Paul Clarke

I have been to Cedar Point, Kings island, Knotts Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic mountain since my surgery and suffered no ill effects.

I think only some Crystal Light has caffeine. I just check the box of the lemonade and it is not listed as an ingredient.

Oatmega bars are the best. 200 cals per bar, The mint chocolate are my favorite. This is the cheapest place I have found them. https://www.allstarhealth.com/f/boundless_nutrition-oatmega_grass_fed_whey.htm Personally I dont care fore the Blueberry or Lemon Chia, but the others are awesome. You can find them also at Walgreens and Walmart, but they are cheaper online.

April 2017 vs March 2019

From my experience, and perhaps I have been gifted with good genetics, the outcome of this surgery is up to you. I have seen the 60% figure quoted in many places. That wasn't what I wanted either, and through a lot of hard work (and some minor suffering), I have been able to loose all of my excess body weight. 60% or so is an average. Within that, some people will loose a lot of weight, others will gain weight. Your outcome and your journey are personal to you. My advice. Find a lifestyle that works for you and is sustainable and just do that. If it works, keep doing it until you reach your goal. Change up things when what you are doing isn't working. Cover the basics, consume less calories than you burn. The most important thing is to keep going in the face of inevitable discouragement and set backs. You will make mistakes, but everyday the calorie clock resets and you are given a clean slate. What you did yesterday is less important than what you do today. if you want this result enough and you are prepared to put in the effort (which is considerable), you can do this!

2lb per week is pretty average from what I can tell. I was 310 lb on the day of my surgery on 1st March 2018 (38 weeks ago) and I have lost on average 3.17lb per week. With my best week (surgery week) being (6.4lb) and my worst being (0.3) (about 5 weeks ago). Everyone looses at different rates, I think the important thing is your trend. If you are loosing constantly thats what you really want. Just keep doing what you are doing and you will get to your goal.

I think the potential outcome depends on what you mean by taste. I doubt you would do much harm with half a teaspoon of most things in particular eggs. However if it was more than that, then we are given guidelines by our medical professionals for a reason. Personally I stuck rigidly to mine, even though in my opinion and in looking at what others had been told to do they were over the top. My theory being is that the first 3 months or so post surgery were a gift and I would never be able to loose more weight more quickly in my life, so I wanted to get the very most out of that period, so I was determined to play by the rules to an obsessive extent, However it also wouldn't have hurt much for me to have lightened up also.

I went from a size 60 jeans to my most recent purchase on the weekend of a size 34. Each time I went down 1 or 2 sizes I was convinced that they would not fit, this weekends purchase included. I look at my clothing and wonder how I fit into it. Having said that though it did take a very long time to move down that first size, it was certainly 80 plus lbs before I went to a size 56. The bigger you are, the longer it seems to take to step down size and for people to notice, or at least make a comment. A lot of people have said they were reluctant to mention my weight loss in case I was sick.

I think we all look at people and think they could benefit from our experience. However I think back to before I started this journey and know how I would have responded, which would not have been terribly well, had I been approached. I see it like someone who has given up smoking or found god. Mostly everyone else does not really want to hear about how they could transform their lives for the better. This is a journey you have to be ready to take. I know that this desire to evangelize comes from a good place, but mostly I don't think we have the right to tell someone we don't know how they should live their lives. Having said all of that, if you want to people watch and secretly judge them, I am all for that. I know I do!

