Qamilian1

Yes you're right this sucks big time. My surgery was originally scheduled for March 2020 And I live in a great state of stupidville California where somebody hiccups and they shut the whole state down. Anyway I had to wait a year for my surgery date ultimately ended up being 3-18-21. A year after my original schedule date and one month exactly after my mother died of covid. That encouraged me big time because my mom's weight was so high they couldn't turn her over. Her suffering was so bad before we lost her. So I understand about the need for covid shutdowns and I understand the devastation of having this necessary surgery postponed. But everyone here is right saying stick to your guns and to the tools that you've learned. You can take off some additional weight before your surgery. Be even healthier for it, and your outcome can be good and you'll heal really well and fast. Time goes by no matter what we do. So let's make the best of the time that we have.

So bottom line, it's our responsibility to our future health to take in the Protein that is going to repair our bodies and build new cells and maintain life. Those Proteins need to be easily digestible and bioavailable. They need to be complete. So whatever sources they're from: plant of animal, that's the bottom line. If you don't like it--then I highly encourage you to NOT have the surgery. Cuz it's a lifelong commitment that you make to get your daily protein in!!!!
This isn't a position of "those damn meat eaters" all they talk about is protein! It's not a political conspiracy to keep the man down. It's your nutritionists opinion that you need 100g of protein/day. So you follow it, or don't. They will be running tests on you and those tests are gonna tell the truth of your status.
Albumin and pre-albumin test for how much protein you are getting and have available. The lower the number the greater the association with death from all causes. Critically ill and malnourished people will have low values on these tests. And once you deplete your protein, it's very difficult to replace it--cuz it's much easier to replace it with fat. So you break down protein, you slow your metabolism, and once you DO start eating more calories (and you will--just wait and see), then you will be back crying cuz you've gained your weight back and you "just don't understand why"!?!
So if you want all to be well with your life, I'd recommend you meet your protein goals. Most of us have a goal of 60-80g of protein per day, cuz we're just average peeps of average musculature. I try to get at least 60g/day.

First off, let me say that you should always listen to your doctor and nutritionist...rather than crazy people on the internet, myself included.
But here's my rant today. And for what it's worth....this is just MY feelings on this nonsense. I'm no expert.

Ya'll need to eat. Not overeat. But also NOT UNDER-EAT. Eat healthy food you enjoy.
I know how it happens. Your weight loss gets sluggish and stuck and you think OMG, this isn't working, I'm Failing at this! You start to panic.
And what does a lifelong self-destructive dieter DO when they start to panic? They go exteme.
They go...ok, my doctor said it was ok to eat this much.....so I'm gonna try to eat HALF of that to speed up my weight loss!
I'm going to work harder than anyone! I'm going to eat less! I'm going to force this weight off of my body...because this is my last chance and I'm freaking out and I can't fail at this, so I NEED to do better and cut back!
Only, here's the thing. You don't need to cut back. You need to stay the course, nourish your healing body, have good energy to boost your metabolism and lose weight sensibly.
Why do people do VLCDs? (very low calorie diets....1000 or less calories a day)....they do them because they show results in a hurry.
And there is nothing people like better than a lower number on the scale...regardless of how they're achieving it. Or how harmfully they are achieving it.
When you eat less than 1000 calories a day, did you know you lose more muscle than fat...even if you are eating tons of protien grams?
When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism, endanger your organs that have muscle (heart anyone?), and decrease your bone density. None of this is a good idea.
And when you're eating starvation level calories, your body tries like hell to keep you from dying....by, you guessed it, slowing your metabolism even further.
And the carb thing...can we talk about that a minute? You DO want to avoid carbs that are metabolized to sugar really fast, like sugary foods and refined white flour items because they can cause your pancrease to over-react and send too much insulin and you'll end up with rebound hunger....but other carbs, particularly ones that have good Fiber content to slow the sugar can also have good protien content...and they don't do the rebound hunger thing. They give you great available energy.
Why do we lose so much weight so rapidly when we do Keto? We don't really....but the first five pounds is so quick and shocking that it MUST work! (except you're not losing fat, you're losing the Water that your liver stores extra glucose in.....and you've stripped your liver of its emergency reserve of energy. And yeah...you can make the sugar you need from other things through gluconeogenesis....but it takes amino acids that your body is typically harvesting from your muscles.) Don't do that thing where you lose the five pounds eating keto....then eat a few carbs and go OMG, look at the weight I've gained!....and go keto again and lose the same five pounds of water. It's an illusion. (Not saying keto people can't lose weight...they do lose weight fast...but they also have about five pounds in lost water from glucose storage, no emergency stores, and their bodies may be consuming their muscles)
Food for thought (literally!) Guess what organ runs exclusively on sugar? Pure glucose. Your brain. Your brain burns over 300 calories of glucose every day. At just 2% of our body weight....our brains burn about 20% of the calories we use each day! The CPU needs fuel.

