vikingbeast

Seriously, I keep trying to contrive a reason to fly somewhere! But a lot of places I could fly I'd need a rental car, and they're rarer than hen's teeth and more expensive than Fabergé eggs when you do find them. But it is on my list. I got to check off one of my Purple Goals (my list of NSVs) yesterday—I had a business lunch and arrived second, and my lunch date had gotten a booth. Normally that would be a huge embarrassing thing because I couldn't have fit at all. Yesterday I just scootched right in there and actually had to lean forward over the table to eat what little I did eat.

This one is seven grams of sugar per tablespoon, but it's super flavorful and 6 Tbsp (42 g) covers a pound of meat which lasts me 5-6 meals. I'm supposed to have 80-120 g of carbs per day so this is a little thing to make ground turkey less... gross... and it doesn't "cost" me much.

I ordered them! You have saved me so much PITA in the morning!

This. So much this. I made a gorgeous egg scramble with mushrooms and cactus, and only got down half of it. Blah!

OMAIGÁ. I could take one of these suckers plus extra B12 and my calcium (separate from the iron) and just be DONE. Thank you!! Note: These are US$13.40 for a 30-day supply from the maker, $16.99 from BariatricPal, and $19.99 on Amazon. Use code Susan10 (as of today) for 10% off on the maker's website, so it'd be $12.06.

OMAIGÁ. I could take one of these suckers plus extra B12 and my calcium (separate from the iron) and just be DONE. Thank you!!

It is seriously so simple I'm embarrassed to call it a recipe... brown off some ground turkey with a little salt in a skillet, with just a touch of oil so it doesn't stick (spray works too). Then I add bottled Korean barbecue marinade. It's 30 calories 7C 0F 0P per tablespoon and I usually add 6 tablespoons per pound of turkey, but a pound of turkey lasts a LONG time for me. The one I buy is CJ Foods Korean BBQ Bulgogi Marinade w/Apple and Pear but any will work. Then I just sprinkle some sesame seed and chopped green onions on top, and eat it with a tiny bit of rice (like 2 Tbsp or 1/8 cup) and a piece or two of kimchi from a jar.

Liz, can you link your pro-care vitamin please? Because I am sick unto death of taking a million effing pills! I am -> <- this close to just doing one of those ridiculous custom vitamin programs.

My nutritionist has me on a range of 1000-1400 calories a day. Usually I struggle to get the 1000 calories. But I will say that when she added some carbs in, I felt immediately better. I'm not gonna go eat a tuna sandwich, but a couple of spoonfuls of mashed potatoes or a little rice with my Korean BBQ ground turkey goes a long way toward both good energy (I have an active lifestyle) and the dread constipation issue. I haven't had to take any Dulcolax since the carbs were added in.

So now that I'm down a significant amount of weight, I get more people telling me I look younger. Maybe because my face isn't all stretched out? I also notice that people are much nicer to thinner people than they are to fatter people. That annoys me (I am still the same person!) but it's just bizarre. Someone flirted with me the other day and it took me a while to realize it was flirtation.

I'm not going crazy, but I absolutely have to have work boots that fit, I am just in them too long to deal with heel grips (which don't work on cowboy boots which is what I wear). Some shoes I replace regularly—my Vans get dirty past the point where I can successfully clean them, and they're cheap, so I just replace them. I was 11.5 US (AU 44) in high school, and I wasn't fat then, so 12 US (AU 45) doesn't seem like there's TOO much room for me to shrink any more.

An entire pizza with sausage, onion, and pepper. Looking back I cannot believe I ever allowed myself to eat like that. I haven't even tried pizza yet and if I did I am sure I'd make it through a third of a small slice before being done.

The "easy way out"? Bulls(p)it. Total bulls(p)it. It is not the easy way out. It is a TOOL that you are being given to teach yourself how to interact with food from now on. It doesn't last forever. A lot of people think "oh well you got your stomach stapled so of course you're gonna lose weight" without knowing that you can absolutely stretch that pouch out. Don't. Listen. To. Her. Mothers aren't always right. Do this for YOU, because you have an entire life to live. And when the weight is coming off you left and right and you're starting to ease back into the world, you'll have the best feeling in the world and it'll motivate you to keep going.

Weight belts? They help brace your core (remember, tight core = stability) by giving you something to press against when you breathe. I would never do heavy lifts without one—in fact I wear one bench pressing even, because it helps the core stability. In fact, I just donated my old weight belt because it's too big for me, and am halfway through the holes on my new weight belt. If you are braced properly and using proper form you shouldn't have to worry about hernias. If you're not braced properly or have bad form, you're gonna get hurt one way or another.

