Fiddleman

Wow. I think I have a new fitness goal.

Heather - I know it may be hard to believe, but the surgery gives you the tool needed to literally get past that fail point that we all often hit over our diet filled lives. I hit them hard and often too, but what I needed was a complete reset. I needed to change my relationship with food, fitness and people before it was too late. Surgery provided that and then gave me the time to adequately change my relationship with food, people, fitness, and more importantly, myself. I hope this offers some glimpse of hope.

Space dust - good luck on your upcoming surgery. I know you have been preparing for a long time and it must be really exciting to have the date so close.

Have fun!

Ah0505- I did not find any bands in my home gym area. I could have sworn I had some. Instead, I used my wife as a prop. First she made sure my leg was straight as i lay on my back- and slowly raised it until the intensity was enough. We are going to work at this stretch after my at home workout as that would be best in terms of warmed up hammies. I see a limber future ahead!

Louise - i went and checked out the hot yoga facility yesterday as an information gathering exercise. It looks fairly enticing. Timing is excellent as they offer a lot of their classes at 6:30 pm or later. It is a 10 minute drive from my house. I liked the facility as it was really clean and has very fashionable interior design. The monthly dues are kind of high so that would be the only negative. However, it is less then the other yoga studio i attended a couple months ago due to grand opening. I do not see myself going every day. In fact, I would probably go only 1-2 days a week, max 3 days a week. For this reason, it might be better to purchase a set of classes rather then paying a monthly due for unlimited access. What do you think ? I like their mission statement (on the home page of the link below): http://sparkhotyogastudio.com/index.php

Question for all of you: Would 5:2 diet be a good way of eating even if I do not have any scale weight to lose? One of my present goals is to lean out more for increasing lean muscle body composition. however, i do not wish to drop any scale weight beyond maybe 5 pounds. I want to be fairly honest about one thing. I eat all the time. Every hour or two I try to eat some lean Protein in order to feed the dietary needs of muscle (.92 * 180 ideal weight = 170 g a day). My current weight is 180 and I have good body fat composition of 15%. However, I am always on the look out for trying better and more efficient approaches to maintaining health through diet and efficient fitness. Not eating much on two days would Los help my budget as eating lean protein and drinking shakes is expensive. I could not imagine *not* eating for long periods of time. As stated above and in other threads i really do try and eat TDEE - 300. However, I do end up falling short due to most of my diet consisting of lean protein through meat or supplementation. It is a Paleo diet that works fairly well for me. Would this fasting 2 days a week actually benefit my fitness goals and also promote even better health? I am not a gym rat ( not for me), but do put in 20 minutes or so a day of hard core fitness exercises at home with 20 minutes on both ends to warm up and cool down in addition to 2 cross fit sessions a week (also has roughly a 20, 20, 20 timing structure). How would there be energy to be active on those fasting days? I primarily do body weight fitness exercises now which is very intense, yet extremely effective in terms of time management. Appreciate any insight you have as the non scale health benefits of 5:2 you all talked about in the last few days sounds intriguing.

How was the c25k today Laura? Besides being almost impossible. Is it getting easier? Is breathing improving? Less sore?

I thought it might be a good idea to start an ongoing thread on favorite Protein powders and rtd products to help others find one they like. At least they will be picking from among what others have called "the best". I will start. My favorite morning whey is muscle milk light cake batter. Love the flavor. Second favorite morning whey is Matrix Cookies and creme (if i am out f my beloved cake batter). My favorite post workout shake is amplified Wheybolic 60 cookies and creme from GNC. I would be open to a better post workout shake if you have one. No real complaints about his one; I just know there is something better though. My favorite bedtime Protein Shake is Good Standard chocolate Supreme Casein. I guess I do like a good rich chocolate flavor at night. Casein at night really helps with leaning out overnight. Do not be afraid to try it. You can probably tell I like the "sweet" flavors for my shakes. Not into the fruit flavors. Now what about you?

Hey BTB - that is a pretty clever ( correction: really clever) approach to reusing the structure of c25k as a running vet who can already run 5 k, 10 k and 1/2.

