FluffyChix

Awwww! You should TOTALLY post about your success! Shout it from the rooftops!!! I'm so happy for you! I only joke about the "bi*ch" thing. And vent away about the melting candle stuff!!! Gosh I SO get it. I try not to turn the lights up brightly anymore. And remember, you are the master of your own lighting ambiance! I think you should invest in rheostats and remote control for light settings. Anytime you walk into a room, the light dims. I'm so sorry you have some body dysmorphia going on right now. I PROMISE things are gonna get better!!! In six months are so, I bet you will be in a different place for sure!! ((hugs))

3 meals, 2 snacks. Eating about 2oz per mini meal. I was hungry every 2 hours until I could start getting in more protein per meal.

Woohoooo! Congrats! You look lovely!!!!!

Geeze. So sorry you are going through this. Just know from people I see who've converted, the relief they feel from the acid is pretty immediate. Like immediately after surgery. Try to glom onto that belief and just work it sistah! You CAN handle this. And it will pass quickly!!!!

I'm so happy for you!!! (And then the gremlin in me wants to add a "," and a "bi*ch" at the end...*sigh* ) Alls I know is that you have a gorgeous and enviable figure!!!! And I truly believe your body is gonna stop where its ready to stop and you will have a little bounceback down the road. Cuz I've seen it happen in too many, both here and on another site. So it kinda tells me don't fear the original "low" too much, cuz your body isn't through with the journey. You know? Embrace and enjoy!

Love this!

I think this is a valid fear and a pretty universal one for us who are MO or SMO and who have lost a crap ton of weight. I know I'm terrified. If I see a 2lb gain on the scale it makes me walk a straight and narrow line as soon as I see it! ((hugs)) I know you will figure it out. To me, it does require reviewing what kind of food we fill ourselves with. What happens if you eat a pound of pizza versus, what happens if you eat a pound of spinach?

I miss @Matt Z and @sillykitty. Wish we could get the band back together again...

Gosh me2!!! Or at least want to live for as long as I can be self-sufficient and have quality of life/fun. When that stops...then Jesus take the wheel...cuz I'm done. D-U-N-done! I DO believe these guys/gals (Dr. F. et al) are worth their weight in gold! And I so hope they are right. The things that's thrown me is his new book with that other doc--the salt dude. It has COMPLETELY different recs on protein for longevity and it looks more like Drs. Phinney and Voleks recs. So maybe it's that they are discussing "normal weight" people for longevity versus the obese/over-weight population? Dunno. But I'm just gonna choose not to stress over this--like you. I have plenty of days where I hit my goals and exceed them actually. So I'm pretty sure I'm getting good amounts consistently? Oh also, I don't know if you've noticed this about yourself? But I could swear my batwings are "smaller" than they were previously? I also read that part of shrinking them involves getting rid of the fat in them, so the cells are signaled to eat the extra skin? No reference articles on this--just a shmo on the internet and so I agree with his premise and choose to adopt it. *snort* I don't think you have to worry about DLST and an hour here or there when you are regularly eating as you do within that 6 hour window. You're doing an 18:6 fast every day! Wooohooo! Bravo!

Doing a long fast. Don't know where I'm gonna stop it. Gonna see how far I can go today. I will confess to being totally confused about protein and LBM retention. I "think" (whether it is cognitive dissonance or not), that I'm gonna choose to magically believe in Dr. Fung's premise...that WHILE losing, we don't need to hit the optimal protein goals for longevity because if we fall below our daily protein goals now and then, and do it long enough, then the body WILL go into autophagy and get the proteins from the things we don't need (i.e. extra skin, empty fat cells, broken proteins, old dead cells, etc.) But gosh, I surely don't know the truth. And I don't know how me doing this long fast is any different than @Sheribear68 doing a long IF being still so new to WLS. Wish I had real answers rather than opinions! What I do know is that I'm used to fasting on Mondays and Tuesdays and I kinda "look forward" to those days to get back on track and clean out after the weekend. I guess I don't feel so guilty about the weekends by doing this. I'm not losing much--maybe 1-2lbs/month doing it this way--mostly just maintaining between 142-146lbs. Sigh. LOL. Happy Monday! How's everyone else doing?

