Fiddleman

Yes, I faithfully take my vitamins every day including the B12.

Great accomplishment!

My advice is to be strong and have courage. I know this is hard. Believe me. There are literally 1000s of other people to surround you and encourage you. Know that you are not alone and know that strength comes in numbers.also know that it get easier as each day goes by. Easier from a temptation perspective, a pain perspective a "feel good" perspective and so on. Know that you can do this because we are all doing this together and are strong together.

I agree tat 600-700 appears to be a golden range once you are comfortable with eating that much. For me, that was after 5 weeks post op.

Good news is that I am not that far from my BMI ideal weight. It is only 40 lbs away and I have already lost 121 lb in 5 months. So it got me thinking abut what really is my target weight and when should I achieve it? Given that 10 lb a month is pretty standard, an easy calculations reveals that I wold hit BMI ideal weight in about 4 months, give or take a couple weeks depending on how slow or fast the scale weight moves. That is fine with me and places my target of 180 lb in the middle of feb. 2013. The question is whether BMI is a good goal to shoot for. My doctor, NUT and supporting staff have not talked to me explicitly about a target yet and I always assumed it would be BMI for my height of 5 ' 11 ". However, feb 2013 is the 9 month mark for me which statistically places me 1/2 way through my golden period of sleeve effectiveness. Should I stop there? What happens if I reach goal at new year instead because I have been getting pretty serious about exercise and weight lifting in the last month? My wife and mother in law have told me on numerous occasions that they think I might look unhealthy at BMI because my bone mass is medium to large and I have muscle on me. They might be saying these things with some self motivation. for example, my mother in law is constantly on a diet losing and gaining the same 10 lb. my wife is a candidate for sleeve, so may not quite understand the whole less is better attitude. not sure. I certainly feel good now and think 20 lbs more lbs would put me into a solid state of health, even if 20 lb over the BMI for my height. The last thing I want is to develop some kind of need to lose weight into the unhealthy zone, below BMI. Not saying this would be from anorexic tendencies because I am not starving myself in my diet nor am I doing crazy exercises ( max 1 hour a day, most of the time 45 min). However, I do see that I need to be careful to not lose too much and get unhealthy. I will continue to be active in my exercises, not just in my home gym but also running 5ks, hiking and other things. These will all contribute to my metabolism burning, burning and burning calories. I look pretty healthy in the mirror with and without clothes on. Not a lot of lose skin and am shaping up like a swimmer ( broad shoulders and narrow waist). My caloric intake is currently around 600-900 and consists mostly of Protein for 6 meals a day. I feel ok with this eating, am not hungry except to refuel and have a lot of energy from this eating, from exercise and also from coffee. Can I continue to eat like this? Not sure. I think I would like to eat more fruit and veggies at some point, eat more like a wholesome and natural Mediterranean style diet. That is a goal of mine for when I stop losing scale weight. It is going to take me a few weeks of transition time to moderate my eating patterns from high protein to Mediterranean style. Have not crossed that bridge yet, but know it is soon arriving on my journey. Appreciate the thoughts from others, especially mature sleevers that have "been there, done that."

No responses on this one yet. I was hoping to get some advice on what goal should look like.

Yes, I agree. Most prescription drugs can lead to liver damage if improperly used. If it were not the case, we would have a society full of people high on meds. Wait, we already have that...

Walking is really good at getting the painful gas out of the system. I know it is really hard at the beginning; I remember. Start on just walking around the block and work your way up to longer distances until you are out for an hour at a time. It will really help you feel better in addition to being a good start at an exercise program while healing. Don't forget to drink all the time.

When you are cleared for solids, I really like wild salmon as a go-to for dinner proteins. I really like scrambled eggs with feta cheese and chicken sausage for breakfast. I don't get to eat these every day, but really look forward to when I do eat them. I also eat a lot of different chicken varieties and like those that are combined with garlic, spinach or jalepino flavors. Beef really causes me issues, but I will get better with it over time if I really take the minutes and minutes to chew it into a pulp, literally.

I started protein shakes in the hospital on 3rd day, even if only sips. I may have been on the abnormal side because the swelling hurt so much for a few days. After the swelling went down on 5th day I was drinking 1-2 ounces of protein shake every hour for 3 weeks. Then I switched to 4-5 ounce shake servings 3 x a day during puree stage. After 5 weeks I switched to 8 oz shakes 2x a day for breakfast and bedtime and have been having two of these a day since then in addition to other protein sources during the day. Hope this helps.

I had an interesting experience 2 nights ago with drinking sugar free white tea with raspberry flavor. Lipton makes it I believe. Anyways, I have not had any post op yet. Took my first sip and, wow, the raspberry flavor was so full and fresh. It was like I picked a raspberry off the vine and ate it. This was strangely good for me because pre op I could not taste the raspberry much at all.

Finally realized today that nothing fits in my closet any longer, after almost 5 months. I guess I have been putting off dumping all my clothes. Started pulling out all the 2x and trying them on one at a time because I needed a button down shirt for going out today. Unfortunately, every single one had me swimming in it. They ended up in a pile for donation. Something like 60 button down shirts and 5 pairs of jeans. Fortunately, I have a tub of 1x button down shirts from a long time ago that I will be sorting through tomorrow. However, I m really looking forward to buying some new designer clothes from off the rack soon. My current size is somewhere between large for a button down long sleeve and a medium to large for tshirts.. This is much better then when I was at 3x-4x only a small number of months ago. Me, shopping at gap ? Who knew. Where should I go shopping for some stylish clothes as a relatively fashion-uninformed guy? I don't have a lot of experience with shopping for clothes that are going to look good. Most of my clothes in the past came from target, costco, big and tall or value village. Not outfits, but one item at a time. How have others been doing at replacing the clothes and outfits in their closet? Any suggestions?

Really great progress. I want to he motivate you to exercise as there are so many benefits that come out of it, including a nice way of dealing with life's stressors. Exercise does not really help us drop lbs, but does help tremendously with toning up different parts of the body including the trouble spots. You know, under the arms, inner thighs, stomach area, on side of chest and so on. Again: you have dome more than an awesome job. You have done a inspirational job for the rest of us.