What products do you suggest

With my surgery date on the books I am getting more and more centered and starting to get things ready for when I am home from the hospital. I have all the necessary foods for my two week pre diet and have started stocking some of the post diet foods. But are there any products you found to be a life saver or a must have since you had surgery? It can be a protein shake/bar, food scale, etc. I want to start looking into them now before surgery.

A digital food scale will probably be less than $15 and a big help in learning exactly what portion size you are eating.

Invest in a smart scale. Get one that measures your weight, BMI, muscle weigh****er weight, fat content, and bone density. Mine connects with my fitness tracker and I have records of everything. If I gain or loss, I check all of the factors, not just weight.

Also some type of mini food processor. I found myself often preparing dinner for the family and my own meal for me. The mini food processor will great for preparing protein shakes, soups, sauces, and dips. The big food processor was overkill when you only need a few ounces of the food.

I disagree completely with White Dove.

Sure, a digital food scale would be useful.

Sure, a food processor would be useful.

But never, ever a weight scale.

OK, maybe not completely ;)

Tek

why not ever a weight scale? Or were you being facetious?

I was being serious.

Every day there are posts of frunstration and angst when the scale just won't move for a week, two weeks. People make themselves miserable, question everything their doing, then make changes.

Here comes the part I should copy and paste:

When I started I was too large for any scale but my surgeons'. As such, I could only know my weight at my monthly follow-ups. All I could do between is focus on my plan, what I was doing, how I was feeling. The scale had no input to my choices.

My first 4 months of weight loss looked like 41, 20, 19, 20. Month 5 was 8 pounds. I went through the angst and frustration so often expressed here for the 15 minutes until my Doc showed up. I was waiting for the terribly blunt lectures he could give me. He looked "Great! How you feeling? How is your plan going?" Huh? I expressed my frustation at the weight loss even though I hadn't changed a thing. NOW came the lecture. He wished folks didn't worry about weight, it doesn't matter. The plan matters. How you feel matters. The scale lies. I took it to heart. The next month I had my second largest monthly loss ever. I didn't change a thing.

Another thing the Doc told me. Anything you do today may not impact your weight for 3-5 days. So changing what you did yesterday because you lost no weight today, or tomorrow is boneheaded human misguided attribution of a cause to an effect. Do the plan, it will work out.

Eventually, when I could weigh on a home scale, I did it for the novelty, and because it was on my list of things I wanted to do. Then I never did it again. Now I only weigh at annual physicals.

A number on a scale doesn't matter. How is your plan working, how do you feel, what are you doing, where are you going? Those things matter.

Of course, I'm an emotionless Vulcan, and reason rules my life. But, a scale won't be making me happy or sad any time soon.

Amazingly, no one listens to my evil scale sermons.

Good luck,

Tek

I think scales are different for men and women but useful in some ways for both. You were frustrated you lost 108 lbs in 5 mos? What were your expectations and where did you get that expectation from? My surgeon has told me that no two patients are alike and that patient a can lose 100 lbs by 6 mos patient b may not and it has many factors not just male, female or weighing at home or not weighing at home. He said bmi plays a role as do genetics and of course compliance. How accurate he is remains to be seen in my case but I will do what I need to. I appreciate the input and your reasoning behind it. I think a scale is necessary for me in the beginning but could be less useful the further out I am. We shall see.

I guess I wasn't clear, my apologies.

I was frustrated that I lost an average of 25 pounds a month, then I lost 8. I was still quite heavy at that point. I still had more weight to lose than most people start at, and I'm not talking about how much they have to lose, I'm talking about their highest total weight. So, yeah, it was not rational, but I was unreasonably vexed. For 15 whole minutes. And my Doc's message got through loud and clear, and there was no more vexing, ever. Well, about weight. Generally, vexing is a hobby.

My Doc was not concerned about my weight from the first day post-op, but rather my heath. My weight loss was never a topic unless I brought it up, as I did in this time described. Then he corrected my thinking. When I started running, he was more interested in that and how it affected my plan, which we adjusted. When I stopped running, he was interested in why, how I shouldn't adjust yet, just heal, but when to start re-adjusting. My Doc never compared me to other patients, or gave me any expectations on weight loss. Only expectations on health outcomes. As may seem obvious, I have great respect for Doc.

Monthly weigh ins are more than an adequate track of weight while still under Doc's care. And under my Doc's care, weight was a footnote.

After that, there was never new information I would get about my health by weighing.

Oh, and I agree, BMI is nonsense. Doc never mentioned my BMI.

I hope this helps convey my meaning better.

Tek

LOL, if I go for a few weeks without weighing myself, I gain weight. The only way I have not regained after 13 years is by daily weighing. Not weighing is the reason most people fail at weight loss surgery. It is easy to go into denial. Kudos to you if you maintained without weighing. You are quite rare.

same here. I spent a month in India last fall and had no access to a scale. I came back about 4 lbs heavier than when I left - and it wasn't jus****er because it was a BEAR to get it off again. I weigh myself every day. I could do it two or three times a week and probably still be OK - but never? No. That's how I've always gained weight in the past. I stopped paying attention, and when I did finally step on a scale, I was always shocked by the gain...

Yeah, I am quite rare. 'Weird' is the more common word.

I've expressed that I have moderately severe OCD, so I had it within me to weigh myself 6 times a day. I actually wrote in my journal pre-op that I feared the specter of it.

Somehow I turned my OCD to keep me away from the scale. My respect for Doc's opinion probably had a lot to do with it. What I was doing was working, and it had been working for months. Why would I mess with success?

Over the years, particularly when I could no longer run, my weight went up then back down. I'm back about where I was when I was only running 30 miles per week, which is again, weird.

I didn't have surgery to count calories, carbs, or my weight. I had surgery to be 'normal,' or as close to it as weird would get me. My perception is 'normal' folk don't vex about every ounce they eat or weight.

On vacations or celebrations I don't worry about plan, though I am extremely careful about what and how I eat. I even have fruity ****tails and a snifter of cognac after dinner. Back home I return to routine. It will balance out.

At any rate, I'm trying to get folks to at least consider the idea. Tilting with windmills is sorta my thing.

Tek