Search the Community

Hello, welcome to the Bari world! You will learn very quickly that everyone has their opinion about foods/shakes. Not only how something taste but also their opinion on it's value to your diet. (Is it healthy? Should you eat it? Don''t eat carbs.. do eat carbs.. etc.) I always say, follow YOUR teams/Dieticians plan! Period. You trusted them with your life (literally) so you should trust them in your recovery and your WL process. Every team is different, different rules, different guidelines, everything. I tried a bunch of different "alternative" foods. Some are ok, most I didn't prefer. I find it easy to hit my protein goals, so I don't need to make sure EVERY single item of food has protein. I still drink shakes every day for breakfast but that is mainly because I am not a morning person and don't like to eat in the mornings. Otherwise most of my nutrition is from whole foods. My point is, if I feel like I really want "need" some chips, I just eat a few regular ones. I eat regular cereal (usually raisin bran) with fairlife milk. With that being said I reiterate ALL PLANS ARE DIFFERENT. I am "allowed" anything in moderation as long as I am hitting my protein/fluid/ WL goals. My Dietician says "you shouldn't feel like you are on a diet for the rest of your life, you should modify your eating habits to gain a healthy life and learn moderation". Now, to actually answer your questions. My opinions: Quest chips: They are ok, the taste is good but the texture is a little weird to me. They feel powdery to me and do not hold up to any type of dipping or even to use as nachos. Protein cereal: I have not specifically tried the magic spoon brand but have tried a few others. I hated them ALL. haha Literally hated them, brought them to work and threw them on the "sharing" table in the lunch room and it all sat there till i threw it away. I have tried premier brand, they are SO HARD and taste like stale rocks. I ate 2 bites and tried to flush the rest down the toilet and they wouldn't even flush! haha I also tried the brand "wonderworks keto" and felt just about the same way although they were better than the premier. They were ok to eat dry as a snack but disgusting with milk. To each their own, you may find like some other people that you love them. I have also tried Quest protein pizza, it was actually good but not a big enough deal to me for the price. I will jsut eat regular pizza. Usually a few bites and then just the toppings. Or, make home made pizza on low carb/calorie wraps. I don't know what else I have tried other than probably hundreds of protein bars, which I still randomly try and eat once in a while. Usually more of a meal replacement in a pinch than a snack. Ok- I have rambled long enough! best of luck on your journey!!

Most of the "protein infused keto friendly" alternatives to that sort of thing taste awful and have a weird texture. No joke I would rather slowly nibble on one regular Dorito than eat an entire bag of those Quest chips.

The withdrawal from caffeine, sugar, etc. can be awful. Headaches, shakes, cold sweats, …. and the craving for them can be greater. Thankfully the first week is usually the worst. My surgeon recommends different diets for different patients but the all shake diet is known as hell week in his office. I’d done the shake diet twice before (two shake meals & one low carb, low fat meat & vegetable/salad meal) so I was much relieved when the dietician said I was to do keto for the two weeks. No calorie requirement or macro goals just high fat, high protein, low carb, low sugar. (She also said keto was a good way to kick start my weight loss but not as a long term diet.) I lost about 5kgs.

Yay we are on the same day. We will do great. I'm just a little nervous about the diet afterwards. I want to do everything the right way. They said to that keto is a good diet to follow. Makes me feel at ease a bit. Sent from my SM-S908U using BariatricPal mobile app

yes - it is. They have a Keto version, too, but the protein level in that one isn't as high.

I used to put tiny slivers of hard cheese in my mouth and waited till it disappeared. My keto mouth thought it was delightful

I swear people make you feel like that though. Like why is it a judgemental thing about how you achieve weight loss? I like to be 💯. It is so draining, being phony for me, but it’s like people want some phony mess like, oh! I ONLY did keto, cardio and strength trained or I got lipo. I guess I could NEVER be an influencer, because I can’t lie and my face tells it all even when I try. But, I really do not try to judge, but I leave some conversations like, judge unto others and you would have them judge unto you…I am a bit petty so I said, F-it I am judge they ass too.

