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Arabesque

Gastric Sleeve Patients
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Everything posted by Arabesque

  1. Arabesque

    Healthy food

    Hey @Rose perez. Could you update your profile with your details ( type of surgery, surgery date, starting weight, current weight, height, etc.). It makes it easier to respond to your questions, offer advice, support, etc. if we know that information. You can do it via profile under account in the menu tab.
  2. Arabesque

    Food Before and After Photos

    That’s interesting. Cultural differences?? It’s always promoted as Yum Cha here in Australia and we all call it that. Shall we go for Yum Cha? Does that Chinese offer Yum Cha? Funny the differences in terminology around food. Cookies - biscuits. Jelly - jam (not to be confused with marmalade). Romaine - Cos. Courgette -zucchini. All purpose flour - plain flour.Aubergine - eggplant. Fries - chips. Ketchup - tomato sauce. ….
  3. Arabesque

    fiber is in now ?

    Diets have always been cyclical. High fibre diets were big a couple of decades ago (thinking of the Pritkin diet of round the 80s??) so it must be their time again. But as we all know diets don’t work. If they did no one would be obese or need weight loss surgery or weight loss medications & there’d be no one on this forum. They’re just marketing ploys. Best diet is no diet & to work out a way of eating that meets your nutritional needs & allows your body to function effectively. And what that means for me & works for me may not for you.
  4. Arabesque

    Veggie advice/tips/recipies

    Oh @ShoppGirl, this is why I was so so glad I never had to count carbs. I was just told keep carbs low and I still generally do (usually keep to two serves a day). I go by complex carbs are always better than simple carbs and low processed carbs cover highly processed ones so whole & multi grains wherever possible. And I ignore the carbs in fruit & vegetables - too many other good things in those. My thinking was those old food pyramids separated fruit & vegetables from ‘carbs’ so that was good enough for me. Have you spoke to your dietician about this conundrum? They may be your best source of guidance around this.
  5. The pouch reset diet is an old wives tale. You can’t ‘reset’ your pouch. You can only reset your head & thinking. If you think you are eating more than you should, watch your portion sizes carefully & your frequency of meals. Portion control will always be something we have to take care with because as the months pass we are physically able to eat more. Our restriction eases. Our tummy, while still small softens & is more pliable. And our hunger returns. We can also learn how to eat around our smaller tummy. I was told to eat about a cup at 6 months but as your surgeon said everyone’s journey is different and you may have different needs in regard to how much, what & when you eat. Check with your dietician for the best portion size of proteins, vegetables, etc. & frequency of meals for you. Then you just have to keep to those recommendations. As I always say, all because you can (in this case eat more) doesn’t mean you should. I’m glad your surgeon is so supportive & is willing to look at other ways of helping you to lose more weight & get closer to where you want to be.
  6. Arabesque

    Food Before and After Photos

    Chinese yum cha lunch with girl friends yesterday & a part way through my meal pxt. Half of the Moreton bay bug spring roll & one of the three prawn & scallop siu mai. Took about 45 minutes to eat it all but I was sipping a glass of Louis Roederer champagne & the bubbles were giving me a bit of trouble. Was still worth it though. Lol! PS - Bugs are a local lobster variety. Very yummy: sweet, rich.
  7. The staged return to eating is in place for a reason - to protect your healing tummy. There are a lot of sutures & staples holding your poor digestive system together. If you had a 12 inch wound with stitches on your arm wouldn’t you do all you could to protect it & ensure you didn’t damage or strain it or hinder your recovery? It takes about 8 weeks to be healed from the surgery. Yes, foods (liquids) can taste awful after surgery & it can continue for a while until you are more fully healed. I found the shakes disgusting but you have alternatives. Thin soups like broths (bone broth are high in protein), consumes & cream soups (tomato, pumpkin, chicken, etc.). Just strain them to ensure there aren’t any random chunks of meat, vegetables, herbs, etc. in it. Make your own yoghurt drink by blending Greek yoghurt with milk to a thin consistency & add any flavour powders you may like. Protein water is another option. All these count towards your fluid goal during the liquid stage. Just sip, sip, sip. The portion recommendation I was given (1/3 - 1/4 cup) didn’t begin until purées so liquids were just three ‘meals’ (shake, soup) a day so a cup each. I diluted them to help with the flavour & texture (for the shakes) & didn’t care if it took hours to drink them. Plans can be different about caffeine but if yours is no caffeine try decaffeinated or green or herbal teas. I found warm drinks much easier to tolerate & soothing to drink.
  8. Arabesque

