crosswind

. I'm sorry circa but you seemed to have missed my point. I know how to do a lowcarb diet, I was on one for eight months and lost 130 pounds. Then I gained it all back plus ten. Then I got weight loss surgery and lost 92 pounds without dieting. At all. I'm glad to know you've lost 42 pounds in the 27 days you've been sleeved and that you're sure of your program, but I've been at this eleven months plus my whole life and I'm not sure I need to get anything out of my head except a response to lifelong dietary restriction. Living the way I do right now; at 13-1700 calories a day and a reasonable number of carbohydrates a day -- that is, over 100 -- I know that through caloric restriction alone I should end up at goal within the next year without dieting at all. What I am saying is that I think at 1700 calories a day -- a *true* 1700 - if your metabolism is running right -- over time you really don't have to pick the jeans over everything because they already fit you. What I'm saying is that I'm impatient and I know I could get it off faster than this. But I also know the *real* tradeoff, which is *lifetime* restriction -- a *lifetime* of picking the jeans when really the sleeve should be doing that for us. And carbs are not crap. Extruded corn products are crap, but low glycemic carbohydrates make insulin which is how your body makes muscle. If you are not making insulin you are not making fat but you're not making muscle either. Also low carbohydrate diets suppress dopamine and seratonin and over time this can wear you out emotionally not to mention hormonally. I've forgotten more about this than most people will ever learn. This has been my career, I know what I'm saying.

I shouldn't do this. I have been sleeved for ten months and I have lost 94 pounds ( well actually I think I went back up and it's 93 pounds....) and that is a LOT of weight in nine months and I am happy about it. But I'm still fat. I'm fitting into size 12 lately and thinking about summer and how I have 40 more pounds to go, and I gotta say I am just so BORED of this. Not being at goal. Not being close to goal. It's funny because I spent close to a year refusing to care about this too much, being patient and not killing myself over a slow loss, which i knew was going to happen because I just couldn't face some punishing diet ever again. But now that I'm under 200 the glimmerings of my old Body Dissatisfaction are beginning to appear. I spent today wondering if I should plunge into lowcarb and lowcal fatstripping and I *know* I should not, for the simple reason that if I go the deprivation route and start just staring down that scale -- when I *do* get to goal I'll be flipping out over bit of food I put in my mouth. I did it today; started worrying about my calories and wondering if I was gaining weight....and thinking about how much longer it's going to take to lose another 40 pounds and just, you know, *bothering myself*. I *know* I am running at a caloric deficit every single day. I *know* it has to keep going down and I *know* there is no way that my level of intake and exercise can support a weight of 195. It *has* to go down still, no matter how long it takes. I plan to be done losing weight six months from now, which seems like a reasonable period of time to lose another 40 pounds. I'm just sick of this already and I'm ready to do a boot camp or some other radical thing. Six months....six months ago I weighed 240. And the thing I can't believe is that if I think I'm fat *now* I must have been huge before..and before that. How did I let it get this bad?