I love this post. I paid for the surgery myself and I'll do it again in a heartbeat. Money well spent. Some of the savings that comes to my mind are: - Buying clothes is much more fun now and maybe cheaper now. Finding clothes that fits without being too baggy was a real struggle. So I opted for having custom-made shirts and that cost a lot over here. Here is a photo of the custom-made shirt I wore when I was admitted to the hospital and the one I wore on my 1 year surgery anniversary I say maybe because I now can't resist buying new clothes every time we go to the mall - I'm saving a lot of the money that I used to spend on junk food, chocolate, cookies etc. I now focus on buying quality and nutritious ingredients to cook with. The cost of food after WLS is also much less than KETO diet (all that butter and olive oil haha) - I'm off of all the medications that I used to take before the WLS. Now I only have to take my multi-vitamin and supplements.

This week we have a lot of visitors from the head office (I work in a remote site) and I've not seen some of them for quite sometime. Some even before Covid hit. I was the star of this week with everyone talking about my weight loss and all kinds of praise and encouragement. Almost everyone asked me how did I lose the weight including the big bosses from the client and the contractors. I've only told my direct boss and the company managing director about my surgery. I took time-off to do it and told everyone else that I was going on vacation. It helped that we were still working from home while I was recovering so nobody noticed any change during that period. I chose not to tell my coworkers because I didn't want the unsolicited advice and opinions some might have about the WLS and also the follow-up questions. I learned that from when I was on KETO and made the mistake of telling a few coworkers about it. Suddenly I would have people come over to talk to me about it or advising against it etc. It was too much. One guy in particular would come in a for a weekly update on how much weight did I lose etc. Outside work, only my wife, my direct family and two of my closest friends know about my WLS. They have been very supportive and helped me throughout. I've been telling people that I was on KETO, then started a low-carb diet and exercising. I even have a photo of me on my maintain bike to prove it 😂. I would love to hear how did you respond to such questions / remarks?

I wonder if this bothers people because it hits a little too close to home. I used to hate when people said, "It's not a diet -- it's a lifestyle change!" (usually when referring to... a diet, e.g., keto). But now, I get it, as much as I hate to admit. I actually use that now to shut people up when they get too nosy about my weight loss (I have kept my surgery private and not told any friends, family, or coworkers). When they demand to know my secret to weight loss, I say I made a lot of lifestyle changes, and that's not what they want to hear. I see a lot of people on this forum who seem to expect the surgery to work like magic -- to make weight loss easy, instant, and permanent. Reminding people that surgery is a tool, not something that works on its own, might be a reality that's hard to face.

Shelf-stable snacks: Keto cereal (no added sugar, low fat, like Catalina Crunch). Also sipping soup-to-go (check nutrition label, Butternut Squash soup is good) if you can microwave for 1 minute. Mini-containers are great (4 oz. glass baby food containers, available online) for meal prepping. You can prep for the entire week and it makes it easy.

So the 5 year history typically means they want to know how long you've been obese, what comorbidities you have and how long you've had them, what meds you've had to take for them and how long, etc... The supervised diet would be either 6 months working with a dietician or having done things like doctor supervised keto, or Jenny Craig, or Weight Watchers, or a low calorie/low fat diet (again, doctor supervised). If you have done any of these, they want to know the results.

I've looked at some bariatric cookbooks and I do not think they are worthwhile. There are tons of free recipes available on the internet. After the first couple of months, you don't really need bariatric-specific recipes (but don't sleep on the ricotta bake -- it is delicious and I made it regularly during my pureed and soft food stages). I have found a lot of wonderful recipes on Pinterest. I've had the best luck searching for "skinny" and "WW" (Weight Watchers). "Healthy," "low-carb," and "keto" also have some good results; you just have to make sure they meet your requirements ("keto" recipes in particular can be a mixed bag, because some of them are very high in fat, which can cause dumping for bariatric patients).

