TheGamer

My favorite yogurt in the world is Fage 0%. Fage is a plain greek yogurt so you've got to be a fan of that, but with a little liquid splenda and some flavoring it's so much higher in protein and you get to control what's in it.

Right after surgery I picked up some liquid vitamins (Centrum) and just took those. They're not the best tasting, but it was a lot better than trying to choke down a vitamin.

The first few days, everything was a hassle for me. It took me at least 5 days before I wanted to do more than just drink tea and flavored Water. I'd say I was really sore for about a week, maybe a little longer. Now, two weeks and some change out, I don't hurt so much but I can still feel where the drain was and where the internal stiching is.

I just started my week 3 diet. I've been having a lot of trouble finding things that don't make me sick. So, rather than go by this long list of do/do not that I got, I've really just been letting my body set the pace. If I want something, I try a little of it. If it doesn't make me want to vomit, on the "I can eat this" list it goes. I've had huge luck with turkey and beef jerkey, hot cocoa with protein powder, pudding cups, tea, propel grape (and ONLY grape >.<), green tea, and cheese of various types, fage 0% yogurt is amazing, too.

I had a drain and when mine was removed it was exceptionally uncomfortable. Granted I was in a lot of pain and on quite a lot of meds at the time, but I remember there being a lot of profanity and a comment comparing it to the removal of an alien baby.

So, this is pretty straight forward. I'm having trouble eating anything. It seems like what I tolerate includes nothing that has any significant amount of Protein in it. I've tried both the pre-surgery shakes and the clear Protein drinks, as well as adding in unflavored protein to drinks, you name it, I'm trying it. The only thing I've been able to eat and not just want to vomit is sugar free hot chocolate with unflavored Protein powder, but I'm afraid of drinking seven cups of that a day because then I'll be sick of that, too. It's the texture and taste of the protein powder and the fact that drinking the clear protein drinks results in those little... strandy things that just make me nauseated. Has anyone else been in this position? I'm doing what I can (totally med/vitamin compliant) but the protein is just... not happening. Any help from those who've been here done that would be appreciated

Here's the science behind some weight loss stalls, if you're interested: http://www.justinowi...nd-glycogen-de/ Basically it comes down to this - glycogen is your short term fuel, and first to get depleted in the weight loss battle. Glycogen is usually the source of that AMAZING first week weight loss of 7-10 pounds. Glycogen takes a LOT of Water to store, so when you use up all that quick-access energy, the water goes with it. Eventually your body goes "We need more glycogen!" and starts rebuilding those stores... with the water it needs. Because your body is now storing up that extra water (which weighs a lot), that can lead to short term weight loss stalls even though you're still using up fat and losing inches!

Sleeved 10/22 and doing good. From 2 weeks pre-op til now, I'm down 45 total. I think I hit my first plateau today, though, because there was nary a lost pound on the scale this morning. My biggest problem has been finding things to eat that don't make me sick.

Well if it's supposed to *look* like you, and you no longer look like the person in your driver's licence photo, it's your civic duty to update the picture! That's the best excuse I can come up with

Same here, too. Sleeved on 10/22 and as long as it's water consistency, I don't seem to be limited by this 2-4 oz thing on liquid. I've noticed though, the thicker something is, the less I can tolerate. So soups, puddings, solids... there's a definite limit before my body goes "okay no more!"

My salvation has been sugar free hot cocoa with Nectar unflavored protein. It is the only thing I can tolerate daily. My suggestion, mix the powders with about 1/4 c of water in a blender first, then add not-quite boiling water to it. For breakfast I usually drink two packets with two scoops and that gives me about 130 calories and 20 grams of protein. For extra benefit I'll make it with skim milk instead of water and that gives me about 29 grams of protein and some extra calories.

Yeah, personally I'm going for around 180. I'd be happy there.

Like all epic quests, this one begins in the storied depths of history, when our heroine was just a small child... And that's about the extent of the pseudofantastical writing I can muster. In all seriousness, I've always been a big kid. There's nothing new, or novel, or even remotely unique about that. I don't even remember my first diet, but I do remember this list of lined yellow paper detailing all the wonderful things I'd get if I could just slim my chubby child body to a svelte 80 pounds. Needless to say, I developed an unhealthy view of food and eating at a young age. Add on the fact that food just tasted so damned good and it was a scenario guaranteed to result in a fat adult. Lots of people live fat, healthy lives, though, so what was it that brought me to laying in a gurney with IVs in my hands waiting for a surgeon to take out 85% of my stomach? Yeah, I'm going to have to think about that one. I discovered my first love at an exceptionally young age, when I taught myself to read with the help of the illustrious Sesame Street. While I wouldn't know it for many years, I was (and remain) an introvert. Books filled that mental craving and it wasn't unusual for me to fall asleep surrounded by stacks of them. This love affair continues to this day, but around the time I was 6, I had an experience that would change my entire life. It was at the age of 6 that I had a hands-on experience with my first computer. Some model of Apple ][, our tiny local library somehow procured one. What was even more amazing was that after a small class, they'd let you use it. What's more, use it unsupervised! I had never seen such a thing before and I would have trouble describing or explaining how entranced I was by this collection of circuits, switches, and programming. It was, in short, a kind of magic for me. Around the same time arcades were exploding as the first gaming revolution took hold. I still remember the first time I was taken to an arcade by my parents. My father pressed a token in to my hand and told me I could play whatever I wanted. Any of them! All brightly lit in all their 2 and 4 bit glory with colors and sounds, it was like you could hear the synapses in my brain just fire off and those little nooks and crannies that had never been exposed were instantly and irrevokably hooked. And those four things largely sum up my formative years. When I look at myself today, that is what, undeniably, has made me who I am. Without those things, I can't even imagine what my life would have been like, and I'm glad for it.

