feel confused... and to be honest, I didn't think I'd need to go back to this kind of eating so soon after surgery. When I followed the nutritionist's plan in month 2 and 3 my weight loss reduced to 7lbs a month (which I know is great but at such an early stage after surgery the surgeon said I was too slow). So I removed most of the carbs and reduced from 800-900cals a day (as recommended by nutritionist) to my current calorie level of between 550-700. So for month 4 and 5 the weight loss has increased to 10lbs for month 4 and 13.2lbs for month 5. I've started to freak out again as April has been a slow start... I'm seriously thinking about a fasting day just to see what that does (I need to chose the day carefully as sometimes I'm so starving that it would be the wrong day to try). When I make one wrong change to my eating plan it can have disastrous and long term results - ie my pickle meal last month increased my weight by nearly 5lbs and took a week to come back down. And last weekend I introduced a few veg into my turkey mince and gained 1.5lbs which took a few days to get rid of. So I'm freaking out... my head witch must think I'm a complete nutter. She would prefer me to be more relaxed about it and said that one of her other clients who got sleeved 2 months ago had been eating some chocolate... Anyway... sorry to go on about this... the more YouTube I watch on insulin, hormones, autophagy, IF etc, keto... the more I'm confused ... ?

Starting late into this month's challenge: Surgery date: 10/31/18 Starting weight: 302lbs current weight: 239.6lbs goal for this challenge: 230lbs - so a loss of 9.6lbs exercise: to return to walking 30 mins each day

WOW!! Fluffy, the difference between month 12 and 13 is spectacular... your strategies are really paying off big time!! it looks significantly more than a change of 5lbs!! I am trying to follow in your footsteps. I feel like I'm really strict in what I'm eating but last weekend I thought I would try and introduce a little more veg into my lunch - so I cooked turkey mince with spinach, celery, mushrooms, wild garlic leaves and an onion. I ate one portion which amounted to 200 cals (my totals for the day are under 700 cals, and under 20g of carbs (10% of total, under 40% of fat and 70g of protein) and I gained 1.5lbs which has taken me since Sunday to lose what I had gained from that one meal... sheesh! Maybe because I have the prolapsed disc to deal with at the moment I'm not moving enough... so hopefully things will get back once it gives me less pain... at least it's keeping the arrthymias in better check while I'm resting up... My head witch is concerned that I might not be able to sustain this uber strict regime... I know what she means because when my head tries to go into melt down, all I want to reach for is anything on the forbidden list... at the moment, I can just about manage that intense urge by having a 38cal hot chocolate (we have Highlights in the UK) and that can satisfy my craziness ... or I have a protein bar which is my second option... but mostly I manage without... MFP - alpaca55

Hi everyone... I will be 5 months' post op VSG tomorrow. I'm finally getting into a groove - where my head is sort of ok about the slow weight loss, and the ups and downs of my weight loss... I've recently had a catheter ablation for heart arrhythmias and for the last 4 weeks I've had a prolapsed disc which has been so painful... It's still a real pain but more intermittent now which gives me some relief for part of the day... the ablation may or may not have worked! I'm still experiencing fast heart rate - over 160bpm for up to about 9 or 10 hour every few days... making me feel breathless and tired and everything becomes a struggle... not great when I've got a painful leg as a result of the disc herniating or slipping or whatever... Anyway, there's no hope of exercise until I get all of this fixed... I've been watching lots of YouTube VSG'ers during this 'down time'... my favourites so far are: survive.sleeve.slay's real life VSG short sleeved T Grace Gets Gastric Emily AM Foodie Turned Sleevie I'm also logging everything on MFP - obsessively!!... please 'friend' me as I need as much support and help and advice as I can get while going through this extra trauma. I'm alpaca55 on MFP. I just saw a great blog from survive.sleeve.slay's channel on binge eating... it ticks all my boxes and was so enlightening to hear her very honest account of what she has been through. BED is such a secretive and shameful disorder that I don't have the courage to talk about it right now - but I do have it and keep myself on a very tight leash at the moment. I am obsessive about keeping all 'evil' foods out of my house and I'm very lucky that my family have moved out so I just have myself to cook for... I don't think I could manage this if my cupboards were stuffed with the foods you need when the kids are small!! I take my hat off to everyone who has to deal with that! I weigh every day - I have to in order to keep me accountable... I know I can so easily lie to myself about what I've eaten so the logging is critical to me! If I didn't I know I'd have an extra spoonful of something or a lick and think that is too small to log!! I see a head witch about twice a month and she said that she's amazed at my focus - particularly because I'm very carb sensitive and hold onto water like a camel because of my heart arrythmias. But, it could all end in the blink of an eye if I go into self-destruct mode! On the days that I need to have that 'full feeling' to the point of feeling over full, I just choose to have more dense protein or some salad veg like celery, cucumber, radishes or something to satisfy my mouth that needs to chew and my stomach that needs to feel stuffed... thank the lord that i haven't reached for something 'evil'... my head witch is working on that part with me and we are trying to identify the triggers that take me to that 'zone'. This is a struggle and no one should underestimate the amount of human effort it takes on a daily basis to survive and get through it - step by step... Happy Sunny Saturday - the weather is lovely in London at the moment... xxx

Hi... I take Vits from www.Baricolbariatrics.com ... 3 suckie Vits a day and nothing else ... love the taste of them and treat them as my dessert... haven’t had my first bloods yet but I feel great on them - the B Vits give me lots of energy! ?

