That is quite stunning, congratulations. Some years ago I dieted quite hard for a long time and lost ~60lbs over a couple years at about 0.5lbs/week after an initial drop of 10lbs or so in the first week. So losing more than 0.5lbs per DAY shocks me. My rate of 0.5lbs/week was frustratingly slow but, by design, was closer to a lifestyle than a diet. My main tools were sleeping, low carb, no late dinners (i.e. time shifting calories to earlier in the day), and running ~20miles/week to keep my metabolism up. Trying to run up a hill when you're in ketosis is not easy! Endurance is not a problem, but any "surge" is really, really hard.

Like most folks, when my dieting ended I gained back ~10lbs fairly quickly but basically held fast after that. The low-carb habits lingered on long after the "diet" ended. I realized how much better I felt by avoiding big slugs of sugar. I didn't feel like I was going to pass out in afternoon meetings anymore.

Now that I'm older, I'm finding everything more difficult. Getting the quantity of exercise in is harder because I don't rebuild and repair as quickly. I have to mix in biking and swimming with the running, but those are not as effective. My peak heart rate is lower, so my pace has slowed, and thus it takes longer to accomplish the same calorie consumption. But maybe worst of all is that my will power seems to sag along with my performance. I don't run in temperature extremes as cold or hot as I used to, and rarely will go out in the rain or snow as I used to.

Excuse my rambling.

 

Thanks very much WBahn for taking the time to type that, I appreciate it.

I think your estimate of the calories is probably pretty close, except maybe that hotdog bun which is closer to two slices of bread (160cal) than one (80cal). But that's a minor nitpick.

I'm amazed at how little you eat!

Of course my experience is more with weightlifting athletes who expend more energy working out (and have a high base metabolism) and especially have a need to do a lot of cellular repair and rebuilding, so higher calorie intake and higher protein intake are pretty mandatory.

I'm at approx 73.5kg (162 lb) and averaging 1900 cals day which is carefully measured at the moment.

Like you I'm a sugar addict but that's fine, I'm one of the lucky ones who can lose fat well even with sugar intake. Some people can't, if they eat sugar they always stay fat.

But I have issues with dietary fat. If I eat fat I stay fat. I have learned that the hard way and tested it many times.

So my diet at the moment is about 35% protein, the rest low GI (slow digesting) carbs, and practically no fat. I eat a little cheese for calcium and a little beef for iron etc, but my fat intake is very low.

Currently I'm cycling calories on a 3 day ascending repeat;
day 1 1600
day 2 1900
day 3 2200

Ascending calorie cycling always seems to shred the fat off me pretty well.

Exercise is still close to nil, I play with some dumbells for 20 mins a couple times a week. However I do carry more muscle than normal people at 162 lbs and do a lot of isometric/stretching/flexing stuff etc as part of my lifestyle.

My fat levels are getting quite low now, I have striations visible in my quads/hams, chest, shoulders, and my side abs are starting to show etc. If you do things right the fat melts off without needing to mess with exercise too much.

But I will say if I was on 500-600 cals per day I'd be practically in a wheelchair!

 

The 80 Cal for the bun came directly from the bag the buns came out of. And they were small buns (as was the brat), about the size you would expect from wrapping a single slice of bread around the thing. The guy was clearly keeping things small to max his profits. But the price wasn't too bad for a street vendor since everything, including a bottle of water, was $6. Not great, but for a downtown street vendor, not bad.

I'm getting ready to start the BFL (Body for Life) Program and so I will need to increase my caloric intake to support it. I'm planning on going to six small meals a day and I'm going to have to play with things to balance exercise level against the amount that I can take in. Normally I would probably not take supplements just to support a weight training program, but since I will have a hard time getting everything I need from food alone, I probably will follow his recommendations, at least for the first 12 weeks. I realize that my fitness progress will be slower than it could be as a result, but that's fine since I'm in this for the long haul. I still expect the first 12 weeks to produce significant results and I've got exactly 28 weeks before my 50th birthday. My goal is to achieve a high level of fitness (weight/strength/aerobic) by that date such that I will be completely satisfied just maintaining that state going forward. If I'm not quite there, then that's not the end of the world and I will just keep working at it. The main objective is really to make a major move in the right direction by then.

