OutsideMatchInside

My weight loss is going great I wrote about it a few weeks ago in this thread http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/372450-361-days-later-my-story/

By the time most people pay all the copays for surgery, it is just cheaper to pay out of pocket. I would just pay instead of stressing myself out with my employer. They picked BCBS of Florida for a reason.

You can make chili at home in about 10 minutes. Why bother eating out when you don't know exactly what is in it? The macros on the Panera Tomatoe basil are terrible, it is basically just empty calories unless you are adding Protein powder to it. Weight loss and maintenance is a lot easier if you cook. If you are not preparing your food you really have no idea what you are eating.

Why are you obsessing about this? Why are you doing a pouch test at goal? You understand that 72 ounces of Water is 4 and a half pounds.

@@happy2bjcox If you are cool with how you are eating, stay there until you are comfortable moving on. I had scrambled eggs because that was one of the first things I was allowed, even though I hate scrambled eggs. It sucked. You don't have to move stages just because you are required to.

Wafers dissolve on the tongue. I never realized Methodist use grape juice! If it is just grape juice that will go down a lot easier than wine. I took communion at 3 or 4 weeks, no issues, just a little burn from the wine.

I took a sip of communion wine at 3-4 weeks. Burned like the fires of hell.

@@blackgirlfat How are you feeling? Are you meeting your fluid and protein goals?

@@higher Well IGIGI caters to the larger ladies, so they are going to be polite to their core customer. Since people are in different stages of their weight loss I thought these charts would be helpful so here is something for everyone. There are people here that start very high, lose 200 pounds and are still plus size but now they have a shape, so this might help them. @@Cervidae Try wearing tight all black and take a picture of yourself. Sometimes we can see ourselves better in a picture than in the mirror because the picture is more abstract.

BCBS does them in a couple days

When can you have soft foods? When can you meet your Protein goals without Protein shakes? It is really up to your plan and up to you/your body. Honestly you are going to need to supplement with protein every now and then for a long time. So instead of giving up protein shakes, just find something you like.

Walk start walking 10 minutes or whatever your tolerance is, and increase it everyday. You can lose weight without exercise, 80-90% of weight loss is diet, not exercise. You don't have to go to a gym to exercise walking can be enough.

Drinking fluids does not trigger restriction. If you have a live swallow test, you can see fluids draining into your small intestines instantly. It slides right through. If you chug, which I doubt you can do just because your throat is probably sore, you can drink too much too fast, which is why you might be burping. There is no issue with being able to drink a lot early. You are lucky, you are healing better than most. Drink all the Water you can and stay hydrated.

Another good chart...

I found this and I wanted to share it. I know a lot of people have issues with what styles suit them after losing weight.

You are going to love your post-op life!

I recently ordered from Victoria's secret, and I ordered XL after reading online that VS runs small. Everything is too big

No idea, I was trying to heal and I was too happy I wasn't dead.

@@reducer623 We have both had our coppers around the same length of time. My periods went from heavy to light in about 6 months. I have always had random spotting if I have high activities levels. Lately me between period spotting has lightened up and is almost non existent. I am hoping by the end of the year to be back to normal. Since we don't have hormones to help us, our bodies just have to work it out on their own.

I have an IUD (Copper). I had normal cycles, and I have had my IUD so long that my periods are light again after initially being heavy. I have always had regular periods my entire life, no lady issues, no PCOS anything like that. At first I still has normal periods, then once I dropped a lot of weight (over 100 pounds at about 9 months) I started having periods every 2 weeks almost. It seems to finally being almost normalizing, but my body is still trying to adjust to the weight I am at now. My periods are light so it doesn't bother me that they are every 2 weeks, except for the weight gain or stall that comes with them. It makes it hard to see progress on the scale, even though I can see and feel the inch loss.

I totally appreciate him being open about his surgery. Until more people are willing to share that they had surgery, it will keep being something that people feel the need to hide. I recently found at that 3 people I know had the surgery and never told anyone, lied about it in fact.....the result? I felt like there was something really wrong with ME that I couldn't pull it together and lose my extra weight. If they had shared their story with me instead of keeping it hidden, I might have gotten here a few years ago. It's important surgery, helpful surgery, and the stigma needs to go away. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App A year later, for me surgery seems like something in the past. I don't feel like a WLS patient forever, and I don't want to give other people the opportunity to put that label on me forever. I'm pretty sure 14 years from now, I won't want people commenting on what I am eating and wondering if it would make me sick. I used to work with a lady that was very open about having surgery. People always talked about that when they talked about her, like that was her main attribute and she was less of a person. They never talked about her other qualities, and when she got married, they wondered if she would be able to have children because she had surgery. I'm already a double minority, I don't need another label to go through life with.

@@justhere4theshow No one makes threads about Matt Lauer's eating habits though.

Al had surgery so long ago, I doubt he dumps or even has any malabsorption left. That reaction to him eating or not eating is exactly why I will never make my surgery public. 14 years later and he is still the gastric bypass guy to people.

You can, eat things without carbs and still induce ketosis and shrink your liver. Please stop thinking about things as cheating, it just perpetuates the idea of being deprived. Eating properly is a way of life not a diet. A lot of pre-op diets include lean Proteins, like grilled chicken etc. If you feel like you can't go on just liquids the whole time, a lean Protein is better than going off the rails because you are starving and hit the McDonalds drive-thru. The last couple days you need to follow your plan exactly because you are cleaning your system out. I'm not saying to ignore your pre-op diet, but if you get to the point you feel like you have to eat something, a boiled egg, grilled chicken etc are decent options that won't sabotage you.

I love Taco Bueno and I don't even like Mexican food really. Get the Tex Mex Bowl and order it with no rice. chicken or Quesadilla, and just eat the meat and the cheese. You can eat at any restaurant really. Order a sandwich, just eat the meat. Order a salad with Protein, just eat the protein. It isn't hard you just have to change how you think. Pre-op the issue is going to be, eating like this is not going to make you full but you might as well practice eating to be satisfied and not full now.