Smye

@@Stevehud, what kind of sugary yogurt are you looking at?

@@Sajijoma, I couldn't agree more - that's why I went ahead and did it. It's just hard when money is so tight in the meantime - I'm between jobs at the moment (transitioning from teacher to principal and in the heat of interviews with no end in sight).

@@steph_anie, I think you'll do fine. It seems those few who can't make it through the pre-op phase, liquid or not, make a choice to cheat, just a little, several times a day. Stay away from that sort of self-sabotage and you 're golden. And congratulations on not having liquids-only! It's easy post-op... you won't want anything as solid even as broth for the first little bit

@, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My wife can't stand the ketosis breath, 5 months out and it's still there...

I eat quite a bit, but it's homemade from my goats' milk and I usually do a savory yogurt topping rather than sweet. I'm a HUGE fan of parsley, pickled onion, and beef.

HW (pictured): 415 SW: 395 CW (pictured): 280 GW: 220 StretchW: 185 Holy cow, we've still got a ways to go, but how far we've come...

My family is supportive as hell. The only guilt I feel is over the $17K that surgery put us into debt, alongside grad school, and I'm nervous that the debt is going to come back to haunt us sooner than later. I guess better poor and alive though, than debt-free and nearly-dead.

Do you have no pre-op diet at all? Or just not the liquid. If the latter - check out these for some ideas of pre-op friendly foods (assuming you're allowed solids).

You're welcome to do so, but there's no need to stick to protein drinks exclusively - try some of these. And good luck and keep us posted!

Celebrate man, I'm a high school teacher and, as Jess suggested, a 16 year old who cooks for himself is gold. AND he's legal to earn money to replace the pan - go for the anodized aluminum while you've got someone else buying

@@Joymarie333, no problem. Good luck and do keep us posted! Let us know if there's every anything you need.

I know I'm a man, but happen to have quite a bit of training on this one - I was practically raised in an IVF clinic, abused my needs-based scholarship in college to take graduate medical coursework for free, and am a research obsessed data nut. That said, it depends... According to the literature, there does not appear to be any reason to believe your surgery will negatively impact your ability to become pregnant, it will just mean extra care will have to be taken during pregnancy to make sure you're eating sufficient amounts of all the right things, even when you're nauseous and it's 10pm and you've only had 300 calories so far Women who are classified as obese generally do have a harder time becoming pregnant, particularly if their BMI is above 40 - so it's possible that the weight loss will help your body reduce it's excess estrogenic production (yay fat cells, they make estrogens, lots and lots of them!) and regulate/stabilize your cycle/fertility. There are a number of cases of women experiencing regular 'spotting' and thinking their cycle is A-OK when in reality they're just spotting and not even ovulating and/or ovulating erratically. It's worth noting though that women are most fertile just a smidgeon overweight. All in all, the weight loss should help your fertility UNLESS: Something else entirely is going on. If you've tried for a few years with no success, I recommend seeing your OB and/or a fertility specialist. It's possible you have something else altogether going on that will continue to plague you and prevent successful pregnancy. Maybe it's something that's easily fixed laparoscopically (a blocked tube), something that can be fixed in-office (an issue with a blocked os, I once worked with a pathologist and help him dissect a woman's uterus [which had been removed due to excruciating periods] only to find that the cervix had no os whatsoever - no wonder she was in pain), it could be a hormonal imbalance of some sort, or it could be something bigger requiring IVF. I figure it's better to know sooner than later, but that's entirely up to you. You also could just have historically had bad timing. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Taking Charge of Your Fertility as an entry-level, yet sophisticated and thorough look at all of this, and explains the science clearly how to get your timing down. Mrs. Smye and I, having read this resource and each bringing our own backgrounds to the table, were able to determine her fertility, get pregnant first try each time, and time out our children's births closely enough to have them land during the beginning of summer break to maximize my paternity leave with summer. We know we're incredibly lucky to have managed this, even with all of the resources we brought to bear, but couldn't have managed it without the book. Sorry for the novel, I hope this is helpful!

A quick clarification: My last post was not in any way shape or form intended to encourage folks to drink soda or other carbonated beverages. We need to follow the advice of our NUTs, and I agree that it's dangerous to drink soda. It's just important to place the blame for the horror stories (which are very real and very useful anecdotes) in the proper place to give context, relevance, and better meaning to them and to, ideally, prevent folks from just drinking flat soda and then being shocked when something terrible happens (the acids in the syrup don't evaporate out with the CO2).

Diet coke may well have caused those ulcers, but carbonation itself cannot and will not do so. Ulcers in stomach lining from soda are largely from the corosive effects of the mass amounts of phosphoric acid in coke. Phosphoric acid is a triprotic strong acid, battery acid is sulfuric, a diprotic. That said, phosphoric acid is one of the few common acids even stronger than battery acid, and we all know how evil that stuff is. There's a reason that both Coca-cola and PepsiCo have special licenses from the feds to transport their syrups on public roads - they're so hazardous when undiluted that they require hazmat if any of the tanker trucks carrying them spill. The carbonation, however, is not itself the cause of the ulceration. Don't make the mistake of drinking flat soda to avoid the 'evils' of carbonation or so religiously avoiding carbonation that you go thirsty on a hot summer day when sparkling Water is your only option.

Mine estimated that after 6 months I'd have lost the amount I ended up losing in 3 months. It's so individual and it really does depend on how closely you follow your plan as well as the body you're brining into this process

I did a job interview 12 days post-op. I did fine, but by the time I was done (it was a 2 hour interview) I was so exhausted I couldn't even think straight... for what that's worth. I'd recommend not driving yourself and doing what you can to walk walk walk and sleep sleep sleep

SURPRISE Bonus Recipe This Week: I hate raw Kale, but this is actually pretty darned good! Sour Apple Kale Smoothie

@@dcannan - what oil are you referring to? In terms of the animal fat in the broth - show the recipe to your NUT and see what feedback you get. My understanding (from my background as a biochemist) is that the fat in the broth will help heal our bodies more than anything and help us have the energy to move around. You're not going to be getting more than the 4 g at a time which is very low. The low fat isn't anywhere near as critical as the low carb, and the form the fat takes (whole, from the animal rather than as a frying medium for fries). The Lancet recently published an article about low carb, low fat, and low Protein diets and found that low fat/low carb dieters don't have the same longitudinal success as high protein, medium fat, low car dieters. For what that's worth.

Also, in working on a mix for my chickens, I think I stumbled across a kale smoothie that actually tastes AMAZING! More soon.

The prosciutto is a success! I think I'll do another - goat this time.