Need Some Help!!!

I have been very depressed lately, as my Brother Frenchy would call me "NEEDY"! The pressures of life have really just gotten to a Brother, I have been struggling with this weight loss surgery. My pouch is very sensitive it only likes fried food, turkey chilli & carbs, I dont really feel like I am loosing weight just inches. I am tired of throwing up 5 times a week, eating the same food(no pork or red meat). I am faced with the impossible task of trying to get in shape to pass this physical fitness test to advance my career in law enforcemnt(by 9/8). I have to run a mile & a half in 12 minutes, do about a 100 sit ups & push up in a minute and a flexibility exam(to test the ab muscles) with weight loss surgery just being done that is impossible. I do not even know where to begin trainning for this stuff and the bad part is I am just being obedient to God cause he directed me to do this. Ok I could go on & on but I just get more depressed, I guess this is good news I am wearing a size 54-56 pants(down from 60-62), 4x shirts(sometimes3X) my energy level has increased, no more med for Diabetes & High Blood Pressure. I keep praying and asking God to just let me wake up on Wednesday and be 220 and in perfect shape:-)

Hey Bro, Hang in there. It takes time. No great thing is created suddenly. You're actually doing extremely well. Just being off the medication was my goal and if I don't lose another pound I'm happy with what the surgery has given me. You may have unrealistic expectations on the  physical fitness test. I don't think I can do 100 pushup in a minute and I've been training for 35 years and 2 years out from surgery. Just do what you can. Train hard and do your best. That's all God ever asks of us. Good luck. Earl

Thanks Bro!!!

Hey Bro, I remembered a book a read a few years ago that might be interesting to you. It's at our library but you can find it online at Amazon...

The Naked Warrior by Pavel Tsatsouline

It's not what you think. He basically was an instructor for the Russian military and shows how to get good at doing high rep bodyweight exercises. His best suggestion for getting good at something like pushups...is do pushups...all day long. Every time you get a minute do as many pushups as you can. It's not about building muscle like bodybuilding as much as building endurance and training your nervous system to do something. Like learning to throw a ball. You need lots of practice to teach your body to do them well. Anyway, good luck Earl

Hey BroDiamond~ Keep your head up and keep working on yourself! I too am in Law Enforcement and also have to do the physcial agility test...it really sucked for me at first to suffer the embarassment of the first time of having to wear a heart monitor so I didn't have a heart attack during the mile and a half..I wasn't allowed to run..I had to walk. I dreaded it and just flat out hated it! Once I had the gastric bypass done, I increased my exercise and worked very hard to get where I am physcially today. The only suggestion I can give you as far as trying to make standard on it is, to try to do a little bit each day and try to improve on it each week. I can see that you don't have alot of time 9/8 but you can at least make a start a document your improvements..you might suprise yourself!

Don't be so hard on yourself, it sounds like you're making progress and you aren't that far out from surgery. Just keep plugging away and your body will work for you :)  As far as the food goes...hmmm have you tried eating protein bars? My pouch is sensitve also but I do pretty good with those, lowfat cheese, skim milk, chicken breast, egg. Have you tried to cut out the fried foods and the carbs or at least maybe cut back on them? Are you possibly eating too much or drinking with your meals?

Take care and hopefully your testing goes well!

Hey BroDiamond, Wow you have a lot on your plate, so to speak :-) I am so sorry to know that you've been depressed. And the surgery struggles are no fun either! I hope you are feeling better. My pouch is sometimes very picky, and in the first few months, I could hardly eat any meat unless it had lots of sauce, or was minced into something like a chili or soup. That has gotten so much better for me, further out from surgery. No problems with any meats now. Maybe fried meats sit best with you because they are so moist? Might try other ways of preparing to keep them moist (steamed chicken) or get creative with sauces. One of my favorite things was always chicken & dumplings. I still love that now, just have to go heavy on the chicken, lighton the dumplings. But it was one of the first chicken dishes I ate with no probs because it's so moist & lots of sauce. Other proteins that sat well with me when i couldn't do meat were peanut butter (especially with flax seed added for extra protein - some grocery stores carry "Naturally More" which has some flax seed, and there's also PowerButter - you can find that online). Also melty cheese things. Sometimes I will take a slice of deli roast beef or ham and wrap it around a slice of cheese and microwave it for 30 secsor so and that worked well, I sometimes put horseradish sauce with it for moistness (ff sour cream & a bit of horseradish). Anyway, seems the big stress is the law enforcement physical testing. That seems overwhelming! But all you can do is all you can do. Hopefully you ahve already started some kind of daily conditioning so you'll be in the best possible shape when it comes. CONGRATULATIONS on your success so far! It gets easier as the time passes, but I know that's probably little comfort now that you're in the middle of some tough stuff. I read a woman's tagline I loved the other day. "If He brings you to it, He'll bring  you through it." or something like that. I like to believe that's true :-) Good luck with it all! Kathy

You are less than 3 months post-op. Please be careful the the abdominal portions of this test. While it's wonderful that you're working to advance your career, I'd hate for you to hurt yourself by doing so much so soon. Please consult your surgeon before moving forward with training for this assessment. The depression you describe is somewhat common. There were emotional reasons that you ate pre-op. Now that you can't eat, sometimes you have to deal with those issues and the resulting emotions and it can suck. Try to focus on the improvements you're making every day. 6-8 inches off your waist in 2.5 months is no small accomplishment and I promise you, in a another couple months, you'll be feeling so good, you'd go through all the bad stuff again.