March 3, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode of Bariatric Banter, Hannah and Steph get real about why calorie tracking isn’t just another dieting trend—it’s the key to long-term success, especially after bariatric surgery.
Most people think they’re eating the right amount, but spoiler alert: they’re usually way off. 😬 We’re diving into:
✅ Why tracking isn’t about restriction—it’s about awareness ✅ The biggest mistakes people make when logging food ✅ How tracking helps you break through frustrating weight loss stalls ✅ What to track beyond calories (hint: protein & fiber matter too!) ✅ The secret to making tracking easy & sustainable
If you’ve ever wondered, "Do I really need to track my food?"—this episode is for you. Hit play now and let’s talk!
🎧 Listen now & don’t forget to subscribe!
#BariatricBanter #WeightLossJourney #CalorieTracking #BariatricSurgery #HealthMatters #Accountability #NutritionTalk
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey Steph!
(00:01):
Hello, how's it going?
Good, how are you?
Good, we're back.
Back on video.
Back on video, we had really good reception to video.
It seems you guys like to see our faces, so thanks for making us put on makeup.
(00:22):
I know, I said to him this morning, I'm like, I just want to be in my pajamas, in a big
comfy sweater with my hair all a mess and just lay on the couch.
I was like, I gotta go.
My hair is a mess, so enjoy ladies and gentlemen.
But yes, I just want to be doing what the dog is doing behind me, which is just snoozing.
I don't know if we can see him.
(00:43):
There he is.
Yeah, we would just like to be snoozing on this fine Saturday, but I'm excited to talk
to everybody about our shot topic today.
Oh my gosh, that's going to be good, but before we dive into that, how was your week?
Full of snow.
I feel like this is all I say every time we talk.
(01:04):
Full of snow.
We had a long weekend in Canada, but we had the holiday on Monday and then no school for
snow on Tuesday.
No school for snow on Wednesday.
Oh Steph.
And then thank goodness we had school on Thursday and Friday.
We had massive snow storms here this week.
(01:27):
They were brutal.
Listen.
It's like, just.
What was it?
50 centimeters of snow?
50 to 60?
I don't know what that is in inches.
Sorry Americans, but a buttload.
But I have to say, I talked to my parents and I was very happy that you guys got hit
with it too for once.
Yeah, for once we did.
Just sitting here in piles of snow.
(01:48):
It was not just you.
We got annihilated.
I don't have kids, but I have this thing.
And he loves snow.
And so he was like, I want to go out.
I want to go out.
Go out again.
And I was like, listen, Bo takes me 32 minutes to get ready now with the pants and the boots
and the everything.
I was like, I don't want to be out in this snow.
And boy, walking through snow.
(02:09):
It's quite a workout.
Yeah, but I have to walk to our back shop to do.
We have shop cats.
And so I have to go back and look out for them.
Yeah, they are really cute.
I said to Devon, like to go out to the shop now, because I have to put on like full snow
pants, jacket boots, because we have such big drifts in our yard that there's points
(02:30):
when the snow is past my waist.
And so we have mountains in our backyard.
And I said, I should not have to put on snow pants.
No, we'll change the cat litter.
No.
Also, like some of it's packed down because for those who don't know, we've been having
snow for months.
And then it's not.
And you hit the night.
But it's always like one leg is here and the other goes down.
(02:51):
And your knee snaps and gives out as you go into the snow.
So this morning, literally, I was taking the dog for a walk and I was like, I'm going to
break a hip.
Like, I'm at that age where like this is now dangerous.
One leg went down and the other stayed up and the dog took off.
And I was like, this is where Hannah dies.
Right here in this snow drift.
I took the shovel and I was using it as like a walking stick.
(03:13):
And Devon looked at me and said, are you shoveling?
And I said, no.
He's like, well, then why do you have the shovel?
And I said, because I need to realize something.
Yeah.
So that I can like check in front of me because same thing, I would step in just.
Oh, away she goes.
So that's how, and I don't know how I know this, that's how a lot of people die when
(03:34):
they are like on Everest.
They fall into a crevasse and like you're gone.
Like I mean, obviously I'm not going to fall into kitchen or crevasse in my backyard.
But like even when they're out skiing, that's how a lot of people die skiing is they go
down like a black diamond or an off route trail straight down into a hole and nobody
ever sees them again.
(03:54):
So like that's a new fear that's now been unlocked in my mind.
So I guess I'm going to cross Everest off my list of things to do.
That's a no for me.
No, anyway, we're surviving the snow.
We're doing well.
We are, we are excited to be here today for episode seven of the Bariatric Banchor podcast.
(04:15):
Yeah.
Wow.
I know.
Isn't that crazy?
This is very exciting.
We want to give a really big shout out.
We've crossed 300 streams just on Spotify before we started recording this morning.
So big shout out to everybody there.
I Heart Radio, you're crushing it for us too.
But it's pretty incredible because we're, we're almost at like 500 total streams.
(04:37):
If we add in every platform and we're on YouTube now, which is exciting.
So just thank you to everybody listening and our American friends who are joining in as
well.
So you know, love from Canada.
We don't, we don't dislike all of you.
We don't discriminate.
No, everyone can listen.
So this week we are diving into, I mean, we say this every week, but a hot topic.
(05:02):
This week on episode six of the Bariatric Banchor, seven, seven of the Bariatric Banchor
podcast, we are going to talk about tracking calories.
It's a big one specifically like tracking your progress, tracking your calories and
handling stalls when it comes to, you know, surgery, whether you are free or post three
(05:27):
months or two years out, we're going to cover this hot topic because boy, this is probably
the most widely debated.
Oh my God.
And toxic at times topic on Reddit when it comes to bariatric surgery is the notion of
calories.
(05:47):
The fighting is I don't want to track calories.
I shouldn't have to track calories.
You absolutely need to track calories.
And the other large argument is calories in calories out isn't, you know, true.
It's not a thing.
There's so much more that goes into it.
So you know, we decided, cause we get asked this a lot by people that we know who are
(06:09):
going into surgery or who are contemplating surgery.
They ask us all the time.
Oh my God, do you have to track your food and your calories?
So we're going to give you our hot take on it and spoiler alert, we really disagree with
what a lot of people say about this.
So welcome to episode seven and we're going to dive right in to tracking your progress,
tracking your calories and handling stalls.
(06:32):
Yes.
And well, I mean, we'll just jump in and say we track and we are believers of tracking.
And I've said this many times and I will say it again.
I don't like tracking.
Not a fan of doing it.
It sucks.
It's annoying.
And many times for me personally, I track my next day the night before and plan it out.
(06:58):
And there's many times when I have gone to bed and then all of a sudden been like, oh
shit, I didn't track my day.
And then I've gotten up, sat there and put in all my food for the next day.
Or you'd have to sit there and I'm scared.
You're skating late, but like, it's not, it's not fun.
It's not the height of my day.
However, if I want to hit my goals and I want to be successful and I want to ensure that
(07:23):
I am eating what I need to be eating, I have no choice.
It for me, it is a must.
And if you think you can be successful, especially when you're starting out on a journey without
tracking, I have, I have been there.
I have tried to say that before.
Boy, are you wrong.
(07:46):
Sorry, but you are.
Yeah.
It, I don't love tracking.
Do I hate it?
I mean, okay, maybe hate was a really strong word to use.
It's not that I have any issues with it per se.
It's that I'm just, I was lazy and would forget to do it.
And it felt like a chore, but I would work with my therapist on this where she's like,
(08:08):
so how's tracking going?
And I was like, I'm being honest with you, I'm not doing it.
And she's like, why?
And I was like, at the end of my day, I'm exhausted.
I, you know, I don't want to have to think about it.
Also, and I'll get into this in a minute.
My fitness pals just, it's more work than it's worth.
But, but do I believe that this is one of the most important tools to my success?
(08:28):
Absolutely.
I cannot deny that.
I am not, I'm two years post-op as of March 13th.
I am not good enough to do this in my head mentally yet.
You really think you are, especially towards the end of the first year.
And usually you kind of screw yourself over by thinking, I can do this in my head.
(08:51):
And every time I've then gone back in and started tracking again or putting it in, I
go, oh, and it's not like, oh Jesus, I'm eating 3000 calories.
Usually, usually my calories are okay.
It's the other areas where I'm like, oh, so that protein, the protein's at 60 or oh,
(09:11):
my sodium is super low, which has become a big issue for me recently because, you know,
as you lose a ton of weight, sodium and running and you know, my doctors have said, girl,
you need to get your sodium up.
Like you are, you are losing more than you're putting in and it's going to be dangerous.
I digress.
When I've put stuff in, I've realized, oh, I'm still not smart enough.
(09:36):
I'm still not educated enough to do this on my own mentally.
I'm underestimating a lot of things.
I'm underestimating the bite I've had of this or I'm underestimating how much that is.
And so it is controversial that people say, I don't want to count calories.
It gives me, you know, mental health issues or I'm going to get an eating disorder.
For me, I am not fearful that I'm going to develop an eating disorder where I don't eat
(10:01):
enough.
I'm not worried that I'll develop anorexia or bulimia or that I'll starve my, you know,
starve myself and like really calorie restrict.
For me, the eating disorder that is, you know, going to be the one that I need to watch for
is binge eating because that's what led me to be obese in the first place.
And a lot of obese individuals suffer more from the binge eating, eating disorders.
(10:26):
But when you start looking at calorie counting, all you see is people saying it will give
you an eating disorder.
It's going to cause an eating disorder.
You know, you're going to stop.
It might.
I can't deny that it might.
And that's horrible.
But for the vast majority of us that need to have this surgery, it's because of our eating
habits and it's because they go in the other direction.
(10:48):
We eat too much.
We under calculate.
You need to count your calories.
I'm sorry.
You need to.
Or we don't admit.
We don't admit it.
We don't want to admit it.
And tracking it as a wake up call because like I don't want to be faced with it.
Yeah.
I was so guilty of a little bit of the off the kids plate.
(11:10):
Like they didn't finish and I would clear the dishes and do dishes.
Oh, they just have a bite left.
Oh, they have a bite left.
Or while you're cooking and making dinner, you're having a bite here.
You're having a bite here.
Little snack.
This.
It all adds up and you don't realize how much those little bites throughout the day become
a full additional meal by the time you.
(11:30):
Yeah.
Or like we've talked about those foods like chips and crackers.