Hey Becca - that is SO impressive! I'm 4.5 months out and have had to make loads of adjustments to my menu as I'm so hyper sensitive to any carbs / artificial sweeteners / pickles / too many calories (I'm currently on between 500-700 per day) yada yada yada ... and my body retains water like a camel! (maybe I was a camel in a previous life!!). I think it's a combo of age and heart issues... now I have a thing going on at the top of my leg which might be surgery related as I had a catheter ablation 2 weeks ago and now I can hardly walk as it's so painful!! goddamnit... I'm hobbling around and need to look mobile before Tuesday as there's a lot going on in the office!! Anyway, I've not ventured into the gym yet - so I will be very interested in how you get on... the equipment alone scares the life out of me!! lol it's so big and industrial looking and hostile ... ha ha... and the sea of people also freaks me out! there are always so many very fit looking folk and I feel like I'm a fraud to even think I could go into one of those places! yes, I know I'm a weirdo!

I tend to have cravings after eating something with artificial sweeteners - even Stevia can set me off. I met with my head witch the other day and we looked at my diet because I'm very narrow in my food choices right now and anything that sniffs of the wrong type of carbs instantly trips me into a water gain that lasts 4 or 5 days before starting to see the scales go down again. She was concerned that she didn't think the tight hold I have on my eating choices is sustainable... I need to check the water weight thing with my cardiologist - I just hope it's not heart related. But, once I can eliminate the heart thing, I'll just drink loads of dandelion tea and see if that helps. I hanker back to my Atkins days, when I had no cravings - for me it was 'no carbs, no sugar = no cravings!'... but it won't work now as I can't eat as much fat as I did then as my pouch starts feeling queasy..

I’m 63... feeling so much better for having the sleeve at the end of October ... I wanted to have more energy for my grand kids... ?

My 6 months' sleeversary is 30 April. I've had quite a slow start as I hadn't appreciated how sensitive my body is to pretty much everything! So in the first few months I wasn't understanding why I wasn't losing (and gaining loads of water weight) when I was eating 800cals or less. So, now, I've adjusted my eating a lot - mainly by not eating pickles, no processed foods like deli meat or heavily flavoured meats - I try and keep as natural as possible. Carbs are a huge trigger too - not so much natural carbs in some veg but anything else is a big no-no. I've also cut back to about 700cals a day and watch my macros like a hawk - protein, carbs & fat. I try to keep carbs at about 25-30g, protein - over 60g and try and aim for 80g. Keep cheese consumption down to a minimum which is really hard as I love cheese! Thankfully, I can manage to keep a morning coffee in my plan with Stevia drops - although I'm starting to think that I get a bit more hungry when I've had any artificial sweetener so that might have to be eliminated as well! Was thinking of converting to heavy cream. I have to log everything - it helps to keep me accountable - and because I must have some OCD in my DNA, I actually log on 3 apps - MyFitnessPal, MyNetDiary and Baritastic!! This surgery is definitely not the easy option but it stops me being able to binge when I've had a stressful day, as I always start with the protein and then I get full and the edge of the desire to binge goes away a bit - leaving me a bit frustrated and unfulfilled but I'm working through that with my head-witch. I have to avoid watching any food porn on the TV - it's a constant battle to keep focused ... thankfully, I'm so busy with working and family and grandkids that I don't have many other distractions in my life to take me to the dark side! ha ha

Thank you for sharing your story! ?

The Reddit thread is amazing!! You are brilliant for finding it!! Thank you! ?

He died! His wife and family are continuing the website...

Good point! I’ll blog him now...

And I love ACV (although it’s the first time I’ve seen it shortened! Ha ha had to look it up to see what you were meaning - I always sprinkle a bit on anything and everything I can...

Yes I love the peel on - makes cucumbers so much more substantial !

Sorry to ask... but would that be the same for artificial sweeteners? I have a little bottle of stevia liquid that I keep in my bag to plop into my unsweetened decaf latte (thankfully coffee has no bad effect on me!) I’ve been moving away from protein drinks because of the artificial sweeteners and most are really high carb (I use Atkins shakes if I’m rushed and keep some Sanatogen protein powder in my bag to top up if necessary - it’s unsweetened - the bag is starting to look like the one Mary Poppins used)

I’m looking up recipes to pickle my own veg - I think that might be the solution - I hadn’t realised they are a minefield of not so good stuff... I happened upon this recipe - https://www.hackingsalt.com/making-salt-free-dill-pickles/#.XH_k5qSnwlQ