Rainbow_Warrior

I think I've said the same thing to about 50 other people with impending surgery. Don't pull out, I tell them all, as I had a few moments of doubt and negative reflection too ... but the assistance with getting past the years of problems I have had with motivation has been well worth it. I hope and pray that I will be (eventually) the successful loser!

Addictive, perchance?

I'm anything but 'rigorous' but I have gained exercise longevity. I can feel like 5h1t at 4:30am after seven or eight hours sleep but once I get in the pool at 5am, I find it easy to keep going. My pace is low ... ambling breaststroke which I usually do for 110-220 minutes followed by some chest-deep "wading" for 45-115 minutes. A morning in the pool usually runs for three to five hours or 20000 to 35000 Fitness Wristband strokes. After lunch, I'll have a 45 minutes to two hours nap before work on weekdays (or before a Sunday afternoon movie with my wife). I'm no good with RIGOROUS but I am excellent at LONG-TERM!

So right! BMI is okay for about 70% of people but there are many, many people that BMI results mark as "outliers" for all sorts of different reasons. As a 20 year old, my playing weight for RUGBY UNION was 88kg. The BMI would have been about 31 or 32 yet I was healthy and active and supplementing my R.U. with tennis, badminton and squash/racketball. The old "life insurance companies tables" of HEALTHY WEIGHTS had ranges for small, medium and large frames and were, seemingly, more logical in determining what overweight was.

Best of luck with your pregnancy, @crivera ... you will have a lot to consider.

Still, I wonder about obesity and the "chances" of being pre-disposed to it. As a small boy in the 1950s in Australia, I rarely saw fat/obese people in my life. In the early 1960s, as a school-child, there were only two noticeably fat kids (out of 215 children) in the school group photos. As a retiring teacher this last year, there were 27 class photos of 22-26 children each. I carefully counted the 661 children in my school and found 109 were obese (7 looking like morbidly obese) and 152 others were showing bulges of being overweight. I randomly counted the first 50 adults I passed at the shopping centre on Friday 29th Dec ... to find that there were 27 overweight and, of these, nine were quite obese. Three were at least as obese as me in July-December this year. How would the veterinarians explain the seemingly growing rates of obesity? I put it down to (a) sugary and crap foods being relatively cheap, (b) massive advertising budgets by the fast food chains swamping us with constant marketing and (c) limited efforts by governments to protect us from (a) & (b).

In my Australian 6am stupor, I assumed it was an adjective not a brand name in the title. Mea culpa.

Uhhh? You want to go from a full RNY bypass to a simpler/lesser gastric sleeve?? Is this REALLY what you're asking, @Lboogie82 ??

Explain the nature of an ABS challenge to the uninitiated. I have no idea what the challenge involves. Thanks, in anticipation of your illuminating answer.

And, the brand was? In your excitement, you passed over the name.

I know. Bags of juicing oranges in Australia are 3kg (6.7 pounds) and usually contain 15 medium oranges. In July, I separated 33 bags to one side of the display for my 11 year old grandson ... "That's how much I have to lose, Mitchell ... nearly 500 oranges!" Started at 174.6kg [nearly 385 pounds] ... future goal is 74.6kg [or 164.5 pounds]. That's 495 seven-ounce oranges to lose! GOOD NEWS: I am currently 153 oranges lighter already ... in 136 days!

No suggestions from me as I had no issues with my incisions. My doctor was old-school and sutured my six incisions ... stitching took 11-16 days to drop off. My neighbour had an anaesthetic cream approved by his surgeon after his incisions were itchy/painful. Maybe that is what you need. (He's away until Tuesday so I can't get the name of the product for you.)

For the best long-term chance of success, just try to get past this feeling. Suck ice pieces. Drink tea. Make a low-calorie or calorie free JELLY (jello). Chewing gum?

I'm currently 11+ weeks on from surgery. At the SIX week mark, I had ramped up to my old 2-3 hours swimming per day, four days per week resistance weights & stretch bands and moved to about 1200-1300 calories per day to cover the extra exercise. Now, since the 10-week mark, I aim for four days per week where my calorie total stays under 1050. My weight loss began to stall a little in weeks 8 & 9. In week 8, I discovered that I was successfully "burning" about 1kg (2.2 pounds) of internal fat per week thanks to intense exercise. So, even when the scales were showing little loss, internally I was dumping fat and gaining lean muscle and leaner body mass. I prepare and chill (semi-freeze) a couple of protein shakes and a lunch box with high protein snacks ... cold cuts of lean meat, hard-boiled eggs, 100g yoghurt pouches, etc. I also pre-flavour some 600mL water bottles with some Diet-Rite cordial for when I stay a motels or such.

I think you're describing the text-book definition of "good luck". <GRIN>

Weird!

The spouse is the person you MUST tell, I guess. I chose which family and friends were in my "need to know" group. Some of my (otherwise) good friends are not pro-WLS ... just like the OP's spouse.

Yes, my dietitian said to add 2-4 teaspoons of Benefiber to protein shakes or water or wet food if I went 48-50 hours without a bowel movement.

This has been irking me too. People seem so negative in wanting to label lots of brands as unpalatable. It reminds me of the 1950s and 1960s when medicines were 'raw' and children were just told, "take it, it'll do you good. The taste only lasts a few seconds." People seem to want everything to fit their narrow view of tasty or delicious. It seems to NOT matter that the protein shake is a means to an end. - - - If they are really so bad, whack the powder in the blender with a little pleasant-tasting fruit, some artificial sweetener or a different liquid media ... skim milk, egg white, etc. But most of all, just "harden up, princess!" ... it's a few minutes of your day taking one of the few things that are supporting you move to a new lifestyle and future. The sweet-tasting 5h1t you have been eating up until now has made you (grossly) obese ... might really be time to stop b1tchin' and to try something else.

Are you sure of your metric measurements? 230 kilometres is 230000 metres ... equal to 143 miles. It's quite IMPOSSIBLE to go that far on a treadmill in just 15 minutes. (It takes about 160 to 175 minutes to drive 230 kilometres in a car on a road trip.) An average fit athlete might make 2.3 kilometres easily in a quarter of an hour. I suspect that, if you've been building up since late October, you might be doing 2.3km (2300 metres) in a quarter-hour.

It never ceases to amaze me that, to this day, I don't 'read' the mirror image or the photographs as registering any noticeable loss. I can wear the smaller slacks and skinnier shirts, observe my belt four or five notches tighter and read the scales under me ... but no connection otherwise.

Yeah ... at least three times in the ELEVEN WEEKS since surgery, I have had a day or two where I just went back to pre-op basics and lived on a couple of protein shakes and minimal other food for a bit. I have a couple of boxes of Optifast shakes left here in the pantry. I might as well use them up, I think.

Under 145kg (i.e. under 350 pounds) now. Resumed exercise almost six weeks ago. Great support from the clinic's dietitian and exercise physiologist. Struggling (after some days of strenuous exercise) to keep calorie consumption at 1000 or lower but the trends are generally good.

I'm male ... I was 380+ pounds at the first meeting with my surgeon (Mid July 2017). My only complication was an extra meeting with the anaesthetist about two weeks out so that he was well aware of my size and any idiosyncrasies.

I guess it's one of those "live and learn" from the situation things!