Globetrotter

I think it is still an uncommon grain and not a lot of people are really familiar with it yet. Also, being a grain it is a pure carb and being a grain it may swell in the stomach so people might be cautious.

Went to a Zumba class with a friend when I was home, it was so great! It's really just an updated Jazzercise, cooler music & moves but same concept.

DANG! According to those calculations, to lose weight, I should be taking in 1352 calories a day! I average about 800! Maybe that's why I lost so much weight on vacation when I was eating such rich food ...

I'm finally small enough to try on Wacoal bras (38DD) and I'd heard people touting them for years. I tried on about half a dozen styles in Macy's recently - not impressed! The shaping wasn't there, or the lifting or the separating, the shape of the cups always seemed to cut at the most unflattering angle on my cleavage giving me quadra-boob. For my money it is still Lunaire and Elomi! Herroom.com has an excellent variety.

Dang! I forgot to get a massage when I was home on vacation ... I think that when I reach goal I will reward myself with high quality clothes and when I've maintained goal (or under) I will reward myself with plastics - full body contouring.

So you slipped up (in your mind - I don't think it was a slip one bit), every day is a new day, with no mistakes in it yet, as Anne of Green Gables used to say. =) What's your exercise like? Have you calculated your BMR (not to be confused with BMI)? Now that you aren't fat, your base burn rate of calories is higher and faster. And what did you eat? Fried animal fat? Ice cream? Lard straight out of the bucket? =P Probably not. So, don't beat yourself to a pulp just yet, go for a walk around the block tonight, and get your quotient of water in - tomorrow is a new day. =)

Next week I will celebrate my 6 month surgiversary. Brassiere: 42G (and truthfully uncomfortable and spilling out) to a 38DD. Pants: 24 and uncomfortable, to 18 and perfectly loose (16s still too snug for real comfort). But the real NSV that I had recently, can only be appreciated by my peeps who have Been There: It was really cold the other day and I had left my jacket in the office. A colleague offered me her windbreaker. She's kinda chunky-fat and if I were to guess her pant size I might say ... near mine I guess, 16-18. But Before Surgery I just would have insisted through my blue chattering lips that I wasn't cold at all, just to avoid the embarrassment of a jacket that didn't fit. This time I accepted the jacket, put it on, and it engulfed me. Too big. =) =) =)

I went to that table thing that Tiff mentioned and it depressed the heck out of me! According to it my ideal weight is 116! My doc wants me at 150, my personal goal is 130 I mean yeah, 116 would secretly be really groovy but, his model didn't encourage me in my ability to achieve goal, any of them. =(

I'm still on my losing journey, a long way from maintenance, but I listen eagerly when all of you start talking, so that I can be prepared for the day when my actions are on par with or edge out the sleeve's protection. We are all people that are kicking a habit, just like cigarette smokers. I am a firm believer that many of us got into the positions we did because we were self-medicating with food, literally, I don't mean that in some hugs & rainbows way. I really mean that; the chemicals in carbs and sugar acted on our brains in exactly the same way as opiates, putting us in a creamy dreamy comforted place that was soothing, a place where nothing could reach or hurt us. Until it was time for another fix. Now we have to face all the stuff the drug was shielding us from. Tiff, you are an amazingly strong woman. This too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass.

I live and work here in Iraq, I'm a Department of the Army Civilian, deployed with US Forces.

