drmeow

Hey, @@Sunshine_Gal, congratulations on your loss and I hope things continue to go well for you, and that the resp infx goes away soon. We've had 2 of those go through our house in the last 2 months, after having a relatively healthy winter. I can't wait to be on the losers' bench with you!

I'm still pre-op (bypass in June hopefully) but I want to increase my exercise now and hopefully become one of these people who loves to work out afterward Currently, I walk, usually just 1.5 miles/day taking my dog, so it's not always fast or continuous, depending on his need to sniff. I also have a nice bike I plan to start using again soon but I know doing some weights would help with strength and possibly reduce the loose skin a little bit afterward (I'm 53 and realistic!) I bought a Jillian Michaels DVD for kettlebells and still need to buy a/some bells but was wondering if anyone else uses them?

thanks for the reminder about post-op weight lifting restrictions. I was planning on getting a set which has either multiple weights (2,5,10) or the kind where you add/remove discs. But we do have a few handweights I was going to start out with, to see how I like it. I've heard good things about kettlebells, but was surprised when I watched part of the DVD, how much is swinging it out and up, rather than lifting slowly. Not sure how that is for joints.

Yep, I'd love to meet a man who'd also had WLS and could understand the whole lifestyle change, etc. @@Packerfan61964 - you have a great pic!

If you haven't already, it's a good time to practice some of the post-op habits you'll need, like not drinking with meals, chewing your food 25 times before swallowing. My NUT has me trying to do this and I was having trouble remembering when eating, so she suggested I get some special plates or napkins that would be automatic reminders. My regular dishes are mostly white, so I got some Fiesta ware red salad plates - instant trigger to help me remember. Also, if you are still drinking coffee or tea, it's a good time to wean off the caffeine slowly (hopefully you're already off soda) so you don't get a big withdrawal headache. Increasing your exercise (I know, hard to do while we're heavy) - longer walks, maybe some light weights, etc. Supposedly helps with recovery. Take some good "pre-op" pics showing you at different angles, and measurements too, for post-op encouragement. Think about what food means to you now - comfort, friend, etc. and if you haven't come to terms with that yet, work on it - therapy or just finding substitutes for eating. I'm looking at June surgery and have been waiting since Dec so at least you're a little ahead of me!

The stoma is the size of the opening (in mm) between pouch and intestines, not the size of the pouch (which is the cc you are referring to)

From what I've read the best thing to prevent them is just to drink, drink, drink more Water. Also avoid acidic foods like coffee, citrus and tomatoes in large amounts.

Personally I don't believe any of those counters are accurate on calorie burning. There are so many variables on how many calories you burn - a 200 lb fat person vs. a 200 lb well-muscled man can have significantly different calorie burns in the same amount of time. Likewise, 84 min of what? 84 min of walking - could be fast walking with arms swinging vs strolling. I use my Fitbit just to count my active minutes and my steps and let the calories take care of themselves.

I am afraid, too. Not of surgery so much, but that I'll be one of the few people it doesn't work for. Or that I'll lose a bunch and then not be able to maintain. I'm working on breaking bad habits now before surgery, but part of me thinks it's inevitable to regain eventually. I sure hope not!

You're right - it's still metabolism but what I was stressing is that I don't think there are any hard and fast formulae to calculate how much extra muscle does burn, and that the simple calculators which say "eat 1200 calories, burn off 400 with activity and you'll drop X pounds" is completely wrong - there are just too many things which affect it. Eating low carb forces your body to burn fat into ketones, which the brain prefers. I can eat 1500 cal of low carb food and easily lose weight, but if I have more than 25 g of carbs, my calorie level has to drop way down, and even then, weight loss is slow.

If you read some of the better low carb books out there, such as Gary Taubes' books and Phinney & Volek's books, you'll find that is true. Metabolism is NOT as simple as calories in/calories out. For example, you can "burn" more calories doing cardio than weight lifting, but weight lifting is far better at causing weight loss than lots of cardio. Cardio is good for your heart, yes, but it's not a magic fat burner. And eating 800 calories of starches is worse for you than eating 1200 calories of protein and fat. Sugar (carbs) is preferentially stored as fat. Ketosis has a lot to do with it. I always did very well losing weight on a strict low carb (<25 g carb per day) diet but I had a hard time staying on it long term b/c each little cheat would set you back a week of being out of ketosis again. So I am hoping that bypass will help me stick with low carb due to not tolerating those "cheats" anymore. But I will still need to eat low carb to get down as low as I'd like.

