FluffyChix

I think this is pretty old news as others have said. When I entered the program, I knew up front that RNY loses more than VSG by percentages over time. But the research is showing that over an 18month time frame, the loss percentages are very very close for both surgeries.

Ok, dayum girl. Great chart! And I just noticed you're almost out of the 150s! Weren't you just in the 160s like a blink of an eye ago? LOL! Congrats!! (Bahahaha on your assistant hating you most days!) Dr. Weiner talks about using veggies and fruit as filler as your tum naturally relaxes and gains capacity. He says it's an expected occurance. So I just figured I'd learn that early on. I actually did that for a long time, I could just eat a crap ton of volume always! So it works at least for me. July was cray! They took me off BP meds and I gained like 13lbs in 9 days. And it hung around and hung around til they put me back on my diuretic. Even though my BP isn't high anymore. I have chemo/radiation damage to my heart...so I may have to stay on the diuretic long-term. We'll see. I just stopped to eat my 1st meal. Had to skip brekky--too busy and not interested enough. It was a hefty lunch. Forgot I had leftovers that need to be eaten (chicken saltimbocca and grilled veggies with parm--delicious but I can taste the richness of the fat and cheese and hope I'm not in for trouble in about 20 minutes. dayum can you tell i didn't cook that cuz of the olive oil in it.) It will be interesting to see if I lose anything this week. So far I'm still at 161.4 but I'm chill with it. Tonight is our last regular season baseball game, so anticipate I will use this time and eat cheese popcorn and peanuts from the shell. I've budgeted, so I hope to be okey dokey. I think you're gonna be better in Italy than on either the Mai Tai trip or the beer trip! Can't wait to see it. And I would love if you'd post piccys in Italy of your restaurant hijinx!!! Your chart def matches up with your vacays. But look how quickly you get back to business when you return and the chart flattens out again! That's outstanding!! Yes, I think all of this is one major guess for all--docs included! I think nutritional science is only now developing. And we're in for a few surprises and paradigm shifts along the way.

Very very interesting! Thank you for sharing this @GreenTealael! I'm gonna have to go dig up this study and read it. Kinda eye opening about the ADF stuff too! What I don't know is how I can implement it into our lives. Cuz Mr. F. doesn't get home early and wants to eat between 7:30 and 8pm. And I don't want to further hilight the differences in him eating and me by eating without him, then not eating at night. So I have to get more answers and figure this out! BTW, I love this guy and just subscribed to his channel! He's easy to understand, entertaining (handsome) and obviously walking the walk!!! TY!

@GreenTealael I think you really have to follow what you know to be true for yourself and your body! ((hugs)) So sorry you're puny, and am hoping you heal quickly!! Having the #2 trains off-schedule is no stinking fun. I struggle with that too. You know, being vegan/vegetarian for years, it is entirely possible that you lack some of the enzymes for digesting meat-sources protein. I know that happens for beef, I'd think it would also be the case for other things as well? I look forward to your menus/pics!! Thanks for the link! I am gonna go listen to it asap!!! @sillykitty Gosh I used to love beer--biergartens--etc! And man it would pack on the pounds overnight! I think you've figured it out. I bet Italy will be better--maybe even with the pasta! You can drink way more beer than you can eat pasta! So that may save you! Your vaca sounds so fun! Damn I wanna come work for you and be your assistant!!! Or a minion!!! Please don't not take pics cuz of me!!! This isn't the Fluffy Show! This is our IF journey girlie!!!!! I think as long as we hit our protein needs, we'll probably be fine? LOL. It's a crap shoot right? Please take those vitamins!!! It felt good not eating dinner last night. Never thought I'd say that one. But I just really couldn't manufacture any desire to so the coffee with PP in it hit the spot. Even though Mr. F. was eating the leftovers I made for him. Love those re-imagined dinners! Hehe! I don't think I'm gonna push for 3 squares on IF days either. I will just push for protein mins. Today is an UD and I am not hungry right now. And am busy working. So I don't quite know when my first meal will be. I'm gonna try to sneak in a walk before I break my fast though. (Odd how I don't mind the plain decaff with Miralax...)