Thin One Day -- I know exactly about playing that game. I'll tell you how this started -- whole the whole thing started; actually how being insecure about my body turned into a heeeeeeuuuuggge emotional problem and it started out just like that. In about 2001, I was in a bad marriage and a crappy place in my life. I got up to about 278 and when I look back on it now I know the reason was that I was just a housewife with a little kid who didn't get enough exercise and then, you know, got depressed. Not an uncommon story. But I kept going on lowcarb and blowing it, and one day I gave up on that and just let myself get fat. There was something tied up with 911 in all this, in my little boy getting older...etc. Anyway, so then I decided I was going to get back on lowcarb and get really *serious* about it -- weighing about 280 -- and I lost it ALL and got down to 158. And in the course of that ended up getting a divorce from the husband, becoming a single mom and getting involved in a long distance relationship with someone who had never seen me fat. Now he was a really shallow person and also naturally very thin; and as time went on he began to get really pissed off at me because I "ate meat" and ingested caffeine. He told me my diet was terrible and I was killing myself with animal fat and all this, and because it was a long distance relationship this is what I started to do: I would see him for a week. I would diet like hell to stay under a certain weight ( though it was creeping up and the rest of my life when I wasn't on these stupid sex vacations with the guy my life was completely miserable) until the extended date with him was over and then I would just *fall apart* dietetically. I did things I had *never* done before, like go to the drugstore and stock up on like Swedish Fish and Licorice allsorts and chocolate cake, and kill bottles of white wine by myself because I had deprived myself for several months to be worthy of this person's affection. Then it would start over. I would have gained twenty pounds. He would want to see me again. I would calculate how much time it was going to take me to get back to Attractive and then..you know...one day I just got tired of that. I started not wanting to see him but also thinking I wasn't going to live like that anymore no matter what. I was working two jobs, my mother was dying and I had a teenager. So then there was this period where the long distance guy decided he really wanted to "help me" with my weight. So he would take me on these diet and fitness retreats and lecture me about eating salt and all this stuff. He would put me in these cooking classes to learn how to make milk out of almonds. The guy was just naturally thin and one inch shorter than me. Anyway, so then right after my mother died, he came to see me. I weighed 265. The entire time she was actually dying I was trying to eat lowcarb and it wasn't working at all because you know your sleep and stress schedule is outrageous when someone you love is dying of cancer. Well actually by the time he came I weighed 245 because I while I was burying my mother I was actually *on an even more stringent diet* because I knew he would show up eventually to "comfort" me. I sprung for Medifast. When he came he bitched instantly that I was eating "frankenfood" and the first night he was there when we were lying together in bed he said to me; " It's your job as my so to stay attractive for me. And you're failing." Lol. . Annnnnyyyyyyway.....THAT's how I got tired of dieting. And you know, the day our divorce was final -- the *very day* -- I was in Mexicali Mexico getting my stomach cut out. And I thought, that's enough already. I am done hurting myself over this. I got my stomach cut out, and that's enough pain now. But I still do it to myself. Try not to but I do. And here's something even weirder: This week, a couple days ago, I got down to 195.8. And I think I actually freaked out and started to *try* to slow it down. I bought a bottle of wine and killed it one night. I ate a whole bag of microwave popcorn. My calories jumped from about 1200 to 1700 a couple of those days. And the whole time I was doing that, I was thinking...okay just today, and then I'll get back on the train tomorrow. Just today with the popcorn, but then I gotta get serious, I'm 40 pounds overweight! 40 pounds, how long is that going to take, it'll be forever....etc... There is a freakin ghost in my head, man. I am serious.

These are all great responses. I know, you guys. The first thing is -- you know how you see a commercial for some diet program - or an ad -- and it says: " Dierdre lost 40 pounds!!!" and there's a before and afer shot and she looks like a movie star in her after picture? Well, okay, I lost ninety plus pounds and I still don't look like Dierdre. That is just so annoying. But. The whole reason I got the sleeve was because I knew there was no way i was ever getting under 200 pounds again without serious hardcore medical help. At almost 300 pounds I was upset every day. I tried not to let it get to me -- lots of people are fat and have lives and it's not a moral failing, and some people just have crazd metabolisms, and you can still be healthy and happy and fat and all that -- and I told myself all that but at the same time...I would just look in the mirror and realize I had two choices and one of them was to do something about my weight .And if i did, it was going to take a loooong time....a year, a year and a half. The other choice was to do nothing because I knew nothing would work, and part of the problem was that it is really hard enough to be on a "diet" and lose 40 pounds like Dierdre. Spending eighteen months on a fat problem is really just beyond most people because most of us just don't have that much determination and concentration. I am not saying it's not possible, but in eighteen months anything could happen; the world could end and there you'd be punching your points into a calculator and counting the potato chip you ate as a carb and buying coconut oil and eating it with a spoon to try to fire up your metabolism because this is what it said to do in Women's Week. At some point it stops being hard and becomes something even worse: utterly stupid.I know what it's like to have the Tall Girl Problem. My BMI is under 30 but I'm still bigger than everybody else; so the sizes sort of lie in my case. Size 12-14 might look okay on a lot of people but on me, well, I look sort of beefy. Beefy is better than obese, I know this. But it doesn't feel that much better when I look in the mirror. The one thing i know with the sleeve is that I can't fail. It would be impossible for me to get to 240 again -- I mean I suppose it would be possible but I would have to try *really* hard. Having a tiny stomach is an enormous advantage and I paid for it for that reason. There is something that fat people do that thin people don't know about. At least I think it's more than me who does this. We wait. We stop ourselves from doing certain things because we are too fat. I am not talking about getting a job or into a relationship but that's also true and I've done that too. But I'm talking about traveling on an airplane, for example, what a pain in the ass when you're three hundred pounds. I want to ride a horse! But I would never do this at 300 or even 250 or even 210 because, you know -- poor horse. Rollercoasters. Hang gliding. And then theres other stuff -- putting your picture on match.com, going to your high school reunion....there was so much I stopped myself from doing because I was too fat and some of it wasn't even in my head. But some of it was. Sometimes I just feel like my life is going by and I'm still waiting.