Okay, so it is just meats and egg whites. I would suggest that you search for "Atkins Induction Recipes". That's what this list looks like, to me. Make sure that it's the Induction phase. You're going to be thrown into ketosis. I would suggest that you add an electrolyte supplement to your diet, to minimize keto flu symptoms. Personally, I use the Mio sport drops in my first glass of water everyday.

I had no problems that I know of from regular keto, off and on for years, but it was the super low carb to carnivore that did it! I didn’t know what was going on the first time (Lhermittes and burning patches on my forearms, NP at my dr office said the Lhermittes was “just arthritis”, forgot about the burning patches since this was all long gone by my appointment. Moved to Colorado and had that second flare that lasted a few months and my medical care has been SO much better out here. Even making progress towards bariatric surgery is a huge improvement. Lived in TN and GA previously. My only lasting symptom came in between the flares and just two fingers on my left hand are partly numb. Hope the leg numbness doesn’t affect your mobility too terribly!

Oh man! I am sooo sorry. I was lucky and didn't get any during my low carb/keto run but I feel we never truly know what will set one off. My very first flare to a diagnosis was with my legs going numb and they have never fully recovered so I get that completely. I just keep thinking about when I had my son and the hormone shock afterwards put me through hell with my attacks. Hopefully with our surgeries being so close we can check in with one another. #Igotyourback Sent from my SM-N960U using BariatricPal mobile app

Reposting something I posted elsewhere: First, the most common reason for any stall, including the dreaded 3-week stall is simply that you are retaining more Water. There are a few reasons this happens, but around the 3-week mark it comes down to the fact that your body is adjusting to a low carb intake after converting from glycogen to ketones for energy. More water is needed to burn glycogen, so you were retaining more water pre-surgery than you are now that you're using primarily ketones for energy. At about the 3-week mark, your body eventually recognizes that the water loss is long term, so other mechanisms have started kicking in to start holding on to more water. This water loss due to the change between glycogen and ketones is the primary reason for "keto flu", and something that increases your risk of dehydration early after surgery. The other "reasons" for plateaus really don't apply as much at the 3 week mark, but will become more important later in the process. Let's cover those too though so you're prepared: As you lose more weight, your overall metabolic rate will slow down. People sometimes think fat is not metabolically active, but that's not true. Less fat means your metabolism slows down, even if you retain the same amount of muscle. As you lose weight, it takes less effort to move, so the amount of calories you burn from activity also drops quite a bit. As you progress, you'll be able to eat more and especially if you're not tracking intake closely by weighing and measuring your food, you can easily be eating a lot more than you think. This one may be TMI for some, but you may simply be retaining more stool. This is going to be hard for some people to hear, but I can tell you one thing it's not, and that's hormones. Yes, various hormonal processes negatively impact weight loss in a myriad of ways, but they don't overcome basic physics: if you eat less than you are burning, you'll lose weight. What these hormones can do if they're out of whack, is not good things like slowing your metabolism, increasing your hunger, screwing with water weight, or even fooling you into thinking you're eating less than you are. So, with all that sciency stuff out of the way, what do we actually do if we're in a stall? Well, I think it depends on when it happens and how long it lasts: If it's early (a.k.a. the 3-week stall), just keep doing what you're doing and you should be fine. I know people don't like that advice, but as I said, it's just water, so don't worry about it. Later on, especially if the stall is lasting longer than 2-3 weeks. that's when I think it's important that you look closely at what you are actually burning, as well as really tracking what you are eating. If you don't know your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), you should. The closer you are to goal, the harder it is to get the balance right between intake and output to make sure you're not eating too much, so fixing this starts with knowing your BMR and accurate food logging. There's a lot of anecdotal advice thrown around about "ways to break a stall", but there seems to be little scientific evidence for any of it. Most of it certainly won't hurt to try, e.g. breaking up your routine in terms of diet or exercise, but just understand that this change may or may not have had any impact. If it makes you feel better to be proactive, go for it. Longer term, there is one piece of solid advice that's backed up by lots of research: Even if you don't really like working out, do it anyway. Those WLS patients that make a regular habit of exercising for 45 minutes to an hour most days a week are significantly more likely to reach their goal and maintain the weight loss. (One caveat here: significantly changing your exercise routine can make you retain water and possibly even add muscle, so don't freak out if you see a stall or even a gain.) I'll take that exercise advice one step further and say you really should be doing some form of strength training. This is also backed up by lots of studies, but the great thing about strength training is that it makes your burn more calories even at rest (in other words, it increases your metabolic rate). There are lots of other benefits, but the metabolic benefit is the most germaine to the stall question. Those that do strength training are less likely to stall during weight loss.

