SerendipityHappens

It would depend on how close you are to goal. If you're still 100 pounds from your "healthy weight" then you'll continue to be fine on 700-1000 calories.. if you're within 20-30 pounds of your goal weight, you'll want to increase your calories to a more moderate deficit. At least that's how I understand it!

four months out: Breakfast: 14 ounces of coffee 2 ounces of half and half 3/4 scoop vanilla Protein powder Lunch: 1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese and 1 ounce cashews Snack: 1/2 apple, 1/2 pear, 1 pomegranite Dinner: 1/2 c chicken breast, 2T curried lentils, 2T boiled spinach 1/2 ounce cheddar cheese 1/2 ounce feta Also calculated 1/2 T oil for sauteeing the chicken and the chicken marinade. Snack 1/4 banana 1C mulberries frozen and made into a whole fruit sorbet. Total calories: 1006 which falls within my calorie range of 800-1050. Total protein 87 grams.

That really varies based on doctor and your weight and activity level. Personally I'm on 800-1050 and have been since about 6 weeks out. I know some who are further out than me and still on 600 calories a day and others who are at 1500 after one month! When you still have a lot to lose, you can afford to eat less since your body knows it's fat and has an easy time converting the fat since there is sooooo much to choose from.. as you get closer to your goal weight you'll need to increase your calories in order to keep your body properly fueled and avoid burning muscle due to too severe of a calorie deficit.

I get that , but you'd add the powder to MILK in order to pump up the protein.. adding 1/3 cup powdered milk to Water gives the same amount of protein as a cup of milk so she might as well just use milk to begin with... So if you wanted to pump up the protein you'd need to add the powdered milk to skim milk, not to water. Adding 1/3 cup of skim milk to a cup of milk gives you 16 grams of protein.. if you used only 1/4 cup of powdered milk and added it to a cup of skim milk, you'd wind up with 13 grams of protein... around the same count that the doctor wrote down.

The question is unanswerable because there are SO MANY different pre-op diets!

I don't know why the doctor wants to make it so complicated.. water+fat free milk powder=fat free milk... so why wouldn't you be able to use fat free milk???

four months out 800-1050 calories a day. I like to eat in a range because some days I'm just hungrier than others... If I've done a LOT of exercise for the day (like if I burn 1500 extra calories according to my bodymedia fit) I might go as high as 1200 but only if I'm feeling like I need it.. When I get down to 200 I'll increase my calories to create a more moderate deficit and I'll eat back my exercise calories.

I understand the irritation. Yes I DO feel better.. my knees don't hurt anymore.. but I don't feel like that's what most people mean by the comment.. I feel like they are talking more emotional... like before I should have been feeling all sorry for myself and ashamed because of my size... It's almost like they assumed that because I was 360 pounds, I must have loathed myself... uh, I felt about myself pretty much the same as I do now, only now I do it with less knee pain. I've always been active and accepting of my body.. I wasn't always the fattest person in the room and I definitely wasn't the fattest person in Walmart, but I was ALWAYS the fattest person on the hiking trail or at the mountain summit.. Fattest by about 100 pounds. Did I feel bad or ashamed about that? Nope.... and I think a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their minds around that.. They feel like I SHOULD have felt disgusting and full of self loathing.

My first week I was on clear liquids so I hardly had any calories at all from that.. MAYBE 150 calories a day. My second week I was at around 600 calories a day. By six weeks out I was eating at 800-1050 calories a day.

That's fantastic.. you know one of the most understanding doctors I ever had was 100 pounds soaking wet. She was very sympathetic to my plight with my weight as she said she struggled constantly with hers but in the opposite direction. She told me: "we're both battling against our genetic predisposition, all we can do is keep fighting"

I'm 4 months out and I've been eating 800-1050 calories a day since 6 weeks. I've NEVER had a problem getting in MORE calories.. I'm pretty sure I could get in 2,000 calories a day if I wanted to. 2T of peanut butter = 190 calories.

Well if you lose muscle your weight loss will slow down... More muscle=higher metabolic rate=more calories burned=more weight lost.

