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I know for me, this is the hardest time of the year. It's cold (-8F this morning according to my car, which is just insane). It's still kinda dark in the mornings and dark pretty early at night, too. The holidays are over so a lot of the fun you may have been anticipating a while back is done and the routine feels hard and boring. It's not a motivation-inspiring season. So my advice is that sometimes it's okay to take care of your mental health, and that can be as important as your physical health. Within reason, of course, so you don't let yourself slide into terrible habits. But if you have 10 things to do and you can only manage 5, pick the 5 that matter most to you. Don't do what I sometimes do and spend so much time stressing and lamenting over the 5 you can't get done that you end up not doing anything at all. 5 things is okay when 10 isn't possible. You need to move your body, but you don't need to walk AND do yoga, AND do pilates, AND... It's okay to pick one thing. It's okay to skip the gym and go for a walk with a friend. Or skip the walk and get a pedicure one day because your body is just tired. Sometimes that's what will give you energy to do the other stuff. As long as your hair is reasonably clean, sometimes you just need a ponytail. Or a hat. Not all days are cute days. Plan to get done what you must get done plus what you really want to get done, until you feel able to do more and pushing yourself to do it only takes average effort. I think sometimes we deplete our energy to the point that our bodies and minds have to insist on recharging. Give yourself the chance to recharge without guilt.

Depression can definitely impact motivation, so your husband may be on to something? That said, there is a difference between clinical depression and situational depression. Clinical depression is generally a lot more serious and long lasting, whereas situational depression tends to be less severe and tends to get better over time once you are further out from the triggering event. I'm not a mental health professional, but it certainly seems more like situational depression to me if you're really stressed about the work/funding situation. I think if you are concerned, the best course of action would be to talk to a mental health professional. We all go through some rough stuff every now and again, so if you need help, please get it. With that out of the way, I do also want to give you my thoughts on general overall motivation to exercise when you are struggling with that. What people often fail to understand is that humans are literally designed to conserve calorie expenditure. This is a key survival instinct, or at least it was back when food was a lot more scarce than it is today. I mention this because sometimes people think there's something wrong with them when they are not motivated to workout. Actually just the opposite is true. That feeling to want to do just about anything else other than workout is instinctual. So what do we do about this? well, since calorie conservation is such a strong instinct, we need even stronger things to overcome that feeling. Below are some ways we can do that. These are roughly in order of importance (at least in my opinion): Probably the single most important thing is to really understand your why. By that I mean if you don't really know why you want to exercise, or if the reason is somewhat vague (such as just feeling like you're supposed to), that just may never be enough. Really explore what caused you to want to make this change. If the reason is sufficiently important (for me it was not wanting to die an early death), then it makes everything else a lot easier because you can always refer back to the why when you'd rather just do something else. Make it a habit. Let's be honest. There are certain things you do in life that are just habits and you don't really need motivation to do them. They may not even be things you enjoy, but you do them anyway. For me that's things like laundry or dishes. Showering or brushing my teeth might be more examples. I don't really need a lot of motivation to do them, I just do them because that's part of what I do day to day. What we want to do is get to the point that exercising is just another habit. This could be a pretty long post in and of itself, but one tip I have is something called "habit stacking". I blatantly stole this idea from a book by author James Clear called "Atomic Habits". (I Highly recommend reading it by the way.) The idea here is to attach the new habit you want, such as working out, to an existing one you already do like eating dinner. It might look like this: "After I eat dinner, I will go for a walk around the block" Set realistic goals and update them as you progress. Realistic is the key here because I often find that people either set too easy of a goal, or much more likely, too hard of a goal. If your goal is to workout 5 days a week for 30 minutes at a time when right now, you're basically doing nothing, that's simply too much at once. A much better goal would be something like "I'm going to go to the gym once this week". For some people, just getting out the door and to the gym is the hardest part, so if the goal is just getting there, it overcomes the biggest challenge. Most likely, once you're there, you'll at least do something (you won't just turn around and come home). The same can be true if you're goal is walking around the neighborhood. Often just getting out the door is the hardest part, so instead of saying I'm going to walk 30 minutes a day, simply make the goal getting out the door once this week. This one is a little harder, but you need to explore your feelings and determine what your intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are. Some people are motivated almost exclusively by one of the other, but my experience is that most people are motivated at least in part by both internal and external things. When you know what these things are, it makes motivation a lot easier. As an example, I really love the way working out makes me feel, which is a strong internal motivator. That said, I also really enjoy looking fit. (I'm vain, sue me). I use these two things to my advantage. Put it on your schedule. Way too many people say they are just too busy to workout, but most of the time, that's just an excuse. If it's important, then you'll put it on your calendar just like anything else that's important. "Pre-prep" for your workout. This can vary depending on what you do, but a lot of people that workout in the morning (or immediately after work), find that if they lay out their workout clothes, or pack their gym bags before they go to bet the night before, it takes away one of the biggest challenges they have to getting the workout started. This removes an excuse not to do the workout, and in addition, serves as a reminder to actually do the workout. These are the biggest ones that come to mind for me. There are other tricks and tips I could give (like finding an accountability partner), but this post is already pretty long. One final thing I wanted to mention. A lot of people have found (and research backs this up), that regular exercise can actually significantly lessen symptoms of depression. While I do still recommend talking to a professional, you may find that working out actually helps you feel better. Best of luck!

Just to echo what @SpartanMaker has said in developing a habit - I only started going to the gym a few months back, after pressuring and guilting myself into not going to the gym since the start of my weight loss journey. I just started with going once a week, doing a short full-body workout, and then from there I sort of just fell into it once I realised my body was capable, and I wasn't in pain with it! I think my brain was putting it off so much because I was relating it back to my experiences with exercise when I was 100+ lbs heavier! Needless to say, it was painful and I hated it. Just take baby steps, and find what works for you, even just a short walk to clear your head (which may help with the mental health too), and go from there. Wishing you all the best ❤️ You have smashed it so far, you will smash this too!

