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Well done! It's really good to take measurements. It helps with the stalls!

I am 3 years out this month. I track my food religiously every day. I try to eat clean and cook almost all of my food. My calories are on average 1500 a day and as this was my first trial number at maintenance, I was lucky. I don't restrict myself to diet foods. I eat full fat versions. It eat good quality food, even chocolate. I weigh myself every few days. My exercise is limited to walking a few miles, a few times a week. Oh and window shopping in town, once a week. I also stay on this site and read it almost every day as it seems to keep my focus.

Hello, I just started Mounjaro!! I'm on Week 3 of 2.5mg and the appetite suppression is no joke! My doctor put me on this after stalling out at 80 pounds lost post op. Surgery March 2021, stopped losing March 2022 (but haven't gained). I'd like to hear about anyone else's experience so far, the weight loss has been slow, but I'm hopefully because the scale is finally moving again!!

Congrats on 10 years! I think we all will have ups and downs our whole lives! Just life! I too was 277 at my highest ever. Lost 100 lbs before and 60 lbs three times, and 20 and 30 lbs several times and it always came back slowly over the next few years. So I got the sleeve done Dec 2 last year and have gone from 244 at start of liquids before surgery to 202.4 today. Almost to Onederland! I love all the tips you shared. Snacking and drinking calories are DEFINITELY culprits to regaining our weight! I bring divided out grapefruit every day lately if I do want something. Or berries or cucumbers. And I've been drinking water during the week and add in my tea and coffee on the weekends usually. But I use Stevia. I was divorced a few years back also and remarried and my husband is pre-diabetic. He doesn't eat sugar now so that helps me too. 🙂 He eats healthier than I do since he found that out too. Determined to not become diabetic. He eats baked fish, grilled shrimp, spinach and cabbage, etc. LOL! He's got some great willpower. You and I seem to have lots in common! But I don't like beer. LOL! It's probably better for me though than pina coladas, which are my fave! LOL! I haven't had one in a year or longer. And just had surgery about 3 months ago. You can tell I hardly drink at all. 🤣 I am so glad to know restriction stays! Some people say it fades. I'm glad it doesn't! Hopefully we can continue to lose and get to a weight we are happy with this year! 💗

CONGRATS!!!! so proud of u and u look fantastic!!! yesss they say u will gain abit now then it will stop at the perfect weight as u say 120 lbs is a safe spot and then u learn to maintain .. it iwll take time adjusting but u can do it!!! as long as u eat good whole food and MOVE MOVE MOVE then u r sorted.. believe it or not i am not even at my goal weight and apparently i am eating at my maintenance and its so annoying. if i undereat, then i am dead hungry!!! so i am about to hire a coach to help me and hopefully start losing again... i can still eat the same but i should burn more ahhh and obviously being consistent, i am perfect 5 days a week and i indulge on the weekend. so i need to reduce my cals for sure.. its so weird how much i can. anyways i am well aware of what needs to be done and tahts step 1

Hey girl, I’m four weeks post-op and I have found it really hard to swallow cum too. I think my tummy can’t handle it anymore. Idk maybe I should wait longer and see if this is still the case. 😬

not american, so no thanksgiving pics to share, but here are some thingsn i've prepared/eaten the last week or so (NOTE: i'm currently in an effort to gain weight - the horrors! lol - so my food choices may be a little off-the-bariatirc-norm...) 1) bbq pork and seasoned rice one-pot-rice-cooker-meal. my portion: 266 cals...ate almost all of it 2) homemade chilli topped with cilantro and feta cheese, home focaccia and sliced avocado sprinkled with sumac: 599 calories for whats shown. ate everything except the foccacia (too chewy for me!!...mr ate it instead) 3) more of my homemade chili, some cheddar cheese, more cilantro, and some Tostido's Hint of Lime Tortilla chips (my fave!!!) 276 cals...ate it all! 4) homemade guacamole with the above mentioned focaccia that i slow toasted to make crisps with cheddar & cilantro & sour cream: 370 cals...ate all except 2 the focaccia crisps. 5) homemade crispy pork belly...omg THE. BEST. CRISPY. PORK. BELLY. EV-AH!!! this pic is of the entire slab. i had roughly 1/2 cup volume of it. ate it all!! 250 calories! 6) junky snacks: - 2 walkers mini shortbread cookies + 1 chocolate : 123 calories - 2 walkers mini shortbread cookies + 3 sour keys candies 103 calories yep, ate all it ta-da!

