Hoping for a September date!,

[AmandaRo522 4]

Hi everyone! My name is Amanda. I am a mom to a beautiful little girl who will be 3 next month. I started my Bariatric process in March & need to complete 6 months worth of nutritional counseling before I ask for approval from insurance. I am going on my 4th month of nutritional visits and so far everything is going okay. Currently 290lbs my surgeon requested I loss 20lbs before surgery...I lost 3 so far and find myself pretty discouraged. The motivation is there but the time ughhh there never seems to be enough time for workouts and just focusing on diet. I am determined to go through this process and be successful. I would love to have some people to talk to who are going through this process as well!

[AmandaRo522 4]

Hi everyone! My name is Amanda. I am 28yrs old & a mom to a beautiful 3 yr old little girl. I have been over weight literally my whole life...i mean, i have pictures of myself at 2yrs old and already over weight ????. Most of my family is over weight w/ some form of diabetes or heart disease. My hope is by having this surgery and making the life style changes it will help break the cycle and set a good example for my daughter so she won't have to go through what I did as an adolescent. I started my Bariatric process in March & need to complete 6 months worth of nutritional counseling before I ask for approval from insurance. I am going on my 4th month of nutritional visits and so far everything is going okay. Currently 290lbs my surgeon requested I loss 20lbs before surgery...I lost 3 so far and find myself pretty discouraged. The motivation is there but the time ughhh there never seems to be enough time for workouts and just focusing on diet. I am determined to go through this process and be successful. I would love to have some people to talk to who are going through this process as well!

[Brian88ss 59]

Don't worry Amanda I'm sure you can do it.

Stay focused on the prize and you do just fine. It's ok to get discouraged because women typically loose weight slower than men so don't let that keep you down. This is what this forum is for so that you can find that motivation and be successful.

Use the app My Fitness Pal to track your calorie intake. It sounds silly but when you actually document what your food intake is you are much more aware of what your eating. It wouldn't hurt to start counting calories now cause you probably be doing it soon or after surgery anyway. Hope this helps. Brian

[AmandaRo522 4]

Thank you! @@Brian88ss Your encouragement means a lot! I actually use the My fitness pal app. I love it! I never realized how many foods I thought were healthy that actually were pretty bad for me.

[Tlmarsh 15]

Amanda, I am 5 years out from lapband and then 2 years ago converted to bypass. I have learned alot over the last 5 years and I can give some advice I wish I was told. I am 61 now and have lost 85 lbs. I had to lose 10 lbs before surgery and it was very hard.

What I would do to help your future journey with WLS is to focus on exercise. The easiest time in my life to work out was when I was at home with my toddlers. When I was younger I was really into exercise and I did it at home by myself. It took so much less time and work than I expected to get in good shape.

Everyone is different and what works for one doesn't work for another. Some go to gyms, some go to classes, some walk outside, some use a treadmill, etc. Anything that raises the heartrate for 15 minutes per day works.

Since my bypass I knew I should exercise but I was losing weight so easily and felt so great I just didn't do it. Keeping a habit of daily workout (15 to 20 minutes per day is all I need) is crucial.

Because now I am 2 years out from my surgery and I reached my low weight at one year. Beginning of this year it started going up again. I wasn't eating more. I was being a lot more sedentary. For me, lack of activity brings more lack of energy and I just feel too tired to move much.

I KNOW that if I kept on working out as I lost my weight, I would not have this problem now. The more muscle mass we have, the more calories we can eat and not gain weight. As I lost the weight, I am sure my muscle mass was reducing and I was setting myself up for future weight gain.

The weight loss doesn't last forever with bypass. So to get into a habit of regular aerobic movement, you would be preparing yourself to live a thin life from now on. And you would probably lose some weight too.

[AmandaRo522 4]

Thank you for the advice @@Tlmarsh I love hearing from people with experience! I have a treadmill at home and when I can fit in exercise its usually on that or Yoga with my little one to wind down before bed. I am determined to up the any on my treadmill and get in at least 30-45min a day. Thanks for sharing that tidbit about the increased heart rate for 15. I will shoot for that this time around.

[Tlmarsh 15]

Amanda, I don't know if you like treadmill, I did it for years and got really burned out on it. But I think you could think in terms of doing 20 minutes. I am serious. I could send you a picture of myself when I was younger and that was all I ever did was 20 minutes on treadmill. I have had 5 back surgeries and can't run so I never RAN on it. Just fast walking, PLUS a couple times a week I put in a VCR tape and did a floor exercise thing for 30 minutes. When I went on my tramp I only did 15 minutes. In the 80's I read a book called "Fit or Fat" by Covert Bailey. It was one of the first books out on how muscle burns fat. In that book he said our muscles have "fat storing enzymes" and "fat burning enzymes". These enzymes grow based on what we do. And he said 12 minutes of heart rate being "in the zone" per day, 6 days a week, was all we would need to grow a bunch of the good enzymes and the bad ones would not produce so much.

I did that and lost all my weight and got really firm to where I felt comfortable wearing a tube top outside in public! LOL! My stomach was flat. But anyway, if 30 minutes feels like forever for you, try 20...that gives a few to warm up and a few to cool down after. So you get 15 at heart rate. It worked for me and now I am back at it!!!! I already can see the difference in just a week of doing it. I have lost my weight but just gained back 7 lbs over this winter and now I am pushing that back down. Tracy