Bariatric Hodgepodge

I’m doing a lot better now than I was the last time I posted. I’m able to drink protein shakes and have the little snacks of yogurt, pudding, and ricotta cheese. I’m not super nauseous anymore, or dizzy. I’ve even started going to the gym again. I’ve lost 11 pounds.

I’m not feeling so much like I shouldn’t have gone through with it, now. I’m unable to lose weight and maintain on my own; I’ve demonstrated that several times over since Aislyn was born. I need help. This is probably the help I need.

I’ve joined a Facebook group of bariatric pre and post op patients through the hospital where I had my surgery. It’s so amazing to see people’s before and after photos. Inspiring. If they can do it, I’m sure I can, too.

Baritastic is a really cool app I use to track my food and water intake and protein. For months I’ve only used it as a tracker, but it has lots more cool features I hadn’t really paid attention to until this morning.

It has recipes for every stage of recovery, including several good-sounding protein shakes, a recipe builder, a picture timeline where you can post pictures of yourself at different stages of the journey: 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and so on.

There is a place where you can list your long term goal, a notes section, which I find useful to track which meds I’ve taken on a given day. There is even a feature that tracks your regularity.

If you’re considering bariatric surgery, I can’t say enough about the Baritastic app. It’s free, too, although they do have an online store where you can purchase shakes and vitamins.

So this post turned out to be about a lot of things. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t post for a whole week.