Leaderboard

The fluids and fat shift around, the body is healing, your intestines are adjusting to solid food - drawing liquid, etc. This will happen all throughout the journey. Stalls will happen, but usually you will lose inches during a stall, even clothing sizes will drop then. Up your liquid intake and in a few days things will even out.

I've made a conscientious effort to avoid using the word "love" when talking about food. "I love chicken wings. I love French fries. I love tacos. I love spaghetti." No more! I'm breaking off my love affair with food. We're just good friends now. But food keeps trying to win me back. "Give me another chance!" "No, Food. I'm moving on. There's someone else in my life now. Someone that I love more than I ever loved you -- myself, my health, my life." - What word will I use in place of "love"? Probably good ol' "like". "I like okra. I like shrimp. I like garden-fresh tomatoes. I like pecans." I'm also going to avoid using the word "hate". Hate gives Food more importance than it deserves. "I don't like pineapple. I dislike Brussels sprouts. I don't care for liver." - For me, it's easier to give up the word "love" rather than "hate". Not sure why.

Truly, I am so thankful that food has lost its siren song to me. To me, that is one of the best rewards of WLS. I’m over a decade into this and still very humble and still learning. Sure, I get hungry... I eat well( most )of the time. I like the use of ‘love ‘ food being replaced with better lifelong terms. I truly try not to shop much...mostly do not watch food shows(ok. Mary berry) don’t peruse food mags or recipes. Just keeping a distance.... And please don’t mistake me for someone who “gets it”... I still just try Life goes on, and the WLoss community can teach us much.

It seems early for that, but not beyond the realm of possibility. It seems to be in a good location to be hidden so that’s good!

For me, once I got into the habit of it, it's not a big hassle to do so. I think MFP is amazing, especailly considering it's free. I'm not neurotic about it, I don't weight or measure things like spinach. I do weight most things though, cheese, jerky, salad dressing, meat, beans, etc. I don't cook a lot. It's pretty pointless when I can only eat 2 oz. But when I do I use MFP recipe builder. It works really well, IMO. For a big recipe I just guesstimate on the number of servings. I eat out a lot, and mostly at non chains. I also generally use the highest calorie option for a dish. I don't stress out too much over it, I figure logging, even if it is 100% accurate gives me a better record than not logging. MFP is fantastic about having ethnic dishes in their data base.

Dannnggggggggggg, those are awesome. I need to be more meticulous with mine as well i just normally use the free MFP and be done but those are really good

Thank you, I was so scared this wasn't normal. It's a relief to know it is.

Nope, nopety, nope Ask for an e-mail address of every one you speak with , tell them to send you things through email while you wait to receive it and conduct every conversation through email, create a paper trail, or figure out how to record them over the phone. Ask their names, ID numbers and let them know they are being recorded for quality assurance

I don't see how logging food before you've eaten it works for anyone. Even this far out, I cannot say what I am going to eat for the entire day. When it comes to the godawful imperial measuring system (cups of spinach, or 1/4 of pork rinds) I always switch my scale to grams. The problem with the imperial system is many people/labels say 2 ounces (weight) instead of quarter cup when they are referencing fluid ounces (volume) . The metric system avoids that confusion with grams for weight and milliliters for volume. I am meticulous with my tracking and have been for quite a while. I find it a valuable tool to prevent me from overeating. It also helps me determine if the hunger is real or just in my head. If I am already at 2,000 calories for the day, it is most likely head hunger. However, if I have been exceedingly active that day, it would make sense that I am truly hungry and need the sustenance. The free version of MyFitnessPal is still pretty darn powerful if you are handy with spreadsheets. I just use their report and scrape the data from the HTML and enter it into my spreadsheet: Those pictures are from last year, but the file is the same today but with more data.

Resistance training with heavy weights is the only effective way to gain muscle mass. Make sure to focus on compound movements that stress a variety of large muscle groups (i.e. squats, dead lifts, presses, dips, pull-ups). Its damn hard for most guys to gain more that ten pounds of actual muscle so don't expect the moon. The good news is that just ten pounds of muscle can make a huge difference.