Butterthebean

Dana, I can't really answer your questions, but I will say 2 things. One....as you lose weight, your metabolism will not slow down if you increase your fitness. Your metabolism will actually increase with exercise, especially if you increase your lean muscle mass. Two....the results from all the other sleeve patients speak for themselves. We are all different, we are all unique with our own comorbidities and physical ailments. But we all have one thing in common...we all have lost and gained weight on restricted calorie diets. And at this point, it is much more difficult for all of us to lose weight before surgery than the average person. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. I hope you find the answer to your specific question. I would be asking a NUT. I've heard people say things about how the surgery is like hitting a reset button on our metabolism. That kind of answer doesn't really explain anything to me so I tend to dismiss it. But judging by the results of myself and everyone else, it certainly does seem to work that way. But I'm like you, it's hard to take something like that on faith.

skinny bastard

On some of our longer bike rides they serve pickles at the rest stops for that same reason. They have lots of sodium and will supposedly keep you from cramping.

First of all, how do you know it's not acid? Many people here have stated that post op acid reflux feels just like our old memory of hunger. My DOC and NUT both told me this. Try this, next time you feel hunger pangs but you think you shouldn't be hungry yet, eat a tums or better yet drink a little milk. If it goes away it was acid. As for eating, I was told to eat some protein every 3 hours, which I do. Sometimes I'm hungry, sometimes not. The rule of thumb I was given was 1 gram of protein for every 10 calories. I usually exceed that. Typical day for me will be 1250 calories and 135-150 grams of protein. If you scale that down to a 600 calorie/day diet, it's roughly 66-72 grams of protein per day. How much are you typically getting and are you spreading it out evenly between meals?

It's always ice for the first 24 hours after injury, then heat from the second day onward UNLESS there is swelling. I'm a licensed massage therapist and I see this all the time. People get them confused. And people come to me with a fresh injury and want me to treat it but I can't. Massaging a fresh soft tissue injury will only increase the inflammation. Google the RICE method. As the victim of many sports related injuries I am a firm believer in it. As for the calf cramps, I had them too after surgery. I was working out real hard and it was hot outside. Even though I was drinking about 80 oz of Water and taking potassium supplements, the cramps still persisted. I upped my water and they went away. I even quit taking the potassium but have not had another cramp. I now drink about 140-150 oz per day.

I had the same realization after surgery. When you finally separate the real hunger (which is gone) from the head hunger, you get a real good picture of where you're at and what you need to do. I realized I did not want to be that person anymore, a person who was subservient to food. It pissed me off and motivated me to change how I look at food. By the time I was allowed to eat solid food all I wanted to do was fuel my body to get myself through the day. Food is no longer my entertainment or my comfort blanket or my reward....it's fuel.

Tell me, in her premonition were you skinny or fat? I like to keep in mind how much higher the odds are of dying if one stays obese. Perhaps in her premonition you did not have the surgery and died of a heart attack.

You did well Pip. I had one person tell me something similar over the phone....I said let me put you on hold for just a second. I put him on hold and never came back. I don't know how long he sat on hold before he hung up, but I hope it was a while. It's not the ignorance that bothers me....it's the bias. Like there is a right way and a wrong way to get healthy. If you have help, somehow it's shameful.

That's a new one. My NUT told me to NEVER use straws again, but like others, I think it's hogwash. Some WLS patient somewhere must have not known how to drink out of a straw and blew up his pouch or sleeve at one time...so now they tell everyone not to drink out of a straw as a matter of CYA. The thing is though, I haven't used a straw since surgery. I don't keep them at my house, and I haven't bought a drink at a restaurant because I don't drink with my meals. But I do drink out of a camelbak several times a week...it has like a 3 foot long straw on it.

You will have head hunger with the sleeve but it goes away when you transition back to solid foods.

Because men design the costumes.

How would anyone know? I've never seen a piece of fitness equipment that had an accurate readout on this. Most of them are way optimistic on "calories burned".

You might want to search out PDXman and send him a message. He's quite the runner and has some good info on his blog about this.

I will not correct your "grammer" but your spelling and punctuation could be better. I'd like you to work on that before the next class.

Tell him to just stay under the bed until you are 3 to 4 weeks post op. It won't get better till then. And if you have the 3 week stall he may as well go to a hotel.

This thread makes me wanna call for a group hug. I have learned to hate Halloween over the years for this very reason. It's nice to know I'm not alone. The good news is no one will be asking me to play Santa in December.

I use propel in my water. Sugar free and zero calories.

Even the surgeons dont agree on this.

My wife hates it when I use the words conversate or inbiggen. But I'm just trying to contribute to the English language by adding some new words.

More water....read the link in my sig. The 3 week stall is very common. Your body is replenishing its glycogen stores, that's why your weight has temporarily leveled off, but you're still losing fat.

Cut the meat smaller....veggies larger. But yeah, the veggies usually end up being kinda....crispy.

Shackles around your ankles.

Putting them on the skewers is the most time consuming part. Cooking them is easy. Depending on what's on there....maybe some steak or chicken, a few shrimp and some chopped peppers, onions and mushrooms. Just a few minutes, turn them over, couple more minutes and chow down.