    So much soup

    Oh yes. Food for weeks. I still cook more than I need but I do it on purpose now because I love having leftovers. Simply freeze the leftovers/excess for easy meals on another day. Just bag it up in appropriate serving sizes. (I love zip lock bags.) My freezer is filled with single serves of soups, bolognese, savoury mince, steak, chops, savoury egg muffins, … chicken, beef, lamb & pork. Don’t feel like cooking? Just defrost a meal & all I have to cook or prep are vegetables or salad if needed. Bonus you only have to cook dinner from scratch a couple of times a week. Found it very useful for work lunches too. Popped one of my frozen meals in my bag & reheated it at work. Easy.
  9. Arabesque

    Veggie advice/tips/recipies

    Would I be right in thinking your nutritionalist is recommending a keto like diet? They are big on no root vegetables & no corn, peas because of their naturally high sugar content. (Potatoes are often a no because they are considered a starch.) I regularly ate carrot & sugar snap peas. I threw frozen corn & peas into soups, mince dishes, some slow cooked dishes, omelettes, etc, I usually just microwave my vegetables with a splash of water & a dab of butter but also will stir fry & occasionally roast (especially cauliflower with a little hummus & zataar to serve). I love vegetables & enjoy them best simply with salt & pepper but don’t be afraid to try herbs & spices. The only vegetables I don’t eat is potato, sweet potato & pumpkin (they tend to sit heavily) except a very small piece (bite or two) with a roast dinner. My thoughts were & are vegetables are vegetables (except potato). They are highly nutritious (all those vitamins, minerals & fibre) so a valuable addition to our food choices. And the little we eat, especially in the first months will have minimal impact on your calorie intake & weight loss. I mean 1/4 cup peas is 30 calories if you can eat that much. Plus the ‘sweet’ vegetables are naturally sweet so they don’t count towards your sugar intake. Certainly didn’t affect my weight loss or maintenance. I say eat your vegetables, just watch portion size & what you serve or add to them. Like no honey glazed carrots, sour cream or cheese sauces at least for a while.
  10. Plus you just had a pretty major surgery. Your body sleeps when it is trying to heal & recover & this is what it’s doing now. It does improve but you may have random periods of low energy over the next months. There'll come a day when you wish you could still justify an afternoon nana nap. Enjoy them now while you can. 😁
  11. Arabesque

    Struggling to stop losing

    I kept losing for almost another year after I reached my goal. It began at a similar rate of loss as I was experiencing but gradually got less & less until it stopped. Over that time I increased my calorie intake (added more & more snacks) & my portions got a little larger. I was eating about 1300 calories when I initially stopped losing but eat about 1500/1600 to maintain at about the same weight now. Like @Spinoza, I’m a believer in our changed set point. This is the weight my body is happy at & this is the weight it wants me to be thanks to the surgery. Could I eat my set point up? Yes, if I wanted. I mean that’s what we did before - ate our set point higher. Our original set point wasn’t an obese weight. Don’t forget you may initially stop at a lower weight than you expected but it may give you wriggle room if you experience the bounce back regain around years 2 or 3. Give your body time to resettle. Lots of things change when your weight starts to stabilise. Just give it time. Slowly increase those calories. Get in touch with your dietician for ideas of what you can add or how you could adjust your current eating plan. Good luck.
  12. Arabesque

    Foods for Hike

    Great suggestions above. I’d suggest taking an electrolyte drink with you or sachets or tabs you can add to your water when you top it up. It will give you extra boosts of energy. Just be warned they can be sweet so dilute them by adding extra water to the mix. Enjoy the hike - how lovely to share in your daughter’s field trip.
  13. Arabesque

    50 and over crowd?

