Fiddleman

I absolutely hate to track. Go figure because my whole career has been about details. I am most successful when I can formulate a set of simple rules that work for me and then follow them religiously. I do a lot of eye balling on portion sizes and listen to my body in terms of satiety or fullness. I do read labels and make decisions of acceptance or rejection, but it is really an organic organization that is all in my head if that makes sense. I cannot really describe exactly what i do because there is a lot of micro adaptation that occurs from day to day. It just works. My hat off to all you MFP über trackers!

I was completely against the whole eating 1800 calories a day for the longest time (Susan will remember ), but now have started to embrace it after increasing calories from 900 over several months. It feels good to be able to eat a normal amount of good quality nutritious food and have your body respond in a positive way. It just feels better. With all the exercise most of us get after weight loss phase is complete, these calories are necessary to keep a good level of physical and mental response on a daily basis. I just started eating fruit again, and, my god, what have I been missing for the last 10 months. It tastes so much better as a post op then it did as a pre op. I also put some peanut butter on a banana or apple to give me those good carb / fat / protein ratios necessarily for mr. body to be in a happy place when really pushing myself during a workout or just working at my desk. I choose wisely when eating to get the most nutrition for the buck. Sometimes I slip up, but generally I do not find it very hard to eat simple unprocessed foods.

Does this only apply to table sugar, or other sweeteners like raw honey? It is a very interesting article.

Yes, a running store has personnel that will find the right shoe for you given gait, pronation, weight, etc. I have used mine for about 5 months and they cost about $100. I will probably be replacing them over the summer months.

From my own experience, 60-70 lb overweight is about the limit if you want to run without injury. Of course, it is individual and really depends on your form and technique. This time around, I started running at 225 lb which would have placed me 45 lb overweight 5 months ago. I have tried running at 255 in the past and it puts too much strain on my ankles and knees. 225 lbs was OK and I was able to run 5 k with it. At goal, it is so much easier to run with no injury if your form is good. I am dealing with some minor bursitis this week, but that is not weight related. Wearing a properly fitted running shoe will protect you from injury also.

For me, running did change the body composition. However, not in an ideal way because it really leaned out my upper body in the absence of strength training. I still run quite a bit for cardio during the week, but now also push full body workouts during cross fit sessions, focusing on fast reps of body weight exercises, but still keeping textbook form. I am finding that body weight exercises like headstand pushups, wall sits, planks, pull ups, push ups, sit ups. Etc are really helping to create upper body and lower body strength. You know, boot camp type exercises. Try and focus on compound muscle movements. Planks are awesome for hardening the core, back and arms. Try holding for greater then 2 minutes and if that gets easy, add variations like on leg in the air, feet on ball, etc. Burpees and squats are also awesome compound muscle movements that really change the body composition. Try doing 100 burpees or do the card deck game where each card requires a different exercise for a different number of reps, as fast as possible. Other fun exercises include farmers carry where you jog/run with two heavy weights for 1-2 miles. I am doing this with 45 lb weights. You might also do fireman's carry where you are jogging with the weight of another on your back. I have not gotten into heavy weights yet, but have my eye on it. My PT is helping me with the technical form for bench presses, squats, back lifts and Olympic lifts with an average amount of weight. These are helping a little, but will be much more effective once I can increase the weights. Dead lifts are also good to do fast and furious. Put on a good amount of weight and see how many you can do in 5 minutes with two sets of 10 burpees in between. That will change your body composition.

I drink shakes mainly out of optization. There are different types of Proteins that affect the body composition differently depending on time of day. Also I am trying to eat body weight Protein grams or close to (150-180 g). Shakes are about the only way I can do this. As said above, I eat 3 shakes a day. I eat "real food" for the other meals, but it does tend to be paleo style of clean protein and leafy greens. I eat energy squares and paleo bars to increase my good carbs and fats. Working well! I need all the food in order to keep my BMR churning along as a result of running and cross fit during the week. If I did not eat this way, my muscles would atrophy and body would constantly be in catabolic state like it was during month 5-7 when I was only running and calories were more around 900-1100 daily. All that running zapped my upper body of strength. To maintain a strong upper body, I need to get the protein and continue to train with cross fit. Running on off days between 5k and 10k to keep body lean. It is a careful balancing act and I think it is working so far. DISCLAIMER (to all) - I usually share strategies as a VSG post op that work for me through trial and error. I also ask a lot of questions in order to pick and choose from a buffet of different ideas. My strategies may not work for everyone ,especially if you are not the active type. You are welcome to try all strategies, some strategies or no strategies. It is up to you. I wish everyone success.

Trust me, you should be glad that you are not sliming as it can be painful if early out (e.g less then 5 months).

Do you consider drinking protein shakes as a violation of "don't drink your calories?" If so, I am so guilty...

