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I definitely meal-plan, shop and cook more than I did pre-op. (I've lost all my excess weight and maintained my weight loss for over 15 months.) Breakfast is high Protein / high Fiber. lunch is something easy, e.g., dinner leftovers, a high-protein/high-veggie salad or sandwich, etc. Planned Snacks (not grazing!) are fruit, cheese. We do a sit-down dinner every night -- either home-cooked or healthy takeout. We eat in restaurants 4-5 times a month. I'm such a fan of My Fitness Pal. Using it for the last 2+ years, I've learned so much about the basic nutrients of specific foods. I now eat more fibrous veggies and fruits; yesterday I had carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, spaghetti squash, and blueberries. Yesterday's protein came from a Protein Drink, Greek yogurt, skim milk, cheese, roast beef, chicken. Whole grains were high-protein/high-fiber bread (2 slices), all-bran Cereal. I have treats daily. Yesterday's were 1 salted caramel biscotti, 1.5 ounces of scotch, and 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate. It's all so delicious and satisfying. I couldn't be happier about how I'm eating.

Great I did start going to gym I started with doing Zumba classes I go mon-wed its been really hard on my knees. I dont know about my diet it seems like I can eat more on somedays than others. I have not been doing any protien shakes durning the week I am really good on what i eat like I have egg whites with pita for bf, then a can of Tuna w/o mayo just pepper serve with wheat crackers or pita, sf jello a yogurt sometimes. I snank on fruits or string cheese. I was 285 when I started and stuck at 250 for 4mths now. I dont want to do another fill untill I see if the Zumba works for me or not you know.

It's been a few days since I've been here to post. I havent been strong enough to lift myself to the desk nevermind type a coherent sentence. I made it thru thursday... I even drove myself home from work. Friday, I went to work. I am on the mashed tater stage so thats what I have for lunch. Now, I work for a doctors office, we get drug rep lunches weekly. I get to the break room and its Boston Market. Out of laziness I decide to eat those mashed taters instead of my own.. I figure instant is instant. Yeah, not so much. Those taters were heaven. By 12:30, I wanted to die. Now I'm already not feeling well and I go and eat catered fast food taters. Brilliant idea. NOT. I go out to my car to relax.. aka not puke. I get back to my desk at 1pm and silently wait for my boss to return at 1:30. I wussed out and went home. Now I dont know if the taters made me feel worse but something did me in. I get home and have my period 2 weeks early.. that may also play a small factor in my all-around ickiness. So it's Friday night... hubby is out again with Tony, I am up from my nap flipping thru the tv for something to watch. Wouldnt ya know it.. I get caught up watching some food network show that may have been diners, drive-ins and dives... something to that effect. The first show is all BBQ. Not a fan so I watch cuz its interesting and I'm tired of channel surfing. The next show (kill me now) is all burgers. I like burgers but I dont LOVE burgers. Watching this show made me drool so bad. I'm the girl who goes to Red Robin or Texas Roadhouse and gets a salad. I could have killed for a burger after that show. I had some water. I got up saturday, had b-fast then a cup of tea. Suprise suprise, I went back to bed. I got up had lunch and got dressed again. Went to the parental units with the husband and Spooky (he needed to get out of the house). My Mother is not the most lucid/coherent people on the planet. I told her that I'd lost 13 pounds so far and she said that my tummy was all wrinkley all ready. Okay, sure. When Mom started to cook dinner I vacated... she was making burgers. (see above). Hubby and I took a trip to the local Wal-Mart.. got our shit and got out. Went back to Moms to get the cat and then went to Big Y. I got some yogurt and hubby got some junk food for himself. I must confess. I got cheese. Anyone who knows me knows that I have been DYING for cheese. I couldnt find what I really wanted so I got one of those bricks of mozzerella. Got home and had me 1oz of that for dinner. 30 minutes later, I cracked open a diet snapple raspberry iced tea and have been wide awake since. I forgot about the caffiene involved. My diet sheet says I can have diet snapple so I did. Damn it. lol. Now, I cant sleep. Thank good tomorrow is technically Sunday. I can sleep in once I can sleep. I have decided that I truly have no support system. The support system that I thought I would have posted trash talk about me on another blog/lap band forum and I found it. Now I dont have use for that in my life but since she had the procedure done a few months ago, I have a zillion questions and would love to ask but I have no need to talk to her. The other person I know is the office manager for the physician side of work but only I know that she had it done and when she talks to me it's about her "friend". She is 2 years out and eats nothing but crap. Thats not much of an inspiration to me. When I asked if the tired icky feeling would get better she said "eventually." Yeah, no help. So I am on my own. My husband, who say his own nutritionist this week, went all day today without eating then polished off some chicken fingers and mac n cheese and something else. I think he knows better than to do that but he claims he doesnt want to eat infront of me. I think thats why he has been hanging out with tony so much. Speaking of food and the hubby... he wakes up this morning, looks at me and says, "I'm sorry but I want the buffet." So I respond, "I'm sorry but so do I." I really think this is going to be a big issue in the upcoming months. I do not blame him for my fatness but he doesnt like to eat at home. If I cant/wont go out to eat all the time, it may cause problems. Everything we have ever done together has in some way revolved around food. We'd go run errands and the first question once in the car was where are we going to eat? Food has been the center point of everything for us. I hope he understands that I'm not playing that game any longer. I cant kill myself one cheese fry at a time. Under all this pale white fatness is a petite girl dying to get out. I have shut her up with chocolate for far too long. Okay, I have rambled for far too long and I need water....