Weighed in this morning at 188.4 which for me is a BMI of 24.9 (healthy range). This is down from a high of 412lb on 4/27/17 and a BMI of 54.4 (super obese range). Thats a loss of 223lb (or 101kg). Of this 102lb was pre op. I know how long this journey is for each and every one of you, I really do. It is so easy to get discouraged and have your mental stability rolled by one bad weigh in. Feeling your progress is never enough, never quick enough, that you are failing etc. There are very few easy days and in this battle against yourself there really is nowhere to hide. However, it can be done, Things I have learned along the way. One weigh in means very little. The trend is the truth. If you are loosing or gaining over time, if you keep records you will see that. The result of one days weigh in good or evil, is accurate only +/- a couple of lb. So don't be too discouraged (or take too much of a victory lap) based on one days results. You are in this race for a lifetime. We all have good and bad days, and everyday the calorie count starts again. Everyday, every moment we make a choice about our future but we cannot change our past. So having a good or bad day means nothing tomorrow, it starts again, learn from it and move on. You are really only going to fail if you stop trying. I am an obsessive data junky. I weigh in every day, which I intend to continue and track everything I eat, my streak in Myfitnespal is now 241 days. It is tempting to under record what you eat, because having a low number of calories in your diary feels better, but you can't lie to yourself. It is easy to cheat, but who but yourself are you cheating? This may seem like a haste land waste of time, but I spend less than 5 minutes per day on this. Of course I have a huge spreadsheet as well on which I spend a considerable amount of time obsessing over, but to me that is fun. It has my daily weigh ins since surgery as well as calories consumed and forecasts my weigh loss half a dozen different ways and tracks my performance against my progress goals. But this helps me, and I enjoy it. I read the labels on the food I eat and make a conscious choice about where I am to my calorie goal and whether what I am about to eat is worth it. This process has been a real eye opener because it is amazing just how many calories all our food contains, It is no wonder to me now why people are overweight as it really seems that every product in the supermarket and on sale elsewhere is designed specifically to be nearly as bad for you as possible, even those things we are sold as being healthy. There is no one way to do all of this. Some people exercise obsessively nearly from day 1 post op. That wasn't my way and I didn't start on the treadmill until I had lost more than 200lb. My learning here is find something that works for you and just do that. For me it was to really only eat one meal per day, plus a small snack (usually a protein bar, Oatmega bars are yum) for breakfast and lunch. Now that wasn't easy and I have been hungry a lot and that wouldn't work for everyone. However, you will find a place where you can sustain the level of effort and see results. Whatever that is for you, do that and remember what that was. If you have a bad day or week, then you will know what to go back to. This wont be easy, but you will get out of this what you put in. Surgery is not a magic bullet, it only gives you superpower of being able to eat less, the rest is up to you. The only remaining question is, "Is this all worth it?". For me the answer is definitely yes. I feel and think I look so much better. I can stand for long periods of time without the pain of my huge belly, pulling out my back. I no longer use my horrible CPAP machine. I have actually started running on my treadmill (only a few minutes at a time, but I am getting there). The downsides, so far as I can see are I am a huge ball of loose skin, and there are parts of me that as quite skinny and boney. My shoulders and arms look a bit skeletal. I have no padding on my tailbone, so I need to sit on a coccyx cushion at my desk or while driving and I am also cold all the time. Hopefully over time I will be able to overcome these, but even still if nothing changed on a net basis, for me, it was totally worth it. My next challenge is to maintain all of this. How do I start to increase my calorie intake to go from loosing to maintaining, is what I need to discover. All I know is I don't want to go back and getting here has been too much work to ever want to go back.

Great work! I know it will have been hard, but its sure worth it!

Every day the calorie count restarts. What you did yesterday means less than what you are doing today and tomorrow. So learn from it an move on.

I started at 411lb with a BMI of 54.4 and am now 192lb with a BMI of 25.4 and 3lb away from 100% excess weight loss. My advice is to track your calories, know your BMR. And weight yourself often. Figure out what works for you and keep doing it. Don’t be afraid to be hungry, it’s worth it in the end. Ultimately you will get out what you put in and the end result is largely up to you.

I am 6 months out and I am averaging about 850-900 calories per day. I am sure I could eat more but am choosing not to until I hit my goal. When i am traveling for work I take protein bars with me as meal replacements. They ar easier to manage than shakes and helps with not eating out too much.

I have has several goal weights during this journey. My initial one was 250lb, I set that when I was 412lb at my initial barbaric consultation. That was as much as I thought I could do at that time. Between then and surgery I was able to start loosing significant amounts of weight and I targeted and hit 100lb weight loss by before i went under the knife. So during that period my goal became a weight of 199lb, which I am very pleased to have reached. Now my goal is to be under 189lb, which will make my BMI under 24.9, so I am pretty close, maybe another month or so to go. Realistically at this point there is not much difference between a BMI of 26.2 and 24.9, but damn I want to hit that number so badly. Ultimately I want to balance my weight between 180 and 189lb over time. This means figuring out how to transition to maintenance, which is a bit daunting to me at this point, but I will figure it out. I have learned at each point of the journey, no reason to think I will stop now.

So things I do when I get hungry (in addition to making bad choices sometimes). 1. Have a drink. I live on Crystal Lite. 2. Sugar free jello. They are 5 or 10 cal's, so pretty hard to go wrong with that. 2. Sugar free fruit cups. The Dole or Delmonte ones are around 50 cal. That is usually enough to get me through another couple of hours. Personally I try not to think too far ahead, just get me to the next meal time if I am hungry.

