Sheribear68

So today I’m upping my protein massively and I’m giving myself a 10 hour eating window 9:30am (80cal) 1/2 premier protein shake (bananas and cream) and in my morning coffee. 11:30am (210 cal) 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 8 ounces fairlife milk 3:30pm (278 cal) 1 cup of that Tuscan keto soup (no extra scoop bone broth powder) 7pm (268 cal) Italian sausage and 1 ounce kimchee. Over 75gm protein and a VERY high calorie day for me at >900 cal. I’m trying my best to switch things up because I’m working 22 hours in the next 2 days and will slip into sub 600 calorie days and a 18:6, followed by a 16:8 day. Exercise was a cardio 1.5 class followed by a flow 1.5 — each class was 50 mins

Day 24/25. Okay so if picking my mom up so I could give her her flu shot, then driving her home counts, then I spent time with family. I’ve gone to 2 Pilates classes each day this weekend and my bod is definitely feeling it. In a good way though, not in an injury sort of way. No plans to go to any restaurants or cafes as I’m keeping a laser focus on my program for now. Grocery store run after Pilates this morning. Meals are planned for the next 3 days and so is my exercise. As soon as I put up the latest load of laundry, I’ll be organizing my wardrobe for the week after checking the weather and fingers crossed all goes smoothly because of my prep. Side question: As one of the most un-spontaneous people on the planet, this is a toughie. Back in college (30 years ago) I once ditched a work shift so I could drive to Louisiana (8hr drive) so my roommate could meet up with a guy she had met who attended another pharmacy school. The weekend actually was a real dud and I regretted nearly every moment of it. Note to self: spontanaity really isn’t for me. It makes me anxious to not have days pre-planned out.

Whether you post that pic here or not, make sure you take the pic so you can have a visual of your progress. For example, here is a pic of me 2 weeks PO (which was 50 pounds below my HW) and a pic from the other day. Honestly I felt like I was looking pretty good in the “before” pic because I was already so much lower. The difference between the 2 pics is another 55 pounds is gone.

Loooove WHBM. For over a decade I’ve coveted their style and my sister would always buy nice outfits from there while I had to settle for whatever plus-size I could find that didn’t make me hate myself. Now I can wear their clothes, so I’ll shop them soon. Lol, for some reason I want to “save” it for when I’m at goal and the pieces I get will be something I’ll wear for more than a few weeks as I transition. Yes... they are completely what I consider my age appropriate

Okay link is in my above post. You have to scroll down forever for the recipe, but it is so worth it. Like I said, I subbed out the regular broth and used bone broth for extra protein In addition to that, I added a half scoop of the powdered bone broth to my bowl. (I love savory so much that I’ve got a selection of bone broths, lol) I also added a pinch of shaved parm.

For those of us who will never lose our love of running around on days off in jeans and t-shirts.

Okay so broke my fast with this wonderful soup. https://www.galonamission.com/slow-cooker-low-carb-zuppa-toscana-soup-keto-friendly/ For extra protein, we subbed beef bone broth instead of plain broth and I also added in an extra 1/2 scoop of the bone broth powder to pack in 22 gm protein in my 1 cup serving. I can do soups as long as I slurp the liquid, then wait a few minutes and eat the solids. There were no leftovers.

I don’t see how it could be considered cheating when you really didn’t know for sure where your body would end up most comfortable with. My goal #1 was to be a size 12/14 and weigh under 175. Before WLS, this seemed almost unattainable and I never in my wildest dreaming thought my body would allow me to get there. Well I got there about 1 month ago and I’ve lost an addition 6 pounds beyond. Sometime in April/May I adjusted my goal to 155 (again, something I wasn’t sure would actually be achieveable) and I’m 14 pounds from that. I’m thinking there’s a really good chance I can hit that goal, but who knows what maintenance will look like? Another number that keeps coming to mind is 145, which is goal 3. 145 is a number I’d like to see “just for fun”. Honestly it’s a number that I don’t think I might reach, but I’m going to try. My main reason is I want insurance against a bounce. If it turns out that 155 is where my body wants to stick and it doesn’t want to get to 145, I know I’ll be able to live with it. After all, this started out as me trying my best to live the rest of my life healthy and happy and find that balance between being a complete badass and relaxing and enjoying life. Since my all-time HW from 2008 was 272, I like to tell myself I’m already 100+ pounds down, which is pretty freaking amazing. SW was 246 and by my math, I’ve already lost “about as much as can be expected” from VGS and the rest will be hard work and a bit of luck. We’ve done this math in another thread: at the MOST, I was carrying around 100 pounds excess fat and I’ve already lost 77 pounds, so that puts me right at the top of the range—especially for VGS. Trying to lose all 100 of those excess fat pounds might be unrealistic. Won’t know til I try. So.... since I have no idea where my body will determine what it’s new set point wants to be, I’m making educated guesses. So this is my very long-winded way of saying that I can’t consider it “cheating” when you didn’t have all the data points ahead of time