So I was trying to figure recently how it could be possible that I lost so much weight on my R&R when everything I ate was incredibly rich ie; eggs benedict, egg nog, oysters rockefeller, spinach artichoke dip, fancy cheese, etc. etc. I think I've figured out how. It's because, if left to my own desires, I hardly ever feel the need to eat. So for example that (glorious) eggs benedict. I didn't eat it till 9 or 10 (had been awake since 4:30) and I really only ate most of one of the poached eggs and probalby about a tsp of the sauce and one piece of (glorious) bacon. I didn't eat again until about 2pm that afternoon, some 5 hours later, after hoofing it all over the city (San Francisco=crazy hills). And what did I eat? High tea, which means 2 or 3 sandwiches so tiny they could fit on a 50 cent piece, and 3 or 4 bakes sweets of equal size, along with a lot of hot tea. Then, much hoofing of the city and about 5 hours later, a skewer of about 3 grilled shrimps and a stab of salad. Two hours later, before bedtime, a gingerbread man cookie that I had saved from high tea, he fit in my palm. So high calorie? Yes. A hell of a lot of cardio? Oh yeah. Quantity? Next to nothing (ie: sleever's usual). My point is that all of my days food could have fit in my cupped hands and when I returned from R&R and input that kind of eating into my tracker I discovered that I actually did perfectly fine on calories, considering (between 500-900) but that my Protein was woefully inadequate. So, what's my point? I'm rambling, I know. I guess my concern/curiousity/interest is that if left to my own devices I wouldn't be eating enough, either in quantity or protein-wise. BUT ... Why then, did I lose so much weight? I lost 8 pounds in 7 days people! Many of you long-timers know my regular complaint of feeling like a slow loser, of watching barely a pound a week come off when I am a model patient. So why, when I started taking in barely half the protein I should, 5 times the carbs I should, and nearly no Water, did I suddenly lose weight like nobody's business? I'm baffled. Any ideas, I'm all ears.

yeah Julia, I had never realized the unusualness of my new food habits until I went home, since surgery I've been out here in Iraq and not in "real" society. It wasn't till spending all day touring around with my Mom that I realized I don't operate like a "normal" person, she would say something about needing to eat and I would think "we just ate!" and then find out the time and discover it had been 6-7 hours since we ate!

$hit! That's a lot of carbs! That's almost 2 days worth for me, but then, that's me.

I actually feel like I have a closer more healthful relationship with food now, kind of like I have gone from having cheap one night stands to a long term respectful relationship ... but with food. =P I eat in a difac, a cafeteria so I see what people ask to be slopped onto their plates and it's not exactly gross but I do stare in fascination; rice AND lasagna AND spaghetti?! A slab of mac & cheese that takes up an entire dinner plate and is 3 inches thick?? ugh. Yeah, a lot of the kids who have cheeseburgers and fries drenched in gravy and mozzerella sticks are young males, like 19 yrs old, so they burn it off just by shrugging on their body armor, but the majority are not young and high speed. I just don't have a taste for a lot of the bad stuff anymore, thank goodness. We had the prettiest cake for Christmas dinner and I tasted one bite; chiffon with marzipan and raspberry jam, and that was all I wanted. Fresh artisan crafted baguette however, straight out of the baker's oven, I couldn't have resisted if 100 dollars were waved in front of me, I easily nibbled a couple of inches over the course of the morning.

I'm currently single but I guess if I had a man in my life saying "you're gonna leave me when you get thin" over and over again, I guess I would come back with, "why, do you want to be left?" By the way, the reason I am single? When I told my then-boyfriend that I was having surgery, he had zero reaction and moved on to the next topic like I had mentioned I had oatmeal for breakfast. Then, when I had the surgery, he did not reach out to me in any way to see how I was - didn't send me an email, didn't skype me, nothing. When I told him later how very much this hurt me and how this behavior won't fly with me, he called me an "emotional insurgent". I was done after that.

Buy a popsicle mold and lots of crystal light, way more economical than store bought popsicles and better for you and you will be able to keep yourself in steady supply. buy a loofah or sponge on the end of a long handle, makes showers easier. Have pyjamas on hand that do not in any way cling or rub against your stomach. Intense moisturizer and lip balm!! After surgery our skin is soooo dry. Scalp soothing shampoo and conditioner; as the general anesthesia is coming out of your system it can make your scalp super flaky and itchy and dry, it did mine. A wand-style blender; really handy for quick prep of all the liquids. Unscented products; after surgery your senses can be hyper sensitive. Hope this helps!

