ms.sss

If u aren't on them already, maybe a B12 supplement could help?

I also can’t stop baking brownies!! This is the 4th batch I’ve made in the past week and a half (btw, batch #3 was a bit of a fail...accidentally put in crispy fried onions...but that’s another story, lol) Anyhoo, here is a pic of today’s batch: Roasted Cashew and Skor bits Fudge Brownies. I made it with real sugar and everything. I ate one 1x1inch square piece: 159 calories

I can’t stop making guacamole (thanks to Costco, who has been having avocados on sale for weeks!) Baked & seasoned pita (equivalent to 1/4 a pita) and homemade Guacamole (about 1/4 cup): 134 calories Ate it all!

The smaller you get, the less calories you require. Depending on our current height, weight and activity level, you may need to either decrease your calories or increase your activity to ensure you remain at a calorie deficit. The bigger the deficit, the faster/more weight you will lose. Good Luck!

20 lbs in 3 weeks can be done, if you are just starting out, but would def be on the challenging side. If you are at a higher starting weight, it will be "easier" than if you are at a lower starting weight. What is your height/weight? If you go all liquid (low cal, low carb shakes, for instance) you would be able to drop quite a bit...it will mostly be water weight, but a pound is a pound is a pound, I guess. Though I suspect your doc is just looking to see you display some evidence of self-control and commitment to the process as he is still only asking you to lose 20lbs vs 25lbs (the original 20 + the 5 that you gained). If your goal is to lose 20 lbs, try to put in an honest effort to drop your daily calories NOW. I'd normally say move/exercise more, but this may make you hungrier, plus weight loss is more about food intake than exercise level anyway, so just keep it simple for now. Good Luck! P.S. I lost 11.8 lbs in the 2 wk pre-op diet. I am 5'2" and was 235 lbs at the time. If you are taller/bigger, your numbers will likely lean higher.

K, not sure what is in YOUR vitamins, and how you are taking them, but: Iron tends to cause upset stomach. If your multis have iron in them, consider finding one that has a lower amount. Taking certain types of calcium tablets will cause upset stomach if you don't have anything in there...if this may be the cause, you can try taking them after you eat....or during. (I used to take my morning calcium with a tsp of greek yogurt...did the trick.) I started taking calcium chews midway through weight loss phase...goes down just fine on an empty stomach AND delicious, lol. They are about 10 cals each, though.

Sushi grade tuna used in poke, ripe avocado and cooked veggies are all considered soft foods for the purposes of a soft food diet. For the purposes of a post-op Bariatric diet, however, there may be other things to consider. Just from a calorie perspective, any added oils/sugar to the fish or veggies and the avocado itself is high in calories. If you have the requisite rice, it is nutritionally inferior to other choices in relation to the volume it would take up in your tum, plus it's pretty carby (if you care about that). Sooooo...short answer is yes, the food items you mentioned are soft foods and are generally allowed for a soft food diet. P.S. i love me some poke too, lol

I always had a water bottle on me and set a timer on my watch to remind me to drink.

Hair loss is almost a given for most people during drastic weight loss. Mine started falling out at 3 months, and kept going until I was done with weight loss phase (7 months post op). I'm 2+ years out now and its all back. I'd say the new growth after the losses are about 6-7 inches long now. The one weird thing though is that the new hair has more curl/bend to them than what I'm used to. Which i don't mind at all, lol.

I definitely reduced my alcohol intake during weight loss phase (maybe 5 or so the entire time, and not even full servings).

Usually, the first 2-3 days are the most challenging. Hang in there, and your body *should* get used to it and it won't be as annoying. Try to stick it out to the end of day 3 at least...otherwise you may have to "restart the clock". Of course, this only deals with the physical responses, any mental ones will have to be dealt with accordingly. Suggestions: drink some water, go for a walk, take a shower, do some chores, do a jigsaw puzzle, meditate. Good luck!