:smile1:. Sooooooo I'm here. Last week the needle crept under 200 and stayed at 199.5 for a couple days. I ignored it because you know what that needle sometimes does, it bounces a little right back up for a couple days before it settles down. But it didn't. Stayed right there at 199.5...199.5...199.5.... And now? This morning? 195.8. That means that since November 1 -- I use that as a kind of baseline date because it's when I started working full time again -- I went from about 222 pounds to about 196: 26 pounds in three or so months. so first of all, that's a really good rate of loss for anybody, and second of all once I got on the scale and saw that...well I lost all doubt that I was going to get to goal. My one year surgiversary will be April 1. I know I won't get to goal in one year...but I have a feeling that by my birthday in October I'll at least be close. The thing I've been thinking about lately though is what I've put myself through over my weight in my lifetime. This issue has taken up more time, attention, heartache, money and lost opportunities than any other in my life -- to a degree I don't think but a very few other people could understand. I've thought that I shouldn't bother to try to interview for jobs because I was too fat. I've spent years of my life dieting as an actual career -- where all I did and thought about was working out and staring at the number on the scale; never low enough, never thin enough. I tried not caring about it. I tried to just be fat and live my life but walking around like that made me feel so hideous and abnormal and worthless. But either way -- whether I was dieting and trying to press the number on the scale down into some impossible region, or letting myself balloon to three hundred pounds -- I have spent my whole life consistently hating myself and my body and reacting to that, one way or another, daily if not hourly. There is something really wrong with that and I know it. And the really amazing thing is, after all this time, my whole life, I don't even have any insights to share with anyone else about it. I don't have any wisdom or advice. If I had a daughter though, I know I would never allow her to put herself through this. I wouldn't let that self-hatred take hold in her; I would do everything I could to fill her with self-confidence and self-love. I don't know, even, how I would do it -- but I know one thing. No one should have to live their lives like I did, over something so pointless and endlessly frustrating. It becomes an existential frustration, a condition of life suffering; self-hatred over the fat on your body. I'm back to being sad I had to cut my stomach out. I feel ashamed of it almost -- obviously this was such a huge unmanageable problem for me that I had to take an expensive and dangerous leap into the unknown out of utter desperation. To this day - almost a year later -- I have no idea what came over me or what drove me to find this board, that surgeon, get my ass on a plane to a foreign country to *have my stomach removed*. I found out last month I have health problems. Not huge ones -- and probably not to the degree I was setting myself up for if I had stayed at 300 pounds. When you get that fat you're at such a loss as to how in the hell you're going to get it back off that I guess I'm lucky I had the money and the guts to try this. But...the reason I have health problems is because of malnutrition. I was taking a multiple but I was not taking b12 and Iron and my blood got hugely screwed up. I have to go back to the doctor to get bloods taken again in a couple weeks and I'll probably have recovered; but supplementation with Protein, iron and B12 has to be a lifelong thing now or I'll get sick. I have a pair of size 12 jeans in my closet and I should be thrilled that they fit. I'm not unhappy that they do but I don't feel joyful either. Mostly I just can't believe what I had to go through to get here.

Yes, sure, lots of people never need that help, but lots of people have blue eyes too. I don't have blue eyes and I don't have the body/mind combo that would allow me to stay at a healthy weight. Well that's a good point. I think with me actually I didn't/don't have the emotional history or makeup to stay at a healthy weight. I could never just be happy with myself. I remember being at 180 and having people compliment my looks, and thinking well, but I weigh 180 pounds and that's not 130 pounds so there's no point in giving me any compliments. I remember being a teenager and getting up to 163, and just *hating* every inch of myself. I would read about models eating styrofoam and doing heroin to stay thin and actually consider these things as a lifestyle choice. I thought people who were anorexic were *lucky*. Just messed up over it, you know. Seriously, massively. But it is good to be an almost-12 again.

....201....200.5...200.5....200.2...200.3....200.5...200.6....