Here's my chart of the last 180 days. You can see I drop to a new low then uptick. So it's very stair-steppy. LOL. Drives me bonkers even though I know to expect it now! My stuff looks like a lot of food, cuz, well...it is! That's what my RD couldn't figure out either. She's like, "You can't satisfy your nutritional needs on 500-600 calories per day. It just can't be done!!!" I asked her why I had to add fat from external sources, when I was sitting on a mountain of fat on my ass that I was trying hard to lose? She couldn't answer that question. Then she saw my food pics and has been quite about my cal count ever since! LOLOLOLOL! That's pretty much the biggest things I've cut out besides grains/legumes. I eat adequate low fat protein (4oz of shrimp=80cals. LOL!), a ton of veggies--almost no cals, I eat a little fruit--almost no cals, eggwhites--50 grams is like 25cals, I eat fake cheese (2% or ligheter--low cals, like 25cals for a wedge of light HEB laughing cow, I eat FF and low fat dairy, very few nuts unless I can squeeze them into my cals for the day. Very low on beef and high cal items. And if I can keep myself from it--I stay away from full fat, lovely, yummy rich cheese! 1 ounce of cheese can set you back anywhere from 100-200 cals for 1 ounce! Plus I take pics very close up. I have a crap, old phone, and it takes grainy photos plus I shake. LOL. So it helps to balance my arms on the table and take a close shot. Smoke n' mirrors baby, Smoke n' mirrors!

Fork me! Sorry dudes!

Yesterday was a tough day. I had a lymphedema flare in my arm and it's very painful when that happens. On top of that I was so busy, and had to try to work with one arm elevated on pillows and only using one hand on the computer. Oy! Try being a one-handed graphic designer. So. Slow. It was a great IF day. I tried having just a quick cottage cheese/fruit breakfast with some fiber cereal. We were out of Grk yogurt. And I tried pineapple (fresh). Big mistake. I was starvin marvin until the afternoon. But then started feeling so bad that I lost every speck of appetite. So ended up only having protein coffee for dinner and didn't get all my protein in for the day. Oh well. One day isn't the end of the world. I didn't take pics of my egg puff. You guys know what that looks like! B1-Coffee + Miralax + Colace B2-Cottage Cheese with Bing Cherries and Pineapple L-Egg Puff (ew, turk saus crumbles, mushrooms, spinach, onion mix, lt cheese wedge) AS-BH Turkey + Asian Salad Mix (just the greens part--no dressing or toppings) + WF Italian Dressing D-protein coffee Here's my food log for the day - 500 cal DD (under on cals and protein)-Click to enlarge.

Awww sweetie! It's totally about being sick, the sodium in broths, and cold meds! Ugh!! So sorry you're sick and those pesky pounds came on board. But yeah...the scale drives me crazy when it's bad to me, and excites/motivates when it's good to me. Me=Mental! Glad you went to the doc and are fixed up with stuff to help you feel better!! That is an impressive weight graph girl!!! Mine doesn't look anything like that lol. But that sharp rise looks more like an event that caused a big water spike--like travel or something weird. I get those when my edema flares up. Ugh! @sillykitty

Yes, I know this of course. I was just questioning if it's really "albuterol" that causes hair regrowth and how do you use it for that purpose? I thought maybe you meant a different thing and typed albuterol instead.

I will also get up and walk around the house!