My experience with Water before and after WLS mirrors that of CowGirlJane. Maybe we drink the same water. there is some truth to that statement... I loved all type of water before surgery, including, but not limited to, tap, bottled and sparkling after. I was a champion water drinker and rarely drank much else. After surgery, it was quite the opposite. Water had a strange metallic composition to it. Literally felt and tasted like I was sucking on metal. For this reason, I spent a while going through different water enhancers as a post op, looking for not only flavors I enjoyed, but also ones I could keep drinking day after day all day without negative consequences like acid reflux. Almost every Water Enhancer I tried from crystal light to Mio either had my throat burning by the end of day or otherwise had a strange after taste I was unable to manage long term. After a few months I found Dasani drops. Perhaps they were not available until then because I had not seen them before. They were good and had a cool, smooth refreshing taste consistently day after day. No burning in the throat. I settled on a couple flavors I really enjoyed like Pink Lemonade and Coconut pineapple. Recently I have also found Wild Grape which is really good (actually my wife finds the flavors in the store and I latch onto them to her chagrin ). Fast forward to about 6 months post op and I started to tolerate plain water again. I am a year out now and still do not like plain water that much, but can stomach it if no flavor is available. I am not sure if I will ever love plain water again, but the flavor has allowed me to drink 1-1.5 gallon a day (required for high level of fitness activity and very high Protein consumption of 150-170 g - trying to get athlete strong). I can drink tap water fine and have since after surgery with flavor, so no need for me to only drink ice cold water. Usually, I drink normal temperature water that is not chilled. However, I have noticed ice water is sometimes more refreshing or enjoyable to me and a nice change when I have access to it.

Cheri and other vets - you all consistently give among the most detailed and thoughtful responses on VST (Others, obviously not leaving you out, but want to give special kudos here), in the vets forum. Super impressed with your thought processes around these types of struggles and the ability to offer practical solutions. It is a pleasure to read your tomes.

I gained about 30 lb between feb 2012 and June 2012. However, I dropped 180 lb from June 2012 to feb 2013, so it all worked out in the end. I would not recommending gaining like I did though during the research phase. Weight loss for me was 360 to 180.

I think it is pretty normal to go through this stage as your mind realizes post WLS is no longer a typical diet that we are all so fond of. Like you, i have done some very long term low carb dieting on and off before WLS. I got quite good at it, but did have quite a bit of binging between when I decided to have WLS (feb 2012) and my initial appointment (april 2012). i finally got serious about eating well about 1.5 month before surgery of july 2nd 2012. You may go through another phase closer to surgery date called a "food funeral." Many individuals try and eat their favorite foods during this phase because of not being able to eat them again after surgery (not precisely true, you just need to wait for a while after surgery). remember, a food funeral is, again, just a phase and quite normal. Once you are a WLS post op, it is important to develop sound eating habits to support you not only during weight loss, but for the rest of your life. During weight loss, this will look a lot like a low carb diet for most. For example, I ate low carb, low fat, high Protein for 7 months after surgery. during month 7, I transitioned into a Paleo diet (along with Paleo fitness) which I am still following today at about 1 year post op. Not everyone approaches the eating style post op in the same manner. You will need to learn and accept an eating style that helps you be successful. Oh, and I almost forgot, my name is also Andrew (Andy). Good luck!

You are right. We should just abstain as there are way better foods to be eating. I like to eat paleo most of the time, but on occasion I will have a protein bar. And then "it" wakes up. You know what I am talking about. The carb beast. Roaaar...Best to let it lie dormant.

Thanks a lot for the link. I am definitely going to bookmark that one and spend some serious time on there. My trainer is very good at identifying mobility exercises to help me. We spend a good 10-15 minutes each time before and 10 minutes after WOD, just stretching. I am looking for more help in this area!!! Tight everywhere. I want to be Mr gumby so I can clean jerk or straight leg dead lift without be held back by rigidness. Thanks for any additional thoughts!!

Thanks again for the instruction. It is so helpful! I will begin on it tomorrow morning, I have high hopes and will stick with these suggestions for a few weeks to see how it goes. Cheers!

My wife is going to have VSG on July 2nd, 2013, exactly 1 year after me. My VSG post op has been amazingly awesome and I wish the same for her. Please applaud my beautiful wife Laurie for making this decision (phoenix79). it will definitely be a personal game changer!!!

Thanks ah0505. Any idea how long this type of stretching would take to fix hammie issues? Weeks? Months? I basically do his type of stretch without a prop, but it is so uncomfortable and I cannot get my leg straight so stop doing it. I will do it again, but how long to hold in place with the prop each time? Thanks for responding!!!!!