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One of my old, old set points was 225 or so. I was stuck there for just over two weeks, but I knew this would also fall in time. I finally broke through a couple of days ago, and weighed 219.9 this morning! I tend to think in 10-pound increments, so 210 is in my sights! Like many others have said, I think my body was readjusting things, because I had a LOT of people I know tell me I was getting skinny, even as I was stalled. I am SO HAPPY with the sleeve! We celebrated a couple of birthdays on Saturday (mine included!) and a family friend made some wonderful pizza from scratch and an imitation of 'sausage peppers rustica' from Olive Garden. I had been working on a car all day and was physically hungry, so I had two skinny slices of the pizza, one of each flavor. When I sat down for the pasta dish, I could only eat 1/4 of what I served myself! I had to exclaim, "Wow! This is EXACTLY how this is supposed to work! This is tasty and I want more, but I am SO FULL!"

Five months ago today I had my gastric sleeve surgery. I am happy to report that i am down 56 pounds!!! 64 more to go to goal!!

So, I had my 1st fill today after my Nutrition class. Can I just say "ouch!" Yea, it smarted a little when the needle went in, and I did say "OUCH!". The Nurse says "aw, come on (jokingly)," and I said "yea, seriously OUCH." Oh, it wasn't painful or anything like that, but it did kinda pinch. I even felt something weird when she first started injecting the saline. She said some people can feel it, others can't. This was about 2 hours ago, and my port site is a little sore, but it doesn't hurt. Oh, I found out my band size is a 14. Holy large band, Batman. Yea, I guess it's one of the bigger size bands :ph34r: (embarrassed a little), and I guess she filled me with 5 1/2 or 5 cc's (great, now I can't remember). I'm kinda feeling 'full' right now, but I haven't eaten anything. They said fluids this afternoon, and soft foods for dinner. Then tomorrow, normal foods. I have an appointment for 2 weeks from today to see if I need a 2nd fill by then. They said I can cancel if I feel I don't need it, and schedule an apt for 4 weeks out. I guess we'll see how the next few weeks go. So, I'm off....

Well its been 6 & 1/2 month since my surgery and sunday i got on the scale and weighed 311 lbs. i weighed 442 back on Oct 2011. By the time i had my surgery March 5th i weighed 417lbs, So now i have lost 106 lbs since my surgery and 131lbs since Oct. Many more to go

Probably the food I have most dreaded trying was salads. I have put off eating one for fear of it causing an issue. Well, Saturday I tried a small salad, and . . . TA-DA!!! No issues! I've had one almost every day since! Still no issues. So thankful I have missed having salads and now that it seems they aren't an issue, it's such a relief. I'm down 45lbs today, and am so happy!! This sleeve definitely rocks! I watched a series of videos on YouTube last night about a 19 year old boy in Houston, Texas who weighed 799lbs. It was heartbreaking. I thought about how easily that could have been me if I didn't get things under control. It's horrifying what "junk food" and "fast food" can do to one's body, and how horribly addictive those things can be. For me, NEVER AGAIN!! I am now in control of what I eat and what I don't eat. I never knew that the sleeve was an option for me, if not for this forum. I wouldn't have had the courage to go through with it if not for the encouragement and support of folks on this board! Thank the Lord I found it. :wub:

