- Are you stumped on how to eat after your weight loss surgery?
- Are you struggling with regain after surgery and need help losing it again?
- Are you having trouble coping with all of the changes that come with rapid weight loss after bariatric surgery?
- Are you seeking information about how to implement keto as a post-op bariatric patient?
Then I’m glad you’re here. Here is a space where you can find support and answers to these and so much more!
About Laurie Cromie, publisher of Barivangelist.com:
Hi, I’m Laurie Cromie, publisher of Barivangelist.
Email: laurie at barivangelist dot com
I live in the Southern California area, with my husband, two boys, baby girl, three cats, and one rambunctious cocker spaniel.
At Barivangelist.com, I chronicle the things I do to make the most of my own bariatric surgery experience. As a lifelong yo-yo dieter, I don’t believe in the diet industry, and know that we can achieve our healthy weight by living a holistic lifestyle. Instead of keeping you in a yo-yo pattern of gain-lose-gain-lose, I teach how to use macros to control your hormones to access fat stores and get you on the steady decline…. and make it feel effortless.
Some of us need a fighting chance to get started, and thus bariatric surgery is a tool to help us get there, not a solution. There is a lot more to achieving a healthy weight than surgery alone. This includes feeding our bodies a keto-based diet, enjoyable and non-stressful exercise, getting the right amount of sleep, and managing our stress.
The recipes here are mainly Keto, though in the past I did teach Paleo, Whole30, and other lower-carb diets, that is until I researched in depth the role hormones play in our inability to lose weight, and I completely re-wrote my approach, and am shedding my own regained pregnancy weight like crazy!
As a long time massage therapist and esthetician, I also write about my best makeover tips to help you feel your very best through all of these crazy, rapid changes.
My Weight Loss Surgery Story:
2013, the very day I met my surgeon for a consultation. Compared to 2015, 18-months postop, and about a month before I became pregnant with my third child. (This blog also had a couple different names before settling on Barivangelist.)
I reached my highest weight after my second son was about two years old. Despite exercising four days a week, and eating a low-carb diet, the weight just would never come off, and if I did lose weight, it easy packed right back on… and then some. I had tried every diet under the sun, some of them multiple times. I thought I was failing diets, but now I see they were failing me. My metabolism was broken from a lifetime of these diet programs, and the only thing that worked to reset my metabolism was bariatric surgery. Now I see how diet plans just do not work, but eating for overall health, is the only way to lose weight and maintain. Yes, surgery fired up my metabolism, but it was up to me on how I would eat and exercise afterwards that led me to a nearly 200-pound weight loss.
Both of my sons were born under very high-risk pregnancies. Both were born premature via emergency c-section because of severe pre-eclampsia, the second pregnancy being far worse than the first. I knew I wanted at least one more baby, and my ob/gyn warned me that if I did not receive bariatric surgery, I would never survive a third pregnancy, nor would my baby. I appreciated her candidness, and didn’t take offense. In fact, I took charge. I consulted a psychiatrist and my general doctor, who both agreed with my ob/gyn it would be the best move for me.
The process for getting the surgery is pretty daunting with tons of hoops to jump through, but I’m very lucky because my husband wanted the surgery for himself, too, and it made it so much easier to have his support. He received his surgery just two months after I did.
2015, right around the time I got pregnant with baby #3!
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“After the After”
Funny enough, “After the After” is a popular term for “whoops, so much for ‘happy ever after’… it’s totally possible to have regain after all!”
Remember how I mentioned I had surgery so I could have my third child?
Well, they told me to gain only 20 lbs, and I gained 40. (I wrote my whole post-WLS regain story here.)
But honestly? I didn’t care. I was enjoying this amazingly miraculous season of my life.
April 2016, 2 months before I was due to give birth.
The part that finally freaked me out was how I was breastfeeding my daughter nonstop, not sleeping, and letting myself make poor choices because I was always STARVING… all of this causing the scale just kept climbing and climbing.
But!
Here comes the After the After the After! (HA!)
I’m happy to report that I learned SO MUCH from having regain. I took six months away from this website to learn everything I could about it. I studied hormones, and insulin resistance, and how regain is even possible given we’re still eating so little at each meal.
(Is it weird to be happy about the regain so I could help others lose their regain??)
After we tested a few different theories, we finally settled on a plan that has been working SUPER WELL. In just the month of June 1, 2018 – June 30 2018, my husband and I both lost 20 lbs EACH.
Seriously, these were taken 30 days apart. I didn’t even want to take this second pic because I was sure no one would be able to see the difference. Boy, was I STUNNED when I put these side by side!
June 1, 2018 compared to June 30, 2018, 30 days after starting my new low-carb meal plan. -20 lbs weight difference! I’m holding my two-year-old daughter in my arms.
Latest Update: In just a few months’ time, I quickly and EASILY lost 40 lbs!
THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO SIGN UP FOR MY EMAIL NEWSLETTER!
Every week, I send out to my newsletter subscribers my exact menu!
I draw it up for my own family, make it nice and easy for you to follow, then send it out!
I obviously still have a way to go before I’m back to my post-surgery-but-pre-pregnancy weight.
I would love it if you joined me, so we can do it together!
Are you on social media? Please tag me!
I want to cheer you on! Add the following tags to your post and I’ll find you!
#bettertogetherwls #Barivangelist
I am so glad someone referred me to your website. In 2009, I had gastric bypasssurgery. I lost 160 lbs, but I hVe gained quite a bite of it back. My biggest downfall is Diet Coke and sweets. I still cannot a lot at a mealtime, but I snack. I so hope I can lose the weight again. Thank you.
Hi, Laurie!
You are a godsend, woman. I am seriously needing to do Keto, for all the many, many reasons we know about, but I’ve worried about taking this on by myself. My RNY was done in 2003 – 14 years ago last week. My surgeon also took my gallbladder that day, so I’m a bit cautious about doing this high fat way of life. But here you are, so here I am, too. I’m 74, and my surgeon and his partner have both retired and closed their practice, but I’m game to give this my best shot. Merry Christmas, and thanks for the support you’ve already given me here.