isaviolinist

Calories in vs out is science. There are many on lbt (and in general) who like to debate it (at which point I remove myself from the conversation...I can deal with a lot, but not enabling...I hate it). I count calories anally and make sure i'm at a significant deficit everyday and I lose weight steadily. When I'm not at a deficit I don't. It's a super simple formular - everyone should follow it (like really follow it...the snacks at the supermarket and the tastes of food while you're cooking count as part of your daily calorie intake). Good thread!

I'm pretty sure they weighed me. Can't remember for sure but I think they did. I definitely weighed myself before leaving for the hospital.

For some reason, I didn't get erased. Last time, my name got duplicated a bunch of times but the original one was left. Anyways, I recorded my loss for this week. Hopefully there won't be anymore shenanigans on the spreadsheet for the final week. Also, don't forget - there is also the New Year's Challenge (link is in my signature). The format is a bit different (should someone erase everything, you'd only need to re-enter your starting weight and current weight and goal weight...you don't need to remember your loss for each individual week) but I actually prefer it to weekly recording because you don't need to remember all that stuff should someone mess around with the spreadsheet. Anywho, good luck to everyone in the final week!!

I don't have a problem with popcorn (although I have heard that some bandsters do and my nut told me that its not a band friendly food). I really like the 100 calorie bags of popcorn. Its like 4 or 5 cups of popped popcorn. Yum!

I am totally addicted to Reese Pieces (my cat is named Reeses actually), Peanut Butter cups, any other candy with chocolate and peanut butter, peanut butter out of the jar. Peanut butter in general. I was in the baking aisle yesterday and those bag of peanut butter chips were really calling my name lol. I think I said out loud "Get out of my face". People in the aisle must've thought I was crazy. I really like PB2 to help ease my peanut butter craving. But I do allow myself to enjoy what I like now and again. The other day, I got a box of butterfinger snackers. I think it was 170 calories. I just factored it in to my calorie intake for the day. The suggestion to get a small bag of candy and bring into the movies is a great one. Movie candy is HUGE. Over Thanksgiving break I got a big box of reeses pieces at the movies too (and of course ate the whole thing). I'm working on not beating myself up if I have a slip up (slip up is not so much eating the treat, but actually overeating it compulsively). My therapist was telling me that even though our inclination is to beat ourselves up when we have a slip up/binge/whatever, that is the time that we need to be good to ourselves. Maybe the kinder and more forgiving we are to ourselves, the less we'll feel we need to use food for comfort ?

I agree with those who said everyone is individual. I definitely eat more than 1/2 cup of food at night. However in the morning/afternoon, I can't really eat much of anything solid and so I have a Protein shake at noon and thats pretty much it (and it keeps me satisfied). Depending on the protein (I don't eat pork, red meat or poultry), I can eat between 2.5-8 ounces. Its a pretty big range. Tofu I can eat 6-8 ounces, overcooked or meaty fish (like swordfish) I can eat 2-3 ounces (I try not to eat overcooked fish...its gross), flaky fish I can eat anywhere between 3-6 ounces depending on the day, I can easily eat 8 ounces of King crab. With veggies, I can eat a lot (unlimited amount of lettuce and other greens, etc). It just depends. I eat between 850-950 calories per day, exercise tons, and lose between 2-4 pounds per week (my average loss from mid-October to the beginning of Dec was 3.7 pounds a week...Ill reassess again towards the end of January). Everyone is individual and should do what works for them. If you're losing and feeling good/not feeling sick and improving your relationship with food, then keep doing what you're doing!

Before I go out, I try to check the menu before we go. That way I can plan what I'm going to order. I try to stick to the Proteins and stay away from pastas, rice etc. (not that I don't ever eat that stuff, but not at a restaurant because I have no idea how they prepare it). This is what I did with a menu item last week. From the menu: "Fresh fillet of salmon rolled in coarsely ground black pepper, sautéed and seared with a lemon-chive beurre blanc, with potatoes". I asked for the salmon to be broiled without any oil or fat instead of sauteed (I also asked how many ounces the salmon was...I'm anal about knowing these details). I asked for the beurre blanc on the side and I asked for steamed veggies without butter instead of the potatoes. All in all, it turned out to be a really healthy meal. We went out to dinner this evening and I had King crab legs. They were already prepared steamed without butter, but of course the butter comes on the side. Instead of butter, I asked for aioli on the side. I used a coffee spoon and scooped approximately a tablespoon of the aioli (and left the rest) and dipped my crab in that. Again, many people don't fuss with all of the asking for things on the side, or asking restaurants to prepare foods without oil or butter, and they just eat the food as is. But I prefer to have a little more control over what I'm eating when I go out (I cook decadently but I know what the nutrition facts are of what I make). So thats how I handle it. Now and again I just have what I want (special occasion or whatever). But in general, that's what I do and it works pretty well. If I can't eat everything on my plate, my fiance eats it or we take it home. If there is an appetizer portion of something that is meal-like, I may order that (but often appetizers are not the most nutritious items on the menu).

I do an hour of cross training 4-5 times a week and 1-2 hours of cardio (arc trainer and elliptical) 4-5 times a week (so somedays I double up and do two workouts). And Im eating 850-950 calories a day for the most part.

Make sure you are injecting yourself in fat and not muscle. If you're injecting into muscle it will really hurt a lot.