@Sheribear68 Welcome. Hope you hang out with us and play. IMHO, you are not ready for IF. Before trying IF, it's incredibly important for your doc/RD to be on board with the program/plan. But it's also super necessary to be able to get in your water every day AND be able to eat enough quantity to get your protein down to meet protein goals--whatever they may be. To me, eating 1/4c of food is too little of a volume to be able to justify IF--you probably are alreay IF everyday just be virtue of your calorie reduction <600 cals/day? You have to do things slowly. Focus on healing your body from the surgery and just keep carbs low while getting your healthy dense protein in each day (and all your water)!!!

I like it. 🤪🥳🥰😂 But I’m just incredibly average—so it actually is applicable to me. I played along with my Mom’s opinion that I was just “big boned” all my life until I had the surgery and lost a ton of weight and discovered I wasn’t. LOL, the big fat lie was exposed. I’m average and trying to get into normal. 🍾🍾🍾

How cool!! Sitting here drink a cup now! 🤩 Doxorubicin=Red Devil. Gosh I hated that drug! But it did it’s job. So weird how things change. 8 years ago my onc made me stay away from all vitamins and antioxidants—especially ECGC in green tea. They didn’t want to risk it protecting the cancer from the chemo and radiation. Won’t it be cool for this to translate to human cancers to become a super killer?!! Thanks for sharing. I always love your shares!

Hey y'all. Just wanted to share a milestone I'm very proud of and actually doubted ever being able to reach. I just had my 1 year surgeon's and RD's visit after RNY surgery. A year ago I was here (yes that tree was my happy spot, and it stayed up until St. Patrick's Day *snort*). And here I was at my most recent high, very sick weight of 287lbs (about 2 years ago). When I first saw my surgeon, I had been dieting on my own for 6 months and had lost down to 256lbs. The 256lbs was used to compute my RNY 6 month countdown. I'm the one of the left in case you were wondering--all 287 lbs. Most of you know my story so I won't bore you with it here. I was very sick and on a ton of meds for everything from high BP to asthma, cancer drugs, thyroid meds (I think about 12 in all--not including vitamins). Fast forward one year and today I'm only on 3 drugs: PPI, cancer drug, thyroid pill (which I can hopefully wean off of when I reach goal) + eleventy billion vitamins/minerals=fair trade! And here I am as of yesterday. I have a raging cold and feel terrible, still feel MILES better than I did what feels like so very long ago. I'm 56 years old and per my doc and RD I am at "goal weight" at 142lbs. I still want to lose another 7-12 lbs. I don't think I'm at risk of becoming too thin. And I'm pretty sure when all is said and done and maintenance starts, my booty will still be there. LOL. But we'll see what the next 6 months of continued weight loss efforts + exercising/toning bring to the equation. Today I focus on eating the most nutritionally dense, calorically light (hello, cuz I still want to lose) meals that I can find, with time off for poor choices and bad behavior. I'd say I'm about 95% on plan and 5% forkin' off on average and it fits my life. I'm asked all the time if I have any regrets or if I'm "sad I can't still have such-and-such." But what people don't get is that it isn't about what I can't eat, it's about choosing to not eat in a way that won me a lifetime invitation to the Obesity Ball. I can still eat anything and everything I want and in sufficient quantities to be a danger to myself and small rodents. So from that perspective, nothing changed from pre to post-surgery. I have zero. Repeat. Zero. Regrets. "No REGERTS" hehe (other than not doing this years ago). I've had very very minor no complications, and my life is infinitely improved--even with the baggy saggy skin, elephant testicals on my upper thighs, and hairless Sue on my head. Yes there is hair loss of significant proportions. That's my "pagent hair" I'm wearing. I try to walk 1 hour per day 6-7 days per week and am trying very hard to start toning and building muscle and improving my balance and strength. None of those are my strong suits--I'm not a big exercise fan, but I'm learning to love it and learning new tools/skills to help me maintain this loss and lifestyle for the long term. I hope this helps lift someone up who might be knee deep in the suck today, and I offer this post as proof that tomorrow DOES come. And it IS a better tomorrow. Jeremiah 29:11 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. If a weak, reckless, broken down old crone like me can do this, how much better will you be able to? I want to thank every VET and Sophomore and person who has helped me along on this journey from fat to fit to fabulous!!! Thank you for your time, patience and answering my millions and billions of questions over this time!!!! And thanks to Alex and his team for building such an incredible site to get and give support where we can also find those things we need to help make our journey easier!!! TY Bariatric Pal. It's been a great year and I'm looking forward to Year 2.