Lots of people lose weight rapidly with Very Low Calorie Diets after bariatric surgery. They have these amazing results that other people notice and are in awe of. They lose to goal eating very little and feel very accomplished about their self discipline and their amazing fast results.
And then guess what happens?
At goal...they are still people who have never learned how to eat sustainably for life. All they know is starvation and self deprivation. And starvation doesn't work long term.
Please learn to eat sustainable amounts of calories. Do it early so you don't fudge your metabolism into starvation level calorie requirements.
One of the best ways to have a robust metabolism...is to do exercise every day. It doesn't have to be the gym or something you find tedious. Do things you enjoy....but keep moving.
It's hard to build your robust metabolism.....when you're too tired to do anything but go to work and go to bed...because you're starving yourself.
Please eat. Don't overeat. But eat. Learn to eat right, not starve. Starving is not the cure and in many cases sets the stage for significant regain.
Do it right, even it it's slower than other people. Do it sustainably. Learn to coexist with food, not avoid it. (easier said than done)
Don't get discouraged by small losses. Just keep losing to goal with small sensible tweeks. You don't have to suffer extremes to have success.
Learning to control your diet moderately...is the best skill to have when facing a lifetime of sustaining a significant weight loss.

This end my rant.
Totally ok if you think I'm nuts/wrong/whatever. Take what you like and leave the rest.
Peace and best wishes to everyone on this crazy road.

Bariatric Breakfast—Protein pancakes
Bariatric vanilla Protein low carbohydrate pancakes recipe
Ingredients
Yields: Four 4 pancakes
Serving size: 2 pancakes
2 scoops BariNutrics™ Vanilla Protein
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch salt
2 Tbsp. unsweetened almond milk, milk, or Water
2 large eggs, beaten
Directions
Prep Time: 5 minutes
In a medium-sized bowl, combine first three ingredients.
In a small bowl, beat eggs and add milk.
Add eggs and milk mixture to dry ingredients and mix until completely combined.
Heat skillet or electric fry pan to medium.
Once hot, add ¼ cup of pancake mix.
Cook on first side for 3 minutes.
Flip and cook 1 additional minute.

Italian Chickpea bread
A bread like polenta, but without the corn! This is gluten-free bread with herb flavors based on my take of Liguria, Italy recipes.
Prep:
15 mins
Cook:
15 mins
Additional:
2 hrs
Total:
2 hrs 30 mins
Servings:
8
Yield:
8 servings
Italian Chickpea Bread
Ingredients
Ingredient Checklist
1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup Water
cooking spray
2 tablespoons oil
1 ½ teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 ½ teaspoons chopped dried rosemary
ground black pepper to taste
1 pinch salt to taste (Optional)
Directions
Instructions Checklist
Step 1
Whisk chickpea flour and water together in a bowl until smooth; let sit at room temperature, 2 to 6 hours.

Step 2
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Spray the inside of an 8-inch metal pie pan.

Step 3
Skim foam from the top of chickpea-water mixture. Add oil, Italian seasoning, and rosemary and stir until combined. Pour mixture into the prepared pan; sprinkle black pepper and salt over the top.

Step 4
Bake in the preheated oven until edges begin to brown, about 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cut into wedges.

