Good Morning. Talk the talk and walk the walk

 Good Morning,

I am delighted to see such great Maintenance talk here in the LW forum.  I think its an incredibly important conversation for us.

I have been using Myfitnesspal since before surgery.  I track my daily weight in the Food Notes section so that I can see the trends based on my what I eat/ate.  At 27 months I still weigh and measure my food.  I was such a slow loser that I have an immense, very real fear of regain.

I have a weight range of 141-143.4.  If I see 143.4 on the scale, I go back to all protein and veggies.

My exercise is great.  1-2.5 hours a day depending on what hike I take.  I know that the exercise helps me maintain.  Being unemployed gives me the time to exercise more than an hour a day.  I generally have 1-2 days a week when I relax and call a 5k enough exercise.  The other days are 5.5-7.7 a day.

My plan forbid protein supplements so I didn't use them in the beginning, but I am using them now.

My downfall is that I don't drink enough fresh filtered water.

I am going to follow these posts because I would like to get my range to 136-139.

Hi Lee, it has been a long time and it is good to see you.  How have you been?

I am so jealous of you being able to exercise 2 1/2 hours per day, I would die if I even tried.  Unfortunately I cant exercise at all - the only exercise I get which most dont consider exercise is to walk around the mall.

Thankfully I have severe malabsorbtion so I dont need to exercise to keep my weight where I want it  and actually still am able to eat quite a bit - I am sure this wont last forever.

My weight is around 160 now but that is exactly where I want to be and about 10 pounds less than when I got sick a year a half ago.  When I was down at 125, I was emaciated and even when I got up to 145, I was still too thin.   The sad part is that I have so much extra skin, that when I see myself I still look fat but I will never afford plastic surgery - maybe if I ever go in to have my incisional hernia fixed, they can take off some of my skin.

I dont get on here very often to post but I do lurk around alot. 

May I ask, why didnt your plan allow protein supplementation?  Especially in the beginning, how did you get enough protein in without drinking atleast 1 shake per day?  My program we were required to have 1 shake per day.    I dont drink them much now because they tend to give me the runs even with lactaid milk and I dont like them with water.

You say you dont drink enough fresh filtered water?  Do you drink any type of water?  I drink a ton of water but it isnt filtered - as long as it is water.  To me, if it isnt ice cold - I wont drink it.  I have a really large plastic cup with a lid and built in straw and I take it with me everywhere = I fill it up before I leave my apartment and put more ice than water so it lasts a long time and stays cold.  My down fall is diet coke - I have a bad stomach and bubbles settle my stomach - and I hate seltzer.

Keep up the good work
randi

 Randi!  I am so happy to see you posting.  You've had such challenging medical issues for a long time now!

I'm doing great. Other than being unemployed, my life is really great.  I feel wonderful physically and I'm very grateful.

My plan doesn't allow shakes because we are only allowed beverages that are 20 calories or less.  We are just expected to get all protein from food.  

I do get in lots of herbal tea and other beverages, just not as much water as I would like.

I hope you keep coming around here often because you always have great wisdom to share!

I am glad you are doing well.  I do hope you find a new job soon but if you are going to be out of a job, the summer if the best time for it - there has to be a positive way to look at it

My plan didn't allow us to drink our calories either but protein shakes werent part of that because they were part of our protein.  We couldnt have then all day and hardly have any food like I see some people do but 1 was required during the first month and 1 - 2 were allowed after that.  I guess as a sleeve, you were able to eat more at first than us as RNY could.  We cant really eat more than 1 ounce at first and I couldnt eat more than 3 ounces at a time for like 8 months, so I had to supplement with shakes.  I am finally at 3 1/2 years able to eat a decent size of protein at one time. 

I do hope to come around more often - my big problem is that when I do come on I tend to get carried away with my reading and replying adn before I realize it, it is like 4 am - I need my sleep and cant do that very often.

I should come to the lightweight board first but out of habit, I tend to go to the RNY board.  I have to try to make sure I come here first.

 Myabe we should come up with a Maintenance song... ;)

Well - I can attest to letting the "bad food" back in - and drink too.  Yes, I like my beer... 

The thing is - its real hard to measure when malabsorption (for RNY'ers and DS'ers) stops (or lessens significantly) to when Maintenance begins,  Of course our pouches/sleeves get bigger during that time and we're just not sure if it is volume or what we're eating that is causing us issues.

In my case - I do think its both at times.  I don't think I'm a terrible eater - my reactive hypoglycemia keeps me in check with simple carbs.  I can eat wheat products (bread, etc) without issues - but tend not to eat too much of that.   

I have several trigger foods.  Protein bars is one.  They seem to have a lot of carbs in them and I can eat them like candy - they are like slider food to me.  I also don't try to make "healthy" sweet type of dishes.  I'm not a huge sweet eater anyway - but have tried some in the past.  While an individual serving was not bad for the counts, did I stop at 1 serving?  No... 

Right now its Pringles Light chips.  The ones made with Olean.  I can eat a whole can if I let myself.  Instead I allow myself one serving, take it out of the can - go away to another room and eat them slowly... Yes, sometimes I return for more, but not always.  

To be honest - I'm not sure I even know how to track my food anymore.  When I was postop for a few years I cooked and ateat home a lot.  I eat out a lot now (need to stop that too).  Even the dishes I make are hard to put to paper with many ingredients.  It overwhelms me at times.  

So I need to think back to the foods I ate newly post-op that I  could track easily.  It didn't seem to be a problem then... 

My weight is 10 lbs higher than goal.  And yes - I was one of those that said "THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME!!" - and pretty much ignored what I heard regarding maintenance.  Heck - I was still malabsorbing and could eat anything I wanted and still lose/maintain... then the honeymoon is over and reality hits!

Oh - and I've got to get moving again too.

Jody, when I eat it is usually just meat and a veggie so it is easy to count.  But like tonight when I am making broccail quiche, I just guess mainly.  I know I am using 4 eggs and 6-8 oz of cheese and 2c of fresh broccail so I add in one egg, 2oz of cheese and 1/2c brocalli for my serving.  That was easy.  Some stuff isn't so easy and I look on my tracker for something I think is similar.  I used Wendy's chili for mine forever.  My chili is thicker and has more "stuff" but it is at least the protein and probably more calories but everything is low fat so maybe not.  Anyway, for me, it is just doing the best, easiest thing I can do and still count stuff.  You can do this!!!! 

Many of the online tracking tools have recipe calculators that you put your recipes into and it will calculate the nutritional content for you. It can be a bit tedious, so I tend to keep things simple.

I know it's not a good excuse Jody but you have had some major life changes during the last few years.

You always have liked your beer...LOL.  Can you through a little protein in it...  Maybe it would turn you on it.

We can do this Jody!  We just have to promise to be more accountable.

 Jody, I put my recipes into Myfitnesspal .  That way I can just go back and use it in the future.  It takes. Bit of time, but so does getting rid of regain.  We all need to stay on top of this.

We can do it together!

Please be careful eating anything with Olean - there should be a warning on the package but in case you didnt notice - it is just like sugar alcohol in the sf chocolate - it should say - causes laxitive effect.  By taking the fat out - they put something else in that isnt so good and causes diarhea - I thought they took all the Oleam products off the market along time ago - I guess they just put the warnings on the packages.  there was a big stink when the products first came out.