 

I had to go and look up body for life.

It looks OK, lifting weights is fantastic for people as they get older, for so many reasons.

Six small meals a day is effective, that was my main meal system when I was serious about bodybuilding. It takes some dedication though, there's a lot of time cooking and eating! And it's not just the time itself, it's the interruption to other activities that also costs time and productivity.

Re the first 12 weeks I wouldn't worry too much about the aerobic side. The weight training will increase both strength and aerobic fitness quite well in the early months of training. Your heart will be pounding and your breathing heavy enough from the weights without needing to resort to tedious treadmill type stuff.

 

Good news and bad news. I talked about BFL with the bariatric nutritionist and she was quite adamant about NOT doing anything other than three meals a day with no eating in between. I'm not sure that I agree with her, but I have come to respect her and do think that she knows what she's talking about. Her primary concern seems to be two-fold -- that eating more will stretch the stomach pouch prematurely and that eating more often will lead to grazing and overeating. I think part of that concerns stems from the fact that people that have had bariatric surgery are, by and large, people that have a history of overeating and that a grazing lifestyle is just something that most of them cannot handle properly. BFL, on the other hand, specifically recommends a grazing lifestyle and for some reasons that make sense.

So in the first 12-week go I will stay with the bariatric nutrition plan and just accept that it will likely hinder my progress with BFL considerably. That's fine, it's not a race. If I do well in the first 12 weeks, which will primarily be measured by whether or not I actually stick to it for the full 12 weeks, then I will consider switching, at least partly, my nutrition to a more BFL-like plan.

 

I started going to the gym when I was very young because I was the consummate 130 pound weakling. Over the years, I packed on 75 pounds, and for many years, my weight didn't vary by more than a few pounds from 205. I could lose 10 pounds in a couple days just by increasing my workout and cardio. And I could eat and drink all the beer I wanted.

I quit the gym about 10 years ago, and since then my weight ballooned to 240 up to last year. When I got back from the contract in Florida, I lost 30 pounds over 6 months by working on home renovation for 5-6 hours a day and cutting out a lot of midnight kitchen raids. I'm an almost trim 210 and hoping to lose those last 5 pounds. My old physique is making its appearance again.

I realized I was eating out of boredom, and not because I was hungry. This was happening when I lived by myself, and was finding myself in the kitchen every couple hours. Just by declaring the kitchen off-limits after 8pm made a huge difference. Also, now that I'm married, I an no longer home alone and bored. Well, except now that I'm living away from home and alone temporarily. Time to put all that discipline to good use again.

 

Good to hear someone else coming in!

...the bariatric nutritionist and she was quite adamant about NOT doing anything other than three meals a day with no eating in between. ...
Her primary concern seems to be two-fold -- that eating more will stretch the stomach pouch prematurely and that eating more often will lead to grazing and overeating.
...

She is probably more used to serious overeaters who have no selfcontrola nd don't know their calories, and so she is in the habit of encouraging people to not eat too much and not stretch their pouches?

In your case 500-600 calories is not a long term end goal, it's a rather risky short term scenario. So at some point you will definitely need to eat a lot more calories, and more often than 3 meals a day (since you have a small stomach).

Maintenance calories for a man your size is 2000 to 2500 depending on your amount of exercise. So once you are happy you have dropped enough bodyfat you will need (somehow) to go from 500-600 to 2000-2500 calories.

Hopefully your bariatric expert does not expect you to do that over a short term?

To me, that looks like many months of progressively increasing calories and gently stretching your stomach over time.

 

Good to hear someone else coming in!



