FluffyChix

Gosh no idea, but how miserably scary!!! Be sure to go back a stage for the next couple of days to allow your body to heal. No more pulled pork or salad for a couple of weeks. Ok? ((hugs))

Congrats on making the decision to fast. I will come back to this in a minute. I'm actually considering going back to school online to get a certification as a Health Coach. I'm looking at programs right now and really like Mark Scisson's Primal Health Coach program as a jumpstart. But I'm not at a level where I could charge for my services at this time. Thank you for your offer and belief in my knowledge. Ok, now I'm about to tell you things you don't want to hear right now. But for every thing there is a season. And this is not your IF season yet. But it could be your preparatory season for IF. You are too young in your surgery. I would wait until I was at least 7-9 months before beginning any sort of IF. Let your tool ACTUALLY do the work it was meant to do. And more importantly, before you can IF, you need to be able to EASILY get all or almost all of your daily protein in with very little problems. For most of us, that means we can eat at least 2-3oz of protein at a meal. And you must be EASILY able to get 100+ oz of fluid in you. Most of us IFers use 1 protein drink per day as a supplement, not because we need it, but because it frees us up to eat meals that have more veggies in them, or to eat in a shorter window. But we could theoretically get everything in and satisfy our protein needs with only food. You MUST be able to do that. Without feeling overly full or stuffed. You can help your tool and help prepare for IF by adjusting and dialing in your diet. Get as "clean" and "kiss" as humanly possible. You've heard me preach about it...here's what that means: 1. FOLLOW your doc's and RD's plan for you and the stage you're eating at. You MUST be able to easily get the required protein in per day that they prescribe for you. And the amount of fluids you're told to consume. 2. Follow the rules of WLS. No eating drinking 15/30 or 30/30 depending your doc's plan. 3. Get ALL of your daily vitamins in without skipping a single dose. 4. Get to walking. And maybe even get to doing core strengthening exercises. 5. Protein first at every meal/snack >> al dente veggies >> a tiny bit of healthy fats (and that's it) 6. Cut out ALL C.R.A.P. (google it)--that means no sugar, grains, starchy root veg, starches, refined products, fake stuff, "treats" such as protein bars or water drops. Severely limit the use of sugar substitutes. 7. Start drinking green tea now (I use decaff) and look into Earl Grey Tea. 8. Try to keep your carbs to <30g net per day (subtract fiber grams of carbs from the total carb count to get net carbs. 9. No "snacking". Eat 3 meals + 1-3 small mini meals per day in order to limit meal portions to the volume recommended by your doctor and to reach your protein totals each day. A mini meal is an organized, orderly, planned event. Snacking is not. Snacking is hedonistic and reckless and it's possible to do a lot of damage with a single snack event. 10. Aim to get 2-3oz of protein per meal (lean dense protein, no casseroles, no deeply satisfying gooey cheesy high reward meals. Keep is simple: grilled chicken, sauteed chicken, poached or sauteed fish, etc. No meat lube or stuff that adds to the pleasure of the food experience. **** When you follow these rules, you are stripped down to bare bones. And you are able to really look at your relationship with food and how it controls you or you control it. You realize that you can go hours without eating and that skipping a meal is not an emergency. Around the 7-9 month mark, your hunger reawakens for many and you also hit a doldrum where you start to get bored and lose focus and life seems worth living and you may start to want to break rules and play. That is the time to knuckle down, double down, and begin to exercise your IF muscle. Until then, I DO encourage you to start at the front of the IF thread and start reading. use these next months to go down the rabbit hole. You must learn and understand it, to practice it safely. ***** So sorry to hear about your melanoma dx. Regardless of stage it's a scary dx. ((hugs)) You are correct to be concerned about the quality of your diet. The best thing you can do for yourself is to get and keep your blood sugars low and keep from spiking insulin. You do that by controlling your carbs (and fats believe it or not), and by only eating to adequate protein for your body and surgery type--but that must come from your doc!

You need to either go to the ER or call your surgeon right now. This could potentially be serious--especially if you are not able to hydrate any longer. Quit eating salads right now. Eat easy foods, soft, well-cooked. If you eat anything at all. Don't eat til talking to doc.

Woohoooo! Work it girl!! Work it!!! You are officially in shrinkydink mode!

I was low carb coming into the WLS program. I believe it really helped me lose and also helped control my PCOS. It also kept me full longer. Post op, my RD/nor doctor gave me instructions about carb consumption--only about protein reqs. They also gave me samples of the diets for each phase. I made the decision to continue with my low carb plan. Very low fat keto--more like the Dukan diet. It's helped me get to goal with very little hunger respectively.

Super job! Congrats and welcome to the boards! We have a great group of people here who all help each other and encourage one another towards successes our docs' never dreamed about for us!