And things like the serving size is nobody is eating a serving size.
Nobody.
Even bariatric patients.
Yeah.
And that's fine.
But again, you don't have any concept of how those numbers are adding up at the end of
the day.
Correct.
(11:50):
And you need that wake up call to then sit there and say, holy shit, I just ate 3000
calories, maybe a quarter that was protein.
I had no fiber.
And I wonder why number one, I feel like crap.
I'm bloated and I'm not gaining weight or I'm not losing weight.
And I'm stalled.
Yep.
Right.
And there are people, like I'll be very honest with you guys, bariatric surgery does not
(12:13):
automatically restrict calories for you.
Yes.
In your first year, it kind of does.
But there are plenty of people who are three to four months post-op eating 900 calories.
Okay.
There are also tons of people that are two, three, four, five years post-op eating 3000
calories because they are also like marathoners or working out like crazy.
(12:36):
They have not gained weight.
They're in a really good balance, but that's because they track and they know that they're
in an okay balance.
But my point is to highlight bariatric surgery in no way restricts your calories for life
and in no way restrict your calories.
So there's this notion that the only thing I need to track is my protein and I'll be
good.
Sure.
There were definitely days where I hit 90 to 100 grams of protein and 14 to 1500 calories.
(13:01):
Because it's very, very, very easy to eat your protein and then completely go through
calories.
My gosh.
And I do not believe in the notion that calories in, calories out doesn't count.
I fundamentally, through everything that I've studied before surgery, after surgery with
my dieticians, with my surgeon, calories in, calories out at the end of the day is literally
(13:26):
the formula for weight loss.
Do not, you can come at us cause this is like, but it's not, oh yeah, calories in calories
count doesn't count.
There's so much more that goes into weight loss.
Like they have proven if you eat in a calorie deficit and don't work out, you'll lose weight.
If you overeat and work out, you won't lose weight.
It is diet that makes the biggest impact here.
(13:50):
And you can't let your obese self make that decision for you that you're not going to
count calories because I didn't want to count calories before.
I was convinced I wouldn't have to, and I was just going to live a really healthy life
and never have to worry about it.
And now I do pay attention to it because of those slider foods.
A great example is this.
(14:10):
I wanted to have some crackers and cheese.
I was like, yeah, you know, I'm going to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that
and it's going to be great.
I'm going to make an adult charcuterie plate.
So I made a cracker and cheese plate and my mom was like, oh, like that's all you're having?
And I was like, so that's four crackers and those four crackers are 110 calories.
(14:31):
That's my 30 ounces of cheese and that 30 ounces of cheese is 90 calories.
I was like, mom, I'm already at 210 calories just for like this little serving of cheese
and crackers.
I was like, I'm also going to add half an apple because I need the fiber and I need
some other stuff in there.
I said, this is how it catches up because I buy low fat, high protein cheese.
(14:55):
I buy like as low calorie cracker as I can get.
She likes rice crackers and she thought they were healthier than regular crackers because
they're rice crackers.
I was like, if you eat the serving size of those rice crackers, it's 180 calories.
And then you're also pairing it with hummus and whatever's going on or dipped with the
crackers and then the cheese and then the meat.
(15:17):
And we're not shaming.
We're not saying, oh God, how dare you eat that?
What we're saying is you don't fundamentally know what's going in.
You think you do and you think you can mentally add all this up, but unless you're actually
tracking what's going in, you are overeating.
Guaranteeing it will be shocked at the end of the day.
Obesity doesn't just happen to you.
(15:37):
Obesity is an epidemic.
Obesity absolutely is an addiction, but it's not just magically happening to you.
You're overeating.
Your portions are too big.
You're not eating what you think you're eating.
You're fooling and lying to yourself.
I've had a lot of obese people who are in my life say dead ass to my face.
(15:59):
It has nothing to do with my calories.
I am not overeating.
There's so many other reasons I'm obese.
It's my diabetes.
It's my genetics.
It's my PCOS.
It's my this.
It's my this.
It's my this.
No, at the end of the day, I can guarantee you if you worked with an expert and honestly
tracked what you were eating for a full week, you would realize that it's your portions.
It's your food.
(16:19):
It's your fat.
It's your calories.
You're not eating in a calorie deficit because you would lose weight.
You would absolutely contribute.
And there are certain foods that maybe are harder for your body to digest or take longer
for your body to digest.
And we know with PCOS, there are certain foods that your body struggles to digest those well
(16:40):
or to digest them in a proper time.
But again, that's why it's important to think about what you're eating, track what you're
eating, look at what you're eating.
And at the end of the day, as we said on our previous episode, those things don't make
it impossible to lose weight.
Yeah, you might lose weight way slower than somebody else.
But ultimately, it's 80% calories, 20% exercise is what it boils down to.
(17:06):
Basically.
And we've seen in the book, like you think like a big culprit is we just talked about
salad.
You think you don't need to track your macros or your food because it's fine.
I'm having salads and I'm having natural make at home breakfast sandwiches like you were
talking about, which is great.
But how many of those salads and this is something that too, I learned the hard way because I
(17:28):
was one of those people that was like, Nevin would get McDonald's and he'd get his three
burgers or whatever he was getting and I would know I'm just gonna get the salad.
And you think you honest to God think you're making a great choice.
You do.
But if you look at that salad and it's 1100 calories, yes, it would have been better off
to have a Big Mac.
You absolutely would.
(17:48):
And that's the thing is I had a neighbor over and she said, let's order out for dinner.
And I still order out.
And I said, yeah, I would like to find a restaurant, not a fast food chain because I'd like to
order something, you know, like a like a little steak and veggies or maybe some ahi tuna.
She said, well, I'm just gonna get a salad.
I'm really watching what I eat and watching my calories.
And I went, okay, good luck finding a salad.
(18:10):
And she went, what, and I said, just look at the calories.
And she immediately was like, you are kidding me.
And I was like, yeah, almost every salad at Moxie's is over 800 calories.
And it's not just the, oh, well, you're getting the crispy chicken with the no, it's their,
you know, Asian chicken salad with roasted chicken.
It's their Cobb salad.
It's like any of their salads are over 800 calories.
(18:34):
Yeah, with the exception of the steak salad, which is under 500.
And it's really great.
And I highly recommend it.
Love that goddamn steak salad.
Love Skiff.
But this is where like you think you're making healthy choices.
Oh, I'm gluten free.
I eat really healthy.
Most gluten free recipes are made with almond, almond flour.
Almond flour is ground almonds.
Almonds are super high in fat.
(18:55):
So just be cautious.
You think you're making good choices, but you don't realize how fast salads add up.
Even salads at home.
There's a great Instagram video about, hey, you got your lettuce.
You put a little bit of chicken and a little bit of cheese and a little dressing.
And now you're at a 700 calorie meal and salad is not going to fill you up.
There's very little fiber.
(19:15):
There's not enough protein in it typically.
And then you're going to be hungry again in a bit.
Popcorn is another great example.
I love popcorn.
I love popcorn.
Only 31 calories per pop cup.
And I went, this is great.
Until you realize like that kind of adds up real quick when you realize like five cups
of popcorn is like this much.
(19:36):
And you're like, Oh, that's like 250 fucking calories.
Like oops.
So you think you think, you know, okay.
Mayonnaise is a great example too.
I used to just keep regular mayonnaise because I was like, I'm giving shit.
Regular mayo is ludicrously insane for the calories for a tablespoon.
So I buy the, I buy the light mayo and it's like 30 calories per tablespoon versus the
(20:00):
110 that regular.
So just at the end of the day, if you don't want to track, you know, that's your choice.
Don't eat the stuff, but eat what you want to eat and be cautious of it.
Right?
Like if you want to have, who was it?
There's these women on Instagram and I followed them for a while and they have, I'm going
(20:24):
to say weight loss program, but they do a lot of mindset.
Like it's not about dieting, but they very much like track your food, be cautious of
what you're eating.
I know who you're talking about.
Making moderation.
And they're the ones that got me hooked on the, this is a little tip on the red pepper
dip summer fresh.
If you're in Canada, summer fresh roasted red pepper dip.
(20:47):
It is phenomenal.
You can have the entire tub for like 210 calories.
So I now use that as salad dressing.
I use it as dip because for two tablespoons, I can't remember what it's, but anyway, it's
very low calorie.
Yeah.
So like when I make salad, I'm somebody who likes creamy stuff, like creamy dressings.
Right?
But like you say ranch, I'm just going to put a little bit of ranch on.
(21:10):
Well, who's really putting one or two tablespoons of ranch on a salad.
That's 110 calories alone.
Alone.
So I'll take the red pepper dip and I'll mix it with some balsamic vinegar to thin it out
a little bit.
And that is my go-to.
So we're not saying you can't have things.
And they did a thing where they ate a donut from Tim Hortons.
(21:30):
They had Tim Hortons donuts every day and they lost weight, but they worked it into
their macros for the day and they track.
So nobody is saying you can't have the Big Mac, that you can't have the donut or you
can't have the cookie, but be aware of what the macros are for that and make sure that
(21:53):
you can fit it into your day and then build your day accordingly.
Because otherwise, you don't know.
It's not that you're necessarily, you're not trying to sabotage yourself.
Like when I wouldn't track, I legitimately thought I was making healthy choices by having
the eating old salad, right?
(22:13):
Or by having the booster juice as my meal.
And you don't realize the sugar that's in it.
Yeah.
I genuinely did think like, and I thought so soon after surgery that I knew it all and
I didn't need to track.
Girl, I needed to track.
Yeah.
I did.
(22:34):
I need to see it.
And especially for things like fiber, things we forget about all the time.
My fiber's so bad.
My fiber's so bad too.
But I lean on my fitness pal now for like my calories, my protein, my carbs.
I keep an eye on, but because of what I'm eating, the fat's not really a concern because
(22:54):
I'm not eating high fat things typically anyway.
Sugar I pay attention to, but fiber.
Things like that that I never paid attention to that because I was tracking, I had no way
to account for that.
But because it's all laid out in my app now, I can really quickly go and look, oh shit,
I'm only at three grams of fiber today.
I better rebuild some of my meals and pump that baby up a little bit.
(23:17):
It makes you relook at your meals, right?
Where you're like, you know what, maybe that dinner I was making isn't the best because
it's only 15 grams of protein.
There has to be a better way.