Oh wow, okkkkkk DEF the late nite hummus and pita! I missed that before! If all you had was that tiny amount of G2. Pfffff. That ain't even enough to deactivate the IF in my HO. I 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% agree about seeing the menu/planning ahead of time. I plan that meal first from the menu and plug it in, so I know what to do with the rest of the day. LOL! What a goober, right? If it's on the fly...then FM!!! It's very very difficult in that case and triple that if it's Asian or Mexican. *sigh* And yes, I completely get and understand the whole ordering off the App menu or the side menu of the add-on menu. It totally torks me! I WANT an entree! But I've really gotten to where I hate leftovers from restaurants and I used to love them. And I feel so guilty ordering a full size entree. To make matters worse, Mr. F. and I have different food preferences especially now. And I get tired of his stuff. Plus he hates to share. He will eat every last morsel on his plate and if I ask to share, he gives me like a bite or two. LOL. And then I get angry. So yeah, I try to find cheap alternatives and usually do just fine. But still...gah! It's just complicated. Right? I don't know what to say about the metabolism. I also share this fear big time! It's hard to think you are taking in very many cals given your quantities. So the 4.5lbs gain is a stumper. Could that be more travel edema and salt/alcohol/flying rather than real weight gain due to diet? I DO think that increasing calories slowly is easier on us rather than doing it all at once...I've done both and felt like the gradual worked better for me without stalls/gains. The other way, I for sure pack on about 5-10lbs then stall for a few weeks. Then I "may" get back to losing, or maybe I won't. What is strange for me this past week with the IF is that normally, if I eat 1000cals or more, I will be guaranteed to wake up with anything from a 2-6lb gain overnight. That didn't happen here, even on the nights I had a glass of wine and the bread. I'd wake up with maybe 1 to 1 1/2lbs overnight? Maybe? Sometimes, the scale just stayed the same. Then when I would do my DD, the next day I'd either be the same or I'd be down a bit. If I do UDs that are fairly low carb/no wine, then I just start racking up the losses without gains on the UDs. That's been my pattern with JUDDD in the past and it's looking like that may be my pattern again?

I hear ya on ordering from a menu. If I can pick the place, then I can find something (usually) semi-healthy that's still somewhat appealing (ie What is anything NOT a grilled chicken salad for $500 Alex?)! *snort* Dayum, now pimiento cheese sammys sound so dang good!!! I honestly don't know up from down right now @sillykitty. The research has all been done on people with normal anatomy. And that's the research that comes out of the calorie restricted labs. Dr. Krista Varady also talked about this in her ADF book. BUT, I'm not sure if we actually fall into this bracket. You know? I "hear" we're different by virtue of our anatomy. But my RD isn't treating me that way. She wants me to be at 1200-1500 cals like I was pre-op. And I'm like, well crap! I can't even get to 850cals on a consistent daily basis without gaining now! So I don't know what the fork is up. I think my thyroid has shifted more out of whack and I need a fix for it. But if you hear other people on other forums talk, they say that "starvation mode" and down ramping of metabolism doesn't apply to WLS peeps. I honestly don't know. I have no idea if I've tanked my metabolism or not? Cuz I already had thyroid issues. I see people here all the time who did 600-800 cals to lose, then in maintenance are eating 1200-2000 cals (some more!) And it doesn't seem to have affected them? Others, I see gaining at those caloric levels. I do know that in this first week of IF, I was able to eat higher cals on my UDs while keeping my DDs no more than about 50-100 cals less than most of my other average days and I've lost this 5lbs of weight. Dr. Varady and Dr. Johnson amd Dr/ Moseley of the 5:2 Diet claim that alternating days of doing DDs no more than 2-3 consecutive, helps protect from down ramping. But I think it's one ginormous guess when it comes down to it? Yikes on the G2! What a pisser! But wooohoooo on the 4 hour window of IF. You are hungry today cuz of the G2. So you are just gonna have to muscle through it and maybe focus on eating protein when you feel hunger to help get you over that sugar hangover hump. ((hugs)) LOL, on easier at home. *sigh* Can we just say, ain't nuttin' easy about this sh*t? ROFLMAO!

BTW. I'm sorry you had a stressful and emotionally trying weekend. We're here if you want/need to vent!