Short weekend, busy weekend, but finally able to post to my blog. Went to see Kenny Chesney, ate at Toby Keith's restraunt (I Love this Bar & Grill). I got the ribs & chicken, ate the ribs and 1 bite of chicken - full. I did have a drink, strawberry margrita - liquid calories, I know, but hey, I was having a good time :rolleyes2: Bought another drink at the concert - $12.00 for basically sugar. :biggrin: Won't ever do that again! My daughter had a great time, it was her first concert. The Friday night festivals threw me off the weekend, Didn't exercise at all all weekend! Sunday night my son was playing in a concert for family & friends, we had a cookout, I ate pretty healthy, made me chicken, but did have a little macaroni salad - yum. Yesterday, my band was WIDE OPEN, I could eat anything and everything and basically did. Very hungry yesterday, not sure what the heck was going on. This morning, back to restriction again. So glad of that :blushing: I am going to be so dead in a few hours, first of all, didn't get to bed until around 12:30 last night, got out of bed at 4:00 am this morning. My son had to be at the airport by 5:30 this morning. He is flying to Reno with his school. He won first place in the State competition on his Business Essay, now he is competing in the Nationals. He'll be gone for 6 whole days! I'm so proud of my boy! He's such a good kid, an all american boy. If I can just keep those darned girls away from him. lol. Anyhow, didn't get much sleep, so I'm sure it will catch up with me soon! Menu today Bfast blueberry yogurt/granola Lunch salad Dinner roasted chicken wt 180.7 - YUCK - TOM IS DUE exercise -

When do you start full liquids? Then you can have yogurt!

I started on full liquid diet as soon as i left the hospital and did just fine. While you should follow your doctors instructions, i don't think you would hurt anything if you tried some yogurt. Just be sure to do it really slowly, take a bite let it set for several min etc..

I dunno...do I just cut an paste the code created on LilySlim.com? Well, here goes.... <a href="http://lilyslim.com/"><img src="http://swlf.lilyslim.com/NkNXm8.png" width="400" height="80" border="0" alt="LilySlim Weight loss tickers" /></a> <a href="http://lilyslim.com/"><img src="http://swlf.lilyslim.com/NkNXm8.png" width="400" height="80" border="0" alt="LilySlim Weight loss tickers" /></a> If anyone can lend some advise on how to put this ticker in my blog, profile, signature or wherevers, I'd be grateful. Well, it has been one week since my VSG surgery on 1/17/12. I stopped pain meds night before last. Feel really good. Can bend over and pick things up off the floor with out too much abdominal discomfort. Slept well without meds last night. I feel the need to get moving! Will go for a nice long slow walk tomorrow and even drive tomorrow. So excited. So glad, so happy. I put beneprotein in everything, well except water. However, the only 'everything' I've had since surgery is protein shakes, yogurt, strained miso soup, and tonight my buddy gave me a packet of dried hot sour soup, which I strained, and I put 2 scoops in 8oz. Have only drank 4 ozs of it for one meal today (saving the rest for next meal). Not at all physically hungry. Mentally hungry? No not much, but heck I wouldn't dare jeopardize anything to thwart the success of my weight loss goals with my new sleeved tool! I would like to thank having to take chewable vitamins for getting to chew and crunch on something.

I've started having a Protein coffee or chai latte every morning. I have a low carb Protein powder (IsoFlex vanilla - half a gram of carbs per scoop) and I take two scoops and mix it with half a cup of lowfat milk. Then I brew either a cup of coffee or a cup of chai tea and mix them together. Sometimes I pour the mixture over ice, sometimes I don't. With the milk and protein I use, this is about 282 calories, 8 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fat and 60 grams of protein. If I have calories to spare or if I just plain feel like it, I'll add a Tbs. of french vanilla coffee creamer for a bit more vanilla boost. If I wanted to have less calories I'd only use one scoop of protein, which would make it 171 calories, 8 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fat and 33 grams of protein. This helps boost my calories and the carbs are low enough that I still stay within my personal goals for the day. If I don't start my day with this Protein Drink, I have trouble hitting even 500 calories for the day. I still have no desire to eat, and I still only eat miniscule portions. I find myself getting "stopped up" very frequently with any type of meat unless it's (disgustingly) coated with gravy, so I find myself gravitating to "easy" sources of protein like cheese, cottage cheese, greek yogurt and protein powders. Good luck, La. You're doing great on the weight loss, by the way! ~Cheri