She is probably more used to serious overeaters who have no selfcontrola nd don't know their calories, and so she is in the habit of encouraging people to not eat too much and not stretch their pouches?

In your case 500-600 calories is not a long term end goal, it's a rather risky short term scenario. So at some point you will definitely need to eat a lot more calories, and more often than 3 meals a day (since you have a small stomach).

Maintenance calories for a man your size is 2000 to 2500 depending on your amount of exercise. So once you are happy you have dropped enough bodyfat you will need (somehow) to go from 500-600 to 2000-2500 calories.

Hopefully your bariatric expert does not expect you to do that over a short term?

To me, that looks like many months of progressively increasing calories and gently stretching your stomach over time.

No, they don't expect you to eat 500-600 Cal/day for the rest of your life, which is clearly unsustainable. Nor do they expect you to increase your calories overnight as you reach your goal weight. As I think I outlined before, but maybe not, the stomach pouch starts out at about 2oz and over time, typically about two years, stretches to be about 8oz. Thus your ability to consume calories in three meals a day increases by roughly a factor of four, which takes you from 500-600 Cal/day to 2000-2400 Cal/day. What they don't want to have happen is to stretch the stomach too early. Not only does that put your progress and ability to achieve the end goal at risk, but it also poses problems for causing damage or even rupturing the stomach, though that latter concern is principally in the first three months or so.

I am hoping to reach my goal in approx. ten to twelve months, so will need to ramp up my calories quicker than most patients. The normal way that is done is through progressive, but slight, increases in the number of calories per meal over a period of several months. In my case, I hope to also do it through an increased number of meals but to keep the size of the meals not much bigger than they are now. That will trigger their concerns about grazing and I will just have to work hard to keep it from becoming a problem.

 

I did my bodyfat caliper measurements again, it's been almost 2 months.

It was a bit disappointing at first, my caliper measurements on my arms and legs were very similar, but then I got to the larger measurements on my abdomen and back and they were down again.

I think the problem is that now I am a lot leaner the measurements on my arms and legs are too small, so they are just not showing tiny differences month to month.

For instance my foreams caliper is about 5mm, bicep about 3-4mm, and legs 6-7mm. So they are not changing much month to month. But some of my back and waist caliper measurments are in the 12-14mm range still, so reductions are more visible there.

The overall result was my fat has reduced another 7% over a bit less than 2 months.

Calories at fixed now at 1900 average, 1600 on day1 (hungry!), 1900 on day2 (slightly hungry) and 2200 on day 3 (quite full).

I'm eating 4 times a day, reasonably low fat which means I don't eat any visible fat apart from what's naturally in lean red meat, and cheddar cheese which I eat for calcium. And an occasional egg yolk, maybe one a day.

My calories come from lean proteins (30%) complex slow digesting carbs (50%?) and the rest from the tiny amount of fat and some sugar treats like hard candy (boiled lollies).

Exercise is still close to zero apart from playing with some dumbells at home maybe twice a week. I want to see how lean I can get from diet alone before adding cardio. And i may just increase the frequency and intensity of weights workouts instead of cardio anyway when the time comes to increase exercise.

My bodyweight has stayed the same so over the 2 months I've probably lost 1kg of fat and added 1kg of muscle. I've got muscle striations showing and some of my veins now are physically extending out past the skin, showing my skin is getting much thinner. And I'm feeling the cold more!

How are other people going? It looks like only WBahn and myself are sticking with our diets?

 

It looks like only WBahn and myself are sticking with our diets?

How quickly we forget, and my post not more than 3 above I've been staying at a cheap motel for the last 3 weeks without my scales. My diet has been mostly lowfat meals and snacks. For lunch, I pack a sandwich made with lean cuts of ham or turkey, a protein bar and some Keebler crackers with chedder cheese. I only have a microwave and small fridge for food storage and prep. But I'm still on my first belt hole, so I think I'm going OK. My weakness has been cold Blue Moon beer, which I tend to drink more of when I'm away from home.