Or hey, I actually do need to start eating potatoes or having a little piece of bread.
But we're not trying to shame people.
Eat what you want to eat.
But what we're saying is you're likely not as educated as you think you are, especially
(23:39):
before surgery because you're making decisions based on what you assume is healthy.
A great example is I was with my mom at the grocery store and I buy low carb tortillas.
And she was like, Hannah, Jesus Christ.
Why are you spending so much money on these?
And why are there 15 bags in the cart?
And I was like, these are the best low carb tortillas.
They taste amazing.
I love them and my freezer's full.
(24:00):
She went, there's no way they're that much better that you should be buying this many.
And I said, okay, here's an example.
Let's hold up the little snack sized one.
I said, these are 25 calories.
She went, yeah, okay.
Ooh, they're probably a couple calories better.
And I said, go grab the snack size regular tortillas.
So she did.
And she flipped over and went, 80 calories?
And I said, yeah, 80 and one to the 25 in mine.
(24:24):
And I said, and these taste just the same.
So then she starts looking at all the tortillas because they make a lot of cracks and they
use it.
And she went-
Because they're healthy.
There are 170 calories for a tortilla.
And I went, yeah, mom.
This is where, and like, so then we started looking at bread and she was like, well, bread,
I said, oh my God, bread is sometimes like 150 calories for a slice.
(24:46):
I said an English muffin, one English muffin's 140.
So like, these are things I only know because of surgery.
But before surgery, I would go, holy English muffins, look how tiny this is.
Like that's super healthy.
That's better than bread.
It's actually not.
It's actually not.
So what we're trying to say is if you subscribe to the notion that calories, calorie in, calorie
(25:06):
out makes no difference to weight loss, you probably need to talk to someone before surgery
because while they're not going to explicitly say you need to track calories, a lot of programs
won't.
You need to be tracking your protein, your fiber, your fat.
There are things you need to track, but also you can absolutely overeat and gain the weight
back.
(25:26):
Regain is huge in this community.
Regain is a lot of even influencers are regaining because it's very easy to overeat.
Your restriction will not last as long as you think it is.
And eating more calories than you burn is very easy, especially because as you lose
weight, your TDEE goes down and your TDEE is not BMI guys.
(25:49):
Your TDEE is how much calories do you just burn in a normal day?
And especially if you're not active and that's a whole, we're going to do a whole podcast
on exercise because boy, a lot of people think they don't need to do it after surgery.
So you don't realize that as you're dropping weight real quick in your first year, so is
the calories that you just burn.
(26:09):
So for me, I've lost 150 pounds where I'm currently at weight wise and height wise living
a sedentary life.
If I wasn't moving and doing any exercise, my daily calories needed is 1900.
So many people blow through 1900.
Now, because I'm a bariatric patient, I'm actually between 12 and 14.
(26:31):
So I'm still in a major calorie deficit, but I'm also exercising heavily.
I exercise almost every day of the week.
So the other thing that I need to now take into account is am I burning way more calories
than I'm eating and do I potentially need to eat more?
You will meet a ton of bariatric patients who eat 2000 plus calories a day because of
(26:53):
how hard they're exercising and working out.
If I wasn't tracking, I could also run the risk of under eating after surgery.
So it's not just to keep you from overeating.
It's also to make sure like, are you in the balance you need to be in?
Are you eating enough?
Because there are days where I literally was like, we're good.
And I would track and be like, holy shit, I'm only at a thousand calories.
(27:17):
My weight, my age, my height, I should not be eating a thousand calories a day.
That's not good.
So we do not believe that you shouldn't know these things.
Now will there be a world and a day where I don't track it?
Yep.
If I can make tons of meals and have really good control over what I'm eating, buying
(27:38):
and doing, I won't need to track calories because I will, but I'm not there yet.
And it's foolish of me to have thought that I would be this soon.
People who can do that have been tracking for so incredibly long that it just becomes
almost like muscle memory, second nature, just ingrained in you.
(27:59):
But it takes a long time to get there, a long time to get there.
And like you said, it's finding that balance because under-eating is not good either.
Not hitting your goals is not good either.
It's using it as a tool not to torture yourself or to shame yourself or to hate what you're
doing.
It's a tool to keep you on track, keep you honest and educate yourself about what the
(28:23):
best choices are for you.
If you aren't tracking, and again, Steph nailed it, this has nothing to do with shame or forcing
you to be in a deficit in a diet that's hard to maintain.
The goal of surgery is that it should be easy to maintain where you are.
I don't go to bed starving.
(28:43):
I don't feel like I'm depriving my body.
I actually feel like, yeah, my 12 to 1400 range.
And there are days I go over 1400.
There are days where I'm at like 1450, 1480, but I feel good.
I feel like, whoa, yeah, I really ate.
I feel very satiated.
I would never recommend that you feel starving and hungry.
(29:04):
However, the reason that it's good to track this is if I was starving and going to bed
hungry and saying, I need to eat way more, then you need to go and say, hey, dietician,
so I'm at 1400, but I'm still feeling really hungry.
And then we can look at, wow, well, Hannah, yeah, you're actually burning like X amount
(29:25):
of calories.
Like you need to increase this or, hmm, you know, you're not exercising and working out.
I don't know why, you know, maybe we need to look at like, you're not eating your vitamins
or you're not actually getting your what?
Like they can look at the whole puzzle and go, all right, let's work on this because
you shouldn't feel starving.
But then you also need to work off of.
Yeah, this little starting point, because then we can say like, are you getting enough
(29:48):
protein?
Maybe you're not.
Maybe you just don't know what you've been hitting.
And if you have no idea, how do you expect anybody to help you?
Yes.
So, you know, I'm working with cardiologists because I've had pneumonia and I'll do an
episode about it because people have asked to hear.
But for the last couple of weeks, I have not been able to work out because we we didn't
know what was going on.
(30:09):
Spoiler, I've been given the all clear.
But one of the big things was we're going to look at the cardiac tests we did before
surgery in 2023 and we need to compare. And that was a really big thing was they said,
listen, we're going to compare because we want to see that things are progressing, you
know, things are getting better. And that was one of the big things from my call with
(30:32):
my cardiologist was she was like, boy, things have gotten way better from the first time
I saw you. And that tells us that like everything we're doing is is on the right track. And
my goodness, it is just pneumonia. Now, had we not been tracking and following it, we'd
still be going, I don't know, Hannah, it wasn't pneumonia, was it not pneumonia? Like, so
(30:53):
everything needs baselines and tracking. Blood tests were a big part of this, right? And
they were like, Oh, my gosh, we need to be able to see at increments that things are
getting better. I couldn't have rolled up to this and been like, Oh, trust me, I don't
want to look at those things like I'm good. No, there's a medical reason to that you kind
of want to know. So if you don't want to do it every day, fine. But I think you still
(31:17):
monthly need to touch base and just just at a minimum, put your recipes in. You don't
need to every day. If you don't want to track calories and like, I don't every day sit and
go, Okay, well today, but several times a week, I will put my recipes into my fitness
pal so that I have a baseline to say, Okay, most days I'm averaging this great. I'm happy
(31:38):
with that. I have some sort of baseline information to go off of. Yes, you can't. You can't trust
your pre surgery self because if we were really good at calories and tracking, we probably
wouldn't need surgery. And you can fight me. I know there's people who are like Hannah,
you're you're making this too black and white. There's so many reasons I'm obese and it's
(32:00):
not just calories and you need to educate yourself more. Guys, guys, guys and girls.
Okay. I've been educating myself since 2022 on this. I've been obese, morbidly obese,
almost my entire life. Okay, you're preaching to the choir. I know how I got here now. Hannah
in 2023 would have been like, Oh my god, it's not calories in calories out. Have you been
(32:21):
reading what people are saying? All my obesity is not my fault. It's every it's genetics.
It's PCOS. It's I'm actually in starvation mode. Hey guys, I really hate to break it
to you. Starvation mode is a total bullshit fucking lie. It's not real. It's actually
quite. You probably shouldn't be using it because it's quite insensitive to actual starving
(32:47):
human beings. There is no such thing as starvation mode where your body is eating so little that
it makes you morbidly obese. Okay. What happens when you don't eat enough is yet you can bloat,
you can retain water, but bloating and retaining water doesn't make you morbidly obese. And
(33:09):
it's just science. Everybody like if you eat less, your body will just not be morbidly obese.
We've said numerous times the other things 100% impact your struggles and your challenges
because we've been there. We've seen slow progress. We've seen people beside us working
(33:30):
out less and eating shittier and losing twice as much weight. And you're like, I hate them.
Yeah. And we've seen the regain and we've seen the rollercoaster. We have been there.
We've experienced it. Yeah. It has 100% made the journey that much more challenging and
made it much more frustrating, exhausting, demoralizing and you name it. But is it at
(33:56):
the end of the day? Yeah. But at the end of the day is that the root cause for why we
got where we did? No, it piled it on. It made it harder to deal with. It caused mental health
issues. It caused a lot of other issues with it and it made it really damn hard to get
where we wanted to be without this additional help. But it is not the be all end all of
(34:21):
why we were where we... It didn't make me obese. And I know that. I know that it made
me gather weight around my belly and I know it made my face swollen and I know that it
did impact my mental health and hello Bobo. And it did make me apathetic and miserable
and not want to stick to anything. But it's not why I was morbidly obese. And it would
(34:44):
be a disservice to keep telling people that that's why you're morbidly obese. Because
the truth was had I made way better lifestyle changes that I actually like tracked, I would
have started to lose the weight because in my life I did lose the weight once before.
I did manage to go from 250 pounds to 190 through walking and diet changes. And here's
(35:08):
the funny thing. It was a calorie deficit that I did not know I was in because I spent
that summer eating McDonald's french fries and dollar summer drinks. I was a camp counselor
who was broke as hell living in Toronto. And if you saw what I ate, you'd be like, how
you're not dead yet. I ate Chinese takeout and McDonald's french fries and their dollar
(35:29):
drinks almost exclusively. But because I was broke as hell, that's all I had was like McDonald's
fries, the dollar drink, and then I'd order Chinese takeout at night. I was in a massive
deficit because I was broke. And I was walking everywhere. Now it wasn't healthy and I never
recommend it. But what I'm saying is I still had PCOS, I still had genetics, I was morbidly
(35:51):
obese my whole life. And somehow I went from 250 to 190 in literally four months. Now did
I gain it all back? You sure as shit did. Because I didn't know how I had done it. It
wasn't sustainable and I was not eating in a calorie deficit. I had pneumonia, everybody
knows, oh my god, Hannah, shut the fuck up about pneumonia. I had pneumonia. And in two
(36:15):
weeks, I lost 16 and a half pounds because I was so sick. Yeah, it was bad. My face was
and I was gray. I looked I looked like death. But I couldn't eat. And I was barely drinking
my sodium was so low. My sugars were at a whack. But I was in a major calorie deficit.
