Leaderboard

Yay! I'm so excited for you. Sending good thoughts your way for surgery tomorrow.

This was the best thing to read today! I hope my surgery and recovery goes smoothly too.

Yes, you are over thinking this. During this phase, the first month or so, there is virtually zero correlation between your loss rate and what you are doing, as there is a lot going on with your body changing states trying to adapt to this big caloric deficit that you have thrown at it. Do a search here for the three (or third) week stall and you will see lots of anxiety over what is my weight loss doing and what have I done? Your loss will slow, often stall and maybe climb a bit before going down again. It often happens right around the time that our diets are moving from one stage to the next, so "that mush be it!" but it isn't - even those of us who never had all those stages go through something like this. Short answer is that when you go into a serious caloric deficit like this, your body first starts drawing on you glycogen reserves, short term carb reserves stored in you liver and muscles, which give you your quick response bursts of energy. There is a lot of water weight associated with glycogen. Once that is largely consumed, your body usually pauses to see if you are really serious about this caloric deficit thing. Then it will start to draw on your fat stores, which is what we are here to do in the first place. Fat also burns more slowly than glycogen/carbs (its that 9 cal/gm vs 4 cal/gm thing,) and it has to rebuild some of your glycogen reserves again (water weight on) so weight can be real flaky here for a while. If you really feel that you aren't eating enough, then a bit more wouldn't hurt and may be helpful, though that won't be what gets your loss moving again. I was up around 1100 calories fairly quickly, within the first couple of weeks, but I was also progressing on food types more quickly than your program suggests, and we had no specific caloric guidance. Others on these forums at that time were insisting that anything more than 6-800 calories would be death to your weight loss. I did fine, at least with my decent guy metabolism, and they did fine as well. I wouldn't rush things on too much, as it is much easier to add more later if you feel the need to than to cut back once you get used to eating a certain amount. I didn't increase my average calories from there until I was within about 10 lb of goal weight (at about six months) and needed to slow things down.

On August 2, 2021, I had my final pre-surgery appointment. Weighed 473 lbs, wore 6xl shirts, and size 64 waist dress pants. On August 2, 2022, I weighed 265 pounds. I have fantastic blood pressure (119/67 at my last appt), I have a resting heart rate of 54, I wear xl/2xl shirts and my pants size is 42/44ish. The surgery was the best decision I ever made.

Hey August 2021 peoples. Our one year surgiversary is here! I hope you are all doing well.

they say that fewer than 5% of obese people are successful in keeping off lost weight. I, unfortunately, was not one of those people. I spent decades losing weight, only to gain it all back. Surgery was the only thing that allowed me to lose my excess weight (I lost over 200 lbs) and keep most of it off. no one can tell you whether or not you can do this on your own - but I agree with the others. A pre-op style diet is not sustainable long term. I would do this surgery again in a heartbeat. The first few weeks can be trying, but I have zero regrets (other than I should have done it years ago). It was the best decision I ever made.

It's worth keeping in mind that the pre-op diet isn't a sustainable diet - it's a medically approved short term starvation diet designed to shrink the liver for a safer surgery. A lot of nervous folks after losing some decent weight in the pre-op phase then question whether they need the surgery. Do you think you can sustain the lifestyle change without the surgery tool to continue losing? This is something only you can honestly answer. Why is your relative vehemently against it? What are the reasons? I'm yet to hear of a partner or relative with reservations who isn't simply misinformed or flat-out wrong and/or driven by other emotional reasons. The surgery these days is very safe. This isn't to sway you either way, only you can make that call, but have all the facts and honest truths before you before you make the choice.

Mine is super strict as well!!!! but I am required 16 oz orange juice daily. 8oz in the morning and 8oz in the afternoon. Possibly to break the weakness of not having any sugar intake.

Day 1-3 were the worst for me. By day 4 I found a routine that worked and my body settled in. I had a very strict 2 week liquids only, which was ROUGH, but I survived and was really proud of myself for being compliant. Agree with others - use the calories you're given! Don't skimp. It'll be over before you know it!

BBL baby!