My surgeon's office did a whole mess of stuff for me, and one of those things was setting my goal weight. My first goal is 220, my second is 150. I'm not so sure about that last one, though. I'm 5'10" and my frame is pretty large (even without all the fat ) so I feel that at 150 I'd be almost *too* small.

I can really identify, and I'm sure just about everyone else here also does. My whole life was just one long chain of "diet" failures that resulted in gaining more weight. At one point I got so sick of trying to lose weight, I stopped trying. You can imagine how that turned out. I didn't start taking anything seriously until I had to do my two week pre-surgery diet. Now, two weeks after surgery, I've had some pretty amazing results. Once I made the decision to give myself a pretty serious tool in my weight loss fight, I found that all that for the first time in years, I actually wanted to do the right things because my mindset has changed from "this will be great until it fails like everything else" to "I now feel like I can be in control". The fear is normal. Sleeving is a huge step, but don't let that fear hold you back from doing what is best for you, no matter what that is. You're in the right place to talk to people about this kind of stuff, and you've got a weight loss coach who has probably heard anything you're going to say from other people just like you. Just know that in all this, you're not alone

Taking a page from Reddit's AMA, TESO's developers will begin posting AMA style Q&A in the next few weeks. Updated every two weeks, it will provide insight in to the game's progress and development. Rapidly becoming one of the most-watched upcoming MMOs since it was announced in mid 2012, TESO is slated for a 2013 launch. The game is not yet in public beta. http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2012/10/31/learn-about-the-eso-ask-us-anything

There was just so much hype for it. It wasn't bad, but the modding community has just done so much more, and for free. They've outsourced this to Zenimax and they know the pressure to be at 100% is insane, given the ES fanbase. Everyone is watching every little thing they do, just waiting for them to screw up. Thankfully, SWTOR was a pretty big warning of what not to do with an MMO based on a franchise that rabid fans adore. I think it became every MMO developer's cautionary tale. They have done some smart things, like keeping initial development off the radar so they could develop in peace.

I love these ideas! I did something similar when I quit smoking years ago, but I hadn't even thought about celebrating my weight loss goals like this.

I went a little bit crazy with the planning pre-surgery only to find that after surgery, what I thought I would want and what I could handle were two different things. Unflavored Protein powder is a must, but I found that everything else I planned for (soups, broth, shakes, etc.) went right out the window. I'm two weeks out and am one of the unlucky ones who can't tolerate much of anything. I get most of my protein through unflavored powder mixed with hot chocolate and not much else. I'm using the Bariatric Advantage Vitamins, but I find them a little chalky =\ The black cherry B12 is great though and the lemon calcium chews are really good.

One of the things I'm getting great use out of is fitbie.com. It's free (important for someone cheap like me) and it will let you track your intake, your excercise, your mood, all that good stuff. I agree with Iggy. As you've got about 100 pounds to lose, you need about 2400 calories a day just to maintain weight if you're sedentary. Let's say you're eating about 800 calories a day (if you track your numbers, you'll know how much you're eating on average). Well conventional wisdom is 3500 calories = 1 pound. That means you're running a 1600 calorie defecit, or a pound of weight loss about every 2 days. This number will change as you lose weight and your calorie requirements are lower. Your weight loss will slow down the closer you get to where you're going.

I saved up my vacation time so that I had 2 weeks that I could take. I took them and I don't regret it. Sure, I could have gone back in a week but I feel better this way. I head back on Monday and figure I'll probably do at least a few shorter days. I'm not rushing it.

It sounds just like what I went through a couple weeks ago. In fact, my first thought when I came out of anesthesia was "Why the hell did I do this? I was happy being fat..." Now, two weeks out that pain is pretty much gone and I don't regret it at all. Just do what they've told you to do post-op and in a couple weeks you'll be saying you've got no regrets to other people just like you