BlackBerryJuice

Oh wow, what a great idea! I wish I had thought of that! Congrats on your progress!

Sounds like you already know what you should be doing, from prior experience. Keep it up! And yes, it's totally expected to lose some strength post-op. No matter how hard you work at getting in protein and being as active as reasonably possible, you are guaranteed to lose some muscle mass as you are dropping pounds.

Low-grade fever is common the first few days after surgery.

Never counted carbs.

I went to food Addicts once, which is kind of similar. The religious part of the program really didn't jive with me. I told them I was an atheist and therefore could never make it to the step where you admit that you are controlled by some sort of higher power. My sponsor was like, "The higher power could be anything! You could say a doorknob in your house is your higher power!" "What a doorknob," was my first thought.

I think this is my favorite....it's clever and is going to make the person think long and hard about things, but it's not rude.

I'd say eating was a hassle until I was a good 3 months out, as well. I definitely remember having moments where I looked at something that seemed appetizing and then dreaded the possibility of sliming from eating it - sliming is very unpredictable. You just gotta focus on nutrition and try to tough it out for the next few weeks. And yes, eating more liquidy or soft foods will make it easier.

Tennis and cycling are all good, but you'll never get beefed up from either. If you do a lot of cycling at high resistance for years, it'll help, but you'll get much better results from weight training. You don't actually need a spotter for squats if you do front squats. http://stronglifts.c...oper-technique/ You load it up on the rack first, so if you can't hoist it up right away, you simply drop it back. If you use the clean grip and find that once you get all the way down, you can't get back up, you simply drop the weight. It's best to use rubber plates on a rubber floor to minimize the auditory offense when the weight hits the ground. If the weight is too heavy, you'll be tipping forward, not backwards, so you never have to worry about being crushed by a weight you can't control - you just let it hit the ground. You'll be amazed at how much weight you can actually squat - the lower body is very powerful. You can also gain strength quite quickly. I've been increasing my weights by 5% every week. Deadlifts are another good one exercise for the lower body. Plyometrics are also good to build muscle mass. We regularly do box jumps at Crossfit - 12 inches or 20 inches, depending on how tall you are and where you're with your training. You hop up and make sure your legs are fully extended before you hop back down, and do a couple of sets of 10.

3 weeks clear liquids? Good god! I'm glad Dr. Aceves is not as evil!

I would shake up your exercise routine with something like a bootcamp. Not a "ladies" one, but a good challenging workout where you work so hard where you get to the point of searing pain in your abs from endless sit-ups for time or tasting blood in your mouth from running 10 shuttle runs in between every 20 burpees you do. Yoga just isn't that great for weightloss.

They also have Light in vanilla where I live. It's only 100 calories and 15 g of Protein - perfect!

I personally don't think 1-2 cookies a week is bad. I eat dessert maybe 3x a week.

I've never even heard of it. There's something called Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), is that what you are talking about? Or platelet count? Is there an actual number attached to this?

I was gonna have leftover chicken quesadilla, except I forgot I left it to reheat on the stove and burnt it. So now it's a leftover pita sandwich with prosciutto, arugula, mozzarella, and tomatoes.

It reminded me of how I met up with another poster from this board before she got her sleeve specifically so we could discuss sleeve issues and this teenage couple stared at us and eavesdropped on the entire conversation. Oh har har, fat people talking about weightloss surgeries!

So true....I grew up in the Soviet Union and you would have sweets exactly twice a year - on your birthday and on New Year's Eve (biggest holiday of the year there). Then once Iron curtain fell, there were Snickers bars and Twix bars being sold on every corner, and it quickly became "normal" to snack on those. Guess when I first started getting fat!

Your BMI is still on the higher end of the healthy weight range, so I wonder if some of your concern is due to perceiving yourself differently - unless, of course, you've dropped lots of weight since you last updated your signature. Like others said, try to up your calories through liquids. Weight training is also good for putting on some healthy weight AND improving your strength, since it sounds like strength is a concern for you.

I wouldn't be "testing my limits" a month out, personally. You are not really considered fully healed until 3 months out.

I still drink protein shakes, although only after my workouts, just because I like to keep a decent amount of muscle mass. If I didn't care, I wouldn't do it. But they are not that bad, honestly. Recently I've been drinking Muscle Milk Light and they taste pretty good, I don't really feel like I'd rather not be drinking them. You can easily get your 70-80 grams of protein through food once you are a year out, though.

I agree that Curves is a good place to start if you don't have much of a background in fitness. Plus it's nice for those who feel self-conscious with weird men ogling them. My fiance's grandma recently joined Curves and she's lost 10 lbs.

Shortness of breath can be a pretty serious problem. Unless it's really-really minor, I'd be going to the ER, because it could be a blood clot in your lungs. It might not be big enough to give you chest pain and make you turn blue, but then those little ones can travel to your brain after instead of getting stuck in the lungs and give you a stroke. And then there's all the other stuff that's pretty serious - post-op fluid in the lungs, pneumonia, etc. So you don't want to just sit on a symptom like that.

I definitely went through a period where I was extremely resentful of male attention after losing weight. I kept asking myself where they all were when I was 200+. ETA: but hands down the weirdest experience to date for me was having an overweight coworker - who never knew me before my weight loss - make some comment about how people like me are "so lucky - you can eat whatever you want and you stay tiny"! I wanted to tell her she doesn't know HALF of it, but felt that there was really no need for her to know about my surgery.

Fun! I went to Hawaii 6 months after my sleeve. Incidentally, it was also when I found out that my thighs no longer rubbed together, as we walked about 5-10 miles a day and I wore short shorts or a dress every time!

Well, we WERE going to x-country ski today since we had a huge snowfall, but SOMEONE would rather sit on the couch and read comic books, so it'll be just me.

I don't blame you, 6 months of constant hunger would make anyone snap.