    Interesting question. Some say it’s the weight you need to lose to put you at a healthy BMI. Some say it’s the weight they personally want to lose to put them in their happy weight zone - a weight that worked for them in the past or they think will work for them in the future. Personally, I think of it simply as the weight you want to lose to get to your goal regardless of how you worked it out or chose it. Not as a sort of standardised amount of weight defined by someone else (surgeon, dietician, etc.) or statistical data. This (weight loss) is all about you & your experiences & no one else’s. As you know not every one reaches their goal & statistically average weight loss with sleeve or bypass is about 65% of the weight you are to lose (based on BMI defined excess weight). And then there are those who find they’re happier at a weight that is more or less than the goal they initially chose. They all lost excess weight & are healthier for it.
  14. Arabesque

    6-10 Week Out Restriction Feeling

    I’d give the smaller a meals ago @NickelChip & @PandaMom1977 I know a few who did 6 small meals versus 3 larger meals. I was able to have one snack a day a couple of months out (can’t recall exactly when now) & I still snack now to get in calories & protein. One snack is my leftover breakfast. May be try making your plan approved meal but eat it across two sessions. It may help you get over this quirky, fussy tummy stage plus until you can eat a little more in regards portion size. Oh yes the protein shakes were awful. I discovered yoghurt drinks. So much nicer. Make your own by simply blending yoghurt with as much milk as you need to make it a drinkable consistency. Add whatever flavours you like. My high protein yoghurt brand (Australian company but they don’t make them anymore - grrr) made the ones I drank & I’d get 25-35g protein depending on the size.
  15. Arabesque

    6-10 Week Out Restriction Feeling

    Your petulant, fussy, temper throwing tummy is showing its face @NickelChip. Your tummy decides one day it doesn’t like something yet you ate it fine before. Then on a few days or week or two later your tummy is all yum this is delicious. Or something you didn’t enjoy before is suddenly very tasty. Don’t be surprised if this continues for a few more weeks. It’s like your tummy is relearning about foods, textures, flavours, etc. I always found smoked salmon too rich. I’d eat a little but rarely. Then suddenly in soft food was eating it every day - spread it with cream cheese & wrapped it around wedges of cucumber. Then suddenly my tummy said no.No more smoked salmon. I was always able to eat eggs easily, then last year, after 4 years my tummy said nope not eggs. I actually haven’t gone back to them but I will again at some time. What I do remember is when my tummy says no, my restriction kicks in more quickly and I feel very full after just a couple bites. This may be what you @NickelChip & @PandaMom1977 are experiencing: your sensitive & fussy tummy making itself known, your nerves reconnecting & sparking & your restriction starting to work. It will be interesting to hear what the GI X-ray shows @PandaMom1977.
  16. Arabesque

    Food Before and After Photos

    That’s funny as I wondered if being empty nesters now had changed how you ate. More date nights. Lol! All the food you & A make look pretty darn good to me.
  17. Arabesque

    HELP! FELL OFF THE WAGON

    Small steps in the right direction are still wins plus they’re often easier to adopt & adapt to.
  18. Arabesque

    Food Before and After Photos

    That’s just the two meals I was with them. Ha! I think they’d do home delivery or ready meals almost every day. They justify it by saying t’s a time thing (running around with 5 children) but we waited 90 odd minutes on Sunday night for the meal to arrive. The children were ravenous & gnawing on their arms by the time it arrived. We could have gone to the shop, bought a chicken, roasted it & vegetables in less time. I’m someone who predominately cooks everything from scratch so it wigs me out a bit (a lot). Lol!
  19. Arabesque