Lol - no, for real. I was driving when I got this notification on my phone and started laughing so hard I couldn't focus on the road. Especially when you yelled at me with capital letters. Hm, are you a policeman (you said you were helping other police and firemen)? You're not a Philly police officer, are you? Your aggressive disdainful and grandiose attitude would fit right in on the Philly police scene (although if you're no longer obese and you don't like to spend most of your day perusing the pretzel and hot dog bars at various WaWa locations around the city, you'd be in the minority in that respect). Anywhoo, glad to hear you weren't lost among the interwebs and you actually are on LBT because you've had WLS. And of course, congrats on your weightloss!

Not that I care to engage in this discussion, as I really don't think either side is right (and I think all the folks in DC are acting liking petulant children), but ariscus - according to your post history, you've only posted about conservative political news stories in the Rants and Raves section. Have you had/are you considering WLS? Because I feel like there are many other forums on the net which would give you much more lively discussion of these topics. While this IS an off topic area, I think most people are coming here for support with their band.

Nice congrats!! Bet that's an amazing feeling!! I have 3 pounds to go until I join you! Keep up the hard work!!

Good luck to everyone starting and to those who have already started the preop diet!! For me, the first few days were hard but then it got much easier and I stopped thinking about food. My fiancé (who was my boyfriend at the time) also did most of the preop diet with me which was helpful. When things got hard, I would just think about how much weight I was losing on the diet and that would give me renewed motivation. Good luck to everyone!! You can do this!

I hit 80 pounds lost today. 3 pounds to go until I'm in onederland (hopefully before the new year!), and then hoping to be joining you all in the "100 pounds lost" club, shortly thereafter! (in addition to losing weight, I also love bananas lol)

Oh my goodness I'm so sorry for what happened to you. Car accidents are horrible without complications like this, but this just makes it really terrible :-( It definitely would depend on your circumstance but I would revise to the sleeve. For me, dumping syndrome is just so unappealing that I wouldn't consider RNY. I really like my sweets and I want to be able to enjoy them (but normally, in normal portions as opposed to an ENTIRE cake or the WHOLE container of Ben and Jerry's) without having to run to the restroom every time. If I ever revise, I think I will revise to the sleeve (or plication, depending on how that procedure fairs). Sorry for your situation and good luck with your decision!

I had a group nutrition appointment where we went over the basics of eating with the band, preop diet, postop diet, how much food we should be eating at a meal, protein first etc. That was more like a seminar with other folks who were getting the band too. And then I had an individual meeting with the nutritionist where she just talked to me about how I was doing with my eating currently, have I started practicing taking little bites and chewing thoroughly etc. And she asked me if I had any questions (which I did, and then we discussed those). And she gave me her email and told me to contact her whenever I needed anything.

This is the one from spark people: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp I use it for all my recipes. Only thing is, sometimes some of the calories are off on it so I always double check on a site like calorieking.com or fitday.com. So if you input something and the calories seem either really low or really high, just double check it.

This is pretty common. Post op, I went for 4ish months (or maybe a little longer? Can't remember now) without any restriction and just had to go at it with sheer will power. The only suggestion would be try to eat sensible portions of healthy foods and get in your exercise. Try to just hold out doing the stuff thats good for you until you have some assistance from your band. Since you were banded 3ish weeks ago, are you still on mushies? You may feel a bit more satisfied when you transition to solid foods (but don't make that transition until your doc tell you to...just follow you post op plan).

I just joined the team!! Just out of curiosity - will they automatically donate the food or do we have to somehow report as we lose weight?

Ah congrats!! That is so awesome hope to be there with you shortly - 3 pounds to go for me!

I keep a food log religiously (literally everything that goes into my mouth goes into the log). I do it on fitday.com. I love it. Its free, I can enter in custom foods, and they have a HUGE food database. I find it to be more convenient than carrying around a pen and notebook. I also hand in my food logs and recovery logs (I log my workouts, if I had any pain, how much sleep I'm getting, motivation level etc) to my fitness practitioner at our fitness center and they give me feedback on what I'm doing. Its been invaluable for keeping me on track. I know if I miss a workout or go on a binge, ill hear about it from them. You should see if you can find something like that. That way, you're not just logging but you're checking in with someone weekly.

I also fell off the wagon for awhile and gained 50 pounds back. I decided to get back on track in September and have since lost all the weight I regained plus some. Calling the gym, logging back into LBT, restarting my blog, restarting my food log were the hardest parts of getting back on top of things. Once I initiated all of those things, it was much easier to get back into the swing of things and into a routine. I'm feeling better than ever now and I feel like I learned a good lesson which will make me stronger in my weight loss in the future. I also started seeing an eating disorder therapist for my compulsive eating, and its definitely helping (I don't want to feel like Im teetering on the edge anymore...this time I want to be successful and for good). There are a lot of us who struggled but have gotten back to it - you have a lot of like minded support here!

I just looked at the running total: We've lost over 210 pounds!! If you haven't updated the spreadsheet lately with your current weight, go do it so you can get added into the tally!

Wow - the spreadsheet looked okay to me yesterday but I just went on and something weird was happening. I didn't lose my original record, but I had 3 additional entries on the spreadsheet, all with different random recorded start and goal weights and weekly losses. Anyways, I deleted my duplicated entries that had been entered on spreadsheet - glad the original didn't get lost. I don't know why people do that to the spreadsheets. And if an accident happens and you accidentally mess it up, just let people know so someone can go in and try to fix it instead of everyone finding out by a surprise.

I think I had 3-4 days after surgery of clear liquids (not a week). But as has beens stated, all the doctors vary so much, its hard to compare. I know that Unjury makes a chicken broth. One scoop has 90 calories and 21 grams of protein. It would be considered a clear liquid I think (you would mix it with water instead of milk) and a good source of protein during the clear liquid phase if you were having concerns about the shakes.