Well I'm 74 lbs down and I would like to know is, where are my promised cold flashes?! Lol, I live and work in Iraq, where summertime temperatures are around 125 degrees F. I would be THRILLED to be chilly! But 74 lbs down and I notice no particular change in body temperature, when everyone else says it's stifling in the office, I think it's stifling too. Of course it is winter right now so no true test, but it's going to start warming up by end of March so we'll see.

You might want to migrate this topic over to the Ladies Gone Wild folder but I understand what you want to know, I was curious about this kind of stuff too prior to surgery. I don't know what the answer is for people who get to goal or become genuinely thin, I'm not quite halfway to goal.

Yikes Tiff, this is one of those life-after-sleeve topics that I don't know anything about, so I am all ears to hear what people say. Is there any possibility that you have an intestinal gas blockage? I ask because the only experience I have with shoulder pain/sleeve life is from the gas after surgery.

I kinda think the "5 day pouch test" is silly. Or, maybe it's just the name I find silly - it's not really a test, and we don't really have pouches, it's just reverting back to a liquid diet for 5 days isn't it? So, it's not proving anything - of course you will lose weight again if you go back on all liquids, that's why we all lost huge weight right after surgery. I'm trying to figure out where I stand regarding carbs, I ate some bread and cake on vacation but other then that, haven't had bread or flour-based products since surgery. I'm genuinely afraid to try potatoes, bread, Pasta and grains - afraid I won't be able to eat them in moderation and will want to binge on them. I've decided to no longer count carbs as they relate to vegetables however. If I feel like eating a bunch of brocolli because I have a craving, or a half an orange, or vegetable soup, I shall, and if my carb count for the day is "high" as a result of plenty of veggies that will be fine. Honestly though, I could drink hot tea all day long and never feel the need to eat. I would get super hyper and trembly, but I wonder how many days it would take before I "felt" hungry? Would I ever "feel" hungry? Or would I collapse before then? hmm.

It's true, using (cow) milk in my protein shake does add in the calories, but what is frustrating on that score is that my protein powder itself is so dang high in carbs. I use MAX protein, Click protein, and Syntha-6 protein powders, and a single serving of any one of these averages out to about half my daily quota for carbs! And while we are on the subject, we ar encouraged (at least I have been by my surg & nut) to continue to use protein shakes etc., isn't that "drinking" our calories? The only low carb protein shake I have found is SO disgusting, with the most hideous texture *shudder*.

I am 5.5 months out and generally eat 3 meals a day plus a snack, but each of those meals is cut in two, because I still can't eat more than 2.5 oz at any given time. So, to get in all my protein I eat half my meal, wait about 15 minutes or a cup of tea, and then eat the rest. I count that as one meal but if you were gonna get picky about it, I suppose you could call it six meals.

What's the carb count on this protein-palooza?

I wasn't able to be home for NYE so a friend and I celebrated early, I had this glorious concoction made by the bartender, all I know is it had ...Junipero gin, elderflower essence, and ... orange something? Anyway, it was a real mixologists cocktail and I was really happy with it. He served it in a standard martini glass and I drank ... about a quarter of an inch of it, not sure how much that is. I got a little flushed, felt a little relaxed, but since I had no choice but to be our driver (many hours) later, I couldn't indulge in the whole drink. I was worried at first that I would be hammered from that tiny bit and that it would take a really long time to sober up but if anything, I sobered up unusually fast. I felt the relaxing warmth about 5 minutes in, stopped drinking altogether 10 minutes later, and was stone cold sober within another 10 minutes. (The oysters rockefeller may have had something to do with it).

Well what I was trying to get at is that I have heard a lot of people say that -due to calories and carbs- that milk is some kind of big no no. I managed to have 8 oz of whole D full cream milk in my shake this morning and my calorie total for the day is only 700 and my carbs 37. I would think that the carbs from a calcium fortified glass of milk would be more welcome than the empty carbs from say a white flour muffin or something?