@@Miss Mac, before dumping your yummy coconut oil, etc. have the lab do a full cholesterol profile. Even traditional mainstream medicine has finally caught up to the research and admitted that high cholesterol has NOTHING to do with heart disease. Read this: http://chriskresser.com/the-diet-heart-myth-cholesterol-and-saturated-fat-are-not-the-enemy If you still aren't convinced, here is a good book on the whole cholesterol issue http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936608383/?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=livilavidalow-20 Besides the "good" and the "bad" cholesterol - there are subtypes, and the large fluffy ones are good, the small dense particles are bad. Overall, triglyceride number is a better predictor of health than cholesterol.

I have worried about this too. I've always been lucky to have good skin and at 52 have no wrinkles yet. But I'm afraid that is going to change after WLS. On the one hand, maybe I won't have the extra chubby cheeks pulling my face downward, but I do expect to see some sagging. I never thought I'd ever want plastic surgery and I am generally not vain overall. I am really doing this for my health and to be more active. But I've decided that if I'm very unhappy with my skin after losing the weight I will look into some very minimal plastics, probably more likely the tummy overpouch than face but who knows?

I know you've said you are eating low carb but are you actually keeping a food diary of exact amounts of each thing you eat, and having it total carbs, calories and Protein? I know it must be very frustrating to follow all the rules and still not lose; most of us probably have extremely damaged metabolisms from all the dieting we've done before. But it can be easy to overlook small changes we've made in our diets or even in the products themselves - read all your labels again to be sure they haven't changed. And what do you consider low carb? My personal need is to stay below 25 grams of net carbs per day (total carb minus fiber g) some people consider anything below 50 acceptable - if it works for them, great, but not for me. Do you mix your Protein powder into milk or are they pre-mixed? If you are using skim milk, it's high in carbs. Try unsweetened almond milk (or soy, which I can't take due to my thyroid) or Water. Are you eating enough healthy fats? You can't do low carb and low fat very long and expect to lose - your body interprets this as starvation and locks the brakes on any weight loss. If you compensate by increasing only protein, the body burns that by turning it into sugar (protein by itself is not a fuel - you need either sugar or fat, which becomes ketones which your brain actually prefers over sugar) After surgery is different, of course, b/c we have to get protein preferentially first due to the different anatomy and gastric hormones. But before it, just doing high protein isn't enough. Healthy fats - 1/2 an avocado (good fats plus magnesium and potassium), a few Tbsp of olive oil and/or coconut oil added to foods, egg yolks, small portions of nuts like almonds/walnuts/macadamias (but check carb levels), even animal fats if they are pastured, non-CAFO animals, preferably organic. The omega3:omega6 ratios in CAFO animal fats are completely unbalanced but in animals that graze naturally, they are very healthy for us. Finally, i am concerned in general that most of your diet seems to be processed foods. The shakes, bars and cakes may be OK for occasional use (and shakes needed post-op obviously) but you will likely do much better eating real food for now, still sticking to low carb. I don't know where 4 lbs of leafy vegetables came from but you can certainly get 4-5 CUPS of leafy greens in a big salad each day, with a few other low carb veggies, some good protein and a little good fat. Skip the starchy vegetables - potatoes, corn, peas, and the higher carb ones like squashes and Beans (not green beans) for now. If you think this is too time-consuming now, I don't think you will do well after surgery b/c from what I've read, it takes a LOT of your time to get all the water in, the protein, the Vitamins, etc. And once you're able to eat "real" food, unless you've trained yourself to eat good, nonprocessed foods, you may find yourself regaining. If you've been following typical "Diabetes" nutritional advice I'd recommend reading more - very few doctors or dieticians are current on the research in nutrition on carbs, and react mostly to the media sensations. Try http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Bernsteins-Diabetes-Solution-Achieving-ebook/dp/B004QZ9PC4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428240830&sr=1-1&keywords=diabetes+Dr.+Bernstein Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution and http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes-ebook/dp/B000UZNSC2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428240912&sr=1-1&keywords=good+calories+bad+calories+by+gary+taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. Note, I am not a nutritionist nor a human medical doctor. I do have a medical background and have done a TON of reading over the last 5 years on nutrition. Just my (way more than) 2 cents! :) Good luck!

