Fiddleman

You are welcome. It is good for everyone to build their own opinions after hearing information from different sources. The description i gave above is what worked and is working for me. Others may have just as good a strategy that works for them. Furthermore, I do not fault a dietician as they build good general guidelines, but they are, by design, lowest common denominator in order to work for the most number of people. After a while you need to determine what it is that works for you. The further out a person is from surgery, the more important is for them to own their plan for long term success. I am not saying anything that isn't common sense, but it may be helpful to read.

Per Serendipity, my caloric load is approximately 1900 and I roughly followed the plan outlined above. My NUT gave me some initial guidelines, but after a few weeks I played by ear and tweaked along the way. I probably kept my calories between 900-1100 until month 7. Most of the weight was lost by then and my focus turned towards fitness where more calories were needed.

Impossible unless you are drinking milk shakes or eating blizzards from DQ. Here is a rough caloric plan, by month: Month 1: 300-600 Month 2-5: 600-900 Month 6: 1000 -1300 Month 7-12: ramp up to 2000 or whatever your TDEE is The key is to start low in order to heal properly and also gain the benefits of caloric flooring from restriction. By the end of month 1, you will be starting to eat solids. I am sorry, but you just cannot eat more then 2-3 ounces at a time without pain. It gets better over time and you want to advance caloric load as you are able to, but do it gradually in order to bring your caloric metabolism up slowly in order to avoid storing. It is definitely a process that must be cared for over time, month by month as you heal and things like exercise require more calories. I would not recommend eating at 500 calories day in and day out after a few months because you will train your body that starving is ok. Clearly you want your body to be good at burning off excess and not storing it so, again, increase slow and steady.

I ate the protein powder raw by the spoonful once. Not a pretty sight. Only needed to do it once after the dry powder caused me to dust everything in close range with a fine dust.

Yes, I agree. I don't want to go through the pain, taking time off work and long recovery. No thanks. You would pretty much have to put rigorous exercise (cardio or lifting) on hold for 3 months right?

I feel a little this way about a 2x2 inch section (deflated) around my belly button. It is looking kind of wrinkly ( not perfectly smooth) and still makes my belly button look like a pit. Working out all the time (5 days a week) and drinking tons of water is helping to reduce this problem area over the last 2 months. Sometimes I have *a moment* when looking in the mirror side ways without any clothes. The thickness around my waist is small, almost about the thickness of the hip bones with a small bump (1/4 inch) sticking out in a small 2x2 mound around the belly button. Upper back and chest is very strong looking. I almost forget it is me for *a moment*. I think if I continue on the path of daily strength training with heavy core focus, the little mound is going to disappear as the remaining loose fat and skin is eliminated and tightened, respectively. For grins, I took a hold of the skin this morning and pulled it tight upwards to see the effect of a tummy tuck. Nice. I hope I can get there without surgery. No loose skin anywhere else on the body. Just muscle. I will update with a new picture soon as the avatar is from Early May.

Thanks for your comments Around. I am going to try out this steel oats and protein on a regular basis because I had such good results with it yesterday. Straight up carbs help initially, but I feel they burn up too quickly and I struggle to bust all the way to the end of a workout with the same desired intensity as the beginning. Cheers!

I concur. Long term goals are best achieved by taking one day at a time. Little events as well as big events will seemingly align to your goals when you open your mind to achieving them on a daily basis.

Interesting thing happened today after doing some dead lifts. Instead of gripping the bar, I held onto the bar loosely with my fingers, letting gravity hold the bar in place. The end of my finger tips turned white. Is the usual artifacts of lifting like this? It took 15 minutes for blood to seep back into fingers. They are still a little white. It was a very weird feeling to have rest of hand pumped with blood, but none in fingertips. Kind of like frostbite feeling. Any thoughts? I thought gripping hard would do this, but I did exact the opposite with no grip. I did a warmup run before lifting at home. Now onto my body weight without! Fun stuff!! [ATTACH]16035[/ATTACH]

great advice and it all makes sense. I do not use a belt, but may need to now that my weight is increasing. I am going to put into practice the suggested strength exercises. My trainer is very precise about pointing out my weak point which is exactly what I need: constant tweaking. I like stiff legged dead lifts and the weight tends to be about 60% of regular dead lifts in order to not injure the hamstring.

