Fiddleman

Niki- I can completely relate to your comment about dental phobia! It was extremely apparent from 18-36. but is almost gone now as a post op as that going to the dentist does not yield pain nor does it result in bad report cards.

Might I suggest you try a natural sleep aid with melatonin in it? I found that to correct my sleep issue had as a post of and no druggy feeling in the morning as you may get from the OTC sleep aids like Tylenol, excedrin or Advil PM. Not meaning to derail to thread, just throwing a suggestion to you.

Shrinking- I do think that is a wise approach. However, I am not really clear at how far along post op a person will need to be extra careful about changing direction. For example, is it a problem after 1 month, after 6 months - I do not know. I would think if you started at 1200 (or more) immediately as a post op you would not run into a problem with a tanked BMR. However, then you would probably not get all the benefits of weight loss as a post op and may be what is being termed a "slow loser." Not sure, perhaps others have a more definitive answer to this.

First, you are welcome of course to do what suits you. Everyone has a different body type that may react differently to my suggestion of eating TDEE number of daily calories. Eating TDEE works well because it will reset your BMR if has been set too low because of extended period of eating low calories. Low calorie is defined as under under 1000 calorie. A lot of us, including myself, start out at eating 600 daily as a post op and am quite good at dropping the weight at 600-900. a day. This is good and the amount of calories the sleeve was designed for you to dramatically lose weight. However, eating low calorie has some drawbacks. It leaves you hungry and makes it easy, almost effortlessly, to gain weight. The reason for both is that low caloric intake drives your BMR (aka "the metabolism") way down and will make it quite easy for calories to be stored as fat. This is not "bad," but is simply your body saving energy for the future in case it has another case of famine. Sadly the post op diet of eating way less then TDEE - 300 is interpreted as famine by your body. The good news is that you can definitely retrain your body to understand that, yes, you need to eat more without storing it. This requires you to *slowly* increase your caloric intake to TDEE - 300 in order to eat, but still lose weight in terms of fat loss. For example, my TDEE is 2154 and eating approximately 1800 calories a day has made it possible to eat mostly protein all day long without gaining any weight and not being hungry. In fact, I still can lose weight by doing this even at healthy BMI weight. I eat healthy foods, of course, but am careful about eating proteins first in order to try and hit 170 g a day ( .92 * BMI ideal weight of 180). Do be careful about adjusting your caloric intake upwards. You need to do it slowly in order to slowly convince your body that more is indeed better. For me, it took a few months of gradual increase to go from a daily amount of 900 to 1800. Focus on driving up calories first by eating more protein per meal. Eat meals often during the day, like 6-7 times. next, make sure to add in healthy fats and carbs. a well balanced set of the macro nutrient ratios are key in order for the body to process protein effectively. I am also exercising daily, but do not know if this is necessary when increasing caloric towards TDEE. I assume the answer is no, it is not necessary. Eating a well balance set of macro nutrients is key to making this change and at least 80% of the answer to losing weight with this balanced approach. In other words, you need to get your diet balanced or exercise is not going to mean much and not help much. Sorry that is the simple truth. Eating Paleo (no dairy, sugar, breads, etc) has really helped me in finding the right balance of protein, fat and carb, but I am certain there are many other ways to do this successfully as a post op. You do not need to eat Paleo, just balanced. Others have been able to increase their calorie intake to TDEE with a balanced approach to diet and also with daily exercise according to posts here on VST. And they are maintaining or losing towards goal with success. Read enough posts and I am sure you will agree. Again, do go slow as your body is quite comfortable on low caloric intake as a post op. Your body is pretty finicky in terms of caloric TDEE requirements. Forcing your body out of TDEE comfort zone too quickly will cause weight gain. Good luck !!

Agree with Laura the a used Precor elliptical is rock solid. Mine is about 20 years old and does not have bells / whistles. Yet it is really good at just being a high quality elliptical. Unfortunately, the motor just gave out on it (after such a long time of daily use) so we may be in the market for a used elliptical as well. It lasted a really long time before motor went out

It is interesting that a doctor would say no pills for month. I remember it being kind of difficult to take pills for a couple weeks, but did start 2-3 again on pills days after surgery. Today (11 months), I am taking pills of all sizes. I agree pudding or yogurt will help you with getting those pills down until you are fully healed.

Is Zoloft available in liquid form? If so you could ask your doctor about a liquid proscription. If not, perhaps you can slice your pill in half to make them smaller to swallow. I hope it gets easier for you as your sleeve heals more.

That's really good to hear Amy. I am going to ship you the book tomorrow and think you will really enjoy it. I learned so much after reading it. And the rest of the technique came with practice.

