Berry78

Your wish is my command!

People may be getting bored of the protein one.. how about asking how many carbs (and from whence they come)?

I think we figured out what is causing Meryline's hunger. She is a hair's breath from goal, and needed to increase her calories/protein/nutrition. Sometimes hunger isn't a bad thing!

The average response is people seem to notice losing about half their hair, evenly over their head. (same for me.. I'm 7 months out and have been losing since the preop diet... but it does seem like the losses are slowing down a tad). Usually the regrowth starts around 9 months or a year postop. (Fingers crossed for myself). Oh my gosh! How long ago was your surgery, and which procedure did you get? Do you have a plan for getting your levels back up?

Y'all run with a different crowd than I. People ask me "how are you?" all the time, but I just take it to mean the same as it ever means to anyone. It's a form of greeting. I've had all of two people comment on my losses. One was my daughter's boyfriend, and he ONLY said something because my daughter encouraged him to (she knew it would make me feel like someone had NOTICED!). The other one just asked if I'd lost weight, and that I looked good. I did have an interesting interaction with someone yesterday. She herself had a bypass 10 years ago, I know her because she worked with my teenage daughter back around the time of my surgery. She knows about my surgery, but hadn't seen me since I started losing weight. So I'm 98 pounds down, but she didn't say a peep about my weight loss. Instead, she started talking about how her daughter steals clothes out of her closet to wear. I admitted the shirt I was wearing came out of my daughter's closet! LOL!

Ok, I read a very interesting website that talked about how we absorb B-12. Essentially, our recommended daily intake is 3.5mcg. Most foods that are good sources of B-12 have this amount in one or two servings. There are two methods the body utilizes to digest/absorb B-12. One is the normal way, where "intrinsic factor" (a chemical created in the stomach) attaches to B-12, and ushers the B-12 out of the small intestine, into the blood stream. The second way is a "passive system", which doesn't require intrinsic factor. B-12 just slips out into the bloodstream by itself. BUT, this passive system is VERY inefficient, and so only 1/100th of the B-12 makes it into the blood. We sleevers, we had the portion of the stomach removed that makes intrinsic factor. So the first method doesn't work anymore. The second method works, but look at the numbers. If a serving of B-12 food has 3.5mcg, but you only absorb 100th of it, then you'd have to eat 100 servings of that food to meet your daily goal. Excess B-12 is stored in the liver, and if your liver is full, it can provide your B-12 needs for 5 or 10 years. Since your blood work is showing dropping levels, it may mean your liver isn't full anymore, so the supplements become more important. There is no proof the patch works, so don't count that in your figuring out how much B-12 your body is getting. Your pill has 1000mcg, so you are absorbing about 10mcg a day. But, that's statistically, and we don't know if the particular supplement you take is as easily absorbed as the ones used in the studies. So it's possible, you aren't even getting 10mcg. The shot, however, is the surefire way that you are getting this supplement, since it bypasses the digestive system completely. If your liver is running low, it could take a while before the shot fills it back up enough to reflect in a much higher number in your blood. Since your blood value did go up, the shot is definitely doing its job. http://www.b12-vitamin.com/intrinsic-factor/ Here's the website:

Fingers crossed you don't have compartment syndrome.. Let us know how it turns out..

Pretty sure my extended family doesn't care for me much either ... I dunno why.. oh well, their loss

I'll have to report back r.e. avacados. Haven't bought one in a while. I figure I can eat half of one, but not sure what I'll be able to eat with it.

My 11 year old son (an Aspie), can't help himself, and keeps calling me fat. He didn't do that before surgery.. so he's noticing the difference, but yes, I'm STILL 50lbs overweight.. so it's true. He himself is rail-thin, and is paranoid about becoming heavy. I have to tread carefully around him because he'd be prone to become anorexic. The adults in the house are jealous, so started their own diets. But it really hasn't changed anything in our relationships. I always wore the britches.. they're just smaller now My biggest challenge is in trying to "help" them with their diets. Either they expect someone to do 100% of the work.. feed them what they are supposed to have for every meal.. or they want to rebel against the plan and secretively "cheat". It's a weird place to be, because, obviously they need a plan that they are comfortable with and that they can feel in control of. But since they don't do the legwork to figure out why they should eat some things, and not eat others (which is what I'm all about).. they don't have that foundation of true understanding. Without a good foundation, the house will fall. Any diet book you pick up makes a strong case for its own diet, eschewing all others. Much like religion. In the past, I'd read a book, fall for the enticing claims, and come out at the end with something that was unsustainable. So I'm trying to create something new without having to quote any one author. Find my own path through the weeds by looking at each thing individually and figuring out how they fit together. The only way I can do this is by having GOBS of free time, and I do, because I don't work right now..

Half-Tum, you are a riot! Thanks!!

1oz nuts is about 14g fat. 3.5oz avacado is about 14g fat. (Lol, there'd be no room for salad!) 1.5oz cheese has 14g fat I already eat the nuts, so that makes sense. But cheese and avacado really don't show up in my current plan. At the moment.. it's autumn. Fresh salads aren't a big thing for me this time of year anyway. A teaspoon of butter on cooked veggies sounds pretty good. 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon .. so I can have 3 "meals" of cooked veggies for the same fat as 1 fresh salad.

