Fiddleman

....until I can afford it with cash. Seriously, that day may not come. I have done the consult already @ 18 months. I need/want to do a lower body lift and a TT for vanity reasons. No medical need and I still look good without it, just not awesome because a lack of ab definition. 180 # loss and 17-18 bf % from good diet and working out. However, there is skin around the stomach region (not hanging) and upper thighs that is hiding the definition.

Great list NMJG! It would be interesting to find out how many vets do these things (short of only consuming protein shakes) during maintenance. I am curious as I never really moved away from doing these things and am going to be 2 years in July. I think the answer is most do relax away from "the basics", but maybe I am wrong: that is, some continue to live by the post op "minimum" rules (or better) forever.

Serving size is six of those bad boys! Looks like a very respectable product and thanks for sharing. Are you taking these instead of your muscle martini and/or xtend?

Can you write it down, crumple it up and throw it away? Sometimes when stresses are getting to me, I will mentally minimize it and internally acknowledge it is not going to help to stress on it. So I decide not to. And usually the stress in my own head vanishes because my mind has a way of psycho analyzing everything and blowing up circumstances that, in reality, are not as big as I make them. I used to not be able to do this and would get into bad mental states over and over again, but then came to an enlightenment about how much control we actually have over our own thought processes and our own reactions about 2 years ago. Additionally, if you can exercise, go get you some endorphins. That will make you feel better in no time. all in all, taking a mental break from internal dialog caused by stress, whether temporary or permanent, will go a long ways to creating life that suits your needs and desires.

yup - sobe apple pear is my favorite. I always wait for them to go on sale at target and then buy a ton of them.

I do not know if any of us can even answer this question honestly because we are so biased by those youthful years of tormenting damage to our self esteem from being overweight. Of course we are going to say have the surgery, but it is such a biased answer.

Lots of different things. Hardly ever plain Water. Xtend bcaa Modern bcaa Mio fit Mio energy Hic grape Dasani coconut and pineapple Dasani pink lemonade Sobe life water (o cal) Poweraide zero And the only crystal light I drink is peach ice tea, but not too often.

We usually buy our premier from Costco. Not sure if ordering off Amazon appeals to you, but you can buy 18 for about 35 dollars: http://www.amazon.com/Premier-Protein-High-Shake-Chocolate/dp/B00796NFHS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1392501953&sr=8-2&keywords=premier+protein Free 2-day shipping if you have a prime membership. I realize this is a bit higher priced than Costco, but you get it delivered to your doorstep... It would be awesome if they sold a butterscotch flavor.

I went from always wearing a wide 11.5 - did not matter which brand - to a regular 10 in popular brands like Nike (which I believe run a little small). It felt good to walk into a running store mid month 5 and buy a normal size 10 running shoe and have it fit perfectly. First time that had ever happened to me, ever.

Weight gain after surgery is not such a big deal. It is IV water. When I left the hospital after a few days, I was up 17 #. I still was down 45 # by the end of the month. It will happen. Just wait for it...

That is mighty awesome! Congratulations on completing it.

If you have the time (sick, vacation, medical, FMLA, etc), I would be kind to yourself and take 2 weeks off before returning to your desk job. It is not just about being off the pain meds in order to drive, but also having enough energy to make it through the work day.

Awesome! Happy dance time.

As you get into solids, that hunger should be dampened. You may still get hungry later on. When you are able to eat cheese, do try and make sure you have it (or other fats) in your diet. Fat in the digestive system releases a metabolite that signals satiety to the brain and, viola, hunger no more. A little fat is good for us. I use cheese now as a way to stop hunger cold when I need to control calorie consumption. Sometimes the hunger just gets really noisy and I want to eat something every hour.

Small healthy meal at 2 weeks post op. What does this mean? I remember still drinking 1-2 oz of Protein shake on the hour at 2 weeks. It is get easier as time goes on. Eventually you will be able to set 3-5 oz of protein and a couple oz of veggies with a feeling of satisfaction, not a full busting at the seams feeling. Everyone is different, but I would say by month 6 you should have been able to achieve this.take it easy. Experiment with different foods and different quantities. It is this personal experience that will help you through the initial months of introducing foods and larger quantities. Some foods definitely are harder to eat then others. For example, raw veggies or hamburger might take 4-5 months. chicken and pork should be easier to eat between month 2-3. Start your portions small when you get into solids or you may get too full, bust, slime, throw up, etc. good luck.

Found this information on full body dynamic stretching yesterday and want to share it with the fitness group: lunch. For a computer worker like myself, I think these dynamic stretches will make a noticeable difference in gaining more mobility and flexibility in hip and shoulder regions as well as being able to perform better during the daily workout and prevent injury. Let me know what you think!

this is the way I roll with calcium also. However, should we be taking the 1500 mg daily for life?

There are a lot of SF ways you can improve the taste of chocolate shakes. 1. Butterfinger: add PB2, caramel syrup 2. Chocolate mint: add creme de menthe syrup 3. Samoa cookie- add caramel syrup and coconut syrup These are all really good. I also have tried adding chocolate chip cookie dough syrup to chocolate shakes. It is good, but I had a hard time tasting the cookie dough. I am sure there are some websites out there where there are 100s of crazy recipes for you to try with SF syrup and a chocolate shake.