Cook's Notes:
Use a metal pie pan; a glass or ceramic one may break with the extremely high temperature!

Tips
Chickpea flour is also known as garbanzo bean flour.

Nutrition Facts
Per Serving: 75 calories; Protein 2.4g; carbohydrates 7.2g; fat 4.3g; sodium 20.5mg.

Bariatric Breakfast—Protein pancakes
Bariatric vanilla Protein low carbohydrate pancakes recipe
Ingredients
Yields: Four 4 pancakes
Serving size: 2 pancakes
2 scoops BariNutrics™ Vanilla Protein
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch salt
2 Tbsp. unsweetened almond milk, milk, or Water
2 large eggs, beaten
Directions
Prep Time: 5 minutes
In a medium-sized bowl, combine first three ingredients.
In a small bowl, beat eggs and add milk.
Add eggs and milk mixture to dry ingredients and mix until completely combined.
Heat skillet or electric fry pan to medium.
Once hot, add ¼ cup of pancake mix.
Cook on first side for 3 minutes.
Flip and cook 1 additional minute.

Every so often I feel torn on these forums about my role and what I should say.
On the one hand, I'm a veteran now....and have had success with this whole undertaking that I feel pretty proud of. There are a lot of struggles and things that I can comment about with some hard earned observations and experiences. I can be all.....mentory...and have good mentor-ish things to say to newbies.
Sometimes I feel a responsibility to *provide a good example* and only say things that are in harmony with the bariatric sages...and play the proper acolyte to the Bariatric Authority.
But here's the part where I feel torn.
I also want to tell the truth. I want to be the kind of poster I really enjoyed reading when I was first looking into this crazy ride.
I want to be unvanished, raw and HONEST. Because I value that in people. I value that risk. I value those stories....because sometimes people really need those stories. Even if they're terrible advice and provide a terrible example! Sometimes just knowing someone else....occasionally has a horrible day and eats the entire pack of four Yasso bars....helps you to live your life and forgive yourself.
I want to say: Yes, I drink diet soda. I know it's probably unwise and I also know there's hype about it that's untrue....AND....I know a lot of you drink it, too. And some of you drink real soda.....and will probably rot in hell for it. LOLOLOL
Ya'll won't admit it....but I've seen ya. I've peeked in those windows and I know you do all sorts of awful stuff. You eat peanut M&Ms and drink soda and beer and buy the occasional McDonald's kid's meal and can of Pringles. At Christmas, you cheat. You eat stuff you shouldn't. You ate Halloween candy. Ok, it was just a couple of pieces...but it made you happy.
We're not perfect. We screw up. We make questionable choices. Sometimes regularly. We STILL have unhealthy food moments. We're works in progress.
Can we talk about it as adults...knowing it's a crap example...but also knowing that it's human?
We still do weird assed extreme things in realtion to food.
How many calories in two almonds and one dried cherry? I HAVE TO WRITE IT DOWN.
How many grams of protien in one pint of donated blood? How many calories do I lose when I menstruate? I had a cold and blew my nose ten times and the internet says snot is made of protien...do I have to up my protien?
I once heard a lady on one of these boards say....she had her flinstone chewable multi vitamin....for dessert after her meal. And it was delicious. 😳
Is it wrong to admit I wanted to slap her?
I'll admit it...I ate a S'more about two weeks after I had surgery. I remember it as the most exquisite thing I've ever eaten...and I nibbled that one little square of heaven all night in front of the fireplace with the Christmas lights on. Licked it, actually. Down to a stump. LOL.
And Yes, ..a part of me is still screaming at myself.....You had a freaking S'more right after your surgery???? What the actual H*ll???!!! What were you thinking? (I lived...crap, I even lost weight to goal...but I commited this food crime. Guilty.)
Sometimes I think we lose our humanity in this environment....because as some folks have noticed, there's a competative thing. Some weird ick factor of needing the best score...the tiniest dinner...the least daily calories. "I'm going to get down to my original weight of 9 pounds 3 ounces if it kills me. Could someone please eat the other half of my lentil? It's too much for me."
And then I think....crap, maybe these folks really ARE as together as they seem and I'm just nutty and disordered and still fighting through this mess everyday three years out...isn't normal...
But then I look at the number of folks who wash out...and think......nope. MOST of us are struggling and screw up. MOST of us continue to screw up and figure it out.
Would be fun to do the research to put an actual number on it....
But I'd bet at least 90% of us...have secrets they would never disclose in a forum like this about one screw up or another.
I think we need a Confession thread. Where correction is not allowed. Where worry and concern (and abject horror) are forbidden to be expressed. Where we can just let that other lost soul know....yep, I licked a S'more, too....you're not alone.
All sins can be forgiven. Tomorrow is always a new day.