I straight up regret having surgery. I was a low BMI candidate with a bunch of other health factors that got me approved for the procedure. I am weak beyond measure and dizzy everyday. Can barely handle self care without issue. I had post-op rectal bleeding, went back to the hospital for IV hydration, everything is just difficult. I can’t help but feel like I wish I would have just lost the weight on my own. I did WW, keto, boot camp training sessions, you name it and never had long term success. I know people say it gets better with time but when?! I’m a mom of twins, laying around all day just isn’t my style. I wish I never did this :(

Bypass Revision due to GERD (Horrible Reflux) Good morning, Congratulations to everyone on here who made the decision to become a better version of themselves!!!❤️ Is there anyone in the Atlanta, Georgia area??? My surgery date was 12/22/22… looking for my buddy or twin? I am 5 days post op and the first three days were challenging, but I believe it was to be expected. Just a lot of discomfort. Sooooooo, Vitamins always First and about that drinking water and getting the fluids needed. I drink all of my water with Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier - Lemon Lime - Hydration Powder Packets | Electrolyte Drink Mix | Easy Open Single-Serving Stick | Non-GMO | 16 Stick https://a.co/d/g0ZjYd9 it’s so much easier cold and I sip on it all day long. 24oz and I keep it in a Manna or Yeti cup to stay cold. I get my protein in with Evolve protein drinks and no sugar yogurts and cottage cheese throughout the day. I don’t have a hunger feeling so I have to try and time it. (All very high in protein) Evolve Plant Based Protein Shake, Double Chocolate, 20g Vegan Protein, Dairy Free, No Artificial Sweeteners, Non-GMO, 10g Fiber, 11 Fl Oz (Pack of 12) - (Formula May Vary) https://a.co/d/emMQGGo Ratio Keto Friendly Coconut Yogurt Cultured Dairy Snack Cup, Keto Yogurt Alternative, 5.3 oz https://a.co/d/6msj2k9 Good Culture Cottage Cheese Organic 4% Whole Milk Classic, 16 oz https://a.co/d/06oD97i For my calcium I take 3 chewable supplements of Caltrate Chewables 600 Plus D3 Plus Minerals Calcium Vitamin D Supplement, Cherry, Orange And Fruit Punch - 155 Count https://a.co/d/3a9w3Fn I hope this helps a little.

Bypass Revision due to GERD (Horrible Reflux) Good morning, Congratulations to everyone on here who made the decision to become a better version of themselves!!!❤️ Is there anyone in the Atlanta, Georgia area??? My surgery date was 12/22/22… looking for my buddy or twin? I am 5 days post op and the first three days were challenging, but I believe it was to be expected. Just a lot of discomfort. Sooooooo, Vitamins always First and about that drinking water and getting the fluids needed. I drink all of my water with Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier - Lemon Lime - Hydration Powder Packets | Electrolyte Drink Mix | Easy Open Single-Serving Stick | Non-GMO | 16 Stick https://a.co/d/g0ZjYd9 it’s so much easier cold and I sip on it all day long. 24oz and I keep it in a Manna or Yeti cup to stay cold. I get my protein in with Evolve protein drinks and no sugar yogurts and cottage cheese throughout the day. I don’t have a hunger feeling so I have to try and time it. (All very high in protein) Evolve Plant Based Protein Shake, Double Chocolate, 20g Vegan Protein, Dairy Free, No Artificial Sweeteners, Non-GMO, 10g Fiber, 11 Fl Oz (Pack of 12) - (Formula May Vary) https://a.co/d/emMQGGo Ratio Keto Friendly Coconut Yogurt Cultured Dairy Snack Cup, Keto Yogurt Alternative, 5.3 oz https://a.co/d/6msj2k9 Good Culture Cottage Cheese Organic 4% Whole Milk Classic, 16 oz https://a.co/d/06oD97i For my calcium I take 3 chewable supplements of Caltrate Chewables 600 Plus D3 Plus Minerals Calcium Vitamin D Supplement, Cherry, Orange And Fruit Punch - 155 Count https://a.co/d/3a9w3Fn I hope this helps a little.