Next week I'll have my trailer with a full kitchen, and I can get back to making real meals again. And I'll get me a cheap grill for cooking out too.

 

It has now been six months since I had the gastric bypass surgery and, while things have definitely slowed, overall I am still very pleased with the progress to date.

• I've lost 88 lb (333 lb -> 245 lb).
• I've been off insulin for five months.
• I've only been taking one diabetic med (metformin) for over four months.
• My morning blood sugars are in the 125 to 135 mg/dl range most of the time.
• My last HbA1c was 6.0%, which is phenomenal for a diabetic.
• My cholesterol meds have been reduced 75% and blood pressure meds have been reduced by 50%.
• My last blood workup looked truly outstanding.
• I'm walking 6.75+ miles (11 km) three times a week most weeks.
• I'm wearing 42" pants and can fit into 40", though still a bit snug (down from 56" before the surgery).

I finally started a somewhat lightened version of Body For Life and am in my second week. Things are going quite well so far. As expected, I was extremely sore after the first workout of each muscle group, but that has improved significantly. While it is much too early to see any progress due to the weight training, I am definitely seeing the progress due to all of the exercise gotten over the last six weeks of cutting wood for winter. I moved two truckloads of wood up to the house the other day and normally I would have had to take many breaks during each load and unload session. This time, I was able to do each session without any breaks at all!

My blood pressure has pretty well stabilized and it is in the (120-135)/(70-85) almost every morning. My morning sugars are higher than I would like, but my HbA1c came in at 6.0% indicating that my sugars the rest of the day are staying very well in control (and I've only checked mid-day sugars a couple times in the last couple months). My cholesterol work came back really good; so much so that they almost took me off the cholesterol meds altogether but opted to just step the dose down again with the expectation that I'll be able to stop it altogether in January.

I had some blood in my stools for a couple weeks so got a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy done. Since I'm about to turn 50 it was time for the first one, anyway. Overall the results were good. There are some minor ischemic ulcers at the point where they joined the duodenum to the intestines, which is apparently not too uncommon. They think they are still healing so we will see how they respond to medication alone; I get to have a follow-up upper-endo (but, thank goodness, not another colonoscopy) next week.

The weight loss is still coming in plateaus and whooshes, but the plateaus are getting longer and the whooshes are getting shallower, both of which are expected. My last cycle went for seven weeks for only a four pound net loss. It's a bit frustrating, but I really do seem to have adopted a more healthy mindset about a slow loss. I'm hoping that the BFL exercise will speed things up, but if it doesn't then that is okay.

My goal now -- and it's not assured by any means -- is to be below 200 lb by New Year's day. That's 46 lb in 113 days, or just under 3 lb/wk. We'll see if I can pull it off. If I can get to 213 lb (2 lb/wk) I'll be plenty happy.

My calorie intake is up a bit and is in the 900 - 1000 kcal/day range now, although many days I am still in the 600 kcal range.

 

Is kcal normally refereed to as calories? I had similar results to yours from weight loss. I went back up to 180, and am still fighting the battle of the bulge.

 

Is kcal normally refereed to as calories?

Yes, in most discussions involving human nutrition or exercise, you can pretty well assume "calories" means "big" calories, or kcal. Some folks use Cal instead of cal to help denote this distinction. Of course this whole thing really bothers chemists and physicists.

Almost forgot - kudos the WBahn. That's impressive progress and it makes me glad to see that, beyond just losing weight, you are seeing positive impacts on quality of life. That's really what it's all about.

 

Yes, in most discussions involving human nutrition or exercise, you can pretty well assume "calories" means "big" calories, or kcal. Some folks use Cal instead of cal to help denote this distinction. Of course this whole thing really bothers chemists and physicists.