When I started losing weight on my own, my shoe size went down (from a 16W to a 14W). It was actually great, because my feet didn't hurt anymore. And so I dutifully bought all new shoes. When I consulted with my surgeon, I asked if it was likely that my shoe size would change again, and he said no, I had arches now and it's not like arches just randomly re-establish themselves to where they were. Don't worry about it, he said. Last week I was exercising and noticed I had a blister on each foot. I went to a shoe store and measured my feet—size 12, and no longer wide. I love the way I feel but my poor wallet! I had to buy new work boots, too, (11.5—those always run big) and those are NOT cheap. I still have 70 lbs. to lose... am I gonna end up doing this all again in six months or a year? I guess we'll find out.

Hi sxystacy, welcome to the forums. I had my surgery in Southern California because it was covered by insurance. However, I lived in Tijuana and know the city really well. It is one of the most misunderstood places on Earth... and a lot of North Americans think because they can see the slums from the border (they do exist!) and that roads are sometimes not in the best of repair, that it's some dangerous he||hole. As with many things, the news reports the bad things ("if it bleeds, it leads"). It's not a bad place. I still love it. If you like, once you have names and addresses and have been told where you're staying, I can tell you a) what the neighborhood is like b) what's nearby in terms of grocery stores, etc., c) how to get around to wherever you want/need to go.

It will come back, and sooner than you think. And there's something about being surrounded by fitness-minded people!

I am The Most Unlikely CrossFitter (started at my heaviest weight) and also mourned the enforced detention from the barbell. I was told absolutely no weight at all for two weeks, walk only. After my two-week visit, I was cleared to for running, jumping rope, and biking (but not rowing, just because of the mechanics of it) and given a 10-lb. restriction which I will freely admit I stretched to 15 lbs so I could use a training bar. I went back to the gym and modified things heavily. I was cleared to return to the gym fully at 6 weeks which was last week. I strongly, strongly suggest you plan to go slow as you return. If you used to go five days a week, go 2-3. If you went 3 days a week, go 1-2. Scale. Absolutely. Everything. Your body will hurt just like it did when you started, and after the gyms reopened post-quarantine. We are finishing a strength cycle that I wasn't here for, so I'll just be kind of doing moderate weight and seeing how my mechanics have changed (cleans feel TOTALLY different), and will start the next strength cycle. I will say that my running got better IMMEDIATELY. I went from a 14-minute mile where I had to stop and use an inhaler, to an 11-minute mile in just four weeks, and my inhaler is in a drawer. I ran an 800 m in under 5 minutes and didn't die. I actually can't wait to see how much closer I can get to a pull-up or a toes-to-bar with the increased mobility and less of a leaden weight in my @$$. Oh, and for what it's worth, I was able to pull 60% of my heavy deadlift for 5 reps absolutely cold the week I returned. Will there be strength loss? Probably. But it's not as bad as I feared.

Being able to sit wherever I was put in a restaurant, whether booth or table.

It's so bleeping frustrating, isn't it? Three weeks or so of WHOOOOOOOOSH holy mackerel look at me, and then it's like somebody hit the brakes without stepping on the clutch. I had it, too, as did like 90+% of us. Mine lasted about a week and a half (it was slow, not stopped), and now I am back to 2-4 lbs. a week, which is more like it.

You still have a stomach pouch after RNY. It's quite small, and is connected directly to the jejunum, bypassing the duodenum. "Gastric bypass" is actually kind of a misnomer because it doesn't bypass the stomach, it bypasses the upper part of the small intestine.

Dr. Vuong needs to get current on research. It's fat we're losing. There is SOME muscle catabolism during the process because there has to be, but no, the point is not muscle catabolism, otherwise people who succeeded in losing their excess weight would be weak blobs of fat. ? Weight training helps get rid of fat. It revs your metabolic engine. I did increase my calories (in concert with my new NUT) in order to get my protein consumption up, but I'm not hungrier than I was. And my weight loss actually accelerated by about a pound (0.45 kg) a week. I weight train 3-4 times a week and I do some kind of cardio (running, biking, rowing, skipping rope) 3-4 times a week. And you don't need to be a gym rat. You can go to a store and buy a few dumbbells (buy them in pairs) or a kettlebell. Nick Urankar, who's a CrossFit athlete, has a whole program called "Just a Bar" where you use a barbell (25, 35, or 45 lbs.) for strength training.

I had a bad bout of cellulitis that started to go septic and ended up on IV antibiotics in the hospital. No real difference from pre-surgery bouts of this (once you get cellulitis it never truly goes away, just goes into remission), other than that I had to be VERY specific about my diet because I was still on full liquids.

Thank you! I do have an appointment with my GP, so I'm going to bring it up, and in the meantime continue with ROMWOD (one of my bucket-list goals is to be able to put my palms on the floor with my knees not bent).

Exactly what @catwoman7 said. The stall is normal and it will move in a week or two, just stay off the scale. I can easily drink 100-150 ml of fluid at once, and have been able to since about 3-4 weeks out. I try not to, but sometimes I'm just ####ing thirsty!