Interesting - my surgeon's office doesn't schedule the EGD until after the insurance approval comes through. I have BCBS also (federal) and it requires 3 months supervised dieting and the psych eval before submitting. I started in Jan and hoped to be in by early June; now it's looking more like July.

Speak to your doctor's office and ask how many calories, how many grams of Protein, etc you should be eating at this stage. Log everything you put in your mouth in some program like My Fitness Pal, Fat Secret, Sparkpeople, etc. (there are tons of choices both for computer and phone/tablet apps). go back to the very basics of enough Water, protein first and then small amounts of vegetables - I would recommend choosing low carb ones, skip things like potatoes, corn and peas, which are starchy. Just google "low carb vegetables" and you'll probably get a lot of hits, or check the Atkins site if you need something more structured for awhile. while ultimately it's best to choose unprocessed foods as much as possible, if you still have a sweet tooth after surgery, you may want to have a few small things like artificially sweetened Protein Bars to have on hand in case the sweets gremlin strikes you. Just try to find the ones with the lowest carb numbers. Good luck getting back on track!

I just looked at Vitamin Shoppe's sale and the Isopure Zero Carb I use is on that list, but even the sale price is higher than Amazon's regular price, with free shipping included.

yes, please! While bad grammar and punctuation do grate a bit on me, I can easily ignore that if there is just some space. I'll admit I just backspace out of posts which are 5 inches long on the monitor with no white space. If in doubt, hit return Now, I don't hold it against anyone who's done this; just be aware that it makes it hard for people to read and you may not get answers as quickly.

Thanks for sharing that; I stand corrected. I have never noticed it on the shelf, just probably assumed it was the same old sugary one. I love Juicy Fruit too!

Juicy Fruit is not sugarfree.

I had my gallbladder out laparoscopically about 18 years ago, and I have a lot of scar tissue apparently around where it was and adhering my small intestine to my liver. The surgeon is going to break down all that scar tissue while doing my bypass. I've also had 2 C-sections but those obviously were done pretty low. I would not expect a hysterectomy to cause problems with the bypass for the same reason.

I've had surgeries before and was told not to drink from a straw immediately post-op b/c it causes air swallowing, leading to more gas. I assume this will be true right after surgery (bypass in my case). But what about later on? I really rely on a straw in a Water bottle to get all my water in. I just don't tend to sip nearly as much when drinking directly from a bottle or glass.

I have a Fitbit One and it's been working pretty well. However, today I walked my dogs and it recorded me as doing 40 floors! The only thing I can think of is that one of my dogs is old and very slow, so while she was poking along, I started double-time marching in place. I've done that before, though, and it never recorded it as floors, just steps.

I haven't tried the Water Enhancer drops but i make a pitcher of sugar-free lemonade according to directions (storebrand) and then I put one oz of that in my 32 oz water bottle, fill rest with water. just enough sweetness for me without being overloaded or giving me any problems with the artificial sweeteners, since it's so diluted. I usually do that for one 32 oz bottle/day, then have the other plain.

Thanks, I am very relieved. I don't mind giving up my straw for a week or two right after surgery. But long term I was concerned b/c I just don't drink enough by sipping. I guess I could change that habit but I have enough other things to work on LOL! Also, my new favorite Water bottle is the Brita bottle. Our water around here is very hard and over chlorinated and tastes awful from the tap. I always filled my previous bottles from a Brita pitcher. but now I have their water bottle, and the best part is it holds 32 oz, so all I have to do is fill it twice to get 64 oz in a day. But it has a straw b/c that's where the filter is.