Obesity is a physical sign of an unhealthy mindset. Most people believe that losing weight involves having willpower and being perfect. This is the wrong mindset to have. Your mindset is fueled by the conversations you have with yourself. If your internal conversations are positive and healthy, your mind will follow through. These inner talks can give you the motivation to keep going or the discouragement to quit. Another important part of permanent weight loss involves planning and perseverance. Failure and mistakes are inevitable. You have to learn how to accept them and move on. If you can't internally deal with failure, then you won't be able to move past it. This is different than defeat. Being defeated is letting failure win and letting your missteps ruin your success. The best way to keep failure from becoming defeat is by continuously working on a better mindset. Below are some ways to help you do that and keep you on the path to success. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF In order to do this, you have to give your all. No cliche excuses, no poor self-esteem, and no setting yourself up for failure with unrealistic goals. Trying your best can only produce positive outcomes. They may not be the outcomes you initially wanted, but believing in yourself is the first step to achieving what you set out to do. CREATE A ROUTINE Plan out your meals, plan out your exercise, and then follow through. The easiest way to get off track is not being prepared. Your willpower can only hold out for so long. Willpower is your brain's attempt to overcome your natural desires. Even though the brain is very commanding, natural tendencies will eventually win out. If you depend on willpower alone to lose weight, you will probably fail. If you create a rock-solid eating plan and put aside some time for exercise, then you will succeed. Meal plans, will help you learn how to stay on track and maintain your success without becoming overwhelmed. PERSEVERANCE Expect failure and embrace it. None of this matters unless you are willing to trek on, even in the face of failure. If you treat your mistakes as lessons learned and stay the course, you will succeed. If you succumb to your failure and project it inward, you will most likely fail, fall back to your old eating habits and continue to live an unhealthy lifestyle. Accepting defeat creates an unhealthy diet cycle that, for some, never stops. USE YOUR IMAGINATION If a healthy eating plan is not designed to fit your needs, then it becomes very hard for you to succeed. If you don't like the food, you're probably not going to eat it. If you don't like the exercise, you're probably not going to do it. Tweak and change plans in order to make a routine easier and more enjoyable to follow. Use your imagination to create the best diet plan for you! Choosing what you like to eat enables you to associate good thoughts and feelings with that food. Associating a healthy diet with positive feelings will help you to stick to the plan and be more successful in the long run. ALWAYS BE ACCOUNTABLE No one is responsible for your weight loss, except you. Don't blame your job, “body type”, family, or society; you will never succeed. Take control over yourself, decisions, and outlook on failures. Without positive accountability, there can never be lasting success. DEAL WITH YOUR EMOTIONS Many people will eat when they're sad, eat when they're happy, or eat when they're bored. Food is used as a coping mechanism for all sorts of things. If you want to change your body, then you have deal with the emotions that hinder your success. A good way to do this is only eating if you're hungry or when you have a meal planned out. If you plan ahead, then you are more likely to stay on track if your emotions get out of whack. CHANGE YOUR PROGRAMMING Most of us have been programmed to think that we're fat, unhealthy, and that we will never look or feel the way we want. Too often, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell yourself that you'll always be unhealthy, then that will probably be true. The opposite is also correct. If you tell yourself you want to be healthy, stay healthy, and lose weight no matter what obstacles you may face, then you are setting yourself up for success. STAY POSITIVE The best way to have a healthy mindset is to stay positive. Try to find good in everything and train your mind to think in the best interest of your body. Focus on replacing unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones and your body will start to follow suit. If you have any other questions or want to know more about how to have a healthy mindset, go over to our Facebook page by clicking the link at the top of the newsletter. You can talk with us and other dieters about anything you like. We want to hear about your successes and your failures in the hopes that people will learn from your mistakes and find motivation in your victories. I got this in an online post I recieve,