This is amazing stuff right here. I’m about a year behind you in your journey, but I can so relate to some of these points As I get closer to goal (which quite frankly is a scary thought at times) I wonder what will become of me. I know myself well enough to know that I’m never satisfied unless I’m pursuing a goal. I love your idea of increasing fitness— seems like a good way to keep your weight up, but maybe change your body composition. Today I worked with a NP that I haven’t seen since about March. He normally works at the clinic across town, but our NP is out on maternity leave and he was filling in. He was blown away by my new look (he and his wife are both NPs and I’ve worked with them for years and they both knew of my surgery) and told me “congrats” for hitting goal. I told him I was still 20-25 pounds from goal and he got a confused look on his face and said he thought he rememered me telling him I wanted to weigh in the 150’s. I think he almost didn’t believe me when I told him I’m 169. Anyway, it made me start thinking about numbers and overall health. No way do I want to stick here at 169, but I’m wondering if maybe my 3rd goal of 145 is something I want to do or not. Guess I’ll try my best to make it to 155 (2nd goal) and see what that feels/looks like and go from there

Hair hair hair Well... at least it’s still there for now. I got that boldify that Anna mentioned earlier and I think it definitely gave me more volume. Will have to do a before and after pic next time

Protein protein protein protein. I fluctuate between 500-800 calories daily and I’m fairly active. I also play around with TRE (time restricted eating) windows to get the most bang for my buck

It is delicious. Makes you feel like you’re eating chips and bean dip. It’s one of those guilty pleasures I have because my sleeve is still so darned tight at times. Lol, listen to me gripe about that! I’ve decided in the last month that since I’ve maybe only got another 6-12 weeks in my honeymoon phase that I’ve got to double down on my efforts. I’ve been obsessively pre-planning all of my calories and macro ratios. I’ve also been playing around with IF to get myself ready for when the honeymoon is well and truly over. Since I still have 20-25 pounds to where I want to end up, I’ve got to make the very most of these next few weeks and feel like I can’t let up. For now I’m eating a minimum 60gm protein a day and I’m making darn sure I get that protein in before I eat a single bite of anything else. I’ve also got my broken toe more or less healed and have started doing some interval training on the treadmill to add to my Pilates. I’m so excited because I finally got down into the 160’s and am posting a pic to show everyone what that looks like. I still have a fair amount of pudge on my legs and hips and my a** has disappeared into what I refer to as bari-booty (no more booty, just a series of wrinkles giving the appearance of a booty). Ultimate goal weight is between 145-150. Still have a bit to go....

Lol. Yup KISS is exactly what you guys think. Sometimes less is more and just getting back to early PO basics for a day or two is the best plan, IMO Okay so I’ve been fasting since 6pm last night, went to Pilates this morning, and have to get ready really soon for a 1-11pm shift today. Before I left, I brewed 8 ounces French roast and put that over crushed ice in the fridge. Just now mixed half the caramel PP and half the coffee with more crushed ice and it’s pretty freaking delish! My only concern right now is whether or not I can drink the whole thing. I’m at about the halfway mark and feeling pretty full. It’s liquid though, so I think I’ll head upstairs for a quick shower and get ready and come back to try to finish this before leaving for work. Hubs made some skirt steak last night and I’m also going to cut up 3-4 ounces of that and take with some leftover salad mix. Eating window today should be my normal 16:8

*makes a mental note to go to Maurice’s to try on jeans in October.