I am curious about diets that long term vets have adopted. There has certainly been much success around the 5:2 diet over the last 6 months by a group of vet gals here on BP. What other diets have you found successfully helps you manage or lose a little weight from time to time. For example, I had been eating paleo for much of last year and it worked really well with my cross fit workouts. However, I have found it is very difficult to eat purely paleo with a sleeve as much of the Protein required for maintaining and building needed to come from Protein shakes rather than lean protein sources like chicken. I can only handle so much chicken a day because of the restriction nature of the sleeve. So I switched to kind of a zone-like diet, but without the explicit blocking or counting part of it. I do not count anything other than broad amounts (1/2 cup of something, 4 oz is something). I just eat zone compatible foods which is a good ratio of the macros and I do not have to worry about eating Protein Bars or shakes. My protein consumption is able to range between 180 g-225 g a day with this approach, yet I am also able to balance, albeit, far from perfectly, carbs and fat with it. If I would describe the ratios it might be 5:3:2:1 for protein, carbs, veggies and fat. I do not prescribe this is correct or something anyone else should do, but it seems to work with regards to my lifestyle. Are there other diets you have adopted? E.g. Atkins, 8 hour, IF, Mediterranean, etc... Please do share.

yes, he is a good doctor. I was scheduled to go with him until NWWLS was not able to successfully creating a contract with my insurance company UHC. They made me promises about getting the contract for months when I said enough of this and looked into another provider. I wanted to go with NWWLS because it is so much closer to where I live in Everett then Swedish in Seattle, but overall, I am happy how everything went with Swedish from preop, the surgery, to recovery, to post op care including monthly support meetings. Also, I had very low pulse (26 bpm) and low O2 (78%) following surgery so am glad I had an ICU available for a couple days. If I had gone with NWWLS, then, if the same thing were to happen, I would probably have to be transported to a hospital, which would have been an inconvenience all around.

Copied from Wikipedia: " Moo goo gai pan is the Americanized version of a Cantonese dish (simplified Chinese: 蘑菇鸡片; traditional Chinese: 蘑菇雞片; pinyin: mó gū jī piàn). The dish is usually a simple stir-fried dish consisting of sliced or cubed chicken with white button mushrooms and other vegetables. Popular vegetable additions include snow peas, bamboo shoots, Water chestnuts and Chinese cabbage." The dish looks overall healthy, including the chicken. Wouldn't you want to fill up on chicken first, veggies second and, if room, steamed rice third? I can understand passing on the chicken if it were breaded or fried, but, in this case, it is simply stir-fried. Sounds like a good Chinese dish to try next time. Yummy!

I am not going to offer any new advice (unless you ask for it), but do want to pass along the length of weight loss period as explained by the doctors I have talked to: 18 months. This is an average for most people. 3 doctors have told me this from 3 different WLS centers when I was pre op. Hope that helps. Keep up the great work! It sounds like you have a really good plan catered to your way of doing things in terms of eating and working out. And it is working: 383->265 in essentially 6 months. That is awesome! I think you are just going through a normal plateau. I had one also around 6 months and busted through it with some more intensity in my workouts.

If you are 5'10" or so, I would say to not go below 170. Everyone says I look too skinny when around 170 so I maintain 175-180. This puts me comfortably in 32" Levi's and most medium shirts with a 17% body fat.

Yes, I tend to subscribe to the fat helps with satiety approach. More then once a desire to keep eating has been extinguished with a baby bel cheese. I tend not to track fat intake, but do make a point of eating healthy types of food so fat consumption takes care of itself. The only macro I tend to really focus on is Protein and I try and eat the lean variety. I average between 30-40 G protein a meal and set 7-8 times a day. The last meal is always on the high end at 60-70 g and the first meal is always on the low end at 30 g. I eat a lot of lean protein to keep my metabolism revved up, my insulin response neutral and my body in anabolic state versus catabolic state as a result of being very active. Even though my protein numbers are high, I tend to just preserve an athletic body composition rather than bulking up. My goal is not to lose lean muscle. I do eat carbs, but always in the mid to low glycemic level and usually only for 2-3 meals out of the day. I am not tracking them in terms of grams, but do measure out quantities like 1/2 cup steel oats before working out or 1 cup Fiber one Cereal for Breakfast (with a premier shake). I have a post workout bar which has unprocessed honey in it. There are a bunch of carbs from that, but the honey is handled much better by your body than table sugar. I also eat 1-2 oz of some veggie if I can with the lean protein. This contributes to some carbs. I try and drink a lot of Water. There is no set number, but it tends to be filling up my 32 oz water bottle 7-8 x a day. Yes, I visit the toilet often, but the water is needed to keep the liver and kidneys healthy when consuming high protein. I also need it to flush out the waste from exercise. Vitamins- a multi, 1500 mg Calcium, 5000 iu Vitamin d and two veggie capsules (from trader joe) for getting a good dose of nutrients. Every day. Never miss taking these. So there you have it. I speak in generalities. Tracking is not something that has ever interested me. Eating healthy and focusing on the basics (like madam) has always been my key to success since the beginning. I tend not to eat sweets, breads, starchy stuff, fruit or dairy (aside from baby bell cheese when needed). As my diet is very simple, I do not believe tracking is required.

Depends on food. 19 months post op. I can only eat 4-5 oz of chicken and 1–2 oz of a veggie like broccoli or red pepper. I can eat a lot of Protein bars, unfortunately, so try not and eat them so much. Same is true of oatmeal and fiber one. They go down fine. I just need to restrict the amount I eat to 1/2 cup. Sometimes I can eat a fair amount of salad and sometimes I can only eat 1-2 bites. I do not eat starches and very little fruit.