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Me again. My ex- and still incredibly close friend and I went out this past Saturday, going a Costco run before she cancelled her membership, then we hit up a thrift store. There, already now wearing a 36" waist pants, down from 50" when I started on this road, I tried on a random blazer that caught my eye. It fit like it was custom tailored right down to the length of the sleeves. Checking the labels inside I literally laughed out loud seeing it was a 46R. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever see myself in anything that 'small'. Added bonus? It was $12 and looks like it was never worn.

I am here to add my vote for meal planning. I also have ADHD tendencies and I LOATHE food tracking. In the early days after surgery when I absolutely had to make sure I got in my protein and water, I managed to track by keeping a physical tracking notebook next to me at all times. I had to see the book to remember to do it. I stopped tracking around 5 months when I was consistently hitting my goals. Now that I am almost a year out, my weight loss has slowed (as expected) and I am finding it too easy to make poor choices if I don't plan ahead. I forced myself to actually track for a couple days and was shocked by how many calories I could eat and what I was choosing even when I "thought" I had been pretty reasonable. So, instead of tracking, which I am still terrible at, I've started meal planning and prepping ahead. For breakfast and lunch, I came up with a selection of maybe three or four choices I liked that have around 20g protein and entered them into my meal tracking app. For example, a spinach frittata for breakfast that I can slice into several servings, fruit cups that I make ahead for the week, single-serve packets of protein oatmeal or a protein bar for those days when I have to grab and go. For lunch, I make homemade chicken veg soup and also salad jars. I also like to make a batch of turkey chili to have on hand, which I store in single-serve containers. I also came up with a few snacks I like such as Greek yogurt with blueberries, or an apple with cheese. I also entered in my typical favorite 6 or 7 homemade dinners as recipes or meals in the app so I could easily add them to my day with one click. Before my shopping day, I try to plan my meals for the coming week. If I see my calories going too high or my protein not being enough, or whatever, on any given day, I can adjust accordingly. On a day that I eat oatmeal, I make sure my other choices are less carb heavy. If I have eggs for breakfast, I might plan to have a carb at dinner. I have the tab easy to get to on my computer, but printing it out each day would also work, as would entering each meal as a reminder in your phone's task list or calendar app. It is so much easier for me to look at my menu and follow it than it is for me to decide what to eat every day in the moment. It also means that if I can eat what I plan most of the time, I can have a restaurant meal or a dessert a few times a month without worrying about it or trying to track it. And since I tend to package up most of my make-ahead meals in single-serve containers, it's pretty easy to grab something to take along if I'm going to be out and don't want to have to hunt for food on the go and risk being off plan. The worst days for me are when everything in the house is an ingredient instead of a meal. That's exhausting and inevitably leads to snacking or poor choices. I find I need to set a regular day of the week for shopping when I can also have time to prep some items right away, before the food even goes in the fridge. I have the most success for the week when all my produce enters the fridge already washed, sliced, and portioned into fruit cups and salad jars, and when I can kick off a batch of chili in the slow cooker, a frittata in the oven, and a batch of taco meat to store for later in the week all at once. Freezing complete single-serve meals is another great strategy for those busy days when you might otherwise get off track. Like any habit, it takes a while to establish and may not be 100% perfect all the time, but I definitely find this helping me.

Prior to weight loss surgery, I could barely walk 5 minutes without stopping from the pain. I think the last time I actually tried jogging was with my mum when I was about 17, so like 11 years ago! And back then it was this Couch to 5k app so you would walk for a few mins, and then jog for 30 seconds and boy did that almost kill me off! Anyway, I was in the gym today on my lunch break, and I always do 20 mins of cardio on the treadmill after my weights workout. I do 5 minutes at a 12 incline, and then lower it by 4 every 5 mins, and increase the speed (hopefully that makes sense). So during the last 5 mins of cardio, the gym was empty, not a soul apart from me, so I decided to do something I was too scared to do with others there. I put the speed up so that I was jogging...full-blown jogging. At first I just expected my lungs to give out like they would previously, but they didn't...I was breathing fine, I was not in pain, and I realised I can do this! I did the last 5 minutes at that pace, and I left with only a little bit of a sweat on, and no pain in my legs or lungs. I just called my dad to tell him because I think this is perhaps the first time in this journey I have felt like I love my body, and I love what it is capable of. My NSV, that I didn't even know was on my NSV list ❤️

I'm going to go ahead and add another comment because I can just about anticipate the next comment (since I've heard it a lot): "I don't care about all that, I just want the scale to go down!" Let's try a little thought experiment here: If I could wave a magic wand and you would instantly look just like a fitness model, be super athletic and healthy and you'd be able to rock that size 0 (or whatever), dress. Would you want me to wave that wand? What if I told you you'd secretly still weigh whatever you weigh today? You'd still look and feel fantastic, but the scale would stay right where it is now. Still interested? I"ll wager almost everyone here would take me up on that deal. The possible exception might be the folks here that already look like fitness models. (You know who you are!) Why? Because ultimately we want to lose weight to look and/or feel a certain way, not strictly to be a certain arbitrary weight that at the end of the day really means nothing. Scales are just a really poor way of measuring fat loss, at least in the short term, so it's best we don't make them out to be more than they are.

