Hi February losers! I know we've got a great group in the pre-op sub forum, but now that we are on to week two, thought we should start the thread over here too! I see a few other Feb stragglers around so hopefully they can join here too.

I had my surgery on Monday 2/3. I'm down 10.5 as of one week. Not sure if this is a normal amount or not. I'm not getting in much calories, but do get in Protein of at least 50g per day (need to up this) and all my Water. I have a drain which still causes me pain. Other than that thing, I'm doing good on my incision and recovery. Today I start back up work, but thankfully it's from home and I just have to work on a laptop or computer.

So looking forward to the losing phase of this journey with you all and learning and growing from each other.

Edited February 10, 201412 yr by kimr

Kimr

So sorry for your experience. I would say that was dumping. When I had my experience it was light headed, rapid heart rate, vomiting,horrible over all experience. It's funny how our new pouch reacts to food on a daily basis. One day your fine and then the next all heck breaks loose. I'm so glad you made it home in time.

Hope you never have that experience again.

Best wishes

Deanna

Oh Kim,

I'm so sorry to hear that you had that terrible experience and off of a protein bar! It sure sounds like dumping. Too bad your experience lasted so long too. That is not fun at all to feel that sick for so long. I'm glad your better now and know what to look for on the labels to avoid that situation in the future.

Take care of yourself,

Carol

Hi,

Back home in the UK, rather jetlagged but here.

Carol, your non scale positives sound great.

Tammy, wow 6 miles, really?!

Kim, sorry to hear about the protein bar experience. You poor thing.

Take care all of you

Claire

Kim - so sorry about your "dumping". I haven't experienced that (yet!!) but I did have a new negative experience. Everything was going along really well - no problems with any food I tried etc. Then out of nowhere I had a terrible day on Wednesday (just like Claire has described before). I felt nauseous and "full" all day, could't eat anything - although luckily water was fine. So glad for this website and knowing that other people had experienced the same thing. No need to worry that something was wrong. Of course I was fine the next day. I have absolutely no idea what caused it - hadn't eaten anything new or unusual. Oh well - we live and learn.

Claire - glad you got home safely. Did you cope with the long plane rides OK?

Tammy - 6 miles is crazy! I walk 1.2 miles and it takes me around 40 minutes (hilly, through woods on rough paths but my dog loves it) I think the average person walks around 2 - 2.5 miles per hour. He really expects you to walk for 3 hours a day???

It is great to have all of you on here who are experiencing the same things and we are all about the place in our new lifestyle. I have had two recent times where I got sick from food that I thought was OK. In both cases it was grilled! I had grilled fish and a grilled burger. I think I have discovered that the food was just too dry. Almost after the first few bites I felt nauseous and actually got the "foamies" and was sick to my stomach several times over the course of a few hours. I was determined to try the burger again and this time I put melted cheese on it, lots of condiments and cut it into little bites and it went down fine. The grilled fish was at a restaurant and I wasn't brave enough to try it again so I fed it to the cat. LOL.

Claire - I'm glad you are home safe again in the UK. Thank for the encouragement on my NSV's.

KimR - I hope you are feeling better now and didn't buy that many of that brand of protein bars

Tammy - I still can barely walk to my car so you are an inspiration to me

JannetH - you are such an inspiration and supportive. Glad you are in this forum

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Carol

Hi everyone!!! Hope all is going well!! I wanted to ask....what are some go to meals for you? I'm struggling with what to eat throughout the day, even for breakfast!! Just like to see what everyone else does! Thanks!

Hi everyone!!! Hope all is going well!! I wanted to ask....what are some go to meals for you? I'm struggling with what to eat throughout the day, even for breakfast!! Just like to see what everyone else does! Thanks!

Hi,

Well I am not sure that I am the best person to reply to this. I do not have any 100% reliable "go to" foods, just ones that can work most of the time. As you know I have a lot of days when nothing seems to work very well and I just try things that I think might work, because they generally do, on my more difficult days. It doesn't work really though, but then I have not been sick or had dumping.