It's been a while since I've been active on here, but I'm really struggling. Any advice or encouragement would be a huge help. 😥 Almost right at my year mark post-op, I stopped losing weight. My doctor said that I should still be losing 1-2 pounds a week. Around this time I was eating 1400-1500 calories, so they recommended I scale back to 1200. I try to eat whole, unprocessed foods about 80% of the time, I still track what I eat, count my calories, prioritize protein, and exercise 4-5 times a week for 30 minutes (usually cardio, but I do resistance train, just not faithfully). I am eating 1200-1400 calories a day, and I'm struggling so bad. My weight sits somewhere between 211 - 219, depending on water retention, my cycle, travel, stress, etc, and it really hasn't changed since I saw my doctor last. I would love to try the GLP-1 class drugs to see if that could help, but my insurance doesn't cover it, so that's not an option. I'm really depressed over this, which I know doesn't help things. I feel like I've worked so hard, and I've just barely gotten halfway there. Now I'm terrified I'll start gaining weight again, and I've caught myself obsessing over my eating to the point it's feeling disordered and mentally unhealthy. Has anyone else had this struggle? If so, what helped you - either with losing more weight, or just coping with being at a plateau? 😭

Wow, amazing progress! Do be careful you monitor yourself for musculoskeletal issues such as shin splints, achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, knee pain, etc. As I mentioned above, your cardiovascular system improves at a faster rate than your musculoskeletal system. Even if it "feels" somewhat easy for you to do this right now, you could be doing more than your bones, tendons & ligaments can handle yet. Running is a high impact activity and while that can actually be a good thing, we want to give our bodies time to get used to this extra load. As a rough guide, I'd say try to keep the amount of running about the same each day during the week, then only increase a little bit each week. (e.g. 15 mins this week, 18 next week, 21 the week after, etc.) Also, do be careful about going too fast too soon. I'm oversimplifying a lot here, but an ideal percentage of slow to faster running really should be roughly 80% slow and only 20% faster. This will significantly reduce injury and overtraining risk. After all, it's best to think about running as a lifelong activity. If you start going faster and faster each time just because you can, you're going to significantly increase your risk of injury, which could do a lot more harm than good to your fitness and health. Again, this is a drastic oversimplification, but I'd recommend trying to keep your heart rate below ~75% of your max heart rate when you run. If it's a lot above that, you're probably going too fast and should slow down. I could go into a lot of detail why this is the sweet spot in terms of heart rate, but suffice to say it's going to do a better job of increasing aerobic endurance than you'll get at faster paces. Most people that are new to running seem to balk at that idea since it seems a bit illogical that going slow is actually better. The truth is this has been shown over and over in scientific studies, as well as in the training plans of the worlds best runners. Best of luck!

not american, so no thanksgiving pics to share, but here are some thingsn i've prepared/eaten the last week or so (NOTE: i'm currently in an effort to gain weight - the horrors! lol - so my food choices may be a little off-the-bariatirc-norm...) 1) bbq pork and seasoned rice one-pot-rice-cooker-meal. my portion: 266 cals...ate almost all of it 2) homemade chilli topped with cilantro and feta cheese, home focaccia and sliced avocado sprinkled with sumac: 599 calories for whats shown. ate everything except the foccacia (too chewy for me!!...mr ate it instead) 3) more of my homemade chili, some cheddar cheese, more cilantro, and some Tostido's Hint of Lime Tortilla chips (my fave!!!) 276 cals...ate it all! 4) homemade guacamole with the above mentioned focaccia that i slow toasted to make crisps with cheddar & cilantro & sour cream: 370 cals...ate all except 2 the focaccia crisps. 5) homemade crispy pork belly...omg THE. BEST. CRISPY. PORK. BELLY. EV-AH!!! this pic is of the entire slab. i had roughly 1/2 cup volume of it. ate it all!! 250 calories! 6) junky snacks: - 2 walkers mini shortbread cookies + 1 chocolate : 123 calories - 2 walkers mini shortbread cookies + 3 sour keys candies 103 calories yep, ate all it ta-da!