I am almost three months out from surgery and have only lost 52 lbs including the 18 lbs lost in pre-op phase. I've been in a stall for a week but I continue to walk 4 miles a day seven days a week. I feel like I am losing inches but the scale doesn't lie. Breakfast is 2 scrambled eggs and 1/2C fruit. lunch is 4oz of lean Protein. dinner is 4oz lean protein and 1/2C cooked vegetables. The hardest part is getting in 64 oz of Water and I have to force myself to reach that amount each day. My plan doesn't allow yogurt until six months out. I do drink two mugs of caffeinated coffee in the morning which I'm not supposed to be doing. One cup of caffeinated coffee is allowed at six months. I do have a container of sugar free Jello in the evening and during the day I have one or two low fat cheese sticks. Hopefully soon the weight loss will resume. I'm getting a bit discouraged with my progress. The surgeon predicted I'd lose 17 more lbs but I'd like another 30 lbs more than that. At this rate it will be a year before I can reach my goal. One good point is that I've been taken off blood pressure medication, have had my statin Rx dose reduced by half and had my CPAP pressure settings lowered.

Don't compare. Everyone loses at their own rates. However what are you eating that prevents you from increasing your Protein? That should be your number one goal, especially if you are working out. You could add some plain greek yogurt to your protein shake to up the protein. (I am partial to FAGE 0%). Many factor go into determining who will have lose skin; age, race, genetic, etc.... You can try and prevent it by keeping skin moisturized, keeping your body hydrated and lifting weights which may help replace the fat with muscle, but there are no guarantees. I also like adding a bit of chopped spinach (fresh or frozen) to my Protein drinks. It add Vitamins and nutrients like Iron, and it's good for the bowels. As for calorie guidelines, you should call and ask your nutritionist. In fact you might want to call them and brainstorm about ways to increase your protein intake.

I start my full liquids tomorrow but I actually started today lol umm did you buy that dannon yogurt shake its great but I honestly feel your pain right now

lets see, since this morning I have had a mocha made with coffee and chocolate protein. and than I had a greek lime yogurt. my daughter was here and cooked up some French fries I was able to handle about 2. this food is my attempt at grazing, never works for me. tonight I had beef stew. homemade and tomato based. I wasn't able to eat very much so have my food on the counter so if I do get hungry I will eat a bit more of it. for sure I will be having 40 cal. fudgesicles tonight.

I'm a "routine" eater. I find something and I just stick with it until I'm tired of it. My routine breakfast is 1 or 2 eggs scrambled. If I'm not very hungry, it's one. If I wake up with hunger, it's two. A hour later I have my milk+coffee which is basically more milk than coffee. My lunch lately is lettuce or chopped raw cabbage over which I throw diced ham or chicken, or some flaked tuna. A bit later I'll eat a yogurt or a piece of fruit. My snack can be another milky coffee or some hummus with carrots or whole grain crackers. dinner is always Protein like a piece of salmon or cod, or chicken (I eat a lot of chicken) or if I sense my band is open, some hamburger. More veg, either in the form of a small salad or roasted root vegetable. About an hour later I'll have either another fruit or some plain yogurt mixed with muesli. My eating protocol is "small, fractionned meals" spread out over six times/day. They are more like Snacks than meals. This is my surgeon's protocol. It's not an easy one to comply with 100% of the time (when traveling, for example) but I follow it for the most part. It really keeps any head hunger dormant (until I see an ad on TV or other...then I look away!)

You will feel like like you are eating constantly for the first few weeks, it gets easier. My ability to drink more at a time increased quickly. But yeah, it’s a chore at first. I ate a lot of Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, refried beans or pea soup and usually 1 protein shake a day. I couldn’t do puréed meat so I depended a lot on dairy during that time. I bought a little insulated lunch bag w an ice pack so I could take food with me if I was going to be out of the house for more than an hr or 2. I also recommend Cooking eggs in the microwave as opposed to on the stove, they come out much softer and more moist than the stove top. Good luck!

Cottage cheese, greek yogurt, fat free refried Beans, string cheese (check with your nutritionist as to when you can have some of these foods - I was allowed most of them pretty early after surgery but other people's plans have them waiting longer). I agree with the sugar-free popsicles, crystal light, etc. I had a lot of problems with acid, though, and avoided crystal light and Powerade zero/gatorade because it made my reflux worse. I drank tons of plain Water. Be careful ordering a bunch of Protein, too, if you haven't tasted it. You might also find that your tastes change after surgery - I had a lot of trial and error with various Proteins.