You look FABULOUS! Okay. That outfit is most def a winner and completely compliments your shape.

No, but then again I’ve pretty much been able to drink water since week 1. I’m to the point now where I can chug up to 8 ounces at once, but my sleeve still fills fast with food. I drink coffee with milk almost every morning and I drink milk and water. That’s almost exclusively what I have unless I add some Gatorade zero to my waters when I start to get muscle cramps.

Okay. So look who is willing to get outside her comfort zone and try some PP? Guys I need some recipes. Gonna try the one fluffy posted with caramel PP and coffee.

One low carb option to chips is pork rinds. I love dipping pork rinds in hummus for a tasty and crunchy snack

Okay so I’m being extremely lazy today. I honestly had a hard time eating high volume yesterday after my IF-ing the last few days so I’m KISSing today. Back to bari-basics.  Edit to add:  the snack is 8oz fairlife milk, I’ll have that mid afternoon 

Lol. That’s a typical lunch or dinner for me. I heart cottage cheese

So I just figured it out. I was using the app from my pad instead of accessing the website directly. Makes a huge difference.

Okay. I’m psyched because I ordered this top 3 weeks ago and it was tight tight tight and now I’m going to wear it with these new size 12 pants that were also too tight at the beginning of the month. I’m happy to be wearing pants that actually fit me rather than ones that make my booty look even saggier than it actually is.

Oh I’m going to have to experiment more with that. I have zero idea how you got to that screen that shows all the stats. That’s awesome and I’ve never found a way to look that up. Lol, I can’t even update my profile pic. It won’t save.

Okay so since about month 2 PO, I’ve been doing TRE most days. I came across that method almost accidentally. My sleeve is so tight in the mornings that trying to get in a morning meal was hurting me and then I found myself intentionally putting off until later in the day that first meal at the same time I started reading about IF. Well, the whole concept of eating only when hungry instead of when you’re “supposed to” eat made sense to me so I did a mostly 16:8, or 14:10 (on hungry days). I mostly listened to my body. Now I’m 6.5 months PO and some bad habits were creeping in. I found myself using up valuable space with things like salad, parmesean crisps, pork rinds, pickles, kimchi, etc BEFORE I was eating protein. Oh yeah.... wine/alcohol was prominent in my diet for a 6 week stretch between mid-June through end of July. Lots of family events, 2 weddings, a vacay to NOLA and a girls night out. As a result, I only lost 12 pounds during almost 2 months so I decided I had to get very very serious starting July 23. Since then I’ve lost 13 pounds and I’ve kept on top of pre-planning and logging my food For me, the planning heavily involves when I eat as importantly as what I eat—hence the rotating IF schedules. I was doing really great until last Friday (my daughters white coat ceremony and emotions running all over the place due to some other family drama). Long story short, my daughter and one of her besties (a girl I hired as one of my techs a few years ago) wanted to go out to eat in celebration and I succumbed and took them out to our fave Mexican restaurant. I was actually pretty good— measured out 10 tortilla chips, 1 flour tortilla, and ate the insides only of one of my daughters chicken enchilada, and had a single skinny margarita, but it gave me a 1.6 pound bounce when I weighed 2 days later (lord only knows what it could’ve been the next day) Lol, previous Sheri would’ve rolled her eyes at someone who complained about gaining less than 2 pounds after eating out, but I was disappointed in myself and knew I had a decision to make. So.... we can’t forever avoid special occasions and the self-flagellation that follows , so I decided to get more aggressive with the IF for just a few days (or however long it took to rid me of the bounce) and it worked. Sunday I did 20:4, Monday I did 16:8, Tuesday I did 20:4, and by yesterday am I had gone from my Sunday am bounce weight of 172.4 down to 169.0. I’m now back on a “maintenance” TRE of 16:8 for the rest of the week and thankfully have no plans to eat out for at least a few more weeks.

More comfortable because I can pretty much fit in any public stall. Pre op, that was sometimes a concern. Especially those super tiny stalls they have at sporting events where there’s hardly any room between the toilet paper holder and my hips. Once I almost dropped my phone in the toilet because the belt loop of my jeans snagged on that thing and it knocked my phone out skittering across the floor of a public toilet. All because I was so big that I could barely maneuver to pull my pants back up.