Worried about the future...

Hello.  This is my first post on the site but I have been reading and learning for a couple of months.  My biggest fear going in my surgery (which is still 4 months out) is that I will be unable to participate in the activities I am dreaming of doing.  I read all of your posts and I am amazed.  How do you compete in endurance events and remain hydrated and not bonk?

I am fairly active before surgery, even completing a sprint triathlon this summer (with pain of course) but my ultimate dream is to do an Ironman.  Is that even possible with a post-surgery body?  

Thanks.

I've done two.

Once you heal, you'll be able to drink as fast as you could before. So dehydration isn't really any bigger of an issue for us than for the non-surgical.

The main thing is that, if you get behind in your nutrition, you can't grab an enormous Whatever and just choke it down. So I find I eat smaller quantities, more often compared to my other triathlete friends. However, you can't really eat a ton of calories when you workout -- our digestive system slow way down -- even the pros are only consuming around 300-400 an hour. And most of it is slider food -- gels, bars, soft stuff that you can easy chew while biking and running.

The main issue I had was not losing a lot of weight in between. I had to get in 2000 calories a day with my training and my typical meals were 200-400 calories. So my surgeon's normal rules of 3 meals and 1 snack and no more just weren't going to cut it! I had to improvise.

I wrote a blog post about it to give you some ideas:

http://fattyfightsback.blogspot.com/2010/04/endurance-traini ng-sleeve.html

Anything is possible! I'm 2.5 yrs post RNY and most of my running buddies wouldn't have known I had WLS unless I told them! I do eat a bit differently than most runners - very protein forward and I probably drink a lot more water on long runs than most. I dump, but oddly enough I tolerate GUs and chomps WHILE I'm running, though I probably consume fewer calories than most runners during races (e.g. I only had 1 pack of chomps and 1 GU during Marine Corps Marathon last week). When not running, I definitely have a sugar threshold..... and try not to pu**** or I suffer!

Like the PP said, I had issues with losing weight or trying to not gain weight while eating during training (and I wanted to shoot my non-WLS-male coaches who lost weight during our 5 month training!!) but also couldn't exactly follow a normal RNY eating plan to adequately fuel for long runs. SO my eating was an amalgam of normal runner + WLS patient. I'm on MyFitnessPal if you ever want to see what I'd been eating over that training. Good luck on your surgery and let us know when you start running/biking/swimming towards your goal!!

Thank you both!  I appreciate your comments and the blog link.  Its nice to have others who have gone through this already willing to help a newbie out :)