Well, you know yourself best, but my impression is that strict, regimented meal planning would be a better fit for you. What I mean is that it's not the tracking of the food every single day that will make the difference here. It's making a simple, defined menu plan that you stick to. Determine ahead of time EXACTLY what you're going to eat every day, and set reminders to eat on a schedule so you don't go too long without eating. Again, just my thoughts based on what you've said so far.

That is AMAZING! Nothing beats the feeling of achieving a new PR! And it feels so good to discover that your stamina has picked up and that you are able to go for longer (whatever that is you're doing), or do things you were never able to do before. Disclaimer: it is addictive. While I worked out my whole life, including while being obese, I was never fond of running. I did all sorts of cardio (Spinning, HIIT, BodyAttack, BodyCombat, Step, you name it) but I hated running with a passion. Found it boring. Although I was able to run for 6-7 km straight I rarely ever did. Fast forward to my foot injury, I was so immobile I was in pain walking, so I did a lot of jump rope and spinning to compensate but my weight never budged. 4 months Post VSG I started getting into serious fitness again and I discovered this newfound love for running that I run every single day now. I do 5-6k once a week and 3k every day after my lifts and I LOVE it with a passion, how times change LOL. I have a feeling you will too. Although I don't know you, I am very proud of you and hope your journey is full of such pleasant surprises.

Since surgery I've had pain in my hips, knees, wrists and back, especially if these joints remain immobile for awhile such as during sleeping. Its so painful it wakes me up and I dread moving. I've also started getting sharp pain for no reason in my right arm pit area (now gone but moved) tricep (rt) thighs and now hypersensitivity on my left outer thigh on the skin. Its so sensitive clothing annoys it, its kind of a constant numb feeling. The sharp pain started in the right arm pit area and I thought it was shingles but I had no rash. My doctor wasn't sure and called in a colleague, she also wasn't sure. Lidocaine patches and an anti seizure medication were prescribed (frequently used for nerve pain). Needless to say the pain has continued and moved to other locations listed above. The pain feels sharp, as if someone is pinching a small amount of skin and twisting it then it goes away. I've had an MRI months before the odd sharp pains started and spinal stenosis was the diagnosis. I'm not sure if my spinal stenosis is what's causing all my odd sharp pains and hypersensitivity. I bring all this up because I don't know if its attributed to my bariatric surgery or not. I just know I didn't have any of this pain beforehand. Could it be just getting older..or the surgery who knows? Anyone with ideas or who've gone through something similar? I appreciate any ideas, I'm not asking for actual medical advice so no worries just ideas, personal stories if you've had something similar! Thank you!

Make a list of all those things you want to change. Pick just one to focus on THIS week. Make sure though, that it's something small that you can measure in some way. For example, you can't say "I'm going to eat better", because that's too big and too vague. Instead, pick something even smaller and definitive like "instead of eating ice cream after dinner every day this week, I'm only going to eat ice cream 4 days this week". That's probably small enough that your brain won't make a huge fuss over it, and is also easily measurable. If you successfully make that change and can keep doing it for two or preferably three weeks, then you can more on. For example, maybe after three weeks, you decide to move to only eating ice cream once a week. Again, you need to be able to successfully do that before moving on again. If you fail, no worries, just try again. If you keep struggling, you may have picked something too big and you need to scale it back. I would also recommend alternating diet and exercise goals. Thus if you successfully made a diet change that you're able to stick with, next time maybe it's "I'm going to walk after dinner 3 days this week". By alternating in this way, you'll find the diet changes are easier to adjust to and at the same time, you'll be improving your health. Just make sure to go slow with these as well. I often see people in the gym (especially this time of year), that tried to go from basically doing nothing, to working out 5+ days a week. Sadly, the failure rate for such people is well north of 90%. Here's the thing. This will take a LONG time, but if you try to go faster because you're feeling impatient, the likelihood is that you won't be able to maintain the loss, you'll fall off the diet, and before you even realize it, you'll be right back where you were before. I also want to be clear, I do still recommend seeking out counseling for a possible eating disorder, as well as help from an RD. Dieting is HARD. if it was easy, we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic. The smart play here is to stack the cards in your favor by getting help from experts.

I drank warm water and it does go down better. Thanks for the tip. Now I’m just hungry 😆

So I went to the gym again at lunch time today, and it is my cardio day. 40 mins on the treadmill, and I decided to try jogging again, managed about 15/18 minutes in total at a faster pace today!