And I like the weight was dropping. I'm not advocating do this. But what I'm saying is,
(36:38):
I still have PCOS. I still have, you know, genetics, I still have all these things. And
I literally for two weeks couldn't eat or drink in a way I went. And I morbidly obese
people have been here. You've all had the flu. You've had something where you went,
whoa, I lost 10 pounds this week. So please don't come to me again. It's almost an insult
(36:59):
for you to look me in the face. Pretend like I wasn't obese my whole life and tell me calories
in calories out are not how you lose weight. Okay, if that's what you want to believe,
like I'm fine with that. Good luck to you on your journey. I really encourage you to
talk to someone about that. Speak to a therapist that specializes in eating disorders and weight
(37:20):
loss. Speak to a dietician that specializes in eating disorders, weight loss and bariatric
surgery. Express these concerns to them. And that's fine if they if they can give you a
plan that works where you don't have to do that. But somebody in your medical team will
be tracking that for you. Every dietician that I have worked with needs to know the
(37:42):
calories that I am eating, just like they need to know the water I'm taking in the variety
of food I'm eating. There's a reason that the biggest part of the surgery focuses entirely
on food. Food journals. It's like we spent maybe 2% on exercise. So many foodie other
than 8% diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, food, food, food,
(38:04):
food, food. So the amount of food journals we had to submit through this process and
then resubmit and then make changes to and submit again. And again, so you think you're
not tracking. No, I every now and then they would talk about it. We are going to talk
about exercise because it's important. But they would focus on food, food, food, food,
food. And the thing is, you think you're not calorie counting. Okay, they're going to
(38:27):
ask you to weigh your food. They're going to say you need to be eating a quarter cup
of this, quarter cup of this and three ounces of that. Get a good scale because you need
to start weighing your food. I weigh my food every meal, every day. You're calorie counting
without calorie counting. And the reason they're like just track your protein and just track
(38:47):
your fiber and this because scientifically, technically, what they're saying is if you
kind of eat in this ballpark, you should be with like, we know the calories that you're
going to be within. So that's why we're not going to tell you to track calories because
we know a lot of you are very adverse to that. But by weighing your food and eating only
the portion sizes they recommend, you are in fact tracking and counting your calories.
(39:12):
So my advice is sure in your first year, if you don't want to do it, great. But after
your first year, you get the ball boot scoot and boogie out of the program and you're on
your own. And it is one of the only things that has immensely helped make sure that I
stay on track is tracking what I eat. I can't not do it. I track like I said, I track every
day. I plan my meal the night, my day, the night before I weigh and measure everything
(39:36):
that I put on my plate because it's the only way that I can know for sure that I'm getting
what I need, that I'm staying within my calorie range, that I'm hitting my protein goals unequivocally.
This is what it is. And I'm going to probably do it until I'm five years post-op, until
I'm out of the really scary regain window, which like regain will happen at any point
(40:01):
in life. But until I'm out of like the you are at the highest risk for gaining the most
back, I'm going to track. And this is just our advice. We're not medical experts, but
we've certainly have talked to enough of them. We know enough people who've done this, who
are doing it. We've gone through it. And both of us were morbidly obese and suffer from
PCOS and many other health issues that a lot of you have, including genetics. And this
(40:26):
is our strongest advice if you want to be successful. And we'll talk about it in our
next episode. We're going to go over surgery. We're going to not surgery. And our next episode,
we're going to talk about exercise. Sorry, our last episode was all about surgery. Boy,
that's where my brain is this Saturday. But in our next one, we're going to talk about
things like exercise and stalling and what that looks like for us. But it's just our
(40:50):
advice. I heavily believe in the in tracking and there's a great influencer and I love
her flushed away. I just I like following her. Her husband also just had surgery too.
But her big thing is outside of just tracking, you know, what they eat. She also weighs herself,
which is controversial. She does it every day. And her advice and this kind of resonated
(41:15):
with me early on was I, you know, I was super obese my whole life and it didn't just happen
overnight. It was, you know, small changes and it just caught up with me. She said, I
don't want to wake up one day and stand on the scale and go, Oh, wow, it all caught up
with me. You know, yeah, she wants to know if things are going in a direction where she
(41:35):
needs to step in and take control. And when I started thinking about it that way, I went,
well, that doesn't seem like it's not so scary bad for my mental health. And that doesn't
seem like it's obsessive. Like that seems like I'm going to hop on, take a look and
go, okay, great. So I do the same thing. I do weigh myself every day, just like I calorie
count. Not every day, but every way, at least a few times a week, I'm checking those calories.
(42:00):
But I do the same she does. And it's not out of obsession. It's because I do want to make
sure that I don't wake up one day and realize I've gained 10 and a half pounds. If I start
gaining, then I'm going to look at my calories and go, okay, have I changed something here?
If I haven't changed something there, has my fat gone up? Okay. All right, now it's
time to reach out to the clinic and say, I'm eating within my deficit. I'm not drinking
(42:25):
enough water. And I've stopped exercising. I've gained 10 pounds. What should I do? You
know, like, keep track of these things, because they're going to ask this if you if you start
gaining weight, they're going to go, well, what are you eating? What are you exercising?
What are you drinking? And if you don't track it, you're literally going to be on the call
with them and go, Yeah, like, I'm doing that. Are you though? Are you? Well, and then you
(42:48):
can stay ahead of it, because I used to be the person that would jump on the scale every
day and be obsessed. And I stopped doing that because I knew I would get so obsessed with
that number and sad. And yeah, and if I saw the slightest little increase, it was like,
this isn't working, forget it. And I would sabotage myself. But now, it's not. I look
(43:13):
at it differently. I'm using it to know if I'm staying on track. And if it goes up a
little bit, it goes up a little bit. Am I within water weight? Probably. Did I eat a
chunk of my protein later than I should have and it's still sitting? Probably. Is my cycle
in a certain spot? Maybe. Did I exercise yesterday? The scale, and I have learned this now with
(43:36):
my body, but this is where you learn patterns. If I exercise, I either stay stagnant for
a few days or I go up a little bit. And then when I have rest, yeah, and water retention,
right? And then when I have my rest days, oh, look, I have a whoosh. Isn't that interesting?
Wow. So you learn to then figure out those habits and not become so obsessed with it
(43:58):
and use it in a positive way. Again, track what's happening. And now I know on day X
of my cycle, it's going to go up. And when I exercise, it's going to go up. And if I
have my last protein after eight o'clock, it's going to be up a little bit. I didn't
gain a pound of fat overnight. Like be realistic. Be for real. But use it as a tool. Yep. And
(44:21):
that's the thing when it comes to measuring all of this muscle weighs more than fat. It's
again, we're just saying that gives you a more well rounded picture of what's going
on in your body. If you are stalling, it gives you a way to actually go back and reflect
and say, Oh, you know what, I've been kind of overdoing it a bit on the old crackers.
There's not enough protein, really high carbs, and it's eating up too much of my room. I
(44:43):
can reflect back and see for sure that my water intake is nowhere near where it needed
to be, which is probably not helping. But it's just all of this in collection just helps
you make sure that what you've spent so much time building days where it's supposed to
be and lets you make those small incremental changes. The last thing you want to do is
(45:04):
wake up and go, oops, 20 pounds. Oops. Okay. Like 20 pounds is a lot harder to correct
than five. Oh my gosh. It's a lot easier to catch these things and then make said changes.
But also, it's okay to be like, Oh yeah, I'm going on vacation. These next two weeks are
going to be a free for all. And then I'll come back and get back on track and then check.
Oh, yep. I'm back on track. But all of this to say, I'll end this. I'll end this podcast
(45:30):
from my perspective by just saying, I highly recommend that you do this if you want to
be successful. I struggle to see a lot of people being able to successfully do this
without it. And sure, you are going to be able to go on the internet because that's
what the point of the internet is. You'll always find people to back up your side of
things. So sure, you'll find people who claim that they're six years post-op and that they
(45:53):
don't have to track calories and they never did and they're great. One of the best things
I saw on social media, which like, you know, social media can be fake at times. So one
of the best things I saw was a woman saying, are you so mad that people get to eat McDonald's
and eat what they want and lose weight? And you're so angry about it. And I remember sending
it to Steph. She said, just know that that is the smallest percentage of their entire
(46:15):
week that you're seeing. And you're likely not seeing that they didn't have anything
else all day or that that was actually just a small treat and a small blip. Like just
be aware that you're always going to find people that tell you, you can do this and
do this and do this and do this. And it's probably not what they're doing or not what
they're following. And that goes the same for us. Sure. We're telling you what's working
(46:36):
for us, but you can go and find people that tell you what we're saying is total horse
shit and not true. We're just giving you the advice that we have seen work really well
for us. And we are advocating that without having tracked these things, we would have
fallen off the wagon by now. Agreed. It's just a tool and it's just to help you stay
(46:57):
on track, have that well rounded view of what's going on, have that information to compare
down the road when you need to and just have the more information, knowledge is power,
the more information you have, the better. So that if you need to make changes, if you're
struggling, if something's not working, you have things to go back on and look at and
(47:17):
review and figure out where to make those tweaks and changes instead of feeling so lost
and so alone and having no idea what to do. This will help guide you on where you can
look to make changes and make improvements. It's just the tool. But let us know in the
comments and again, it's totally fine if you disagree with us, but just let us know, what
(47:40):
do you think? Are you a calorie counter? Are you post-op and not doing it? What has been
successful for you? What are your habits and rituals? But again, yeah, like we said, we're
not here to shame and judge, do what you want to do. I eat donuts, but it's moderation and
tracking. It's just our advice. It's just what worked for us. Again, maybe in three
years we'll change that advice when we're further out from surgery, but for right now,
(48:03):
we believe heavily in it and we absolutely believe that calories and calories outplay
the biggest part in your weight loss journey. So thank you for listening to us on this episode.
