Vanishing Velez

I know that I haven’t posted the pre-op documents from my surgeon yet, but I can say that one of the items in the document includes using a tracking app. The one they suggest is no longer active, so I did some research and picked a different one.

Baritastic is a tracking app just like MyFitnessPal or LoseIt calorie counter. However, this one is specifically designed for people who have had bariatric surgery. I haven’t had bariatric surgery YET, but I am starting to use this now so that I can get used to tracking everything.

Before I start, you can find a recording of a number of “how-to” videos on vimeo. You can access them here: https://vimeo.com/user17309524

When you open the app, you start on a landing page. on the top of the screen are your account settings and a menu that is basically things that you will not use regularly-things like editing your goals, accountability groups, trophies, etc. Below this section is a carousel that is customizable to show different trackers. Mine is set up to show weight loss, total steps (connected to my fitbit), protein totals, ounces drank, a surgery date countdown, and a BMI tracker. There are other options that you can have on the carousel, and you can change the order.

Below the carousel is a 2×3 grid. This grid gives more options. This includes recipes, notes, a checklist, reminders, “shop” and a timer. Then, at the bottom of this is a curved button that says “track”. If you click on “track” you have popups that allow you to see options for a summary, and to track water, food, exercise, weight, measurements, or see a daily log. I’m going to go over each of these sections below.

Recipes

This section is a collection of bariatric friendly recipes. Like the home screen, there is a carousel of recipes at the top, and then a menu below. These menus are broken down into different meals, and types of food: Shakes, breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides, soft foods, and favorites.

When you select a category, you are brought to a list of recipes along with a title and photograph of the photo. When you click on the photo, you are given the ingredients, directions, and nutrients. It is not clear how many servings are in each recipe, but I am going to go with an assumption of 1 serving just based on the ingredient amounts. There is also a grey star shape that you can click if you want to mark something as a favorite recipe. The up arrow in a box is the button to print.

This is not a massively large list of recipes, but it can definitely get you started.

Daily Notes

The daily notes section is really just a tracker of your hunger, happiness, and bowel movements, along with an option to upload picture. Not going to lie, this section is a bit odd for me right now-but I bet that it will be helpful after surgery. But because of this, I don’t really have much to comment right now.

Checklist

The checklist section I also can’t really comment on. One of the cool aspects of baritastic is that many surgeons offices actually endorse baritastic and have codes that will connect the app to their program. This checklist is a place where items you still need to do within your program would populate. It is broken into pre-op, post-op, and weight management. There is also an option to add your own tasks. I do wonder what this section would look like if my surgeon participated

Reminders

Reminders is exactly what it sounds like. It is a place to set reminders. It is broken down into a number of different options, including water, protein shake, vitamins/minerals, meals, and other. When you select one of the options, you can set the name for the reminder, as well as the days you want the reminder to happen, and what times during those days that you want the reminder to happen.

I do like that you have the flexibility to set multiple different reminders. However, If I wanted to set a reminder to do something at different times depending on the day, I would have to set a different reminder for the days that are different.

Shop

The shop section connects to the bariatric advantage website. Bariatric Advantage is the parent company of Baritastic, and sells predominantly protein and vitamins. You do not have to buy their products, and the app is free. I get having the shop, but I wish it was more discrete-maybe at the bottom of the top hamburger menu rather than on the home screen grid.

Timer

The timer section is not something that I have really used yet since I have not had surgery, but as you can see from my previous post, I am trying to begin to practice some of the expectations ahead of time. There are three options in the timer setting. The first option is a 30 minute timer for drinking. You would set this timer to time 30 minutes before and 30 min after your meal. The second timer is for food, and it is also a 30 minute timer-which is how long your meal should take. The third timer is a 20 second timer, which is supposed to be how long you chew each bite for.

There is a setting option that allows you to change the length of time and the messages you receive. However, you can not add or subtract the timers-so if you want something more specific, you need to do it on your phone.

The “Track” Section

Summary

This section is a series of graphs and trends that show what you have done in terms of protein, calories, carbohydrates, etc. This is useful for looking at changes over time. There is a daily section that tracks the number of calories that day, the graphs section looks at a week, and the trend section looks at monthly and lifetime changes

Water

The water tracking section is pretty simple. There are a ton of little water buttons that you push to track how much you have had to drink. At the top section you can select the amount of water you want to track. These are in 1oz increments, so you can be extremely specific about how much water you are drinking. You can also change the amount that a button tracks throughout the day without changing what you have already tracked.

Daily Log

The daily log section is the place where you track your food. You can scan barcodes, create foods, and create meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. On this screen you can also track water, exercise, strength training, vitamins, and bowel movements. I kind of wish it was just for food tracking, because you don’t really need the other sections

Exercise

This section you first pick strength or aerobic exercise. You can connect your smart watch to the app and it will automatically populate. Though, somehow it tracks me in my car-probably turning the wheel-and I don’t think that that should be counted. It’s a good thing you can delete sections if you want. I’m not sure if it will track strength from my watch.

If you are tracking manually, you can select the type of exercise and then how long for aerobic exercises. For strength exercise you have an option to track sets, reps per set, and weights per rep.

Weight

This is pretty straightforward. You can just log your weight. I have mine connected to my digital scale through a weird google health workaround (the app doesn’t connect directly to the scale unfortunately). It looks like you have milestones that the app wants you to reach, and you can see the trends. You can manually log if you want, and you can also see your entire logbook.

Measurements

This section is again, pretty straightforward. To add a new set of measurements, you click “Add New Measurement”, measure the body parts you are instructed to measure, and then enter the measurement. Over time you will be able to see the number of inches lost and the percent that you have lost. You can also look at previous measurements, and track where you have lost the most inches.

Being honest, I have not used this section yet, but do plan on using it starting before my surgery so that I can track my progress. The one thing that makes me wary though, is that yes, I will lose inches, but at some point, I will want to start focusing on building muscle, and that will change the measurements. I also am not sure how this will work with loose skin. We will have to see.

Thoughts

I really hope that this app is what I think that it is, and I hope that it works the way that I think it is supposed to. It really is hard with not having surgery yet to make a true judgement call. I definitely have high hopes though-and will post a follow up a few months after surgery to let you all know how my thoughts.