I completely understand! ((hugs)) Congrats on still being down 0.5lbs today! I don't get how we can be totally rational hbs, sticking to our plan during the week--then completely lose it by Friday night. Or at least that seems to be my pattern. I gotta get more boring peeps--it's all their fault. Right? hehe. Anyways. Today is a brand new day!!! Have a good one Matt!

09.03.18 | 09.10.10 Weight: 166.4lbs | 161.4lbs (-5lbs Wk 1 IF) 08.20.18 Measurements | New Measurements Due 9.20.18 Chest 40.5 Waist 32.5 Hips 41.5 Neck 13.5 Right Thigh 22 Left Thigh 22 Right Arm 11 Left Arm (Lymphedema from cancer) 12.5 ****** Woohooo! Despite some less-than-great choices, this was a pretty good week for IF from a weight perspective. Won't know the true value until I measure in about another week+ because I believe the measuring tape more accurately tracks fat loss or fat/muscle equilibrium. I'm very satisfied with these results and look forward to doing more of it. (Of course, I think most of this is water weight, but I'd be happy with a couple of those pounds being actual fat loss!) Yesterday was fairly on-track despite the cravings! Damn! I wanted serious shenanigans in the form of pita chips and cheese! Gosh is that monster strong-willed. I thought I'd perhaps snuffed him out over the past few months--but I think once a carb monkey, always a carb monkey and the only way to keep it at bay is to stay low carb (and keep the mother trucker out of my house)!! I would have liked better macros (more protein to meet my 74g goal and less fat grams). Yesterdays food was yummy. Two meals + PP Coffee + Bacon (1/4 piece) B1/B2: Protein Coffee L: shrimp and chicken taco salad sans chips D: l/o blackened salmon, broccoli with Molly McB, sliced tomatoes (Big Brother night so pardon the flash and TV tray. What you can't see is me in my flannel PJs in my recliner and BB on in the background. LOLOLOLOL!) Here's yesterdays (09.09.18) Food Log: (click to enlarge) Oh, I forgot to add, it's going to be a crazy week with quite a few networking demands for business which means nights out with dinner/drinks. Then my birthday celebration Sunday night and next Monday. Whanh whanh whanh...it's easy to be good in a vacuum. Not so easy to be good when living life out with others. Super duper nervous about this! So I'm gonna do as many DDs as possible on the "off days". The JUDDDD research shows that you can go about 3 days without tanking your metabolism being calorie restricted. So I'm going to go for back-to-back DDs again and another one on Wednesday--then will try to have a Saturday DD. (that will be a challenge for sure). DD/UD Rotation for the week: Sun-M-W-Sat - DDs (500 cals) Tue-Thur-F - UD (1000+ cals)

True dat. Marchin' toward the finish! Oh and thank you for the re-assurance!!! (Oh and also, not every entry is totally accurate. For instance the place where we had the flatbread pizza doesn't have the nutrition listed in MFP and I'm too lazy to go manually make a flatbread and save it. So to be simple, I just think the PH flatbread is probably pretty close to things and probably over. So I just find foods that are as close to the composite meal that I can and if I have to add extra items, to that listing then I do--and it's way easier than inputting it from scratch. LOL. Pizza Hut and I broke up many many many moons ago! And like the spinach dip, I've no idea if I actually ate 6Tbsp--probably not, cuz the serving was only like a 1/2c serving and I didn't eat 1/2 of that...so I'm trying to over-estimate rather than "think" I'm eating less. You know?

By the way, I can "obliterate" his image from the photo some time. (Not this week--but in a couple of weeks, I'd have time to do that for you.) Just sayin'...

Holy guacamole! Congrats girl! You look wowza! And I'm pretty sure you should send a pic to the ex along with this song:

Oh geeze! I'm SO sorry you are dealing with this and are helpless to effect any change! ((hugs)) You just naturally want to assume your fam is making good choices and not jeoparding their lives--especially the well being, health and happiness of those kiddos!!! Sending hugs and prayers your way!!