Next week we are going to talk about exercise and we'll touch on stalls because we didn't
get to it this week, but what does exercise look like? What do we do and how do you beat
a stall? And how often are you going to stall in surgery? So we'll cover all of that, but
(48:27):
like usual, we appreciate you guys coming along and Steph, thanks for talking with me
again this week.
Anytime. Thanks everybody. We will talk to you next week. See you next week everybody.
Hey Steph!
(00:01):
Hello, how's it going?
Good, how are you?
Good, we're back.
Back on video.
Back on video, we had really good reception to video.
It seems you guys like to see our faces, so thanks for making us put on makeup.
(00:22):
I know, I said to him this morning, I'm like, I just want to be in my pajamas, in a big
comfy sweater with my hair all a mess and just lay on the couch.
I was like, I gotta go.
My hair is a mess, so enjoy ladies and gentlemen.
But yes, I just want to be doing what the dog is doing behind me, which is just snoozing.
I don't know if we can see him.
(00:43):
There he is.
Yeah, we would just like to be snoozing on this fine Saturday, but I'm excited to talk
to everybody about our shot topic today.
Oh my gosh, that's going to be good, but before we dive into that, how was your week?
Full of snow.
I feel like this is all I say every time we talk.
(01:04):
Full of snow.
We had a long weekend in Canada, but we had the holiday on Monday and then no school for
snow on Tuesday.
No school for snow on Wednesday.
Oh Steph.
And then thank goodness we had school on Thursday and Friday.
We had massive snow storms here this week.
(01:27):
They were brutal.
Listen.
It's like, just.
What was it?
50 centimeters of snow?
50 to 60?
I don't know what that is in inches.
Sorry Americans, but a buttload.
But I have to say, I talked to my parents and I was very happy that you guys got hit
with it too for once.
Yeah, for once we did.
Just sitting here in piles of snow.
(01:48):
It was not just you.
We got annihilated.
I don't have kids, but I have this thing.
And he loves snow.
And so he was like, I want to go out.
I want to go out.
Go out again.
And I was like, listen, Bo takes me 32 minutes to get ready now with the pants and the boots
and the everything.
I was like, I don't want to be out in this snow.
And boy, walking through snow.
(02:09):
It's quite a workout.
Yeah, but I have to walk to our back shop to do.
We have shop cats.
And so I have to go back and look out for them.
Yeah, they are really cute.
I said to Devon, like to go out to the shop now, because I have to put on like full snow
pants, jacket boots, because we have such big drifts in our yard that there's points
(02:30):
when the snow is past my waist.
And so we have mountains in our backyard.
And I said, I should not have to put on snow pants.
No, we'll change the cat litter.
No.
Also, like some of it's packed down because for those who don't know, we've been having
snow for months.
And then it's not.
And you hit the night.
But it's always like one leg is here and the other goes down.
(02:51):
And your knee snaps and gives out as you go into the snow.
So this morning, literally, I was taking the dog for a walk and I was like, I'm going to
break a hip.
Like, I'm at that age where like this is now dangerous.
One leg went down and the other stayed up and the dog took off.
And I was like, this is where Hannah dies.
Right here in this snow drift.
I took the shovel and I was using it as like a walking stick.
(03:13):
And Devon looked at me and said, are you shoveling?
And I said, no.
He's like, well, then why do you have the shovel?
And I said, because I need to realize something.
Yeah.
So that I can like check in front of me because same thing, I would step in just.
Oh, away she goes.
So that's how, and I don't know how I know this, that's how a lot of people die when
(03:34):
they are like on Everest.
They fall into a crevasse and like you're gone.
Like I mean, obviously I'm not going to fall into kitchen or crevasse in my backyard.
But like even when they're out skiing, that's how a lot of people die skiing is they go
down like a black diamond or an off route trail straight down into a hole and nobody
ever sees them again.
(03:54):
So like that's a new fear that's now been unlocked in my mind.
So I guess I'm going to cross Everest off my list of things to do.
That's a no for me.
No, anyway, we're surviving the snow.
We're doing well.
We are, we are excited to be here today for episode seven of the Bariatric Banchor podcast.
(04:15):
Yeah.
Wow.
I know.
Isn't that crazy?
This is very exciting.
We want to give a really big shout out.
We've crossed 300 streams just on Spotify before we started recording this morning.
So big shout out to everybody there.
I Heart Radio, you're crushing it for us too.
But it's pretty incredible because we're, we're almost at like 500 total streams.
(04:37):
If we add in every platform and we're on YouTube now, which is exciting.
So just thank you to everybody listening and our American friends who are joining in as
well.
So you know, love from Canada.
We don't, we don't dislike all of you.
We don't discriminate.
No, everyone can listen.
So this week we are diving into, I mean, we say this every week, but a hot topic.
(05:02):
This week on episode six of the Bariatric Banchor, seven, seven of the Bariatric Banchor
podcast, we are going to talk about tracking calories.
It's a big one specifically like tracking your progress, tracking your calories and
handling stalls when it comes to, you know, surgery, whether you are free or post three
(05:27):
months or two years out, we're going to cover this hot topic because boy, this is probably
the most widely debated.
Oh my God.
And toxic at times topic on Reddit when it comes to bariatric surgery is the notion of
calories.
(05:47):
The fighting is I don't want to track calories.
I shouldn't have to track calories.
You absolutely need to track calories.
And the other large argument is calories in calories out isn't, you know, true.
It's not a thing.
There's so much more that goes into it.
So you know, we decided, cause we get asked this a lot by people that we know who are
(06:09):
going into surgery or who are contemplating surgery.
They ask us all the time.
Oh my God, do you have to track your food and your calories?
So we're going to give you our hot take on it and spoiler alert, we really disagree with
what a lot of people say about this.
So welcome to episode seven and we're going to dive right in to tracking your progress,
tracking your calories and handling stalls.
(06:32):
Yes.
And well, I mean, we'll just jump in and say we track and we are believers of tracking.
And I've said this many times and I will say it again.
I don't like tracking.
Not a fan of doing it.
It sucks.
It's annoying.
And many times for me personally, I track my next day the night before and plan it out.
(06:58):
And there's many times when I have gone to bed and then all of a sudden been like, oh
shit, I didn't track my day.
And then I've gotten up, sat there and put in all my food for the next day.
Or you'd have to sit there and I'm scared.
You're skating late, but like, it's not, it's not fun.
It's not the height of my day.
However, if I want to hit my goals and I want to be successful and I want to ensure that
(07:23):
I am eating what I need to be eating, I have no choice.
It for me, it is a must.
And if you think you can be successful, especially when you're starting out on a journey without
tracking, I have, I have been there.
I have tried to say that before.
Boy, are you wrong.
(07:46):
Sorry, but you are.
Yeah.
It, I don't love tracking.
Do I hate it?
I mean, okay, maybe hate was a really strong word to use.
It's not that I have any issues with it per se.
It's that I'm just, I was lazy and would forget to do it.
And it felt like a chore, but I would work with my therapist on this where she's like,
(08:08):
so how's tracking going?
And I was like, I'm being honest with you, I'm not doing it.
And she's like, why?
And I was like, at the end of my day, I'm exhausted.
I, you know, I don't want to have to think about it.
Also, and I'll get into this in a minute.
My fitness pals just, it's more work than it's worth.
But, but do I believe that this is one of the most important tools to my success?
(08:28):
Absolutely.
I cannot deny that.
I am not, I'm two years post-op as of March 13th.
I am not good enough to do this in my head mentally yet.
You really think you are, especially towards the end of the first year.
And usually you kind of screw yourself over by thinking, I can do this in my head.
(08:51):
And every time I've then gone back in and started tracking again or putting it in, I
go, oh, and it's not like, oh Jesus, I'm eating 3000 calories.
Usually, usually my calories are okay.
It's the other areas where I'm like, oh, so that protein, the protein's at 60 or oh,
(09:11):
my sodium is super low, which has become a big issue for me recently because, you know,
as you lose a ton of weight, sodium and running and you know, my doctors have said, girl,
you need to get your sodium up.
Like you are, you are losing more than you're putting in and it's going to be dangerous.
I digress.
When I've put stuff in, I've realized, oh, I'm still not smart enough.
(09:36):
I'm still not educated enough to do this on my own mentally.
I'm underestimating a lot of things.
I'm underestimating the bite I've had of this or I'm underestimating how much that is.
And so it is controversial that people say, I don't want to count calories.
It gives me, you know, mental health issues or I'm going to get an eating disorder.
For me, I am not fearful that I'm going to develop an eating disorder where I don't eat
(10:01):
enough.
I'm not worried that I'll develop anorexia or bulimia or that I'll starve my, you know,
starve myself and like really calorie restrict.
For me, the eating disorder that is, you know, going to be the one that I need to watch for
is binge eating because that's what led me to be obese in the first place.
And a lot of obese individuals suffer more from the binge eating, eating disorders.
(10:26):
But when you start looking at calorie counting, all you see is people saying it will give
you an eating disorder.
It's going to cause an eating disorder.
You know, you're going to stop.
It might.
I can't deny that it might.
And that's horrible.
But for the vast majority of us that need to have this surgery, it's because of our eating
habits and it's because they go in the other direction.
(10:48):
We eat too much.
We under calculate.
You need to count your calories.
I'm sorry.
You need to.
Or we don't admit.
We don't admit it.
We don't want to admit it.
And tracking it as a wake up call because like I don't want to be faced with it.
Yeah.
I was so guilty of a little bit of the off the kids plate.
(11:10):
Like they didn't finish and I would clear the dishes and do dishes.
Oh, they just have a bite left.
Oh, they have a bite left.
Or while you're cooking and making dinner, you're having a bite here.
You're having a bite here.
Little snack.
This.
It all adds up and you don't realize how much those little bites throughout the day become
a full additional meal by the time you.
(11:30):
Yeah.
Or like we've talked about those foods like chips and crackers.
And things like the serving size is nobody is eating a serving size.
Nobody.
Even bariatric patients.
Yeah.
And that's fine.
But again, you don't have any concept of how those numbers are adding up at the end of
the day.
Correct.
(11:50):
And you need that wake up call to then sit there and say, holy shit, I just ate 3000
calories, maybe a quarter that was protein.
I had no fiber.
And I wonder why number one, I feel like crap.