Oh yeah this one's a real mind-bender. I weighed 207 in the morning of surgery the day I got home I weighed 216 and 2 days later I literally lost 8 lb overnight. It was really interesting to watch. I am now down to 194. I am 11 days post-op.

In my pre-op education class, they said that to be counted as pureed, the scrambled eggs would need to be the consistency of cottage cheese. But everyone's doctor's are different and all. Good luck!

I gotta come in and represent the slower post op losers! I lost 38.6 lbs in the first 90 days. I lost a pretty significant amount of weight preop though so It has been 100 days since surgery but I am down 100 lbs since July 5.

I think it’s important to remember that your body controls how fast you lose, but your mind and your choices control how much overall you lose and how much you keep off over time. And the more you lose the slower it goes- but when you do the right things it still goes in the right direction!

Ummmmm....maybe get a COVID test?

I am 8 months out and up until the last month or so, I usually needed Protein Powder to reach my goal of 60 grams of Protein per day. It varies from one person to the next (and your surgeon may recommend a different protein goal than mine), but it could be a while before you can eat enough to get all of your protein from food. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to drink Protein Shakes every day (I know we all get sick of those); you can mix protein powder into other foods or beverages (a lot of people like to use caramel Protein Shake as a coffee creamer).
My go-to Breakfast for a long time was half a scoop of protein powder mixed with half a container of triple zero Greek yogurt, for a total of 19 grams of protein (my favorite combo is birthday cake protein powder plus vanilla yogurt, topped with raspberries). Another good one is protein oatmeal. The BariatricPal Store sells some with 15 grams of protein per serving, and you can add some more protein powder to that. There are a lot of protein pancake mixes on the market (and you can even buy frozen protein pancakes and waffles). eggs, chicken sausage, and turkey bacon are always good high-protein options for breakfast.
For lunch and dinner, I usually have about 2 ounces of meat and 2 ounces of veggies, like a salad with chicken, or BBQ chicken (with sugar-free BBQ sauce) and air-fried veggies (green Beans, asparagus, carrots, or broccoli), or lettuce wraps (like PF Chang's). Another favorite is Mexican-seasoned chicken with cauliflower rice, salsa, black beans, cheese, and nonfat Greek yogurt. And taco bites, with Quest chili lime protein chips topped with Mexican-seasoned chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, and nonfat Greek yogurt.
You can't eat much at this point, so you have to keep it simple and focus on protein. I love my air fryer and Instant Pot and I make a lot of recipes with them, but if you don't have those, you can find similar recipes that use other cooking methods. Here are some great recipes that I've made recently:
Chicken Divan with cauliflower cream sauce (the cauliflower cream sauce is fantastic and can be used as a white sauce in a lot of recipes) Instant Pot Carnitas Instant Pot Mexican Chicken Instant Pot Lemon Garlic Chicken Garlic Parmesan Carrot Fries Buffalo Cauliflower (I make it in the air fryer) Turkey Ragu (excellent with Shelly's Ricotta Bake, roasted spaghetti squash, or shirataki noodles) Instant Pot Egg Bites Instant Pot BBQ chicken White Chicken Chili I have a freezer full of bariatric portioned meals and Pinterest boards full of more recipes that I'm dying to try! If you don't already use Pinterest, you definitely should -- it's a gold mine.