Doesn't sound like a hernia. I had one that had to be surgically repaired. But I can do the same thing with my belly button that you were describing. No pain, just feels weird. First noticed it in the shower like a year ago when I was cleaning it. I never thought to ask the surgeon about it because it doesn't hurt or cause me any trouble.

Be careful of those whims! At about 18 months post-op I was walking consistently. I felt that with the right push off that I could fly. We generally went down to the strip and called it people watching. One day we didn't want to go to the strip so we went to a local park that had a walking/running course. On a whim [There it is, all innocent] I ran the last hundred yards and it felt good. I decided to see if I could complete a C25K (Couch to 5K) program, and lo! in no time I could run 5K. I never ran an official 5K but I did increase my distance. Eventually I was up to 10k. Then 15k. Then I decided to keep track of such things in miles. Then 10 miles, then 13.2 (yes, the Garmin said it so it must be true). I still had not participated in any official events. About this time I got it in my silly little head to run a marathon. I started training for a marathon. Training was progressing well, when I had a business trip in SoCal. I saw there was a marathon in Long Beach that weekend, which wasn't far from where I was. My long training runs were up to 16 miles, so I thought it would be cool to use it as training run and have my spouse pick me up at around mile 16. To save y'all from an exciting mile by mile story, it should be obvious by now that I completed my first official race, the Long Beach Marathon. I ran 5 marathons which including one in San Francisco where I got to run across the Golden Gate bridge (twice). 500+ pounds previously this was not even a passing thought. All on a whim. Good luck, Tek

I didn’t have significant issues immediately after the surgery. I know a lot of people experience, dumping, nausea, and vomiting. I had one experience of vomiting, and it was simply because I made a bad choice to drink a drink that had too much sugar in it. I really had, other than the inability to eat big portions, no issues at all. Since that was what I was going for to begin with I was pretty happy and felt very fortunate. I followed what I now know to be a pretty typical less fiber, diet as the lettuce and other things seem to not do well. But vegetables that were cooked were fine. About three years ago, I started to experience extreme, explosive diarrhea - at first I thought it was random… Maybe I was sick, or I had eaten something bad. At that point, the occurrences were about a month apart. As this started to occur more often, I started eliminating things from my diet. Last summer, it was every day. I also had cramping and it would continue until my bowel was empty. At that point out of complete necessity I changed everything I wrote down what my habits were, anything that was consistent that I was consuming. I started systematically removing. I had stopped drinking diet sodas about five years ago, and it never occurred to me that artificial sugar could play a role in this however, I did find out that as I added, sugar-free vanilla to my coffee each day, that was playing a huge role. As soon as I started drinking, just black coffee I felt some relief. I thought that maybe I found the solution. It went from every day to every other day basically. So I started cutting more things out. And then I started having more symptoms. My stomach hurt when I ate. It felt like my esophagus hurt. I started having food come back up. I had to eliminate anything with oil in it. Almost everything I enjoy eating in anyway is off the list. Which is fine, I’m 63. I don’t need to enjoy my meals, exactly. However, it makes selecting food very difficult, especially as I travel a lot. I’ve now started adding gas, more cramping, and the symptoms are better one day worse than next. as to what my team says, lol… My gastroenterology appointment is next month. I have been waiting four months for that appointment. My blood work is perfect better than it’s ever been. I’ve had an ultrasound on my abdomen. Everything is fine except for my gallbladder has some sludge in it. I am well aware that my gallbladder perhaps is part of the problem. However, my PCP thinks that I should just lose weight and my gallbladder will be OK. With that, I can’t lose weight. I’ve actually gained during this whole time. Which seems almost impossible as I spend a tremendous amount of time eliminating everything I eatalmost immediately. The other amazing part of this is I feel great other than the diarrhea/other stuff. I go to the gym, I travel every week for work, I am in different environments with different schedules and somehow I have been able to work around my situation. I have had to cut out longer flights, which has made me really sad because I’ve missed several opportunities to go places I’ve wanted to go, but the risk of not being able to being in a bathroom for a half hour is too high. my current list of what I can eat with no issue is toast, sharp cheddar cheese, cooked green beans, chicken noodle soup, and Parmesan cheese crisps. It’s not a diet that anyone really wants to live on lol. Nor is it actually possible to live on.

Thank you. I’ll try that and see how it goes.

so tonight I am just having tomato soup, with protein powder and beef stock powder, it's quite nice!😋 I haven't had store bought tomato soup since I was a kid and it was a Sunday night special with bread and or crackers l😂

Yes, the power outage was dreadful, we have never had power out for more than a few hours before, we managed fine, it's Summer here so no need for heating, and we managed to amuse ourselves - the food was the worse part! Not only did we lose all my Bari prepped food, but I have been food prepping for the others in the family too ... so much lost food. Our power company offer $250 compensation, it won't cover it all, but will help a bit. Makes you appreciate how dependent we are on our power!!

I followed a recipe to make soup tonight. It came from a bariatric cookbook so I wasn't really thinking about quantity being an issue. At least not until I was done and went to dish out a serving. This recipe said it made 8 cups of soup. I was able to eat 1/4 cup. At the current rate, that means I will be eating this soup until the sun explodes. Did anyone else struggle with cooking early on? It feels like such a waste of time to make a single, tiny serving, and yet, between difficulties eating reheated/dried out food and being overwhelmed by accidentally making 32 servings of soup, I really wish food would just magically appear on tiny plates in my kitchen.