Thank you so much for your replies, my tummy has calmed right down now and I am managing to get in at least 70g of protein a day. I am also getting in at least 2 litres of fluid daily too. I am having 3 small meals a day - half a cup each time. I am trying to space them out as well. The head hunger is worse for me, I didn't realise how obsessed I was with food until now! Every time I pass a shop, go out for the day and loads of others scenarios! Any tips for that guys? x

I've been delaying going to my foot surgeon for this exact same reason. I am worried he'll bring up surgery again and that would freak me out. The surgery I would be getting requires a cast for 6 weeks! Dammit. Now for you, you can start walking when you're cleared. I remember after my breast Aug. I was back to crazy intense exercise after taking one week off (not recommending that tho, please get the clearance from your surgeon first). You will be able to start walking in no time and it'll all be okay. Hang in there!

A few of us have only told our most supportive friends and family before we had the surgery. I personally didn't need any of the negativity that comes from worried others, people who think they know about the surgery or the one person that I know who failed with a sleeve. I find that people will post things on facebook that they might not say to your face. If they did, you would get a chance to ask why they felt you may be the same as them. It is a brutal test to see if you can loose this big amount of weight pre surgery but plenty people have managed it. I had a 3 week liver shrink diet. I cursed that surgeon every day of it. AND I was paying for the privilege. I very badly wanted the surgery, my life depended on it. Thats what got me through. You will have to find the disipline from somewhere and start as soon as you can. Start moving more, walking was my go to. Started small and ended up finding the world. Find a tracker you can use every day. Set yourself a reasonable calorie limit. Log everything you eat and drink. Good or bad. I still do it, I use Fat Secret. There are lots of other free sites. Eat fresh food, home cooked. You know the calories then. Plan your food and buy it in. That way you will never be tempted to get a take out Its a test but you can get there. Keep on this site, keep talking to us.

I pureed many different family dinners - just whatever was being made for everyone else! I loved them because they smelled and tasted of actual food after 4 weeks on nothing but protein shakes. They're not for everyone though - mine were smooth baby food texture and lots of people just don't like that. I still used shakes to meet my protein goals for those 2 weeks, or at least get close.

I chose to go with the bypass due to the risk of GERD that I just hate. I have had no issues and I'm only 2 weeks out, never had any pain and just a bit tired following surgery but able to walk with no problems from the beginning of my new life. I must agree, I wish I did it long ago and not wait until now to have done it. I was on the verge of cancelling, but post op I have no hunger and the pounds are leaving quickly. I'm the lightest I have been in years and years and already feel better and I'm off all my diabetes medications. If you need extra support in your journey, I would recommending looking up some YouTube videos by BariNation, they have experts and experienced people with bariatiric patients and the mental part of decision making, it might be helpful. Wishing you well.

I'm a 40 y/o mom of 3. HW 265, GW 150, CW 142. Sleeved January 2023. I loss my first 90 lbs within 6 months of being sleeved and maintained for another 6 months (without quite getting to goal). Unfortunately, at the beginning of 2024 I had some health issues (unrelated to the sleeve) and had to have a total hysterectomy. I turned to my old comfort of eating and gained 20 lbs in 2 months. My appetite came back with a vengeance and my head hunger was getting the best of me. In a moment of panic, I seen my Dr and she prescribed Zepbound. OMG, where has this drug been my whole life?! I loss the 20 lbs. I gained plus the rest of the weight I needed to lose to get to goal weight within 5 months. Unlike the sleeve, Zepbound also helps with the head hunger which is an issue for A LOT of us. It's truly a miracle drug! I was on Ozempic pre-surgery for diabetes and it did NOTHING for weight loss so I didn't expect much from Zep but turned out pleasantly surprised. Despite severe constipation in the beginning, my side effects are minimal and manageable. I feel like Zepbound + my gastric sleeve was a match made in heaven. My health is the best it's been in 20+ years. Diabetes gone, fatty liver gone, triglycerides were high and are now in a normal range. My life no longer revolves around food and for once I feel "normal." I maintain with 10mg every 10 days and it's been working perfectly.