Hi All! Summary: I'm bored of my go to meals. What healthy options do you love? Detail: I am almost 3 years out and have put on a few pounds from my low - 155 to 170 at 5'10. I think I'm still in the normal "bounce back" gain range but I want to make sure I stop any further gain. I work out pretty heavy: 3 days of HiiT, 1 day hiking, 1 day yoga plus daily dog walks. I had stopped tracking all my food but started back up and I am around 2000 calories a day which with exercise seems to be right (when I am tracking and staying there my weight stopped moving). My challenge is I tend to eat 3 meals plus an afternoon snack and I am looking for lower calories, lean protein options. I tend to like one pot or casserole type meals v. a piece of meat and side dish but I am open to any thoughts! For those of you curious, a regular day for me may be: Breakfast: Coffee w/ half and half and Green smoothie (with protein, frozen fruit & frozen spinach) Lunch: Chicken salad Snack: Greek yogurt with keto granola Dinner: Ground chicken tacos with carb conscious tortilla's or Breakfast: Coffee w/ half and half and 2 eggs on an english muffin Lunch: Chef salad Snack: Premier protein shake Dinner: Au gratin vegetables casserole with chicken dinner sausage I may also have dessert which is usually sugar free jello/sugar free jello pudding made with Fairlife skim milk Thanks for sharing! Lori

I do a modified keto. My surgeon said to do 60-80g of protein everyday, less than 50g of fat, less than 50g of carbs, and little to no sugar. I do all of that except I chose to limit my carbs to 25 or less per day and I typically do 70-90g of fats (healthy, like avocado, not a lot of bacon and sausage and all that). I also severely limit my salt. I told my surgeon, and at first he wasn't too happy about it. But I've lost 103 pounds in almost 7 1/2 months, my cholesterol and bp are perfect, I'm no longer diabetic. So he said as long as I'm doing good and my numbers stay good, he's ok with it. I'm no longer on my bp pill, my 3 diabetic meds, or my Celebrex (really strong anti-inflammatory). I'm now able to work out 5-6 days per week and I have my full mobility back without my cane (I needed a cane at my heaviest weight).

Congrats! I would like to hear more about you doing Keto. There are a lot of things "keto" we've been told not to do, like high fat/calorie. Did your surgeon recommend this? I ask because I love Keto and would much rather do that down the line.

Yes, I did. I went to a few different consultations. I wanted to make sure I felt comfortable with my surgeon, that we saw eye to eye regarding post-op nutrition (i.e. fan of fruits/vegetable for health benefits, not keto or extreme low carb) and more importantly had a good surgical record.

Hey everyone, new to the forum, and to even really understanding what the sleeve is all about! I am a 385 lb male, 6'1... Been big my entire life (since about the age of 18) Weight has fluctuated my entire life but not massively , always been around the 350 - 390 lb range. Until 2018 when I did Keto for 6 months and lost about 70 lbs. Gained it all back and then some during covid with parenting and work stress and probably a bunch of other excuses. Ive always stayed away from the surgery but met someone who had it and then I started looking into options. Pretty nervous. But excited at the same time.