Awesome to hear good reports on it. I have already hinted to my wife I want it for my bday next week. Rolling around on these rollers sure beats the heck out of paying for massages.

Regardless, it is a lot of fun and leaves you pretty fatigued after playing all 52 cards in a row ( shuffle it good, might be easier that way. Lol). Give it a try! Post your times.

What about full fat milk in latte?

DadTo2- you are so inspirational with so many competes coming up this year. I hope racing in competitions (for me) is a natural feeling, that the expectations are not too high. I signed up for a few 5k and 10 k starting in June until September. Not sure what to expect.

Out of coincidence my PT had me do the deck of cards WOD today. She assigned the following exercises to each card type : burpee, situp, squat and kettle swing. It took 23 minutes to get through the deck, but man, a good workout on the upper body. I found it amusing that we did this today, for the first time, only 1 day after your post. Something must be aligned in the stars. It is really kind of random fun, like a card game, to think you are doing just fine and then get slammed with a face or ace on the burpees. There is a little excitement that builds wondering what card is going to be dealt next. I am sure the really good card players out there who do this WOD can card count and beat the house, whatever that means. Lol!

This is actually kind of funny. I ordered the 10 lb option of Chocolate Paradise energy squares thinking I would get 10 1 lb bags. It was cheaper to order it this way. Nope!! They sent me a 10 lb big ol' plastic bag of chocolate energy squares. Literally enough to fill a small wheelbarrow. So here I am with 10 lbs of mana sitting in front of me in an open bag and I was grabbing big handfuls of it, laughing manically like I won the lottery, letting them fall through my fingers. Now I know you guys are salivating now. It truly was a massive amount of energy squares!! I ended up stocking them away into some old protein powder containers and a couple freezer gallon bags. I am guilty of sampling the goods a little too much ( no worries though cross fit in an hour) I bought these as snacks for before my fitness activities, 2 squares at a time. Probably won't be ordering the 10 lb option anymore. Now honestly tell me: what would you do with 1o lbs of chocolate paradise energy squares sitting right in front of you?

Interesting question. Each standard pack of chocolate energy squares is 1 lb and contains about 15 squares. If my bag contains 10 lb then there are 150 squares. Each square is 60 calories making the grand total 9000 calories. Not really that bad considering the amount of nutrition per cubic inch you can derive from it.

Yup - these little bundles of energy are really good and provide good carbs and fats for those hard workouts. I would not eat them as a regular snack though because 2 are 120 calories. They can be a little addicting so you need to understand who is the master and who is the slave when eating these. You can order them off nuts.com. They work really well to fuel the legs before and during a long run (45 minutes and up).

Consider hiring a personal trainer who will help you develop strength training programs that will transform your body. Cardio is good to cut down the size of the body, but does not really help with developing a ripped or beach body. In fact, too much cardio may be detrimental as your body may use your muscles as fuel as it enters a catabolic state. Running up to 20 miles a week did a lot for my legs, but the muscles in my upper body severely atrophied. You need to lift weights and perform other strength training that targets compound muscles in the upper body in additional to the cardio you do for your lower body. I learned this the hard way about 2 months ago. Now I do a lot of compound muscle lifts and a body weight exercises with a PT at cross fit to achieve an athletic build. Not where I want to be yet, but getting closer with results that are very visible. I am still running, but have scaled it back a little (now about 20 k a week instead of 20 miles a week). With strength training, you can actually spend less time working out per week then cardio alone. I spend max 1 hour a day because I have other things to do. However, I try and maximize that hour. It is important to feed the muscles properly and eat the right type of food at the right time. Proper nutrition to support fat burning and muscle building is probably 80% to achieving that dream body you are after. I also use supplementation to help with nutrition. Two resources that are currently helping me to learn how to balance eating with cardio and strength training are "Body for life" and "Feed the muscle, burn the fat." There is a lot of information to learn in order to optimize results that are real. Eating well will actually do most of the work for you in achieving your dream body. Eating crap will only sabotage your efforts no matter how many hours you may be spending with cardio. There are some VSG folks here that are full of wisdom and knowledge in these areas. I am not one of them, but am learning everyday about how to improve my own strategies.

100% desk job as a software engineer here. I try and make sure my water bottle is always filled every hour. At the hour I get up and do a quick set or two of lunges and air squats and some deep upper body stretches. The air lunges help a lot with circulation in the lower 1/2 of body. I use my roller to straighten my back whenever I feel it starts to get achy from sitting. I usually do a quick mile run on my treadmill with some light upper body weight exercises when up at 5:30am, start work at 6am and then longer run (5k or 10 k) at 9am. The run gives my body a new lease on life when retuning to the chair. I will also do a quick mile after lunch on my treadmill with some light upper body weight exercises to recharge for the next 4-5 hours of work. If a non running day, I will do cross fit right after work. This plan has been working pretty well now for a couple months and gives me the energy needed to be focused and efficient at my desk job.