Serendipity Really good progress at almost 100 lbs. Isn't that amazing? I bet there are so many activities you can do that you could not do before. Are you able to take your after pictures in a little more light?

Serendipity Really good progress at almost 100 lbs. Isn't that amazing? I bet there are so many activities you can do that you could not do before. Are you able to take your after pictures in a little more light?

Amy- I am really glad that you posted this article. The section on cause by running is interesting, but the section on cause by blunt trauma is most interesting. My wife banged her knee up in a car accident from 2 years ago and has the exact symptoms described here. I am going to share this information with her.

Thanks Chimera. Hard boiled eggs are good and i do eat scrambled eggs about once a week, usually for a weekend breakfast. I had to recheck when I originally posted this thread because said issues are no longer an issue. Thank God! It is no fun to be hungry all the time as a post op. The way I resolved this issue is to be eating protein *all*the*time. By all the time, I mean every 2 hours. You must be constantly drinking water with eating large amounts of protein to protect against kidney stones (protein causes oxidation of calcium from bones which will harden into deposits in the kidney if water does not keep it flushed out). And if i am still hungry, i eat another ostrich meat stick (60 calories and Fred Meyer sells them now) or a chicken meatball (Costco). The reason I do this is twofold. 1. To be in a constant non hungry state with very level blood sugar responses and 2. To hit my protein goals of 170 g a day. I do this primarily with different types of protein shakes, chicken based protein snacks, protein bars (be very careful as these can get you in trouble if eaten too often) and protein based dinner. Do you realize that 170 g of protein is still only 680 calories? This is definitely not a lot of calories for any 6+ month post op. I fill in the rest of my calories up to approximately 1700 (TDEE - 300) or so with good carbs, good fats and calories that come from supplementation ( green drink, coconut water, super omega 3, etc all have calories). I do not eat or drink dairy, sugars, starches, breads, etc. I am not counting anything except making sure I eat 30-40 G protein per meal. for good carbs and fat i try and eat balanced, but am not counting numbers. i use a guesstimate about good portion sizes and good balance of macro nutrients. My good carbs come from lower glycemic fruit like apples ( not the best, but still good) and leafy veggies or broccoli (yum!!). My BMI weight has modulated down 10 lb and my body fat % has dropped to 16% since the original post in this thread. i could do better about tracking, but it is just not my thing. I just stick to a set of simple to follow rules and let everything else fall where it may. My body has been changing shape (broad shoulders, thin waist, powerful chest, etc - still a work in progress). As a guy, this is my goal: to become strong in mental and physical response like an athlete. I also feel good about my appearance and do not mind the extra attention I get. furthermore, I get to eat all the time and never be hungry. It seems like this type of paleo eating would be hard, but it is really not once you practice at it. The lack of hunger from eating makes it really easy to maintain and it also does wonders for preparing your body for an optimal response from daily working out. I could eat like this for a long time as every thing from calories in and calories out per TDEE to hunger levels to nutrition from food seems to bein balance on this Paleo style of eating to optimize results from working out (my current favorite workout is cross fit, but I do a few other strength training activities as well). Energy is amazing. Hope this post helps someone in dealing with hunger as a post op.

Nicole - how are you doing tonight? Hope you are starting to feel better.

Globetrotter- let me first state that I am in an active state of finding out what works for effective strength training. There are a lot of very experienced lifters on this site that have years and years of working experience, where some used to be professional body builders or trainers. For this reason, I hope they will stand up and offer some good leadership around effective strength training for all of us who are fairly new to it all. As stated in the original thread above, I have 3 days a week where I am strength training. I never use machines. First reason is I do not own any at home and do not have a gym membership. however, I do take personal training at a cross fit gym. Second, and more importantly, machines takes away the balance, focus and strength required for effective strength training, I use dumbbells and body weight exercise. Currently, my strength training at home is done using Bowflex adjustable dumbbells and strength training / HIIT cardio done at cross fit is a mixture of body weight exercises and barbell lifts in an intense circuit. A good WOD performance should take every bit of strength, breath and focus you have. You asked about rotation so I will focus on my dumbbell-based strength training rather then my cross fit sessions. Cross fit tends to be completely random every session so cannot talk about rotation except when it comes to warmup of body weight exercises. My rotations for each day are fairly basic and can each be completed in 20-30 minutes. I do the same rotations from week to week, but increase the intensity by increasing the weight +5 lb and paying attention to maximum focus and proper form. Push day Dumbbell bench press Dumbbell flys Dumbbell side raises Dumbbell triceps kickbacks Dumbbell biceps curls Pull day One arm dumbbell rows Dumbbell pullovers Reverse dumbbell flys Lying dumbbell triceps extensions Dumbbell biceps curls Leg day Dumbbell squats Dumbbell step lunges Dumbbell straight leg dead lifts Dumbbell sumo squats Dumbbell single leg calf raises My sets look like 12-10-8-8+ for each exercise in a rotation where there might be 1-2 additional drop sets. I keep track of rest between sets, planned weight / reps, target intensity level, actual weight / reps and actual intensity level. Tracking this information helps with measurable progress and helps me make changes as they are needed. The intensity and focus of each set builds as the set reps drop and set weight increases. Intensity must come from your focus and not just from heavier weights delivered from a machine. That is why dumbbells are much more effective then machines when seeking true intensity, but dumbbell exercises do tend to not map onto functional movements very well. Body weight exercises are much more effective then dumbbells because they do map onto functional movements and, hence, tend to be safer with less prone to joint injury. Hope this helps.