I'm 10 days pot- op. I've lost 15 lbs since surgery (early on...slow now)... 32 since pre-op diet. I am eating when I feel a need but really don't know if I'm getting enough or too much. I feel good (very sore) but I can tolerate everything without issue. Today I ate a sugar free hello, a fat free tapioca pudding, a cup of tea, water, a tiny bowl of egg drop soup, 1/2 an avocado and a few spoonfuls of Greek yogurt. I'm every other day with protein shakes because I hate them. Is this too much food, not enough... I'm not someone who is going to measure and track and calculate- I know that so why fool myself? I start to feel hungry so I eat a bit... am I going about this the wrong way?

I agree with laura-ven, you've got to get in more protein, didn't your NUT give you a diet plan? Drink as much water as you can and find more protein sources that you like. Try adding the unflavored whey protein to your soup, and to your pudding or yogurt. If you don't get in enough protein it can cause problems later.

I was banded on Monday 5-9-11 and told that I need to stay on a liquid diest until I meet with the Dr on the 20th... Its impossible, not only can I not get enough liquids in me from the swelling but I am truly starving... I am probably getting around 400-600 calories in a day right now and I find the cravings are worse then the two week diet before the surgery... I have been cheating and trying the greek (thick) yogurts, icecream, and others items like this to help me out, but i am really not sure if this is hurting me or not, things seem to go down smoothly, but am i creating problems with the size of my pouch, the stiches holding the band in place, and whatever other crazy idea my mind can dream up... Today i blew off my kids game because i am depressed on just not sure what is going on with me inside... I am not sure if i am right but i think i can appreciate were you coming from and only say its going to take stamina right now to get through this... as much as the shakes arent that great as long as i have some in me i dont have any cravings, but as soon as they burn off there better be a lock on the fridge...

StonyField Organic Greek plain, 0% fat yogurt comes in a 4 pack, with 4 oz containers. It's just the right portion, very filling. I add powdered Fiber, Splenda and a tsp of no sugar added fruit preserves (blueberry is my fav). It's my nightly treat. Beats the heck out of the pint of Ben and Jerry's that used to be my nightly treat. So how come 4 oz of Greek yogurt can fill me up but I can eat 8-9 oz of no sugar added frozen yogurt from a place like Froyo?

I've been eating Fage 2% plain yogurt with a heaping Tbsp. of apricot preserves and some chopped walnuts...so good. (not sleeved yet)

Yes, I had the same problem. Liquid yogurt helped for me at least!

Maybe try subbing in some protein shakes or yogurt for your water? Or sugar free pudding?

You can do it! I gained 14 lbs, turned things around, and have lost 2 over the past week or so. I lose slowly at under 1500 calories a day. Breakfast: 1 egg, 2oz lox, 1/2 cup fruit, coffee with a little 1% milk Lunch: Healthy Choice Powerbowl (low carb) or similar Dinner: Fish, vegetable, occasionally brown rice or carbanada low carb pasta Snacks if I am actually hungry: fat free yogurt, banana, 1/2 cup Julian's low carb granola, unsweetened almond milk, low fat cheese stick, etc. I take a walk/run with my dogs for about 2 miles a day and do Pilates 2x a week. I'd like to add back weightlifting when it's safe to go back to the gym. Knocking off the number of snacks seems to have been the main issue for me. I would track and see where the extra calories have snuck in and see what you can live without. Good luck!

Hi @@chelleshocked ... it's 4 weeks post op for me and I'm also feeling good! I can't believe how much better -- and more "normal" -- I feel from week to week. eggs are awesome, and so is Greek yogurt! A few days ago I made Eggface's ham, cheese, and triple onion bites (aka crustless mini quiches), and they're fab! You can substitute ingredients easily if you aren't allowed to have meat yet. http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/2014/10/its-world-egg-day-8-eggceptional-recipes.html

Are Protein shakes the only thing you are drinking? Here is a sample of my pre-op liquid diet: 7:00 am - 1/2 cooked Cereal 9:00 am - Protein shake 10:00 am - 16 oz. Clear Liquids (SF Jello, SF popsicles, crystal light, broth) 11:00 am - 6 oz. of approved yogurt 12:00 pm - Protein Shake 1:00 pm - 8 oz. skim milk (if not used in protein powder) 2:00 pm - 16 oz. clear liquids 4:00 pm - Protein shake 5:00 pm - 8 oz. clear liquids 6:00 pm - 1/2 cup 98% fat free cream soup 7:00 pm - 8 oz. skim milk (if not used in Protein powder 8:00 pm - 16 oz. clear liquids I am having a little trouble not chewing solid food but the way this is set up, I get SOMETHING almost every hour. Maybe you need more than just Protein Shakes. Good luck to you.