Butterthebean

When you run your first 10K they will be singing a different tune.

Duranfan, I'm 7 months out and I know exactly what you're talking about. There is nothing my sleeve cannot tolerate. But I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I believe it's a myth that you should not be able to eat something, be it sweets or high fat foods. Yes, there are people who cannot tolerate those foods early on, but there are plenty more like you and me who can eat anything. You are basically at the point now where the physical limitations of the sleeve are only going to do so much for you. But the behaviors you learned during your honeymoon phase....those are the things you need now. You learned how to eat, drink and track your food. You need to rely on those things from here on out. They will work for you. They are still working for me. You can do this.

I eat as many as 70-80 on some days, but my calorie total is 1500 and my protein total is around 150. You can adjust yours accordingly. But when lowering carbs, please differentiate between good carbs and bad. You can eat all the low glycemic carbs you want. They are typically very filling and low in calories so you are not going to overeat on them. High glycemic carbs are the exact opposite. They are high in calories, low in nutrients, they increase food cravings and help promote a fat storing environment by raising insulin levels. I would worry more about those, and less about the total number of carbs. You can google any food to see what the glycemic index is.

Mine went wonkers again today. But I just followed that same procedure again and it fixed it. I wonder if I'm going to have to do this everyday.

I almost always use water in my shakes. So much easier to drink. The head hunger does get better after a couple of weeks. But till then it can be rough. Think of this as boot camp. It's the toughest part of the journey. But you're going to come out the other side a lean mean fighting machine.

Well, lets see the old and new pics.

And think of those extra calories you burned rushing for the plane. You should put that into MFP.

Anything green is good. Legumes are also good plus they contain Protein.

Over the years, there have been many things Doctors have told me that went in one ear and out the other. The above statement is one of them. I really didn't see a problem. Afterall, I wasn't a person who hid in the closet everynight with a bucket of ice cream and 2 bags of chips. Honestly, I really didn't even know what that statement meant. When I first met my sleeve surgeon, he told me this...and again, it fell on deaf ears. I pretended to hear it, but I knew in my mind that I would do nothing about it. Then I met the nutritionist. The first thing she did was ask me about my most successful weight loss period in the past. I told her I had lost 110 lbs back in 2005-2006. She wanted to know if I had kept any food logs from that time. Luckily (or unluckily) they were all living eternally online on fitday.com. Well, we looked at them together. Over the course of a year I had lost 110 pounds eating about 2200 calories a day. But she pointed out something to me...something that has meant more and more to me the farther out from surgery I get, and the more I learn. I was averaging about 300 grams of carbs a day, and they were not the good carbs. They were not brocolli, asparagus, apples, zuchinni...and so on. They were wheat bread, Protein bars, Pasta, potatos, more bread....in other words, all processed food and starches. One thing I remember most about that time period, I was always starving. I thought about food every second of every day. If I didn't eat something every couple of hours I just about fell out. I got shaky, confused and irritable. Wow was I irritable. How I ever convinced my fiance to marry me during that period I will never know. She deserves some sort of a sainthood or something. It's no wonder I couldn't maintain that lifestyle. I eventually gained it all back of course. I also quit logging my food on fitday about the same time the weight started to creep back up. Funny how that happens. At least I wasn't irritable any more. Somewhere in there with the nurtritionist, things started to click. I finally started to understand what they were talking about. For me, food did not have to be about entertainment. It did not have to be about comfort. I did not need a treat. I did not need to indulge myself "every once in a while". The occasional treat was not going to keep me sane. I needed a new definition of what sane really was. I needed a new definition of what "eating normally" was. Is it "sane" or "normal" to eat something that I know is going to kill me, even in moderation? Just because I see some skinny person eating Whataburger every day, does that mean I deserve to eat it? That I should be able to eat it and still be skinny? The answer is...no. Food is just fuel. It is not my comfort blanket. It is not my friend, my partner, my crutch or my reward. It has been a one way relationship all my life. I loved food, it never loved me back. Who needs that? Now I know, I need more than just a weight loss surgery. The sleeve will give me portion control, but that is just another obstacle that I can easily get around. Ice cream, sodas and chips are like kryptonite to my sleeve. They will walk right through it. I'm learning that I need to fuel my body with the best fuel I can get. Afterall, I didn't have surgery just to see the scale go down. I did it to feel better, be healthy....and to live. I want to live a long life. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, it will be while jogging 2 miles. I will not die a slow, agonizing death in a hospice bed because I'm too fat to breath or walk, and can't wipe my own butt. Is it easy? Obviously no. I still have work to do. Maybe I always will. Maybe it will always take effort to live like this. I don't mind. I spent many years not putting any effort at all into my health, and it was way harder than this. Thanks for listening.

Fatnomo, I use my scale full time. The only time I use a measuring cup is on liquids (milk and egg beaters) and powders (protein powder). But when it comes to meat especially, you do have to figure out how much mass you can hold and the scale doesn't necessarily tell you that. For me there was some trial and error. I'd put 4 ounces of chicken on the scale, then eat it. If I couldn't eat it, next time I'd put 3 ounces. Then I'd know 3 ounces was my limit. And by weighing it, I knew exactly how many calories I was eating. Make sense?

3/4 cup of chili is not that much for 6 months out. And popcorn???? Popcorn is the very definition of a slider food. That's why you can eat so much of it. When you eat dense protein and green veggies you should feel more restriction. 1000 calories at 6 months doesn't seem like too much at all. It seems like you're doing fine other than maybe making some bad food choices, but I'm only basing that on the little bit of food info you offered. It also sounds like you're getting close to goal. Congrats.

Did my trail 5K today. Wow was that a tough trail. Lots of hills and tree roots to trip over. A nice challenge So much better than running on the track like I was 2 months ago.

Yep, that head hunger is a killer. And it feels so real. Plenty of people feel this way for the first 2 weeks. As soon as you start eating solid food again it usually goes away.

I would say do a search on the 3 week stall, but you will be reading all night. Just read the link in my sig. You have hit the inevitable stall that most people hit in their first month. Don't fret and don't change anything. Certainly do not cut out your protein shakes. They do not make you fat. Keep drinking and walking and take 2 weeks off from weighing yourself. Start measuring yourself instead. Soon the weight will be falling off.

I will say this much for the protein shots, after you empty out the tubes and clean them out, they make a perfect container for single servings of protein powder to carry with you. I have several. But it takes some effort to get that taste out of there.

They will provide a burst of energy because they are easily converted to sugar after you eat them. But you don't want your body burning sugar, you want your body burning fat. The best way to maintain a fat burning mode is to stay away from sugars and high glycemic carbs.

These protein shots typically are useless for our purposes. You need whey protein because of it's fast absorption. Those shots almost always contain some kind of collagen blend which is nutritionally worthless to you. Don't waste your time and effort with them.

From about the 2 month mark till the 6 month mark I noticed an increase. Seems like everyone does, so yes perfectly normal.....and no, not stretched. 600 calories is still not much. It just means you're healing.

I'm having the exact same issues after doing the update this morning. I did the work around and it now works. Took me a minute to figure out you have to restart the app in portrait mode the first time. But that resolved it. I have iPad 2.

There is a member here named Sweetsusie who lives in the Houston area and I believe her brother is a personal trainer. Might want to search for her.