Arabesque

I did two weeks on keto. Had one friend on shakes & another on a combination for three weeks. Seems it depends on your surgeon & your starting weight. Post surgery I was fluids for two weeks, purées for two weeks followed by soft foods for another two before beginning solid foods. Take it slowly. Your tummy will tell you what you can or can’t tolerate but I wouldn’t push it through the stages quickly. Took me a good three weeks to feel up to working but I always take a long time to get over things (healing, viruses, etc. - I have Gilbert’s & my BP was low). No lifting for two weeks & then less than 5kg for another two. Then no more than 10kg for the next two. Remember you’re healing from major stomach surgery. Always had a large glass of wine every night & enjoyed a good scotch or G&T. Now hardly ever drink. Lost the taste for it & don’t miss it. Certainly don’t need it to socialise with friends. Plus it was taking an hour to drink a glass. Would avoid mixing with juices - high calories & sugar. Also beware of addiction swapping. It’s a concern for post weight loss surgery patients to turn their addiction for food to something else. Carbonated drinks are very filling. Better to be getting in your protein & good nutrients than filling your small tummy with soft drinks. (Plus I personally have an issue with artificial sweeteners - they still feed your sugar craving.) If the tool is to help you & you intend to be successful long term you will have to change your relationship with food: how you eat, what you eat, when you eat. It takes work and your life will change but for the better.

Could be your gallbladder but most definitely go to your doctor as soon as possible.

So inspiring @Sharon1214. Congratulations on what you have achieved.

The skirt is by Mara Hoffman an American label @Lynda486. Bought just before lockdown & it was it’s first wearing. We’ve been slowly opening back up here in Aust @Cheeseburgh so when I have a specific reason to go out I take the opportunity to dress up & get out of the baggy track pants. 😁 May have to reconsider this wrap open sided coat I bought. I think I look like Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan ... just in black. This is not the coat you want. 😂

Mine fell out for a good 6 months. It slowed for a couple of weeks at about 4 months & I was celebrating but then it was as bad as before. I had a heap of hair but lost 50%. Growing back now.

Hit the shops to find a 50th birthday gift for my youngest brother. So hard. Can’t find a navy belt or boots for love or money at the moment so grey will suffice with very old black boots. Plus a little pop of berry lipstick to brighten my day.

Why do you think you’re underweight? A bmi of between 18 & 25 is considered healthy. My dietician told me she would be concerned with my bmi if I had deep hollows under my collar bones and around my shoulders because these were signs of being undernourished & underweight. In saying that, we all have different builds and weights at which we feel comfortable and you have to feel comfortable at your weight. I hope you get somewhere with your medical team soon. They should be there to calm your fears & answer your questions not increase your concerns & frustrations.

Looking good @Dtrain84. I love Aquazzura shoes @Sophie7713. I have a nice little collection of them. My shoe boutique only got in the black suede. Your neutral leather ones would work well in my wardrobe too. Found this pxt of me wearing mine back when our weather was warmer.

The headache could also be from the change of diet. You’re going through a withdrawal from the foods your body used to crave or you regularly ate & your body had became used to. Could be from stopping sugar, carbs, alcohol or caffeine.

@catwoman7 is correct. We all lose at different rates, the rate is dependent on many factors, and the more you have to lose the more you’ll lose each week. But the closer you are to your goal weight, the rate per week will slow. At 6 months from my surgery date I had lost 25.8kg (about 57lbs) and had lost about 6kgs in the weeks prior to surgery. That put me at my goal so I had slowed considerably during about the last 2months even though my diet hadn’t changed. Then lost another 10kgs during the following 5 months. Best advice is don’t compare your rate with anyone else, keep to your program, be prepared for stalls that can last weeks and you’ll do fine. Good luck.

They fill your abdomen with gas during surgery to inflate the area so they can see what they are doing. The gas has to then find its own way out of your body & causes side effects like the shoulder pain. The cream soups could be too rich for you. I was told to stick to clear liquids to begin like broths & stock-based soups with the protein shakes for the first couple of weeks. Remember you just had surgery on your stomach it needs to be treated gently for a while. The creamy soups could also be stirring up a lactose sensitivity. You’ll soon be experiencing the opposite effect of having wls - constipation.