That's what I'm hoping! So far I'm down 3.6lbs from last Monday weigh in but it's unofficial. Of course, most if not all of that is probably just water weight-cuz I'm still 0.4lbs up from my low weight of 262.6lbs. Today I'm doing a DD! And so far am still semi-fasting. I've had 4.5oz of PP in decaff over 4 hours. So very slow addition of those cals. I'm hoping tomorrow will bring a new low!

See? I look at the food and think, "Finally! Someone who eats as much volume as I do!" Cuz you know, there's comfort in knowing you're not the alone. But knowing I can eat this much means, for me to personally lose, I HAVE to watch everything! I have to keep my cals super low, try very hard to keep fat low, protein adequate and keep carbs low-ish-er. Some days I slip and am bad. I'm def. NOT a saint! But I agree with @KimTriesRNY that it looks like you are eating a generous portion of your food as slidery carbs and as @GreenTealael mentioned, you are eating things that are hard to control quantities on: nuts and raisins--pasta. It looks like many of your meals are very very calorie dense to me. I can def eat more casserole/lasagna/tikka masala/etc type composite meals than I can when I eat a separate dense protein and veg/salad. I agree the amounts of sugars in some of the meals

Get thee to a gym. Start some muscle building program. Get them to work with you on building core strength and muscles that will help you stand taller. Start adding back protein and fats to up your cals so you can build muscle when you're working out! Sorry you're going through this, but you know, it's an evolution. We don't magically know how to live in a thin body. Right? ((hugs))

Ok, so yesterday turned out to be a craptastic day for me as well. What I intended to be a medium day 750cals -- so i could switch out my UD/DD rotation (MD=average of an UD and DD=(UD+DD)/2) ended up being an UD over 1000cals. Gah! I have so much difficulty from Friday night through Saturday and then Sunday I finally return to the flock. Well flock me!!! I should also mention that I had tons of fatty cheese and even butter as well as pita chips and got so sick again. Ugh. Honestly, it's crazy that I know by now I will feel very bad after eating stuff like this, so why do I still do it, knowing what will happen? I feel as if I'm rebelling and that began about the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th month. (Oh I hear all you "I told you so-ers out there." But I'm still in adjustment mode about this. It has not vanquished me by a long shot. I WILL succeed over these urges and reign supreme in my own shell. LOL.) So in the spirit of honesty and openness, I will post my craptastic UD as well as the good DDs and perfect UDs. LOL. At least I walked like cray yesterday! Here are the foods I photo'd: my cobbled together lunch on Friday of l/o grilled chickie boob + 1/4 of the egg foo young (HM). And then my l/o grilled chicken avo tom lettuce wrap with carrots. Craptastic UD Food Log 090818 (click to enlarge)

@GreenTealael OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG! I'm so happy I know how to ping you! Thank you @sillykitty for showing me! Feel better sweetie!!! I will say, dayum, you sure cook purty food when you're sick!! I would so eat ALL of that! What's your soup and chicken? @sillykitty Your day sounds delish! Love Korean/Vietnamese/many diff Chinese regional cuisines/Japanese/allthingsAsian #gimmealltheasianfood! Wow on the $30. No doggie bags I guess with AYCE I guess I would have had to stay all dayum day and focus on the expensive items--crab, lobster, shrimp, sea scallops, tenderloin, etc. Good that you met all your protein/fluid goals! Yeeehawww! @mattz I really admire your resolve and fortitude about not eating after 6pm. I'd love to be able to work toward that--especially since I do get up early like you. But Mr. F. is rarely home before 6 and def isn't ready to eat at that time. I'll have to talk to him about that schedule and see if we can work towards it. I know eating at 8pm is slowing me down. Where are all our other peeps who are working IF plans??? Come out, come out wherever you are!!!

Depends on perspective. I look on it as both a gift and a tool. Of the millions who want or need the surgery, I was actually able to receive the surgery. It's changed my life and actually given it back. I've very grateful to the tool/gift and team that did the surgery and have been my support along the way.