This is a myth. Dietary ketosis is COMPLETELY different than metabolic acidosis. The body is a very resilient organism. It will maintain (in the absence of acute and overwhelming diseases or difficiences) a pH balance in blood and tissues within a VERY narrow margin. That is part of why they test CO2 and O2 and K (electrolytes) and Ca, balance in the blood. It shows what state your blood pH is in (in an average). And it regulates the pH balance primarily through the kidneys and lungs--keeping your blood from going into metabolic acidosis or even respiratory acidosis. Both of these states are an extremely critical emergency situation--like you are dying. Osteopenia can be caused from many different things. We as bariatric pts take a crap ton of calcium. But taking calcium out of balance (which we do) CAN contribute to osteopenia--as can quick weight loss. ADEK and K2 (metabolites) are necessary to build bones by sending the calcium to the bones rather than the soft tissues or pulling minerals from the bone. I've been low carb (in and out of ketosis) for the better part of 20 years. I do not have osteopenia. I also am on Femara which can also cause osteopenia/porosis. So...I would tend to really look at the studies that are "proving" acidity because of ketosis. Just my 2cents. Sorry you are dealing with osteopenia girl!!!

Don't do cheese right now. Stick to super soft or pureed. If soft carrots start coming back up, then puree your soups and stick to liquid phase. Then test again in a few days. It's probably inflammation. In my experience with a stricture, even water was pretty impossible to get down and stay down. Glad it's better today! Also, when you have a rough day, then the next couple of days afterward, you should go back a stage and take things easy cuz your anatomy will still be inflamed from the original problem.

Congrats! I had great results too. I was only nauseated immediately post surgery for about an hour. Then I got a scapolamine patch and zofran in the iv and that took care of things!

Ok, so this was my first official birthday in maintenance! I'm pleased to report that after eating in birthday celebration mode (and drinking) for the past 2 days, I'm right back smack at goal. Scale this morning showed a very reassuring 130.6lbs. Yay Tiny Tool!!! Woot! Oh and we saw Downton Abbey yesterday and my sissies gave us pedis, lunch, and dinner! Wowza! Happy Birthday! Right? But today it's back to TCB. I'm eating lean and mean and green today cuz we have a business event tonight. This is gonna be an interesting week cuz we have another business event tomorrow night! Oh forgot to add, I had a non-WLS surgery with IV on Friday and was only up 4lbs from it. Then am back down to goal weight today including the 2 days of celebratsions!

Woooohooooo! Own it baybee!!!! Way to make that scale your little bio*ch! I bet you feel great?!!! Congrats.

Good gosh, everyone looks ah-may-zing!!! Congrats on the great work and darling outfits! It's official. I wanna be @Cheeseburgh or @ms.sss or @Healthy_life2 when I grow up. I'm so impressed by all of our shrinky dinkers (oh you know who you are) and am LOVIN' seeing your transformation outfit by outfit. I can literally see y'all shrinking in front of my eyes! Cudos!!! Crunches and bridges, and planks--Oh MY!!! Welcome to our new token dude! Cuz every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man! Congrats to you on your work and sartorial style.

Yeah, I'm not a purist, nor a super athlete or endurance pro (or trainee). And I too find OMAD difficult to do mentally cuz I "feel" like I'm trying to force more food into me at a single eating window like 60-90 minutes. And I feel longterm, trying to do that too frequently, I'd end up overeating and possibly stretching my stoma. So I will do it once in a while or as part of ADF. And when I do it, like the others said, I try to shoot for satisfying minimums. About the minimum for me on protein is about 43-46g or protein per day. So that's pretty easily satisfied by 1 Premier Protein drink, plus a normal size bari meal with 3-4oz protein + 1-1 1/2oz al dente veg + 1 tsp healthy fat. It will be a super low cal day (ADF). I defer my vitamin window as long as I can until I can still get all my vits for the day. Vits like Calcium and Magnesium might stop autophagy. But, like normies, I believe on the days we totally fast, then the breakdown of stored nutrients will sustain our vitamin and mineral status. I take my vitamins in 3 sets, spaced 2 hours apart in order to maximize absorption. So if you want to get technical, I probably break my fast in an 18:6 window, since I start taking them in the afternoon on the days I OMAD. (Oh and I will also often add a splash of Premier Protein to coffee, or an HerbOx bouillon during the fasting period--I'm on purist and was in it for the weight loss more than autophagy--although now I'm in it not for weight loss, but rather for autophagy, so rules are changing for me.) But that's when we actively have excess fat on our bodies. Once we reach goal, or are very low in fat stores, EVERYthing changes...and entering into long term caloric deficit has detrimental potential, with protein status as well as vitamins and minerals. But when we have lots of extra fat--no issues. I do believe that done correctly, we can have periodic episodes of severe caloric restriction (without vitamin supplementation) and be perfectly fine. In fact it helps longevity. But that is something done once a month or quarter depending on your health status. Hope that helps.