Hey fellow Aussie. i agree with @catwoman7. We do tend to look scrawny & gaunt as we get to or near our goal weight. I found when I added some good multi grains to my diet my gauntness softened & I looked better especially in the face. I struggled to find my maintenance sweet spot too & unintentionally lost 9kg more than my goal over 2-3 months. I slowly added nutritious snacks, increased my meal sizes little by little & kept weighing myself everyday until I found I’d stabilised with about a 500g fluctuation. For example I used to eat about 50g of steak now I eat about 80g. I took 3 or 4 days to eat serve of rolled oats now only two. You will find your balance too. Don’t worry if it takes a little while. While some have said I’m too thin I am a healthy bmi & I certainly don’t have bones sticking out anywhere. (Personally I think the ‘your too thin’ voices struggle to see me as slim & not obese. Their perception of me hasn’t caught up yet.) But I’m happy to be at this weight. See how you feel in a few months time once you’ve stabilised. You may choose to stay the same or put in a couple of kgs. It’s all about how you feel in your skin. Your next step may be to add some muscle definition but again that’s your choice. I just want to know where your lose skin is? If this is a male thing, like being able to lose weight faster, I’ll be mighty pissed off. Life can be unfair. 😁

OMG @Sophie7713 we have the same shoes. I wore them heaps this last summer. And I loooove that dress. Gorgeous. I went to my beauty therapist for a pedi & facial this week too. So relaxing to be pampered & to catch up with my therapist who is very lovely. Dynasty had a lot to answer for in the 80s. I remember having spare shoulder pads I could add to a jacket or dress to make the shoulders even bigger.

Way too much liquid to make a sauce as the meat is almost covered with the liquid in the pot. We cook onion & carrot in a small amount of water & then use some of the water with milk to make a white sauce. We put the onion & carrot back in the sauce & serve it over the hot meat, with pickles on the side. We usually let the leftovers sit in the liquid in the fridge until the next day for extra flavour to be absorbed. It’s still a soft, easy to pull apart meat. It can become very crumbly if overcooked though. It’s a family favourite.

Way too much liquid to make a sauce as the meat is almost covered with the liquid in the pot. We cook onion & carrot in a small amount of water & then use some of the water with milk to make a white sauce. We put the onion & carrot back in the sauce & serve it over the hot meat, with pickles on the side. We usually let the leftovers sit in the liquid in the fridge until the next day for extra flavour to be absorbed. It’s still a soft, easy to pull apart meat. It can become very crumbly if overcooked though. It’s a family favourite.

Coffee is a diuretic. So it will make you flush fluid out of your body more quickly. Some say it flushes more out of you then you took in by drinking it. Keep to water. It’s the best thing to keep you hydrated. I should have also mentioned keeping up your fluids to help with your low bp. Sounds like you had a cold sweat from low blood sugars. Did your legs go like jelly? No energy? I kept diluted hydralite with me for months after surgery (& that was thru winter). One in the car, one in my bag when I went out & one by my bed. Gave me a burst to keep me going.

Take it slowly. You need time to heal & time to get used to the idiosyncrasies of your smaller tummy. Foods & drinks that work for others may not work for you. There’s a lot of learning ahead of you but you will work it out & in your time. You’ll be fine. BTW I still gurgle all the time. You should have heard me last night. It was almost moaning. Good Lord! If I heard those noises in my kitchen I’d be calling the plumber quick smart (or an exorcist 🤣).

So many similarities @mousecat88. Same height, same weight, same dress size & also stopped vitamins & exercise. However, I’m happy with my weight. Some others think I’m too thin (their issue not mine) & my surgeon did think I should put on a couple of kgs but at the next appointment he said I was ok. I stopped the vitamins because they were making me sick & I often would vomit. I stopped exercising because I struggled to up my calorie intake to maintain without burning calories through exercise. My surgeon & dietician have been ok with this. I wonder if your metabolism is allowing you to eat more at the moment and you’re in a false reality? I also worry that you’ve reverted to your old, bad habits. Try to go back to your diet & increase your calories in a healthy way. After working so hard to lose your weight, it would be awful if you end up regaining. Honestly I now eat things I would never eat before. (If I ate as much cheese or hummus dip before wls as I do now I’d be putting on kgs every day 😂.) While I am eating more now in maintenance, I still keep to a pretty balanced diet. I know this may change in the future & I may have to start back exercising if my metabolism slows again & I begin gaining weight. BTW - When I was allowed to add some good grains (multigrain crackers rule) to my diet, I found a lot of that hollow, drawn look disappeared. Those good carbs do help.