We share apple and nut butter as our current goto meals. However, now it would seem oats is the new "in" food we should be eating pre workout, according to "the experts." I am game given good success from it today. I think apples are too quick to burn. Just an opinion on it.

Hook grip worked great today (trainer even showed it before I asked about it). I got a PR on my dead lift at 350 for 1 rep test today. Funny thing, it does not feel that heavy in my gluts or upper legs. My back strength is where I am holding back. Need to keep my weight way back along with the slight invert in back. Once I reached failure, no matter how much I visualized correct form, the execution of it sucked because my lower back did not want to support it. Oh and no white fingers. However, I got the usual delayed blood rush after lifting heavy 5-10 seconds following lift). It is quite interesting where it is almost like fainting, but in a good way.

Success with the steel oats! During WOD, I set new PR on dead lift, front squat and overhead press. I went to failure on each by slowly increasing for recording max 1 rep, but felt great at the end of the workout. Still have energy. Today, I just heated up steel oats from trader joes before mixing in the protein. Next time I will try cooking the steel oats myself from scratch.

Newgrandmother-are you drinking enough water? It is also important to eat before and after working out.

Mmmm, interesting flavor when eating steel cut oats with cookies and creme synth 6 protein powder. Not bad!

I reached my BMI (upper end) during month 7 (6 months ago). Since then, I have been playing daily with nutrition and fitness to achieve ideal fitness while staying at BMI. Maybe I will write a book on this experience someday. What a journey!

Thanks Around. After all these responses, I am going to try 1 rest day a week, on Sunday, and turn Saturday into a formal training day. I do not feel overtrained yet per your description. I also like to call my day off "dynamic rest" as it involves some light cardio or floor exercises. Enough to bring energy into my day, but nothing like a training day.

The last 20-30 lbs are tough. Your body needs extra help to get past set points. Try really increasing the intensity of your workouts. If you run, start running 5-10 k to burn a large amount of calories. If you lift, start to lift to fatigue. Really push yourself. Make your body work! It is worth it!

Do you wear underwear with it? It seems a little redundant. Your thoughts?

I just read that potassium RDA is 4700 mg for adults and magnesium is 420 mg. Given a post op history with cramping when working out hard (3x so far), I decided to buy a supplement called potassium and magnesium 250 from GNC. Has 250 mg of each per capsule. The problem is that if I take many of these during the day to hit potassium RDA, I will OD on magnesium, which I am certain cannot be good for your neurological system. Does anyone know if 4700 mg of potassium is really required? My goal is to prevent cramps or any nerve issues (zaps as I like to call them). My Multivitamin has 100 mg of magnesium and no potassium. I will eat banana occasionally in the morning and/or some coconut juice (400 mg). Both good sources of potassium, but still magnitudes below the RDA. I try and eat broccoli which is a good source of magnesium when we are having it for dinner, but typically only get 1-2 ounces before hitting satisfied point. 190 mg of potassium and 6% RDA magnesium in my recovery shake. Otherwise I do not eat much else that contains magnesium and potassium.

Looks better in real life. Lol. [ATTACH]16247[/ATTACH]

The best part is I managed to maintain a weight at 175-180 for my 5'11" frame while at the same time leaning out and increasing muscle. It is a careful focus on nutritional balance of good fat, good carbs and high protein daily. Additionally, i am constantly researching on how to optimize (results versus time / effort) in addition to consistent full body strength training 5 -6 days a week for an average of 1 hour a day including warm up, stretching, cool down and roller work. I do not have the patiance for working out longer then 20-30 minutes at a time,so try to make that count with the type of exercises and intensity / focus). Thanks everyone for your help along the way. It is a process, but is getting easier. Mark, Aroundhky, BTB, Tally, Maharet, and others who regularly contribute on the fitness thread are my role models in addition to long time vets ( do not mean to exclude anyone, but these folks are consistently answering my fitness and nutritional questions). Keep up the good fight everyone. It is so worth it!