Almost forgot - kudos the WBahn. That's impressive progress and it makes me glad to see that, beyond just losing weight, you are seeing positive impacts on quality of life. That's really what it's all about.

Thanks, Wayne. I'm really enjoying the improved health and am looking forward to future improvements in the near future. If finances allow, we are hoping to go the Virgin Islands for a couple of weeks at the end of the year and I should be at a weight and fitness level that will really allow me to enjoy it. I went with my company back in 2003 and, even at a weight of 370 lb or so, had a great time. I can just imagine what this one will be like.

 

Welcome back WBahn, it's been a while. I guess time is tight as school starts. Thanks for the update, this is a very interesting experiment to 'watch' in real time.

Any comments on how this has changed your energy level, general disposition. Mostly, do you feel it has made you happier (or more content in life) as well as healthier, or just healthier but grumpy (hunger)? Or no change to disposition.

Have you noticed if your weight loss has changed the way other people treat you / relate to you?

 

Good to hear your doing well, WBahn.

 

Welcome back WBahn, it's been a while. I guess time is tight as school starts. Thanks for the update, this is a very interesting experiment to 'watch' in real time.

Any comments on how this has changed your energy level, general disposition. Mostly, do you feel it has made you happier (or more content in life) as well as healthier, or just healthier but grumpy (hunger)? Or no change to disposition.

Have you noticed if your weight loss has changed the way other people treat you / relate to you?

I'm actually not teaching right now -- they didn't have the funds to extend my contract (well, actually, the funds the department had been planning to use to create a permanent position for me were yanked and sent to another department pretty late in the game). So I have been working on taking a side-line business I have been doing for over a dozen years online and make it our primary income source. But that will probably not produce much revenue until next year at this time.

My energy level is definitely higher and I can definitely say that I am more content. The contentment stems from many factors -- A big part is being much healthier and knowing that I am much healthier. Another big part is the satisfaction that goes along with finally losing weight and all of the things that I can do now or, at least, can look forward to being able to do soon. Hunger is not a factor at all -- I am almost never hungry and, if I am, it takes almost nothing to satisfy it.

I haven't had enough interaction with other people to know, from this go, whether people will treat me different. But I have plenty of historical experience to know that they did and will. A lot of it has to do with first impressions and those go away once someone gets to know you (for good or bad). But people definitely make all kinds of unfounded assumptions about you based on weight. I remember vividly when I was first in Basic Training (having been called involuntarily to active duty) and was 245 lb -- the same weight I am right now. At first all of the TIs (the Air Force version of a Drill Instructor) were completely against me because they assumed that, since I was overweight, I must also be lazy, sloppy, and stupid. But after about a week I won over the support of all the ones that I interacted with because I was able to demonstrate that I knew what the hell I was about. But even then the first time we did morning PT, which occurred after about a week, the TIs, who really were trying to stack the odds in my favor, made a big deal of surrounding me on the 1.5 mile run with a bunch of skinny guys who were told that it was their job to keep encouraging me as far as possible until I just couldn't go any further. The assumption was fat guy equals out of shape while skinny guy equals physically fit. Well, I had been jogging three miles every other day for a couple of years at that point and the skinny guys were just guys that were skinny. None of them made the first half mile whereas I ran the mile and a half in well under the time that would eventually be required to graduate from Basic and could have run it much faster since I was routinely running that distance in just under ten minutes at 6500 ft elevation.

I'm really looking forward to the next half year as I get below 200 lb and get into physically very good shape.

 

Good to hear your doing well, WBahn.

Thanks, Joe!

I'm so busy doing other things that I can't justify spending time on the boards. Hopefully that will change at some point, but probably not till after the first of the year.

 

Good to hear your doing well, WBahn.

Ditto. Your MIA and missing expert contributions to AAC forums have not gone unnoticed.

Wishing you well. Keep up the effort.

MrChips

 

WBahn,

I'm sure you will work in the time when you can. You are a contributor.