I was told never again: too filling with no nutritional value. Same with pasta. Twelve months out & like @ms.sss I haven’t missed it either. I very occasionally use cauliflower rice & zucchini noodles as an alternative if I make something that would use rice or pasta. I buy it fresh from my grocery store. Not as filling & way more nutritious. There are lots of dried vegetable pastas available too.

More furniture pxts for @Sophie7713. This is one of two Walter Knoll gentlemen chairs I had made in ruby velvet. (They’re a lovely pink red colour in reality - overcast today so they look dull in the pxt.) They’re in my lounge room. Had one chair made & then 18months later I got the second one - had to save up ha! The dresser is an antique piece of Australiana made from several different timbers in a traditional English style with the daisy carved doors. It came from the house of a family who had been long time friends of my grandparents. My parents bought the house which included some contents. It was black - apparently boot polish was commonly used to polish furniture 100+yrs ago. The horror!

Looking at all your salads pictures is making me shiver. A rather chilly 13degrees in Brisbane at the moment (feels like 10). Not as cold as some of your experiences but damn near freezing when summer here is in the mid thirties or higher. And it’s not even winter yet. Brrrr. Thanks for your brisket recipe @ms.sss. Here we corn (salt) our brisket cut & simmer the meat very gently on the stove for 3 to 4 hrs. Our family recipe adds brown sugar, vinegar, garlic & mustard to the pot. I sometimes add fennel & coriander seeds and a bay leaf for an earthier flavour & use balsamic vinegar. Made one last week. Couldn’t be bothered making the traditional white sauce (with carrots & onions) to accompany it. Just stuck with the other traditional accompaniment: mustard pickles. 😁

I was told to add extra salt to my diet too but it seems my vertigo attacks are from Meniere’s so additional salt is a no no for me. (Low BP dizziness & vision loss coupled with severe vertigo dizziness is not pleasant!) As I always had a tendency to a lower BP & used to have random bouts of dizziness & vision loss, I think I will suffer the multiple occurrences everyday forever now. Very sad face. Try magnesium & calcium for your leg cramps @ThreeOhThree. I always found that combination helped me.

Beautiful room @Sophie7713 and snap re the Louis chair & French inspired fabric choice. I have it near a cow hide too (a lovely vanilla & butter caramel charolaise skin) so double snap I have two chairs which were the carvers from my parents’ dining table in the early 80s. I recovered them about 10 yrs ago. Finding the correct sized underwear is sooo frustrating. At my fitting I bought two different styles that worked for me then I went online & bought two more of the same ...for a reduced price. Yay!

Make your freezer & your microwave your friend. I understand your dislike of reheated meals but as a single person I regularly ate the same meal for a a couple of days in a row. Better than wasting food (which is a terrible thing in society today). Less expensive too. I often freeze cooked meals in single serves & then only have to prep fresh veges. Very handy for those nights when you’re too exhausted to cook a healthy meal. Way better than take out too. I also buy meats in small amounts or repackage it into single portions at home.

Congrats on your weight loss. I had the reverse situation. My surgeon asked me if I had a goal & said the 60kg I suggested was a sensible & healthy weight for my height (bmi of 23). When I had dropped to 54kg, my surgeon wanted me to put on a couple of kilos. I didn’t want to because of how common it is for wls patients to put on 2-4kg a year after their goal has been reached & I wanted this wriggle room. I lost more as I was trying to find my food intake sweet spot in maintenance but have been stable for a couple of months now. My dietician & GP are fine with my weight. You need to find where you’re comfortable, happy & healthy. Does your surgeon want you to lose more for health reasons? An additional ten pounds isn’t much to lose compared to how much you have lost already.