The following article might explain the difference between endurance runners that are lean / fit and others that are skinny fat for those that have a question about it: http://joshsgarage.typepad.com/articles/2010/02/why-does-endurance-training-make-some-people-skinny-fat-and-others-ultra-lean.html It is one person's opinion. In summary, avoiding skinny fat as an endurance runner has to do with performance and how hard you are pushing yourself, as your body adapts to both distance and speed. For example, my body adapted to running 5 k very well and then 10 k very well where it was less about performance and more about an hour of running. I got very good at the 10 k after doing this at least 3 x a week for 2 months, but generally did not push myself to improve past an average of 55 min 10 k. So I stopped running in a steady state and now run much shorter distances (2-3 miles MAX a day) in a manner that is always about performance and challenge. I only have so much time during the day and do not want to go much more than 1 hour for any work out, so instead of running a 10 k, I am doing short very intense bouts of strength training 3 x a week (20-30 min) along with intense sessions of cross fit 2 x a week (30-45 minutes). Every workout feels more challenging then the previous and I push using a very focused drive. It seems to be working so far with regards to my transformation thread. It has REALLY helped to make this change for myself in terms of building a lean, muscular and fit body instead of being skinny fat. Both old and current body types have approximately the same healthy BMI for my height but i am MUCH happier with the results from performance-based cardio/strength workouts rather then steady-state cardio/strength training I was doing previously (impressive, but became less of a challenge for my body after advancing from walking to 5 k to 10 k too quickly and then performing the same 10 k workout for a couple months without trying to keep challenging my body). Getting fit is ALWAYS a work in progress. It will never be 'over', but will always be there every week to improve upon. Do consider the excellent points made in the article as they apply to you as my anecdote appears to map onto those points, yes, including he ones about how running made me skinny fat. The article makes a lot of sense to me.

Before VSG, I enjoyed the Mandaran chicken salad. I have not been back to Wendy's in a very long time (over a year), except to have a cup of chili from time to time. Today, I decided to try their berry salad. Sorry, no picture. I got an error when trying to upload about file permissions. The good part of this salad is that the dressing only has 50 calories, but is yummy raspberry balsamic vinegar. You might like this as a post op if you can manage salads ok.

It is *so* yummy if you are interesting in dessert flavors. I love cake batter, Cookies and creme, vanilla bean, chocolate truffle. Maybe others know some more good dessert flavors like banana foster, brownie, chocolate mint, banana split, etc. I would go for it as long as it is 1-2 carbs of sugar. Maybe we need just a good set of recipes for flavoring up the plain Protein powder.

*ka pow* *bam* *crunch* what a take down!!

Aaron - I think you just need to do it, as the 'Nike' ads say. My starting position was very much like you - ground zero. One day I just decided to put my foot in a cross fit box and just do it. Now I took the more expensive route of hiring the gym owner as my personal trainer. We do our own WOD that is different from the WOD that everyone else does for open gym. However, it is still just as awesome. See my last cross fit session above. I look forward to an hour of focused full body workouts 2 x a week. It is so much fun and she does a super job at cheering me on when I am fading and in training me about all the technical lifts. I am planning on participating in open gym by end of the summer (October), once I get technique rock solid and can actually bust out the WOD with the best cross fitters in the gym. I have a long ways to get to that point, but so far have been on a really good progression in the last few months, being able to do all these bodyweight and weight exercises without bands or other assistance. A trainer might really help you get started if you are brand new like I was a few months ago.

Globetrotter- I am out most of the day (at a support meeting currently here in Seattle for Swedish), but will write down my thoughts tonight.

Tally- I keep looking at your cross fit session every day and am always super impressed by it!! Thanks for motivating me!