I'm bloated and I'm not gaining weight or I'm not losing weight.
And I'm stalled.
Yep.
Right.
And there are people, like I'll be very honest with you guys, bariatric surgery does not
(12:13):
automatically restrict calories for you.
Yes.
In your first year, it kind of does.
But there are plenty of people who are three to four months post-op eating 900 calories.
Okay.
There are also tons of people that are two, three, four, five years post-op eating 3000
calories because they are also like marathoners or working out like crazy.
(12:36):
They have not gained weight.
They're in a really good balance, but that's because they track and they know that they're
in an okay balance.
But my point is to highlight bariatric surgery in no way restricts your calories for life
and in no way restrict your calories.
So there's this notion that the only thing I need to track is my protein and I'll be
good.
Sure.
There were definitely days where I hit 90 to 100 grams of protein and 14 to 1500 calories.
(13:01):
Because it's very, very, very easy to eat your protein and then completely go through
calories.
My gosh.
And I do not believe in the notion that calories in, calories out doesn't count.
I fundamentally, through everything that I've studied before surgery, after surgery with
my dieticians, with my surgeon, calories in, calories out at the end of the day is literally
(13:26):
the formula for weight loss.
Do not, you can come at us cause this is like, but it's not, oh yeah, calories in calories
count doesn't count.
There's so much more that goes into weight loss.
Like they have proven if you eat in a calorie deficit and don't work out, you'll lose weight.
If you overeat and work out, you won't lose weight.
It is diet that makes the biggest impact here.
(13:50):
And you can't let your obese self make that decision for you that you're not going to
count calories because I didn't want to count calories before.
I was convinced I wouldn't have to, and I was just going to live a really healthy life
and never have to worry about it.
And now I do pay attention to it because of those slider foods.
A great example is this.
(14:10):
I wanted to have some crackers and cheese.
I was like, yeah, you know, I'm going to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that
and it's going to be great.
I'm going to make an adult charcuterie plate.
So I made a cracker and cheese plate and my mom was like, oh, like that's all you're having?
And I was like, so that's four crackers and those four crackers are 110 calories.
(14:31):
That's my 30 ounces of cheese and that 30 ounces of cheese is 90 calories.
I was like, mom, I'm already at 210 calories just for like this little serving of cheese
and crackers.
I was like, I'm also going to add half an apple because I need the fiber and I need
some other stuff in there.
I said, this is how it catches up because I buy low fat, high protein cheese.
(14:55):
I buy like as low calorie cracker as I can get.
She likes rice crackers and she thought they were healthier than regular crackers because
they're rice crackers.
I was like, if you eat the serving size of those rice crackers, it's 180 calories.
And then you're also pairing it with hummus and whatever's going on or dipped with the
crackers and then the cheese and then the meat.
(15:17):
And we're not shaming.
We're not saying, oh God, how dare you eat that?
What we're saying is you don't fundamentally know what's going in.
You think you do and you think you can mentally add all this up, but unless you're actually
tracking what's going in, you are overeating.
Guaranteeing it will be shocked at the end of the day.
Obesity doesn't just happen to you.
(15:37):
Obesity is an epidemic.
Obesity absolutely is an addiction, but it's not just magically happening to you.
You're overeating.
Your portions are too big.
You're not eating what you think you're eating.
You're fooling and lying to yourself.
I've had a lot of obese people who are in my life say dead ass to my face.
(15:59):
It has nothing to do with my calories.
I am not overeating.
There's so many other reasons I'm obese.
It's my diabetes.
It's my genetics.
It's my PCOS.
It's my this.
It's my this.
It's my this.
No, at the end of the day, I can guarantee you if you worked with an expert and honestly
tracked what you were eating for a full week, you would realize that it's your portions.
It's your food.
(16:19):
It's your fat.
It's your calories.
You're not eating in a calorie deficit because you would lose weight.
You would absolutely contribute.
And there are certain foods that maybe are harder for your body to digest or take longer
for your body to digest.
And we know with PCOS, there are certain foods that your body struggles to digest those well
(16:40):
or to digest them in a proper time.
But again, that's why it's important to think about what you're eating, track what you're
eating, look at what you're eating.
And at the end of the day, as we said on our previous episode, those things don't make
it impossible to lose weight.
Yeah, you might lose weight way slower than somebody else.
But ultimately, it's 80% calories, 20% exercise is what it boils down to.
(17:06):
Basically.
And we've seen in the book, like you think like a big culprit is we just talked about
salad.
You think you don't need to track your macros or your food because it's fine.
I'm having salads and I'm having natural make at home breakfast sandwiches like you were
talking about, which is great.
But how many of those salads and this is something that too, I learned the hard way because I
(17:28):
was one of those people that was like, Nevin would get McDonald's and he'd get his three
burgers or whatever he was getting and I would know I'm just gonna get the salad.
And you think you honest to God think you're making a great choice.
You do.
But if you look at that salad and it's 1100 calories, yes, it would have been better off
to have a Big Mac.
You absolutely would.
(17:48):
And that's the thing is I had a neighbor over and she said, let's order out for dinner.
And I still order out.
And I said, yeah, I would like to find a restaurant, not a fast food chain because I'd like to
order something, you know, like a like a little steak and veggies or maybe some ahi tuna.
She said, well, I'm just gonna get a salad.
I'm really watching what I eat and watching my calories.
And I went, okay, good luck finding a salad.
(18:10):
And she went, what, and I said, just look at the calories.
And she immediately was like, you are kidding me.
And I was like, yeah, almost every salad at Moxie's is over 800 calories.
And it's not just the, oh, well, you're getting the crispy chicken with the no, it's their,
you know, Asian chicken salad with roasted chicken.
It's their Cobb salad.
It's like any of their salads are over 800 calories.
(18:34):
Yeah, with the exception of the steak salad, which is under 500.
And it's really great.
And I highly recommend it.
Love that goddamn steak salad.
Love Skiff.
But this is where like you think you're making healthy choices.
Oh, I'm gluten free.
I eat really healthy.
Most gluten free recipes are made with almond, almond flour.
Almond flour is ground almonds.
Almonds are super high in fat.
(18:55):
So just be cautious.
You think you're making good choices, but you don't realize how fast salads add up.
Even salads at home.
There's a great Instagram video about, hey, you got your lettuce.
You put a little bit of chicken and a little bit of cheese and a little dressing.
And now you're at a 700 calorie meal and salad is not going to fill you up.
There's very little fiber.
(19:15):
There's not enough protein in it typically.
And then you're going to be hungry again in a bit.
Popcorn is another great example.
I love popcorn.
I love popcorn.
Only 31 calories per pop cup.
And I went, this is great.
Until you realize like that kind of adds up real quick when you realize like five cups
of popcorn is like this much.
(19:36):
And you're like, Oh, that's like 250 fucking calories.
Like oops.
So you think you think, you know, okay.
Mayonnaise is a great example too.
I used to just keep regular mayonnaise because I was like, I'm giving shit.
Regular mayo is ludicrously insane for the calories for a tablespoon.
So I buy the, I buy the light mayo and it's like 30 calories per tablespoon versus the
(20:00):
110 that regular.
So just at the end of the day, if you don't want to track, you know, that's your choice.
Don't eat the stuff, but eat what you want to eat and be cautious of it.
Right?
Like if you want to have, who was it?
There's these women on Instagram and I followed them for a while and they have, I'm going
(20:24):
to say weight loss program, but they do a lot of mindset.
Like it's not about dieting, but they very much like track your food, be cautious of
what you're eating.
I know who you're talking about.
Making moderation.
And they're the ones that got me hooked on the, this is a little tip on the red pepper
dip summer fresh.
If you're in Canada, summer fresh roasted red pepper dip.
(20:47):
It is phenomenal.
You can have the entire tub for like 210 calories.
So I now use that as salad dressing.
I use it as dip because for two tablespoons, I can't remember what it's, but anyway, it's
very low calorie.
Yeah.
So like when I make salad, I'm somebody who likes creamy stuff, like creamy dressings.
Right?
But like you say ranch, I'm just going to put a little bit of ranch on.
(21:10):
Well, who's really putting one or two tablespoons of ranch on a salad.
That's 110 calories alone.
Alone.
So I'll take the red pepper dip and I'll mix it with some balsamic vinegar to thin it out
a little bit.
And that is my go-to.
So we're not saying you can't have things.
And they did a thing where they ate a donut from Tim Hortons.
(21:30):
They had Tim Hortons donuts every day and they lost weight, but they worked it into
their macros for the day and they track.
So nobody is saying you can't have the Big Mac, that you can't have the donut or you
can't have the cookie, but be aware of what the macros are for that and make sure that
(21:53):
you can fit it into your day and then build your day accordingly.
Because otherwise, you don't know.
It's not that you're necessarily, you're not trying to sabotage yourself.
Like when I wouldn't track, I legitimately thought I was making healthy choices by having
the eating old salad, right?
(22:13):
Or by having the booster juice as my meal.
And you don't realize the sugar that's in it.
Yeah.
I genuinely did think like, and I thought so soon after surgery that I knew it all and
I didn't need to track.
Girl, I needed to track.
Yeah.
I did.
(22:34):
I need to see it.
And especially for things like fiber, things we forget about all the time.
My fiber's so bad.
My fiber's so bad too.
But I lean on my fitness pal now for like my calories, my protein, my carbs.
I keep an eye on, but because of what I'm eating, the fat's not really a concern because
(22:54):
I'm not eating high fat things typically anyway.
Sugar I pay attention to, but fiber.
Things like that that I never paid attention to that because I was tracking, I had no way
to account for that.
But because it's all laid out in my app now, I can really quickly go and look, oh shit,
I'm only at three grams of fiber today.
I better rebuild some of my meals and pump that baby up a little bit.
(23:17):
It makes you relook at your meals, right?
Where you're like, you know what, maybe that dinner I was making isn't the best because
it's only 15 grams of protein.
There has to be a better way.
Or hey, I actually do need to start eating potatoes or having a little piece of bread.
But we're not trying to shame people.
Eat what you want to eat.
But what we're saying is you're likely not as educated as you think you are, especially
(23:39):
before surgery because you're making decisions based on what you assume is healthy.
A great example is I was with my mom at the grocery store and I buy low carb tortillas.
And she was like, Hannah, Jesus Christ.
Why are you spending so much money on these?
And why are there 15 bags in the cart?