Nourishing Traditions was my bible about 10 years ago. Interesting article: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/80/2/396.full Ok, so for those that don't want to read the study.. basically they tested the carotenoid absorption after eating salad with fat free dressing, reduced fat dressing, and full fat dressing. (Carotenoids are the plant pigments that give them their bright colors and are thought to be good for us.. for example the "Vit. A" found in carrots). Each salad weighed 8.8oz, and contained spinach, romaine, shredded carrots, and cherry tomatoes. They added 1oz dressing to each salad. The test subjects absorbed pretty close to zero carotenoids from their salads with fat-free dressing. Yep. You think you're doing that great thing by squirting lemon juice on your salad.. and you don't get to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins at all!!! They absorbed lots of the carotinoids from the full fat dressing (2 tablespoons of dressing provided 28g fat). The reduced fat dressing had 6g fat, and they absorbed about half as many nutrients. I'm sad they didn't test something between 6 and 28g fat.. there is a big grey area there where maybe we don't need a whole 28g. Our salads are more apt to weigh about 4.4oz since we have tiny tummies, so our equivalent dressing would be 1 tablespoon.. 14g fat. There had been a previous study with cooked veggies, and 5g added fat (1 teaspoon) may have been enough to absorb the nutrients from that. Either way, these quantities of fat ARE small compared to what people like to do, dumping a gazillion tons of dressing on their salads... but for me, I'm watching my calorie goals go flitting out the door! Eek!

Some days you WILL mess up. We all do! But that's ok! 2 steps forward, 1 step back.. still gets you there, it just takes longer! Who cares how long it takes? This isn't a race. *Beating yourself up when you go off plan is MUCH more harmful than going off plan ever could be.* (Well, in a literal sense.. don't go slam down a big mac on your way home from the hospital after surgery.. that would be very dangerous! But if you know your life is on the line during the first 2 months postop, usually that's enough to get through that time frame without messing up. It's later when that big mac won't kill you that the struggle is likely to become real.) Anyone with addictions needs outside help. Counseling, group therapy, support groups, all of that. {Hugs} You aren't alone. MANY people on this board struggle with just this thing.

I found a really interesting study that was done on the microbiota changes across the lifespan. Very small children and the very old (80+) have a relatively high number of "bad bugs", whereas everyone else has a minimal number of them. There was another difference that I'd have to look into more, where infants have a large proportion of a certain type of good bug, and they consistently dwindle through life to be virtually gone by time you're 80+. So, from that study, I don't think the super elderly have a special kind of good bug that made them live longer. (But, the bugs were separated into phyla, not individual strains, so it's possible they did have higher proportions of certain critters within families). We had a special occasion yesterday, and so we were supposed to have cake. My hubby was prepared to drive an hour to go get some extra special cake, and I was like, not interested AT ALL! We did have cake, and it was very good (from a local place), but I was almost the opposite of craving it. I was shocked, however by how much cake I could eat once I started, because I did enjoy it. Couldn't handle the frosting, though.. way too sweet. No restriction on soft, moist cake! Good to know! Lol! If I've been craving anything, it's sweet potatoes and butternut squash. That stuff is da bomb! Sweet and orange. My newest dilemma is how to make sure I'm getting fat with all my veggies. I don't want to eat meat with them because I get full too fast, but if I have to add a ton of oil to them, then it increases my calorie load. It's not clear exactly HOW MUCH fat you need to efficiently digest the fat-soluble vitamins, but it's a decent amount. Yesterday I put an egg with my lentil soup, (I had missed it for a couple days), and oh my gosh, was that good. There is definitely something in eggs that I need (from the first egg I ate postop, I felt it). I eat whole eggs because egg whites alone actually make you more deficient in something (I want to say biotin).

Oh, man... I almost choked on my coffee!! Lookin' great!!

Fascinating stuff! Makes me wonder if we're all just pooppets that are having our strings pulled by our little microbiome friends (or enemas)... Toilet humor is the best.. why trash talk, when we can dump on ideas?! But in all seriousness, how on earth did they remove the ability of Drosophilia to manufacture an amino acid?? HOW??? Now I have to go see if they've analyzed poo from centenarians..

Cooking fruit makes the sugars super easy to digest... so anyone with blood sugar issues might not want to do this, or should limit their consumption and combine with fat, fiber, and/or protein to slow 'er down.

Waler, I'm interested in finding out what you have to say. Maybe you can tell us about one of your examples.

Ok, you'll need a pen and paper for this one. Wash apple and slice it up, removing core. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Add a little pat of real, salted butter. Microwave for 2-3 minutes or until done. Eat. I am now super sensitive to sweet, so need nothing extra.

Yeah, I like the number 157, but I'm not married to it. Even 185 will be thrilling!

Aww man! I wanna run around naked.. no one else wants that, but what a freeing experience! Ah well, prolly be cold, anyway. This is why I like reading about the diet/lifestyles of those that DID live a long time, so we know what may work. My grandmother lived to be 98. She worked until she was 85 as a cook. She grew up in a farming family and ALWAYS had her garden. Sugar sweetened desserts about once a week, no soda, home made meals 3 times a day, all food groups present and accounted for. (I spent a summer with her as a child, and was struck by how much cooking there was). When the kids would run through before supper, hungry! Hungry!, she had a plate of cut vegetables on the table from which they could help themselves. I'll have to ask my Aunts what they remember...

Sure, you can do it! The average loss for someone with your stats puts them at 186ish. But why would you want to be average? I like this, very much:

That ORAC scale is interesting. So hard to compare things though, since everything is measured based on a 3.5oz "serving". Works for potatoes, but not garlic! Lol. There is probably one running around that has converted the quantities to normal using amounts. I don't know, if you cook whole garlic cloves, they might be mild enough to eat 3.5 oz...

https://www.thediabetescouncil.com/what-you-should-know-about-diabetes-and-the-dawn-phenomenon/ Ok, so first your blood sugar drops during the night (probably because you haven't eaten for a while). Hormones come along to say, hey, we need more sugar! So the liver puts out sugar. The pancreas then says, oops.. too much sugar, let me put some insulin on that. In a typical person, that brings blood sugar back down, but in a diabetic, the insulin is missing or ineffective, so the blood stays over-sweet.