So for breakfast - either a fibre rich cereal with fruit, or toast with something on it, or less successfully egg based foods like french toast with fruit.

Lunch - cream cheese lite with ham and maybe some fruit

Maybe a fruit smoothie late in the afternoon, to increase protein

Evening - beef carpaccio, salad with prawn and mango, meat based pasta dish or something as protein rich as possible. Maybe some low fat home made ice cream.

I don't know if that is right or wrong but I try to have as much protein as I can, even on my more difficult days.Sometimes I have a mouthful of something that doesn't really work and I end up with something else.

Hope that helps a little and that you are ok

Claire

How many calories are you guys getting in a day?

My typical day is like this:

Breakfast: coffee. I have a lot of trouble keeping ANYTHING down in the morning. Protein drinks make me feel nauseous, espeically early. I leave my house around 6:20 am. Nothing for breakfast for me, please.

Mid-morning snack - cottage cheese 100 cal pack. I usually eat about half to 3/4 of it. When I get tired of that, I've been having a few pieces of pepperoni.

Lunch: go-to: P3. Those protein snack packs I posted about a few weeks. Sometimes I do a slice or two of roast beef deli lunch meat rolled around some cream cheese. Yummy! Occasionally I will have a few multi-grain crackers with that.

Afternoon snack: 4 tortilla chips with mango salsa! My new favorite!

Dinner: I have a hard time with dinner still. I have a little of what my family is having, protein first, veggies second, carbs last. My easiest, most favorite thing to eat is 2 tbs of taco meat, some cheese, sour cream and taco sauce. I also enjoy about 3 shrimp with cocktail sauce sometimes. If they are having something I can't have, I have single servings of talapia. I eat about 2 ounces of it with blackening seasoning, grilled or fried in a tiny bit of oil.

Last night I fixed BLT sandwhiches with a southwest salad, which is like a coleslaw type salad but with a southwest flair. I had about two tablespoons of the salad (it was so good) and 1/4 of a BLT. I doubled up on the bacon, so I had two slices of bacon, a bite of tomato, some miracle whip and toasted bread. I left off the lettuce due to the amount of raw veggies I ate in the salad. I did not want to push my luck.

I had to have the salad first, finish cooking dinner and the eat the 1/4 of the BLT (half of a half). I would not be able to eat all of it at once without getting too full.

On the weekends I end evenings with my rum and diet coke over ice as I've discussed before (keeping it honest). I do not partake in many sweets, breads, or carbs. It doesn't sit well and I am choosing my "bad" foods by priority level. LOL

I am having good success in working out. I enjoy dancing and swimming and I added some working out with weights to tone my arms and tummy.

How is it going for you?

Hi Erin,

How nice to hear from you, it is really good to hear your news. It sounds like you are doing well with the exercise and everything. I agree with keeping it honest and your priority list of less healthy foods. For you a weekend rum and diet coke and for me Italian gelato when I am there, which is not often. When in Rome (or Italy anywhere really)....

I am also not too good with foods in the morning and evening things that are generally fine do not go well then. I used to leave at 5.45 and even before the bypass I was trying to force myself to have something on the way in. Now I try to have something a little later, but it is still far from ideal.

I like your BLT idea - very nice.

We are trying some things out of a bariatric cookery book for example a pizza type thing on a tortilla and that worked well. It depends what we are doing and what we are eating though. Sometimes it is the thing that I can tolerate best on the menu, with as high a protein/ calcium level as possible. Failing that anything that will go down. It's only one meal and quantities are small!

It is so good to hear from you Erin.

Take care

Claire

Hi everyone!!! Hope all is going well!! I wanted to ask....what are some go to meals for you? I'm struggling with what to eat throughout the day, even for breakfast!! Just like to see what everyone else does! Thanks!