And I was like, these are the best low carb tortillas.
They taste amazing.
I love them and my freezer's full.
(24:00):
She went, there's no way they're that much better that you should be buying this many.
And I said, okay, here's an example.
Let's hold up the little snack sized one.
I said, these are 25 calories.
She went, yeah, okay.
Ooh, they're probably a couple calories better.
And I said, go grab the snack size regular tortillas.
So she did.
And she flipped over and went, 80 calories?
And I said, yeah, 80 and one to the 25 in mine.
(24:24):
And I said, and these taste just the same.
So then she starts looking at all the tortillas because they make a lot of cracks and they
use it.
And she went-
Because they're healthy.
There are 170 calories for a tortilla.
And I went, yeah, mom.
This is where, and like, so then we started looking at bread and she was like, well, bread,
I said, oh my God, bread is sometimes like 150 calories for a slice.
(24:46):
I said an English muffin, one English muffin's 140.
So like, these are things I only know because of surgery.
But before surgery, I would go, holy English muffins, look how tiny this is.
Like that's super healthy.
That's better than bread.
It's actually not.
It's actually not.
So what we're trying to say is if you subscribe to the notion that calories, calorie in, calorie
(25:06):
out makes no difference to weight loss, you probably need to talk to someone before surgery
because while they're not going to explicitly say you need to track calories, a lot of programs
won't.
You need to be tracking your protein, your fiber, your fat.
There are things you need to track, but also you can absolutely overeat and gain the weight
back.
(25:26):
Regain is huge in this community.
Regain is a lot of even influencers are regaining because it's very easy to overeat.
Your restriction will not last as long as you think it is.
And eating more calories than you burn is very easy, especially because as you lose
weight, your TDEE goes down and your TDEE is not BMI guys.
(25:49):
Your TDEE is how much calories do you just burn in a normal day?
And especially if you're not active and that's a whole, we're going to do a whole podcast
on exercise because boy, a lot of people think they don't need to do it after surgery.
So you don't realize that as you're dropping weight real quick in your first year, so is
the calories that you just burn.
(26:09):
So for me, I've lost 150 pounds where I'm currently at weight wise and height wise living
a sedentary life.
If I wasn't moving and doing any exercise, my daily calories needed is 1900.
So many people blow through 1900.
Now, because I'm a bariatric patient, I'm actually between 12 and 14.
(26:31):
So I'm still in a major calorie deficit, but I'm also exercising heavily.
I exercise almost every day of the week.
So the other thing that I need to now take into account is am I burning way more calories
than I'm eating and do I potentially need to eat more?
You will meet a ton of bariatric patients who eat 2000 plus calories a day because of
(26:53):
how hard they're exercising and working out.
If I wasn't tracking, I could also run the risk of under eating after surgery.
So it's not just to keep you from overeating.
It's also to make sure like, are you in the balance you need to be in?
Are you eating enough?
Because there are days where I literally was like, we're good.
And I would track and be like, holy shit, I'm only at a thousand calories.
(27:17):
My weight, my age, my height, I should not be eating a thousand calories a day.
That's not good.
So we do not believe that you shouldn't know these things.
Now will there be a world and a day where I don't track it?
Yep.
If I can make tons of meals and have really good control over what I'm eating, buying
(27:38):
and doing, I won't need to track calories because I will, but I'm not there yet.
And it's foolish of me to have thought that I would be this soon.
People who can do that have been tracking for so incredibly long that it just becomes
almost like muscle memory, second nature, just ingrained in you.
(27:59):
But it takes a long time to get there, a long time to get there.
And like you said, it's finding that balance because under-eating is not good either.
Not hitting your goals is not good either.
It's using it as a tool not to torture yourself or to shame yourself or to hate what you're
doing.
It's a tool to keep you on track, keep you honest and educate yourself about what the
(28:23):
best choices are for you.
If you aren't tracking, and again, Steph nailed it, this has nothing to do with shame or forcing
you to be in a deficit in a diet that's hard to maintain.
The goal of surgery is that it should be easy to maintain where you are.
I don't go to bed starving.
(28:43):
I don't feel like I'm depriving my body.
I actually feel like, yeah, my 12 to 1400 range.
And there are days I go over 1400.
There are days where I'm at like 1450, 1480, but I feel good.
I feel like, whoa, yeah, I really ate.
I feel very satiated.
I would never recommend that you feel starving and hungry.
(29:04):
However, the reason that it's good to track this is if I was starving and going to bed
hungry and saying, I need to eat way more, then you need to go and say, hey, dietician,
so I'm at 1400, but I'm still feeling really hungry.
And then we can look at, wow, well, Hannah, yeah, you're actually burning like X amount
(29:25):
of calories.
Like you need to increase this or, hmm, you know, you're not exercising and working out.
I don't know why, you know, maybe we need to look at like, you're not eating your vitamins
or you're not actually getting your what?
Like they can look at the whole puzzle and go, all right, let's work on this because
you shouldn't feel starving.
But then you also need to work off of.
Yeah, this little starting point, because then we can say like, are you getting enough
(29:48):
protein?
Maybe you're not.
Maybe you just don't know what you've been hitting.
And if you have no idea, how do you expect anybody to help you?
Yes.
So, you know, I'm working with cardiologists because I've had pneumonia and I'll do an
episode about it because people have asked to hear.
But for the last couple of weeks, I have not been able to work out because we we didn't
know what was going on.
(30:09):
Spoiler, I've been given the all clear.
But one of the big things was we're going to look at the cardiac tests we did before
surgery in 2023 and we need to compare. And that was a really big thing was they said,
listen, we're going to compare because we want to see that things are progressing, you
know, things are getting better. And that was one of the big things from my call with
(30:32):
my cardiologist was she was like, boy, things have gotten way better from the first time
I saw you. And that tells us that like everything we're doing is is on the right track. And
my goodness, it is just pneumonia. Now, had we not been tracking and following it, we'd
still be going, I don't know, Hannah, it wasn't pneumonia, was it not pneumonia? Like, so
(30:53):
everything needs baselines and tracking. Blood tests were a big part of this, right? And
they were like, Oh, my gosh, we need to be able to see at increments that things are
getting better. I couldn't have rolled up to this and been like, Oh, trust me, I don't
want to look at those things like I'm good. No, there's a medical reason to that you kind
of want to know. So if you don't want to do it every day, fine. But I think you still
(31:17):
monthly need to touch base and just just at a minimum, put your recipes in. You don't
need to every day. If you don't want to track calories and like, I don't every day sit and
go, Okay, well today, but several times a week, I will put my recipes into my fitness
pal so that I have a baseline to say, Okay, most days I'm averaging this great. I'm happy
(31:38):
with that. I have some sort of baseline information to go off of. Yes, you can't. You can't trust
your pre surgery self because if we were really good at calories and tracking, we probably
wouldn't need surgery. And you can fight me. I know there's people who are like Hannah,
you're you're making this too black and white. There's so many reasons I'm obese and it's
(32:00):
not just calories and you need to educate yourself more. Guys, guys, guys and girls.
Okay. I've been educating myself since 2022 on this. I've been obese, morbidly obese,
almost my entire life. Okay, you're preaching to the choir. I know how I got here now. Hannah
in 2023 would have been like, Oh my god, it's not calories in calories out. Have you been
(32:21):
reading what people are saying? All my obesity is not my fault. It's every it's genetics.
It's PCOS. It's I'm actually in starvation mode. Hey guys, I really hate to break it
to you. Starvation mode is a total bullshit fucking lie. It's not real. It's actually
quite. You probably shouldn't be using it because it's quite insensitive to actual starving
(32:47):
human beings. There is no such thing as starvation mode where your body is eating so little that
it makes you morbidly obese. Okay. What happens when you don't eat enough is yet you can bloat,
you can retain water, but bloating and retaining water doesn't make you morbidly obese. And
(33:09):
it's just science. Everybody like if you eat less, your body will just not be morbidly obese.
We've said numerous times the other things 100% impact your struggles and your challenges
because we've been there. We've seen slow progress. We've seen people beside us working
(33:30):
out less and eating shittier and losing twice as much weight. And you're like, I hate them.
Yeah. And we've seen the regain and we've seen the rollercoaster. We have been there.
We've experienced it. Yeah. It has 100% made the journey that much more challenging and
made it much more frustrating, exhausting, demoralizing and you name it. But is it at
(33:56):
the end of the day? Yeah. But at the end of the day is that the root cause for why we
got where we did? No, it piled it on. It made it harder to deal with. It caused mental health
issues. It caused a lot of other issues with it and it made it really damn hard to get
where we wanted to be without this additional help. But it is not the be all end all of
(34:21):
why we were where we... It didn't make me obese. And I know that. I know that it made
me gather weight around my belly and I know it made my face swollen and I know that it
did impact my mental health and hello Bobo. And it did make me apathetic and miserable
and not want to stick to anything. But it's not why I was morbidly obese. And it would
(34:44):
be a disservice to keep telling people that that's why you're morbidly obese. Because
the truth was had I made way better lifestyle changes that I actually like tracked, I would
have started to lose the weight because in my life I did lose the weight once before.
I did manage to go from 250 pounds to 190 through walking and diet changes. And here's
(35:08):
the funny thing. It was a calorie deficit that I did not know I was in because I spent
that summer eating McDonald's french fries and dollar summer drinks. I was a camp counselor
who was broke as hell living in Toronto. And if you saw what I ate, you'd be like, how
you're not dead yet. I ate Chinese takeout and McDonald's french fries and their dollar
(35:29):
drinks almost exclusively. But because I was broke as hell, that's all I had was like McDonald's
fries, the dollar drink, and then I'd order Chinese takeout at night. I was in a massive
deficit because I was broke. And I was walking everywhere. Now it wasn't healthy and I never
recommend it. But what I'm saying is I still had PCOS, I still had genetics, I was morbidly
(35:51):
obese my whole life. And somehow I went from 250 to 190 in literally four months. Now did
I gain it all back? You sure as shit did. Because I didn't know how I had done it. It
wasn't sustainable and I was not eating in a calorie deficit. I had pneumonia, everybody
knows, oh my god, Hannah, shut the fuck up about pneumonia. I had pneumonia. And in two
(36:15):
weeks, I lost 16 and a half pounds because I was so sick. Yeah, it was bad. My face was
and I was gray. I looked I looked like death. But I couldn't eat. And I was barely drinking
my sodium was so low. My sugars were at a whack. But I was in a major calorie deficit.