I was really tired all the time! I went to my PCP at three months out and all my vitamin levels were perfect.. Shockingly my thyroid levels are now in line as well (YAY) She asked me how much I'm sleeping and I told her 7.5 hours a night and she told me that maybe I just need more sleep. I told her I never needed more sleep before.. and she said "well maybe you do now- your body went through a trauma with the surgery and now it's working hard to lose weight" So now I aim for 9 hours of sleep a night and whatdayaknow, it's WORKING. Huh, go figure, more sleep cured my feeling tired all the time. Sometimes the answer is just too simple!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! Happy Birthday indeed!

LOVE IT! You're doing so great!

I eat fairly quickly and I'm 4 months out.. I take a smaller bite than I used to and chew my food very well but I don't wait between bites. My meals don't get cold.

Excellent blog post.. but everyone please note: Serendipity Happens welcomes everyone to tell her how fabulous she looks.. as long as it's not from the Korean lady who came into my store the other day and told me "oooh, you look good now, not so fat like before.. before you was sooooooooooo fat." I kid you not.

I had the same fears and even considered getting the Duodenal switch but I wanted to give this a try. I've never been thin in my entire life.. I was well into the 200s by the time I was in highschool and my highest weight was 360 pounds and a 60BMI. My GOAL WEIGHT of 150 is the same weight that I weighed in FIFTH GRADE! I've failed SO MANY TIMES with tons of diets. This time really is different I'm not losing as fast as I would have if I had had the DS or RNY, but I AM losing and I'm not suffering with hunger and deprivation. I think you'll do GREAT because you've done great so far just in your preop phase.. so enough with the negative self talk and and go Celebrate your 25 pounds lost!

I'm not close with my PCP either.. I went after three months told her I had the VSG surgery and she just gave me a quick look over and ran all my vitamin levels/and lipid/metabolic panel. Everything was perfect and she told me to come back at my one year surgiversary in order to run the tests again.. and congratulated me on my success so far. Easy peasy.

When my sodium is high I just drink extra extra extra water and also include high potassium foods like flounder or kale to balance out the sodium.

I gotta second Quest Protein bars They have 20 grams of protein 170-200 calories 17-19 grams of Fiber and around 4-6 non-fiber, non-sugar alcohol carbs. Some flavors have a few sugar alcohols and some don't.. I am VERY sensitive to sugar alcohols in sugar free candy (like a few werther's originals send me to the bathroom for an hour) but the sugar alcohols in the quest bars don't affect me.. I think they're from a different source. And they're wheat/gluten free. The power Crunch bars look GOOD and are fairly low in sugar but I stick with Quest because I can't have wheat

It usually depends on which company you book through.. I think Medical Tourism co uses Lucerna and MBC puts you at the Marriott.

yes it's confusing.. Dr F. Garcia's Anestesiologist is Dr Cabrera... but it's a different Dr. Cabrera. Dr Ishmael cabrera garcia is a bariatric surgeon who practices with Lousiana Valenzuela. To make matters even more confusing there is a Dr Garcia on their team who does a lot of the follow ups with patients so both teams have Garcias and Cabreras but in different roles!

It's a good article and I hope it helps. I meet my protein goals consistently, include a diet with plenty of fat, take all my vitamins PLUS supplement with salmon oil every day... There's still no guarantee I won't lose some hair. I'm nearly four months out and that's when a lot of people say they've started losing theirs.So I've got my fingers crossed but at least I know I've done everything I could to prevent it. For some people the hairloss is an after affect of a surgery and unrelated to the actual sleeve or nutrient intake. Some people lose hair several months after an appendectomy! Some lose hair several months after a traumatic event such as a death of a loved one, or car accident.

At my highest weight of 360 I could only wear a 26/28 from Lane Bryant if it had a lot of stretch in it I was 54" around the waist and 64" around my lower abdomen...at my starting weight of 335 I was wearing a size 26 jeans comfortably. At my current weight of 253 I am wearing a size 20 jeans and size 1X top. I'm 41" around the waist and 53" around the lower abdomen.