    Food Before and After Photos

    I had Vietnamese last night for the first time since my surgery. I had forgotten how much I like viet food - the clean, fresh flavours. I had prawn salad which I always enjoyed. I ate 5 prawns & the very small disappointing amount of cucumber, carrot & lettuce & a little of the mint. Bought home a bowl 2/3 filled with 2 leftover prawns & all the noodles. My brother & his family eat far too much takeaway. Eating with them twice in the last two weeks is why I’ve eaten takeaway twice too which I rarely normally do.
  20. Slow, deep breathing can also help as you breathe surgical gas out. Try marching on the spot or while sitting & raise & lower your arms to move the gas up behind your lungs so it is absorbed there & breathed out.
  21. Arabesque

    Attack of the gas bubbles

    I second @NickelChip’s suggestion of trying warm/hot drinks. They are very soothing & the peppermint or ginger tea should help with the indigestion gas. Plus being hot, they force you to ensure you’re sipping. Get a thermal cup to keep them hot or pop your cup in a microwave to reheat as needed. Are you on a PPI yet? They reduce your stomach acid which is likely the cause of this gas. You’re still producing the amount of acid you needed to digest food when you had a large tummy & ate much more than you are able to now (especially after surgery).
  22. Arabesque

    Not Enough Calories

    Yes, it will pass (though they are still frustrating & upsetting) but it doesn’t necessarily mean your weight loss is over. I lost another 11kgs (24lbs) in about another year after I reached goal. And many others will tell you the same. While they lost the bulk of their weight in the first 6-12 months, their weight loss continued very slowly for another 6-12 months or more. So it’s not over until it’s over. My surgeon & his colleague also suggested I increase my calories when I was dropping below goal. I said I can only eat what I can eat. My dietician made a couple of suggestions like adding full cream milk powder to any milk based drink or dish. I tried it but found it very sweet. Over time, I was able to eat more both in volume & calories & was eating a wider variety of food sources just like I had along the whole way until my loss stopped at about 1300 calories. I eat about 1500/1600 now & maintain at basically the same weight. Maybe touch base with your dietician for some ideas or things you can swap in much like @ms.sss suggested. Remember to celebrate the weight you have lost & every pound you lose next even if it takes weeks to lose it. You got this.
  23. Arabesque

    Not Enough Calories

    I’m with @Spinoza. The stall will break when your body is ready to move forward again. I was barely eating 900 calories at 6 months (probably less as I didn’t have to track just randomly checked for my own interest). But I couldn’t eat anymore than I was at that time. My stalls were very brief but that’s just how my body reacted to the stress of the weight loss & my changing needs (digestive hormones, metabolism, etc.) How much weight have you lost? What do you currently weigh? What’s your goal weight? How tall are you? These details can be helpful for us to be able to share more specific experiences. For example, when we get closer to our final weight, our weight loss slows to almost nothing & sometimes it almost seems a stall.
  24. Arabesque

    Weight loss stall

    Yep, stalls are a very normal & common part of weight loss. In fact they’re important. Your body shuts down to reassess your needs based on your changing weight & alters digestive hormones, metabolism, etc. The stall will break when your body is ready to move forward again. It will take the time it needs. Don’t stress it more by making more changes to your diet or activity above your plan. They can be frustrating but you really just have to ride it out. Yes, to only waiting 30 minutes before & after eating to drink too. Check with your team about collagen. While it does contain protein it is not a complete protein as it doesn’t include all the necessary amino acids so usually can’t be counted towards your goal. I believe there is a collagen powder which has added the missing amino acids but I can’t recall the brand. Use unflavoured protein powder instead to add to soups, shakes, porridge, etc. All the best.
  25. Arabesque

    Food Before and After Photos

    Amusingly Jamie Oliver posted a joint recipe for asparagus quiche & asparagus soup yesterday. Started with a kilo of asparagus used the top half of the spears for the quiche & bottom half for the soup too. Obviously is asparagus season.

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