MyFitnessPal (this screenshot was from the web version, but i use it on my phone the majority of the time) As an alternative, I’ve read many others use Baristatic App

This is also my second holiday season. Am Canadian, so my first big holiday event after surgery was xmas 2018. I don't remember it being too, too, difficult, but I do remember making sure that my couple fl oz of wine I served myself lasted basically the entire night, due to a really bad dumping experience about a week or so prior. Here is what I ate that day. I would have been 2 moths post op. At the time, it was a "big calorie day", comparatively, at least. In all, i was perfectly happy to be around fam and friends rather than stuffing myself with food like I did before.

SMOKING: I started smoking again on vacation last sept after being smoke free for 11 YEARS. I said it would just be on vacation, which led to just finish this pack I brought home with me, to just while its warm outside, to basically smoking as if I never stopped all these years. Slippery slope indeed. I made 2-3 attempts to quit during the past year+ but if I'm honest, I haven't tried so very hard. Am still smoking. DRINKING: On paper, apparently I am an "excessive drinker" now. I was a "social drinker" pre-wls, maybe 3-4 drinks a MONTH, max. This slowing started increasing since last summer, to where I was drinking maybe 2-3 drinks a WEEK by Christmas. Always when I was out, or at a party. Now (especially since pandemic started) I drink pretty much everyday, and at home. According to literature, "excessive drinking" in women is when 7 or more drinks are consumed in a week. Yep, that's me. On paper, based on what I've been reading, I just barely fit the criteria of being a High Functioning Alcoholic. Barely, but I do fit. Am still drinking. OBSESSION PREOCCUPATION with food: This one I don't consider to be too damaging, but it is a little eyebrow-raising. I think about food probably 1/2 of my waking hours. The things I find I spend ALOT of time on and/or get actual pleasure from: spending time looking at food pics, organizing the pics and Urls based on interest, planning and shopping for meals, cooking/baking, plating food, taking pics of the finished product, watching people eat it, smelling it, reading an ENTIRE menu to the last detail often multiple times, ordering off said menu, having Food Network on TV as my background noise. Actually EATING the food is very low on the enjoyment priority scale. Sure I'll eat/taste something if I deem it "worthy", but more often than not, I'd rather do any number of the former things instead. Am still preoccupied with food.

I probably paid about $5-6K-ish (Canadian dollars) for the TT part of my surgeries (I had 3 that day! : TT, arm lift, breast lift). OHIP paid for the panniculectumy portion of the procedure, and I paid the rest (muscle tightening & lipo). I see you are in Ontario too, so this can be an option for you as well! Discuss with your surgeon. As far as recovery, I will not lie, it was pretty rough (a lot of it was self-inflicted though...I wasn't the best patient in terms of listening to my doc about what I should/shouldn't be doing)

Well, I got a Tummy Tuck last winter, so that definitely helped some! If you look at the pictures prior to Dec 2019 (i.e., <= Day 385 in the pic collage), you can see that I for sure had loose/wrinkly skin on my abdomen and inner thighs. One of the unexpected benefits of the tummy tuck was that is smoothed out my thighs some (my backside is a different story, lol) In terms of exercise though, I started doing more than walking at about 3 months: I started out with 1-2 hours a week of various types of activity (zumba, hot yoga, bouldering, tap dancing, etc) as well as maybe 30 mins total of some very sad weight lifting a week (I hate weight lifting/strength training with the fire of a thousand suns). On top of this, I continued with my daily morning walks that I started on Day 1. By month five, I was doing about 2 one-hour classes a week of some cardio activity, + half-walking/half-running for about 1.5 hours a day + 15-20 minutes of strength training on one body part or another (still hated it). By the end of weight loss phase I was full on running at least 5km every day (sometimes twice a day) + the dreaded 20 minutes of strength training (why do i do it since I hate it so much, you ask? because it works. dammit.) Also threw in some class or other once or twice a week. Today (2+ years out), i'm alot lazier since end of last year: After the months long recovery of plastics from last December, and then the beginnings of Covid-inspired laziness in March, I am really only running about 3-4 times (min 5 km at time) a week now, 20-30 mins of strength training maybe 2 times a week, and ZERO classes. I have noticed the difference in energy levels since the reduction (mind you, there are probably other factors to this, but still). Sorry this was so long. I tend to type (and talk) LOTS. 🤣

