Colchabay

Had our monthly meeting today and I fit in the student desk with room to spare!! I hated those meetings because the only seats are student desks and I would have to squeeze myself into them and sit uncomfortably through the meeting!

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I'm not but I take a weekly video of myself telling how my week went. After a year I'll clip them and compile them for me to view.

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I thought it was very hard to stretch it back. How was your food intake?

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I'm 3 mos post op, and still struggle to reach Water and Protein goals. I just forget to drink, and I'm so sick of Protein Shakes at this point it's not even funny (although I do manage a premier shake each morning). I also miss being able to eat all I want. Not that I want to go back to doing it, I just miss it sometimes. Like I went to a Mexican restaurant the other day. I nibbled on the chips and salsa, trying not to overdo it for my main coarse, when it came (pork smothered in green sauce/chili verde, Beans & rice) I couldn't even get through 2oz. of the plate before I was stuffed. meat is so dense I can't eat very much of it. The guy kept coming over and asking me if my food was good, if it was ok, because I didn't eat much of it. OMG I wanted to tear into it sooo bad. Those are the moments I miss eating like a fat girl. And then I come back to my senses and realize I'm one of the lucky ones that has received this gift of living my best life. ❤️

I thought it was very hard to stretch it back. How was your food intake?

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If anyone needs a good workout try walk the pounds off 2019. You can look it up on YouTube. It's a good workout, walked 2 miles in 30 minutes!!

Ok thanks y’all then maybe I need to get more fluids in and talk to my doctor because I know I’m not supposed to eat as much or maybe I’m waiting to long to eat or drink idk but I’m going to switch some things around and see what happens I want to thank all of y’all for helping

I still at 14 months keep it between 650-850 for loss. My sweet spot is somewhere in the 650-750 calorie range keeping carbs low and mostly from low glycemic veg and leafy greens, a tiny bit of berries now and then, a tiny bit of nuts/seeds/nutbutters now and then. And average Protein of 60-80g.
I don't know what maintenance will look like. But. We are in ketosis. We have weeks of energy stores hanging on our tookuses (unless we're at our ideal weight, then we have to make other plans). And because we are in ketosis (if we're following our surgeon's and RD's plans, we can tap into those eternal fat stores to make up any caloric deficit we experience on a daily basis. Our body (AS LONG AS INSULIN IS LOW) has access to a 24/7 buffet of fat cells.
So we need protein to help with cell repair. We need the fat that's hanging on our bellies and butts to use as fuel. And we have no need of 1 single carbohydrate cuz our body has the ability to create whatever glucose is needed to run those few cells that only run on sugar (the brain, a few kidney cells, and some red blood cells).
Will we need fewer cals after we get to goal? Compared to what? Compared to what we were eating pre-surgery? Most assuredly. Will our metabolism have possibly slowed? Probably a little. But will we still need to eat 650-850/day. Most of us won't. But I do know some older women who maintain around 900-1100/day. They don't exercise though and are post meno. Some have other health issues.
But I see more here and on another board (filled with very successful long term vets), who lost on 650-850 in a low carb Keto environment, who still eat a similar diet composition, and who now exercise and live happy, active lives and they maintain anywhere from 1200-1800 cals/day--or more! Your thermostat for weight equilibrium is what you make it. And it is wholly dependent on the quality of the food you eat. All calories are not equal. And CICO is a myth, but having a dietary caloric deficit is imperative for weight loss to occur. Otherwise you are just in maintenance or you are eating with a regain.

I just had this conversation with my nutritionist and my surgeon on my 3-month post-op appointment four days ago. The nutritionist said to stay around 800 calories but as long as the extra calories were coming from Protein and not from carbs or fat or something she wasn't worried about it. The surgeon said she doesn't talk calories at all or recommend a range but to just stick to a plate consisting of 1/2 protein, 1/4 veggies/fruit, 1/4 grains and eat the protein first, if full stop, if not, then proceed next to veggies and lastly and only if still hungry to grains. She said I could eat as much protein as I wanted. She said all calories aren't equal and protein calories were okay. I asked how on earth my body wasn't shutting down and putting a stall on everything at so few calories and she said just keep feeding it protein and you'll lose weight.

Yes I am in agreement with everyone else. I'm 5 weeks out and last time I had eggs I could only eat half of the egg with nothing else.

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I never use pre-sweetened yogurt. I get the lowest carb Greek yogurt and make my own. Here's a matcha yogurt with strawberries, almonds, and poppy seeds. The taste and texture is way better IMHO than premade--for only 10g net carbs.

Here's my blueberry matcha one:

Panhandle Weight Loss Center Amarillo, Texas. Excellent reviews and personally zero regrets, everyone there is great.

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Surgery at 8 am, released by 1pm same day did great. But most are not done as outpatient as mine was.

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lemon Water awesome.
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It's been a great year, and I wouldn't trade it for anything! Down a total of 221 pounds!!

Okay so this week is going to be a hectic one so I weighed this am and I lost 3.2 pounds since last Monday. This brings my total lost post-surgery on 2/6 to 31 pounds.