Just checking in to see how everyone else is doing. I had a rough few weeks after I got a virus. Just because of the chemo my body couldn’t fight it so I ended up septic and in the hospital for 10 days with pneumonia and a sinus infection. My white blood cells kept bottoming out but they gave me this shot two times to build them back and so far this time they are holding at low normal. Tomorrow will be a week that I’ve been home and I think I am out of the woods finally, but I am still pretty weak and I am supposed to do treatment Monday so I doubt I will get to feeling much stronger. Probably won’t feel like myself until I’m done with the chemo. 10 more weeks 🤞 I am trying to do a tiny bit of waking like a quarter of a mile at a time a few times a day just so I don’t get out of the habit of exercise but that’s about all I can do. I also contacted the cancer center that one of my doctors is a part of and talked to the yoga instructor and asked if they have a virtual option for the chair yoga and when I explained my situation she said she would get with IT and make it happen for next week. I thought that was so sweet and hopefully will be something I can do to start building my strength back. She said next month they are going to add mat yoga as well so I can build back up to that when I am ready. Anyways I’m pretty proud of myself that I’m still trying every step of the way to keep up with my bariatric journey. I may not be 100% right now but unlike pre surgery I am not letting this be an excuse to just throw it all away. I had a birthday and it was a little unconventional because it had to be virtual but it turned out to be a nice day considering. My mom dropped off carrot cake so of course I have that taunting me In the kitchen. I have been doing real tiny pieces though and it’s actually starting to taste a little stale. Who knew that cake can get stale 😂

I post here for advice, encouragement and always get such uplifting/helpful comments. I just need this to get out to my bari-fam! I am 15months post op. I have done well, got down to my goal weight fairly quickly, made leaps on my fitness journey and just pretty proud of how far I have come. Lately, body dysmorphia is really rearing its ugly head and I am not dealing with it well. I am punishing myself with binge eating...All of April has just sucked a$$ for me. I am maintaining, continuing my workouts, my days are great then I go home at night, I grab a few chips, leads to some sweets, leads to some bread and butter, ect....do I eat a ton of it? No but I don't feel good when I eat it. Last week, I went on a week long drinking fiasco- I used to drink...a lot pre-surgery- Last night I ate Jack in the box tacos.. you know those disgusting delicious mini tacos and my feel like garbage today! I am letting my emotional eating get the best of me and I am struggling to get back. I woke up at 5 walked on my treadmill at 10incline 3.8speed but at the end of the day you cannot exercise a shitty diet. I wake up every single day and tell myself okay new day lets get back on track. And every single day I just cannot seem to get my ish together when I am at home. I am getting rid of all the bad snacks and getting everyone on the healthy train. I am trying and I am so terrified that I will get back to 300lbs again. Looking at the mirror, I see how big I am, I see the tummy, I see the hanging skin, I see everything negative when in reality I probably look fine. Not sure what I am looking for outta this post, but I needed to get it out and not hide my food struggles because I did that and it lead to me hiding food and getting up to 300lbs.

Research does support the idea that BMR will be lower in a formerly obese person vs. someone of the same body composition that was never obese, but the magnitude of the effect was only 3-5%. I'm not discounting the 300-400 calorie number entirely, I'm just saying that if it's accurate, only maybe 50-70 calories of that is coming from BMR. The rest is coming from something else like activity level. Keep in mind that the most common way to quantify total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), is with a 4 component model: Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is sometimes listed as Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), although that is slightly different. Either way, this is a way of quantifying how much energy your body burns just to keep you alive. Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT). This is calories burned in intentional exercise, such as running, cycling, etc. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). This is all the other activity you do aside from intentional exercise. You can think of this as things like cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. Some people refer to this type of thing as "activities of daily living", although other things also fall into the NEAT bucket like fidgeting, how much you stand vs. sit, etc. Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). Note there is no such thing as a negative calorie food. That said, it does take some calories to digest the food we eat. On average, it's about 10% (so if you eat 1500 calories, it takes 150 calories to digest that). Note that protein tends to be a higher percentage, yet another reason to eat more protein. While it's potentially possible that formerly obese people are somehow more efficient at digestion (meaning some of the effect could come from here), this could only account for a very small difference since TEF is just a small percent of your overall calorie burn to start with. The reason I wanted to list all that is if BMR of formerly obese people is only downregulated 3-5%, then any potential 300-400 kcal/day difference would have to come from somewhere else like NEAT. Since NEAT is known to be lower in obese people as well, it's likely the bulk of the difference here is simply coming from less daily movement (perhaps habit?). This also means it's likely highly variable. The good news to me is this should also mean it's changeable as well. Food for thought.