Dang. Welcome to the group and glad you are doing so well! Hope you dive in and post often. Congrats on 100lbs down!

Holy cow! Thanks for sharing and welcome to coming out of lurkdom! Post often! Congrats on being 100lbs lighter and on getting control of things. So happy for you.

I spent $14.99 at BigLots for a Hamilton Beach one--looks kinda like a NutriBullet. Get's the job done on my green smoothies and that's about all I use it for. I have other tools for other things. I skipped the mush/puree stage and went straight to softs per my doc.

Ha! Then come back here and tell ALL the secrets!

Wooohooooo girl!!! Congrats on 16 months of fun and games! Great foods and food pix + great photo journal of you. You're smokin' it girlie! We demand piccys of the bikini when summer hits! You are such an inspiration and an uplifting spirit here. So happy to know you!! 🍾🎉🍾🎉

Maybe ask your fave Indian restaurant their secret?

You can do it! (Oh god...the summer swimsuit season...*sob*) I can't wait to watch. Will you post your experiment here? Like your menus/volume you eat? I'm still trying to hit my 140lb goal. I was back down to 142, then up to 146. Today I'm at 144lbs. And yeah, would love to be able to drop 10 by the summer. It's so very hard. I'm back to doing 10K+ steps per day. It takes me longer than 1 hour, so I'm going as far as I can and consistently getting over 3miles/day. But little to no movement. Trying to trick my body with doing diff cals each day. Now trying to hold carbs to 30 whole carbs/day again to see if I can get over 0.5 on the keto meter. I did finish eating at 7pm last night, so today I started eating at 1pm so not to push the time window. Would like to start narrowing that back towards 7pm. Having a ginormous green smoothie for first meal. I also put psyllium husk in it (10g) but don't count it cuz it makes me so mad to see the calories and carbs from it when all I'm having is 30g carbs/day. I know it does count and that I'm lying to myself...oh well. LOL.

Ah ok. So hard and fast times/windows. Let us know how it works for you--if it makes it easier?! How many times are you eating during your eating window? I feel like I have to get 3 meals in to get all my food in. 😕 And often I feel like that just keeps my insulin jacked up cuz there's never enough "non-eating" time in that eating window? Do you feel that way?

'splain please, Lucy? Not following what you have been doing. I pretty much finish eating at 8pm. So then I go to 2pm for a 16:8. Or I go to 4pm for an 18:6. That's what most of my times are. Sometimes though I finish at 6 or 7, then I will take it back the 2 hours to either 12 or 2. Is that what you're saying? I've just flat decided (again) that I can't do longer than 18hours. Cuz I've got to try to get my protein in without over eating portions. 😕 Listening to Dr. Phinney talk, he really goes way higher on protein reqs than Dr. F. It's highly confusing. But I do know that I've lost lean body mass along with the fat...so dunno. 😕 What are your thoughts on the whole protein thing? I can post Phinney links about protein/keto and his take on IF if you want?

IDK. I think you are a fairly unique lady and VET. Maybe in the top 1-3% of people/"types". You DID learn your lessons while losing. You DID incorporate your doc/RD instructions and adapted them to work for you long term. And when you experience regain for any reason, you've set a protocol that is inspiring and amazing to watch. And it gives me hope for my future--that I'm not doomed to regain it all without being able to maintain. Because you quickly and efficiently go back to your roots and get rid of the regain. I feel like the OP has not done the work. Or maybe the surgery was the wrong surgery for him/her? We are all so unique, one solution won't fit all. They claim the reason for the regain and for not getting lower to their goal was based on undisciplined behavior. But if you lack discipline before, what will change this time? How will you magically change for good? Any of us can do things for short periods of time. But being "habilitated" sometimes, even more than being "RE-habilitated" is important. Not all of us can do that on our own. Not everyone learns things the first time. Maybe some of us DO need the surgeon revision or the RD new plan/accountability that meetings provide? Maybe we DO need bariatric therapy to discover what is driving us to self-harming behaviors? It usually isn't the short game that's the problem for any of us...it's playing for the long game. It is about changing lifelong behaviors for long term success. And that's a TALL order for most of us (the other 97%). Dunno...just spit balling here.

Congrats and welcome. Hope you will stick around and post often! Keep up the great work and can't wait to hear how your world unfolds!