Last Wednesday, I had a 7 week check up. At that time, I was down nearly 60 pounds. Since last Wednesday, I have lost another 6 pounds. I am 8 weeks out and have lost about 75% of what I wanted to lose. For those who are wondering, I did not start out an ultra heavyweight. I started out with two goals: a weight goal and a sculpting goal. I am certain that the sculpting goal will take more time. My restriction hasn't really changed but there are times that I can eat more than I would expect I could. Sometimes, my stomach is fickle. My new obsession is the chicken tortilla soup I wrote about last time. I must have been in Whole Food's three times this week just to get that soup and those parmesan crisps. I'm addicted. I found the nutrition info online and it's not too bad at all. In a more technical vein, I have heard people on these various boards talk about how much protein one can absorb in a single setting. It usually comes up when people are drinking a protein shake that has 40+ grams of protein per serving. I think the magic number at which your body supposedly stops using ingested protein is 30g. This doesn't make any sense to me and here's why: First, our intestines are nearly 30 feet long. The process of digestion takes hours. While it's feasible to assume that we only digest so much per hour, it makes no sense to think that after our bodies have digested a certain amount of what we've eaten, no matter how much of it we've eaten, it just stops and won't process any more. Secondly, let's say one eats all of the 0.8g/kg of body weight that the RDA recommends for protein intake in 1 meal and another person ate the same amount of protein as the first person but spread theirs out so that they didn't go over the magical 30g. This means that when it's all said and done, the first person, who is eating the exact same amount of protein every day as the second person, would end up being protein deficient while the second person would be perfectly okay (from a protein perspective). The only difference I can see here is that the first person's body will take longer to digest and process the nutrients and the second person will have shorter digestion sessions. I'm sure that body weight, genetics and all of that other good stuff has a lot to do with it as well; not to mention goals (ie. muscle building vs. fat loss). It seems to me that the "limit" that a body can process and use in a single meal would be pretty much equivalent to what it can use in a whole day (more than 30g, I'm sure). There's an empirical study that actually appears to state that the older the individual, the better it is to do a large serving of protein for muscle retention than several small servings. There's also another that says that there was no difference in eating the bulk of the day's protein in one meal or spreading them out. The studies I'm referring to are both by Arnal et. al. : Journal of Nutrition- 2000- Vol.130(7) "Protein feeding pattern does not affect protein retention in young women." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition-1999-Vol 69(6) "Protein pulse feeding improves protein retention in elderly women." They're good studies and they are short reads. Do your own research but whatever happens, always stay vigilant.

I have decided to go on an adventure. It was a huge decision on my part because it is a life changing and body altering choice. First, I think a little back ground is needed. I have always been a "big girl" although, looking at pictures, not always as big as I thought. I actually prefer the term "BBB - Big Bodacious Broad" but that's just me! I have always been comfortable in my own skin. I was always active and a full participant in my life until a few years ago. Over the course of the years, I have had many, many stomach surgeries since my twins were born (that would be 25 years!). I realize that there are a lot of "always" but there really is no other way for me to say it. So this brings me to July 2009. I had two major surgeries in two weeks due to intestinal strangulation. This was a tremendous "wow" moment for me for many reasons. The main one was my dear husband. We had only been married for six months when this happened. Not only did I have these two surgeries but the next month, due to an infection, they actually had to do another surgery and leave my stomach open for over eight long months. I was connected to a wound vac and it was less than fun. This greatly impacted our life as you can well imagine. As it turned out, I had to have more surgery to close my stomach but the surgeon would not do it until I stopped smoking. I smoked for over 35 years so this was no small request but I think I was actually ready to stop. I took that medication (which shall remain nameless) that, in my opinion, is a miracle cure for smoking. Contrary to some reports, I had no side effects. Within ten days, I was done and able to have my closure surgery. I was doing fantastic!! I was breathing well, losing weight, helping to mow the yard, and actually walking. Shortly after this, we moved back to Texas, which I was totally stoked about because my kids and grandkids were all here. As it turned out, though, it was a bit stressful at first and I began smoking again. Not a good excuse and I knew I could not do that to myself so I decided to take my miracle medication again and again it worked like a charm. Well, okay, so there was one small issue this time. I was sitting at work and my hands started hurting. I looked down and literally watched myself blow up like a balloon. Apparently, the medication was reacting with another one I had started taking. From February to April of 2011, I gained over 60 pounds. The total since then is over 80 lbs and its all fluid. I have done everything that I have been asked to do but nothing has worked. So here we are to today, July 16, 2012. In 24 hours, I will be having a surgery called the gastric sleeve. I am very excited about this and cannot wait to have my life back. It will be a huge change in how my husband and I live our life, especially for the first few months. First off, I really won't be eating for awhile. My husband is a fantastic cook and it will be as hard on him because we are foodies. I'm not really worried though. I'm so looking forward to, first, being able to breath and, second, hopefully, not being in so much pain every day. All the fluid has made breathing a huge issue for me. I'm asthmatic so not a good thing. At 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, I will be happily, excitedly and enthusiastically going under the knife. I am going to continue to blog about my progress, not only for myself, but, hopefully, to help someone else along the way. I also am going to post a picture of me now which is a HUGE issue for me because as much as I am comfortable being me, I am not happy with me physically right now. But changes are a coming!!!