Dreamingbig - Now that I'm/we're 4 months out, I'm lucky in that I'm not very restricted in what I can tolerate. I've had the occasional bad day when nothing is appetizing but on regular days I can have dairy, vegetables, salad etc with no problem. I concentrate on dinner - bought a bariatric cookbook and love a lot of the recipes - grilled salmon (lots of different sauces), moussaka, no-noodle lasagna, pork tenderloin and lots of chicken recipes - my go-to is tandoori chicken or chicken satay (both just cubes marinated in yoghurt and spices). I then have leftovers for lunch most days. I tend to have eggs for breakfast - poached or scrambled. I'm still avoiding carbs - I get too full with rice etc, so I mostly have protein and vegetables at every meal. Go-to snacks are yoghurt, fresh fruit or hummus and vegetables.

Princess Erin - I use MyFitnessPal and according to it, I'm eating 600-900 calories a day and getting around 70g of protein. What do you think you're getting?

Unfortunately I've been on a plateau for several weeks now. Claire hauled me out of a downward spiral in my thinking. So I'm not weighing myself, writing down all of my "non-weight" achievements and starting to ramp up the exercise - my goal is 30-40 minutes a day of walking or swimming.

How is everyone else doing?

Thanks guys!! You all are doing amazing! I've hit a plateau myself. For the last 2 weeks....to be honest though, I've not been a good girl and I'm not doing "regular excersise". I am on the go all day for my job , run here go there move move move...so by the time I make it home at night I am dead dog tired. And we are packing to move so...that's super fun too.

Anyhow, I too stay away from breads. However...crunchy foods seem to work well for me which...is probably bad since I do like them. Most days I am still using my go to's like raw veggies, salads and fruit. I will add a slice of ham or turkey here and there. Dinner, I try to eat whatever I cook for the fam, Somedays are better than most.

My biggest problem is that from eating so little for dinner I end up hungry before bed...I know that is dangerous. And eating before sleep is never a good thing.

Erin, I love me some rum too!! I have fixed myself a few cocktails as well...haven't done with coke, but I do love me rum punch. I have to go so slow though, I'm so afraid of the sugar.

Thanks again guys! You're the bestest!!

~H

Hello everyone, well 4 months down and a lifetime to go. It sounds as if everyone is doing great... Carol, I'm not walking the 6 miles my doctor told me to, I've only walked 3 miles a few times and with the neuropathy in my feet it's a huge struggle. I'm walking as much as I can tolerate and riding my recumbent bike. He had to be joking, 6 miles... Sheesh!

I'm wondering where everyone is in their weight loss. If anyone would like to share that is. I know we're all individual in our journey but I was wondering if I'm on track. I've lost 61lbs so far and I'm not sure if that's average for 4 months. I'm just under half way to goal and I had a perpetual stall... I went on a week camping trip and I don't know what I did but I broke the stall, thank goodness because it can be real discouraging to be stuck. I'd loose a couple pounds and gain it back then loose it again along with another lb. it was back n forth for what seemed forever. Hopefully I'm on a roll now.

Tammy

Hi Everyone

I don't mind sharing my weight loss. Starting weight 243, surgery day 226, today 167. I feel I am on the very slow weight loss cycle. Don't get me wrong I am very very pleased with the weight that has came off at this point, it just seems like I get stuck on the same weight for a few weeks and then I lose 5+ lbs then repeat cycle.

I work out daily (some days are better than others) I ride my bike 13 miles or I jog/walk for 6 miles. I prefer the bike any day!

My go to foods are non existing. . The foods that once was ok are now not being tolerated. I started freezing my protein shakes and that seems to be working.

Have a great day!

Deanna

As of Wednesday I am down 101 lbs.

I am staying around 900 cal per day with at least 80 g of protein.

I'm exercising three days a week. I generally do about four or five machines and at least 2 miles on an elliptical.

I am happy with my loss so far. I feel better than I felt in a long long time.

Happy four months everyone keep up the good work!

As of Wednesday I am down 101 lbs.

I am staying around 900 cal per day with at least 80 g of protein.

I'm exercising three days a week. I generally do about four or five machines and at least 2 miles on an elliptical.

I am happy with my loss so far. I feel better than I felt in a long long time.

Happy four months everyone keep up the good work!

Sullysrants

That's amazing great job!! I wish my protein intake was much. What are you eating?

Best wishes

Deanna