I had the exact same thing, it was seriously doing my head in! But.. it's quite normal, you might be eating at such a deficit that your body is literally slowing your metabolism right down, or you're retaining fluid. My Dietician last week told me on avg people lose between 4-7 kg (roughly double for lbs) between the first and 2nd months... I was despairing as I had only lost 5.1 kg... turns out, right in the middle!! Try not to worry, it is happening! I found upping my cals to 900 really helped!

Offer to be the designated driver. Nurse one glass for hours (did that a lot & still do it but for an hour or so now). Say you’re not really in the mood to drink. Or you have been fighting a headache all day & you don’t want it to come back. Or if you’ve realised you’ve been drinking a bit lately & decided to have a dry couple of weeks. They will notice your weight loss soon if not now so you could be semi truthful and say you’re making a few changes and trying to lose some weight. Whatever you decide to say add you’re glad to see them and to spend time with them & make sure they know you’re okay with them drinking or eating whatever they want.

The shortage is here in Australia. Much lIke the one you had with HRT in the States in 2023. For us it is only the combined transdermal patch which is the one I use. Our therapeutical goods association is saying we could be looking at another 12 months. It’s already been almost a year. I got two lots in February last year but then there was none available. My pharmacy received a small order in October but hasn’t had any at all since. It’s staring to happen with the creons I take too. P Oh I know. Clothing is starting to get firm and couldn’t do up a pair of jeans last week. Waah! Never a good sign.

Wow, that's really quick to move to pureed. Let me share the plan from my surgical team for comparison: Stage 1 -- Days 1-4: Non-carbonated Liquids only. Water, popsicles, jello, etc. Stage 2 -- Days 5-7: High protein Liquids. Add in 1 oz of a protein shake per hour. Goal was to work up to 2-3 eight oz protein shakes per day. Stage 3a -- Days 8-14: Easy Pureed foods. At this point, I was only allowed Yogurt, cottage cheese and ricotta cheese. In addition to the protein drinks, I was now allowed to add in 1-2 "meals" consisting of 1 TBSP of these foods per day. Since I focused on Greek Yogurt, this meant a max of 2 TBSP of yogurt per day. Stage 3b -- Days 9-30: Other pureed foods: Now could add in Pureed Meats, Pureed Beans, Cream Soups, Hummus, Cooked Pureed Veggies, and Eggs. Here the meals went up to 2 TBSP in size and I could have up to 3 "meals" per day. In stage 3b on a perfect day, I might have gotten to ~60 grams of protein per day, with the bulk of that still coming from protein shakes. I averaged less, especially early on since I just couldn't get that much food in me. Note that my plan didn't actually have a protein goal for the first month. It wasn't until I got to the next stage where they wanted me to get 70-90 grams of protein per day. I added all that not to say my plan was right and yours is wrong, I just wanted you to see how little protein I was getting for the first month. I think it's important to keep in mind a few things during the recovery period right after surgery: If you have to choose between hitting your hydration goals and food (including protein), hydration comes first. Introduce foods slowly. Things you loved before, or even things you think should be easy to digest may not be. As an example, I loved eggs prior to surgery and ate them all the time. I was unable to eat eggs at all for the longest time after surgery and still don't eat scrambled eggs to this day because of how bad an experience I had right after surgery. Things you never ate before may become your new favorites and things that sound good now may turn your stomach. It's weird how we all react differently to surgery. I would advise not trying to stock up on things now, expecting you'll want them after surgery. Just ask here how many people still have stuff they thought they'd want and now can't eat it. When reading your plan, keep in mind words like "up to", "max", etc. I highlighted some of those above in my plan because sometimes I think people read right over those and think of the upper end as mandatory. If they put words like these in the plan it's there for a reason. You may just not be able to reach the higher end of those ranges and that's perfectly fine. It's not like there's some sort of test and you only get an "A" if you hit the upper end. All the best.

Congrats on the weight loss so far. I'm 4 days post op from roux en y and haven't lost a pound. I'm sticking to the full liquid diet because I want my stomach to heal correctly. Doc put me on full Liquids the day after my surgery. I have little to zero pain. But I feel bloated. My doc told me advance to the next step of pureed food in 3 weeks. I just want to eat a good salad! But I'm waiting.