Which means I’m 31% of the way to goal 🤣🤣🤣

You can look at it that way. But what if you do not lose the weight. It could lead to heart attack or other health issues if we continued going down the same road. I do agree that it is a huge change mentally and physically. I am 40 years old. We have eaten one way for so long and now we have to do it another way.

Three weeks post op, worked in the yard and garden today. It was so hard because I have no energy! Hard to imagine it getting better while only consuming less than 500 calories a day, but I'm hopefull it will.

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Yes! I can relate to the stomach gurgling with what I think are hunger pains.
It’s so weird feeling maybe-but-not-for-sure hunger, but my first meal of the day starts it going.
Today at work all day I was looking forward to corn beef and cabbage when I got home and it reminded me just how much we as a society tie up holidays and food and celebrations and good feelings all into one package.

Well I did get my corned beef (2 ounces measured) with some spicy mustard on the side and about 3-4 bites worth of cabbage and I made sure to pace myself and not eat quickly.
I have to admit that it only took about 10-12 minutes to eat it so I made myself put my plate in the dishwasher to avoid getting seconds.
I can relate to the whole going out and ordering dinner and making it an event.
What is helping me push through those feelings of “missing out” is I’m calculating what we would’ve spent in all that eating out and saving the money towards new clothes and for a vacation.
In addition to expensive eating habits, me and hubs loooooved our wine and spirits. It was nothing for us to spend $100/week at the liquor store alone and now we aren’t.
So far I’ve got $300 in an account to buy some clothes with and we’ve saved $250 toward a vacation at the end of the year.
Thinking about how much fun it will be to save that money truly does take the sting out of feeling deprived.

We talk a lot about what should be our average weight loss and how fast we should lose post-op. I saw these two graphics today and thought they were very helpful to allow us to visualize a realistic idea of how fast and what percent of weight we should lose at 3, 6, 12, and 18 months.

Loving this thread and the responses!

Okay so this is kinda getting personal, but I’m gonna share here because I’m thinking there are others here with me that might have this issue.

As part of this procedure, my insurance company set me up with a therapist that I have phone calls with for 45 mins every other week.
I’ve been with her now since November and she is a 32 year bypass veteran.

When I hit my “stall” in week 3 and the scale didn’t move for almost 2 weeks, she didn’t tell me I was being silly in worrying, and didn’t make me feel selfish for complaining that I’d lost almost 2 pounds daily and then stopped cold. She also didn’t berate me for not believing in the science behind the procedure.

What she did instead was to empathize with my feelings that I was going to be the only person who “failed” bariatric surgery while follwing all instructions to a tee.
She understood what kind of psychological damage my body has done to me by never wanting to lose weight easily and by giving me breast cancer at the age of 40. She understood my feelings of distrust during years of infertility and repeated miscarriages in my 20’s and how when I finally did have that second baby, that my body rewarded me with gestational diabetes and 80 pounds that I carried around ( lots of yo-yo dieting in the intervening 22 years) to this day. 

Her response was “ you’re afraid of being judged negatively because your body has repeatedly shown itself to be untrustworthy and because it ‘betrays’ you all of the time. Who in your position wouldn’t have these fears, my dear?”

Well that was pretty profound because after thinking hard about it, the hard truth is I really can’t trust my body to “ do the right thing” so when a mini stall happens, or I don’t lose what I think I should those feelings of “ omg, here we go yet again” creep back like some kind of PTSD.

None of us should ever need to apologize for those feelings because they are REAL and we’ve all been scarred at one point or another or else we wouldn’t be here.

I will continue to have optimism and follow instructions to the best of my ability, but I will also continue to keep looking over my shoulder and keep an eye out for future betrayals like a jilted lover does with the one who keeps cheating on her over and over and over again

When I'm busy at home or out running about, I've discovered that I'm too busy to take a 20 to 30 min break to eat. I was very excited to start my week 3 foods today and ended up having a Protein Shake for lunch because it was too hard and would take too long to eat food. I had a mozerella cheese today and it took me over 45 minutes to finish it. Maybe I'm just being over cautious. I really don't feel hungry and don't care about eating. I just get a weak feeling when I haven't eaten in a long time.

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Today is my 10-year wedding anniversary. Yesterday I went shopping for a cocktail dress for a special weekend we have planned.
When I was in high school, my friends and I would go to the mall and try on prom dresses in the department store junior section, just for fun. The largest size they ever had was a 14. I would ask my friends to try to zip the dress up, and it wouldn't zip, ever. I blamed my boobs or my large frame (shoulders/ribs too wide..) but the truth was, I was just too heavy. It still makes me feel shame, even 20 years later.
Well, yesterday, I found a beautiful cocktail dress in a size 12. I decided to try it on, despite having flashbacks to high school. It was tight and I couldn't reach to zip it myself, so I stepped out to ask an attendant to zip it for me. Y'all - it fit, with space to spare. I feel like Carrie Bradshaw in this damn dress, and I bought a pair of sky-high heels to match.
And the best part? This normally $298 dress was on clearance at Nordstrom Rack for $35!

I confess that it brings me IMMENSE joy that I weigh less than my two best friends.

When I started my journey, I was in size 32 pants, now I'm in size 18. It feels amazing to be able to buy pants anywhere!