I am nearly 7 months out and from my experience, the hunger doesn't really go away. For me it is a constant daily challenge of managing what I eat and dealing with being hungry. I hate being hungry and I hate being cold, but for me that is the price of getting to the weight that I have set as my goal. Undoubtedly it has been hard, and I am frustratingly close to my goal, but you get out what you put in. The question I would have or you, is how much you can eat in one session. If you can only eat a cup or less, then the surgery was probably done properly. If it is more than that, then I would agree that something is probably wrong. My suggestion is back to basics, maybe start over from the liquid diet and do a complete reset. Follow the guidelines you got following surgery slavishly for a couple of weeks and see what that does. Personally I keep a food diary in myfitnespal, something I never thought I would do. However it helps keeps me honest with myself about what I am eating, Also I agree your surgeon is an ass... No-one should call you a failure, this is really hard.

Everyone looses at different rates. For me it is around 0.4lb per day (it goes up an down a little). However my rate relates to the balance between my calories in vs calories out. I have calculated my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) at around 2200 calories per day. There are plenty of calculators online which will give you this number. I am consuming an average of 865 calories per day. In order to loose or gain 1 lb you need a deficit or surplus of 3500 calories (more or less). Therefore I have a 1335 caloric deficit which calculates out to a loss of 0.38 lb per day (1335/3500) which is +/- 10% generally of my results. That's not to say even with the same logic you will see consistent results, this just works for me and I have seen plenty of cases where these relationships don't seem to work in other people. My suggestion is to closely track your food intake, and keep a diary like myfitnesspal and once you find an approach and meal plan which works, keep doing that. You will loose at your own rate. There is no real magic too it. Generally speaking the less you eat and the more you burn, the more you will loose. At the end of the day all the surgery does for you is give you the superpower of eating less, the rest is up to you.

I now plan to have a snack each day, which is either a Jello cup and/or a Dole fruit cup. The Jello is 5-10 calories and the fruit cups (Peaches or Pineapple in fruit juice) are about 50. Jerky is also pretty good, you can get 50 cal Jacks Links snack packs from Walmart.

I started at 412lb with a 60 pants size in April 2017. At that size coasters were completely off the table. Following surgery I look my son to Kings Island and Cedar Point in August. At that time I was 238 and wearing a 38 waist. At that size I rode everything with no problem and was comfortable in my plane seat and able to use the tray table (for the first time ever.

Ultimately the decision to proceed or not is yours. You will have to live with the consequences if you have the procedure or if you don't. Its really not for anyone else to decide for you. If it were me, I would have your chosen procedure, then have the discussion with them if you must, when it is too late to matter. Personally I have been very open with pretty much anyone who asks about how I have lost my weight ("Clean living and surgery"). I haven't had anyone yet tell me I did the wrong thing, nor would I care much if they did. This was a decision I made for myself, and in the interests of my family and probably the best thing I have ever done. I can't promise you an easy road going forward because there are definite up and downsides to it, but for me the good vastly outweighs the bad and if someone can't see that for you, then thats their problem.

Having started this journey at 412lb (BMI 54.4) in April last year, and having lost 102lb prior to my surgery on 1st March 2018, and another 83.5lb since then, I am now officially overweight at a BMI of 29.9! I am still a ways from my goal, but today I am feeling very pleased with myself.

I think BMR is useful in trying to help you correlate your caloric intake to your expected weight loss. The general rule of thumb seems to be that you need to have a caloric deficit of 3500 calories to loose 1 lb of weight. My current daily BMR based on my height, weight, age and activity level is 2318. This month my average caloric intake has been 789 calories per day, which means all things being equal I should expect to loose around 0.4lb per day . However that's not to say that I actually do, because there are other factors in play here as well. Since 1st July I have lost 17lb, which is a rate of 0.37lb per day, which means either it is taking me a deficit of 4,229 calories to loose a pound of weight or I am under recording my intake and I am really eating 1,058 or some combination of the two. I think that this is all directionally useful, but is really only one of the indicators that you can use. I like it because it helps keep me on track and gives me a realistic weight loss target to shoot for each month, it also gives me a way of validating the accuracy of my calorie intake recording.

That's great progress, congratulations. Its a very long road to travel and I know there are ups and downs, but you should feel justifiably proud of your achievement to date and hold that spark to sustain you as you move forward towards your goal.

I log everything into the MyFitnessPal app. That has a big database of a foods and it tracks calories and nutrients.