@MaybeMeow2: First, I'm going to echo the other poster's response that the struggles with food addiction following WLS isn't discussed enough. Having said that that, I'm sending you a both a virtual high five and hug for your honesty and expression of vulnerability ❤️. From reading your post, the first thing that comes to mind is that you may benefit from some therapy (this is not a bad thing!). Its easy to say "just do this or that", but until you get to the source of why you do the "other" this or that, its definitely an uphill battle. Its not easy, and it takes alot of work to change course from a lifetime of learned behaviour...but it can be done. The fact that you can admit this to yourself and post it on here for all to see is a VERY significant first step. There will always be more steps to take, but with effort (and kindness to yourself throughout the process), hopefully you can reach some peace with it all. ❤️

After giving this a second thought (after it showed up on my feed again), I take this back. It *could* hurt. You don’t really know what’s in it, nor how it can affect you (both short- and long-term). May be in your best interest to consult a professional medical oppinion.

your eating times are very similar to mine! didn't eat until after noon, stopped eating at 7 (cuz I wanted to go to bed on a fully empty stomach due to a bad spit up experience in the middle of night once). I later learned I was intermittent fasting without even knowing it.

LOLOLzzz...I had to rack my brain to remember why I was doing that. Now I remember: I didn't usually eat until noon (was never a breakfast person, never was pre-op, and still am not), and I had to take 3 calcium pills a day, which had to be taken with something in my tum lest I get an upset stomach. Sooooo...for my morning dose, I scooped out a tsp of greek yogurt, buried my calcium pill in it and swallowed! Edit to add: soon after than I switched to the chocolate flavoured calcium chews so didn't have to do that anymore. They were like 10 cals each, but I decided to take the hit cuz they were delicious, lol.

At 3 months, I still had lots of restriction, and after eating my protein, there really wasn't much room for it. I started eating my beloved salads in earnest around the 5 month mark (though I did definitely stick to the lower net carb veggies during weight loss phase).

When I was able to eat solids (at 1 month) I was closer to 300 cals. By the end of weight loss phase I was up to 750-ish (7 months post-op). Once in maintenance, I worked my self up to around 1800-2000 cals (this took me about 2-3 months). These days I'm getting in about 1200-1500 cuz I'm trying to lose the last couple pounds of the Covid weight I gained. At this rate, its slow going, and I could probably lose more faster if I went lower, but honestly, I don't want to! LOL. My clothes still fit fine so there is no rush on my part. P.S. To answer your last question, according to myFitnessPal, my cal goal at the 3 month mark was 650 per day...but I rarely reached that. Truth be told, for some reason I liked to stay way under whatever calorie goal I set during the phases...just made me feel accomplished or something, I guess. I suppose I hated it when my carb and calorie numbers turned red, lol. So I made an extra special effort to keep them all green. P.P.S Further to this, my nutritionist's calorie goal for me was 1000-1200 at 3 months, but I was all, um, no thanks. I would get the "you should really try to eat more" schpeel at my followups, but she didn't seem to be too concerned/upset/whatever when I showed her my food diaries. By the time my 6th month follow up came around, this same nutritionist oohed and aaahhed at my results. In my head I was all "Lady, if I listened to you, I wouldn't be at this point today". Disclaimer to all: I am not advocating non-compliance to your nutritionist's instructions. We are all grown ups here and can make decisions for ourselves. My choice to do my own thing was based on my own personal research and effects on my body. This worked for me, it may not have the same effect on others.

Adorable! Congrats on the weight loss!

*wolf-whistles* looking good, lady. those side slits are sexy!

Yippppeeeeee! 🙌