And I like the weight was dropping. I'm not advocating do this. But what I'm saying is,
(36:38):
I still have PCOS. I still have, you know, genetics, I still have all these things. And
I literally for two weeks couldn't eat or drink in a way I went. And I morbidly obese
people have been here. You've all had the flu. You've had something where you went,
whoa, I lost 10 pounds this week. So please don't come to me again. It's almost an insult
(36:59):
for you to look me in the face. Pretend like I wasn't obese my whole life and tell me calories
in calories out are not how you lose weight. Okay, if that's what you want to believe,
like I'm fine with that. Good luck to you on your journey. I really encourage you to
talk to someone about that. Speak to a therapist that specializes in eating disorders and weight
(37:20):
loss. Speak to a dietician that specializes in eating disorders, weight loss and bariatric
surgery. Express these concerns to them. And that's fine if they if they can give you a
plan that works where you don't have to do that. But somebody in your medical team will
be tracking that for you. Every dietician that I have worked with needs to know the
(37:42):
calories that I am eating, just like they need to know the water I'm taking in the variety
of food I'm eating. There's a reason that the biggest part of the surgery focuses entirely
on food. Food journals. It's like we spent maybe 2% on exercise. So many foodie other
than 8% diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, diet, food, food, food,
(38:04):
food, food. So the amount of food journals we had to submit through this process and
then resubmit and then make changes to and submit again. And again, so you think you're
not tracking. No, I every now and then they would talk about it. We are going to talk
about exercise because it's important. But they would focus on food, food, food, food,
food. And the thing is, you think you're not calorie counting. Okay, they're going to
(38:27):
ask you to weigh your food. They're going to say you need to be eating a quarter cup
of this, quarter cup of this and three ounces of that. Get a good scale because you need
to start weighing your food. I weigh my food every meal, every day. You're calorie counting
without calorie counting. And the reason they're like just track your protein and just track
(38:47):
your fiber and this because scientifically, technically, what they're saying is if you
kind of eat in this ballpark, you should be with like, we know the calories that you're
going to be within. So that's why we're not going to tell you to track calories because
we know a lot of you are very adverse to that. But by weighing your food and eating only
the portion sizes they recommend, you are in fact tracking and counting your calories.
(39:12):
So my advice is sure in your first year, if you don't want to do it, great. But after
your first year, you get the ball boot scoot and boogie out of the program and you're on
your own. And it is one of the only things that has immensely helped make sure that I
stay on track is tracking what I eat. I can't not do it. I track like I said, I track every
day. I plan my meal the night, my day, the night before I weigh and measure everything
(39:36):
that I put on my plate because it's the only way that I can know for sure that I'm getting
what I need, that I'm staying within my calorie range, that I'm hitting my protein goals unequivocally.
This is what it is. And I'm going to probably do it until I'm five years post-op, until
I'm out of the really scary regain window, which like regain will happen at any point
(40:01):
in life. But until I'm out of like the you are at the highest risk for gaining the most
back, I'm going to track. And this is just our advice. We're not medical experts, but
we've certainly have talked to enough of them. We know enough people who've done this, who
are doing it. We've gone through it. And both of us were morbidly obese and suffer from
PCOS and many other health issues that a lot of you have, including genetics. And this
(40:26):
is our strongest advice if you want to be successful. And we'll talk about it in our
next episode. We're going to go over surgery. We're going to not surgery. And our next episode,
we're going to talk about exercise. Sorry, our last episode was all about surgery. Boy,
that's where my brain is this Saturday. But in our next one, we're going to talk about
things like exercise and stalling and what that looks like for us. But it's just our
(40:50):
advice. I heavily believe in the in tracking and there's a great influencer and I love
her flushed away. I just I like following her. Her husband also just had surgery too.
But her big thing is outside of just tracking, you know, what they eat. She also weighs herself,
which is controversial. She does it every day. And her advice and this kind of resonated
(41:15):
with me early on was I, you know, I was super obese my whole life and it didn't just happen
overnight. It was, you know, small changes and it just caught up with me. She said, I
don't want to wake up one day and stand on the scale and go, Oh, wow, it all caught up
with me. You know, yeah, she wants to know if things are going in a direction where she
(41:35):
needs to step in and take control. And when I started thinking about it that way, I went,
well, that doesn't seem like it's not so scary bad for my mental health. And that doesn't
seem like it's obsessive. Like that seems like I'm going to hop on, take a look and
go, okay, great. So I do the same thing. I do weigh myself every day, just like I calorie
count. Not every day, but every way, at least a few times a week, I'm checking those calories.
(42:00):
But I do the same she does. And it's not out of obsession. It's because I do want to make
sure that I don't wake up one day and realize I've gained 10 and a half pounds. If I start
gaining, then I'm going to look at my calories and go, okay, have I changed something here?
If I haven't changed something there, has my fat gone up? Okay. All right, now it's
time to reach out to the clinic and say, I'm eating within my deficit. I'm not drinking
(42:25):
enough water. And I've stopped exercising. I've gained 10 pounds. What should I do? You
know, like, keep track of these things, because they're going to ask this if you if you start
gaining weight, they're going to go, well, what are you eating? What are you exercising?
What are you drinking? And if you don't track it, you're literally going to be on the call
with them and go, Yeah, like, I'm doing that. Are you though? Are you? Well, and then you
(42:48):
can stay ahead of it, because I used to be the person that would jump on the scale every
day and be obsessed. And I stopped doing that because I knew I would get so obsessed with
that number and sad. And yeah, and if I saw the slightest little increase, it was like,
this isn't working, forget it. And I would sabotage myself. But now, it's not. I look
(43:13):
at it differently. I'm using it to know if I'm staying on track. And if it goes up a
little bit, it goes up a little bit. Am I within water weight? Probably. Did I eat a
chunk of my protein later than I should have and it's still sitting? Probably. Is my cycle
in a certain spot? Maybe. Did I exercise yesterday? The scale, and I have learned this now with
(43:36):
my body, but this is where you learn patterns. If I exercise, I either stay stagnant for
a few days or I go up a little bit. And then when I have rest, yeah, and water retention,
right? And then when I have my rest days, oh, look, I have a whoosh. Isn't that interesting?
Wow. So you learn to then figure out those habits and not become so obsessed with it
(43:58):
and use it in a positive way. Again, track what's happening. And now I know on day X
of my cycle, it's going to go up. And when I exercise, it's going to go up. And if I
have my last protein after eight o'clock, it's going to be up a little bit. I didn't
gain a pound of fat overnight. Like be realistic. Be for real. But use it as a tool. Yep. And
(44:21):
that's the thing when it comes to measuring all of this muscle weighs more than fat. It's
again, we're just saying that gives you a more well rounded picture of what's going
on in your body. If you are stalling, it gives you a way to actually go back and reflect
and say, Oh, you know what, I've been kind of overdoing it a bit on the old crackers.
There's not enough protein, really high carbs, and it's eating up too much of my room. I
(44:43):
can reflect back and see for sure that my water intake is nowhere near where it needed
to be, which is probably not helping. But it's just all of this in collection just helps
you make sure that what you've spent so much time building days where it's supposed to
be and lets you make those small incremental changes. The last thing you want to do is
(45:04):
wake up and go, oops, 20 pounds. Oops. Okay. Like 20 pounds is a lot harder to correct
than five. Oh my gosh. It's a lot easier to catch these things and then make said changes.
But also, it's okay to be like, Oh yeah, I'm going on vacation. These next two weeks are
going to be a free for all. And then I'll come back and get back on track and then check.
Oh, yep. I'm back on track. But all of this to say, I'll end this. I'll end this podcast
(45:30):
from my perspective by just saying, I highly recommend that you do this if you want to
be successful. I struggle to see a lot of people being able to successfully do this
without it. And sure, you are going to be able to go on the internet because that's
what the point of the internet is. You'll always find people to back up your side of
things. So sure, you'll find people who claim that they're six years post-op and that they
(45:53):
don't have to track calories and they never did and they're great. One of the best things
I saw on social media, which like, you know, social media can be fake at times. So one
of the best things I saw was a woman saying, are you so mad that people get to eat McDonald's
and eat what they want and lose weight? And you're so angry about it. And I remember sending
it to Steph. She said, just know that that is the smallest percentage of their entire
(46:15):
week that you're seeing. And you're likely not seeing that they didn't have anything
else all day or that that was actually just a small treat and a small blip. Like just
be aware that you're always going to find people that tell you, you can do this and
do this and do this and do this. And it's probably not what they're doing or not what
they're following. And that goes the same for us. Sure. We're telling you what's working
(46:36):
for us, but you can go and find people that tell you what we're saying is total horse
shit and not true. We're just giving you the advice that we have seen work really well
for us. And we are advocating that without having tracked these things, we would have
fallen off the wagon by now. Agreed. It's just a tool and it's just to help you stay
(46:57):
on track, have that well rounded view of what's going on, have that information to compare
down the road when you need to and just have the more information, knowledge is power,
the more information you have, the better. So that if you need to make changes, if you're
struggling, if something's not working, you have things to go back on and look at and
(47:17):
review and figure out where to make those tweaks and changes instead of feeling so lost
and so alone and having no idea what to do. This will help guide you on where you can
look to make changes and make improvements. It's just the tool. But let us know in the
comments and again, it's totally fine if you disagree with us, but just let us know, what
(47:40):
do you think? Are you a calorie counter? Are you post-op and not doing it? What has been
successful for you? What are your habits and rituals? But again, yeah, like we said, we're
not here to shame and judge, do what you want to do. I eat donuts, but it's moderation and
tracking. It's just our advice. It's just what worked for us. Again, maybe in three
years we'll change that advice when we're further out from surgery, but for right now,
(48:03):
we believe heavily in it and we absolutely believe that calories and calories outplay
the biggest part in your weight loss journey. So thank you for listening to us on this episode.
Next week we are going to talk about exercise and we'll touch on stalls because we didn't
get to it this week, but what does exercise look like? What do we do and how do you beat
a stall? And how often are you going to stall in surgery? So we'll cover all of that, but
(48:27):
like usual, we appreciate you guys coming along and Steph, thanks for talking with me
again this week.
Anytime. Thanks everybody. We will talk to you next week. See you next week everybody.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com