Well, I have no pain. I make sure to keep my vitamins going per my doc and per my labs. So that is SUPER important. And I KISS with food. I purposely keep to lean, simply prepared proteins: fish, shrimp, chicken, turkey, lean pork, lean beef/deer/lamb + al dente steamed veg + a small serving of healthy fat per meal. By doing that, my hunger is pretty contained and controlled. I follow this plan between 80-90% of the time now that I'm at goal in maintenance, and during WLM, I was pretty fanatical about following the KISS plan. I tried to give my lizard brain (hypothalmus) as few "hits" of opiod pleasure responses as possible so I could re-hardwire my neural pathways with regards to food.

Wow! Hard core dude. LOL. Great it's worked for you and your bro. Congrats on your weight loss. I do agree that from my viewpoint, you have to be willing to say "screw food" -- at least in the WLM--in order to lose the quickest and get to goal without potentially setting yourself up for stalling out too soon and losing focus. I do think many of us have to completely change and break up with the foods that contributed to our poor eating behaviors. Otherwise, like alcoholics, we run the risk of recidivism. The beauty of the initial weeks out from surgery and the honeymoon period is that it presents an opportunity to break up with old habits and almost painlessly build new healthy habits and learn new food ways of eating. Thanks for showing us your plan!!! p.s. I never really had ANY post op pain or pain in refeeding...

Also, when in doubt, drink a glass of water as quickly as you can for your particular stage of healing! Then wait 20 minutes. Often thirst masquerades itself as hunger. So hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. And even now, I have hungry, hungry, heifer days. They are tough to get through, but I make sure my carbs are low, protein adequate and that I'm staying in my caloric goal for the day and I drink lots of water, and exercise (walk) and deep breathe when those times come. It helps. Welcome!

So the original "keto" as developed in the 60s and 70s by Dr. Atkins was much lower than todays' present iteration of the diet. For a normie Keto Diet based on Atkins 72, most fat % were in the 60-75% range. When I followed it as a normie, I had to be between 55-65% fat in order to lose the best. Most of the LCHF/keto docs agree that the amount of fat in your diet entirely depends on the amount of adiposity on your body. That means, that even with a keto diet, you still must operate in a caloric deficit so that you burn the fat stores in your body rather than the fat in your diet for energy. And for the most part, you must expend the energy from your diet before you tap into your fat stores. As @AZhiker and @KarenLR75 say, there is no need to inflate our fat to "today's keto" range. For most of us PO, it would be difficult due to surgical malabsorption. Even VSGers can have difficulty with higher fat. By simply reducing carbs to 20g net or below per day and putting your personal prescription for protein into the equation (given to you by your surgeon), then you can back into your target calorie goal and figure out your fat grams/percentage based on that. Any additional fatty acids you need (and the ketones produced through lipolysis) will then be able to come from the fat strapped to your booty and middle (and total body) rather than the fat bomb or MCT oil, or butter coffee -- or whatever ridiculous bolus of exogenous and unnecessary "keto bs" you consume. I knew that in order to lose I needed to maintain a range between 650-850 calories/day. I know, because when I got to 850 calories or above, I would stall out and not lose anything. I also knew from my surgeon and RD that I had a broad protein range (in the early days) of between 60-80g protein daily--with an optimal amount at 74g for my LBM and are based upon height, sex, age, physical status. Males and females of a different size will have different macros. Here are the macros I've used to lose 157lbs:

Dang woman! I lost the lottery! Two days? That's got to be a new record. Congrats on TCB and nipping the vacay bounce in the bud!!!

Duddddddeeee!!!! You look ahhhh-MAY-zing!!! Congrats on your transformation, perseverence, and great attitude. So inspiring!

WB!!! We misssssed you!!!!

Ouch! So sorry to hear this! It kinda sounds like a medical emergency/complication of a prior surgery. Don't most insurances including NHS cover that? Like if you had to go to the ER with it? Is it excessively painful and keeping you from keeping liquids down or being able to eat? It honestly sounds like the band slipped and may be causing problems with your esophagus which could be very very bad over a 3 week period. Whatever you do, don't eat a lot. ((hugs))

Omg! I KNOW!!! My preciouses! *snort* And to add insult, they shaved a 1 1/2 in crop circle in mine on Friday. So it's even more "special." ha!

Hahaha helarious on the first! And brilliant game plan for walking while eating gelato!!!

Oh so glad you took a break and had a blast! Hope you came back refreshed and ready to meet life head on with new vigor and a relaxed mind!!!! You rock woman and can't wait to watch how quickly you vanquish your vacay bounce! I'm betting 1 week--maybe 9 days. That's my official position. We missed you!