Other results from the doc concluded that I was hyperthyroid. Actually I already knew this and I've been that way for about ten years, although when I went down to Mexico to get my sleeve it showed normal -- I was severely depressed at the time, understandably. K so now I have a Real Job and that means I have a real GP which means I got my physical and bloods taken. High thyroid, low Iron, low white count, low neosophils or whatever they're called. These are the drugs she wants me to take: Metaprolol Doxepin I do not want these drugs. One is a tricyclic that causes weight gain. One is a beta blocker that causes weight gain. I weigh 200.5 today. I am SO CLOSE to Onederland and no way in hell am I taking some concoction that is going to put thirty pounds on me by next week. I do want more energy, I want to sleep better, I want to not obsess and have panic attacks, which is what these things are supposed to be for. But I'm 36 pounds from goal! Help me Obi Wan. Anybody else have either of these, are you doing herbal remedies, other options....anything?

That's a good point, too...

That's a good point. When I went in there I already knew about the hyperthyroid. The first doctor I saw nine years ago made me eat a nuke and get radioactive to check for nodules and etc. I did not have Grave's Disease. She considered it "idiopathic". The next doctor I had, who hated me, told me I was slightly hyperthyroid and that was "good news", because I was then not *hypothyroid". i remember telling him I thought this was part of the reason I ate so much -- I could easily put down a whole Domino's bacon chicken ranch pizza by myself in those days, and I remember him saying to me, " Well, we should talk about why you're eating a whole pizza, that's not good for you at all." And I just sort of looked at him. ( Are we not talking about that right now? Hello?) But I did go in complaining of exhaustion and anxiety this time- actually I just have trouble sleeping mostly. So I had Iron deficiency anemia and hyperthyroid, sort of as usual, but she wanted to treat my anxiety with beta blockers and tricyclics because, basically, all doctors seem to think I'm trying to hit them up for benzos. Which I should add, I am -- I don't abuse them but it is darn nice to have one or two floating around in your purse for luck. If I had deformed left cardiac ventricle or frequent bouts of tachycardia and excessive sweating and all that, I would go on the things. If I had any other risk factor for a heart attack or stroke, I would definitely go on them. But I don't want to fight off another fifty pounds for freakin *insomnia*. I'm not even convinced the problem is actually my thyroid. None of these last two doctors did that other test -- the FT4 or whatever it's called. I'm really sensitive to drugs that cause weight gain. Not only that, I think...well, really -- my sense is that one should do as little messing with one's thyroid as possible because endocrinology is the most delicate of sciences. I'm not going to start drugging it or hacking at it just because some doctor I've known for ten minutes tells me to do it. I swear I think doctors just throw drugs at people lately. Maybe it will work, who knows, I'm being "treated". But here's the kicker question: is it really a better medical decision to prescribe two heavy duty meds on top of one another after a glance at a lab printout and five minutes talking to me than it would have been to just write me a prescription for Ativan? Bah.

What are you taking, LadyLee? There are several and that one was one of the oldest-- I was thinking of asking maybe for a newer one.

So the numbers are in and I'm anemic. I have fibroids anyway so it might not be from the surgery -- in fact I think I went in to my surgery slightly anemic -- but I feel tired and I'm thinking that's probably the reason. Problem is, I can't take Iron pills. Every time I try I get so nauseated I quit within days. It's not that I'm trying to be noncompliant but feeling like you're going to hurl all the time does somewhat mess with your quality of life. Anybody found a good solution to this?

I just bought Ferrosequels! I took one with a little food and two gummy c's. So far, so good...

. Thanks you guys. I guess I'll start with chewables. I was reading that liquid Iron supplements worked pretty well too.Guess I'll just start experimenting...good times. Hi Miss Skinny Meggie:) Yeah, but you know I went into the surgery with slight anemia. I kind of don't remember life *without* being slightly anemic. But I should probably make an effort at this point because with the surgery it's bound to get worse. . Lookin awesome, kid.

Christmas: 208 After Christmas: 209.5 Jan 7: 206 Jan 15: 203.9 Jan 21 202.9 Jan 22 201.9 jan 23 201.3 jan 24: 201.3 jan 25: 201. 3 jan 26: 201.2 Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh....

I've been trying not to do this all along. I refused to obsess, for a lot of reasons -- one being my abhorrent relationship with food and my body -- but the other one was that I weighed almost 300 pounds and when I started, getting under 200 was a LONG WAY OFF. And also, just under 200, I'd still have about 40 pounds to go. But this is now starting to get interesting. I was a size 16 for a while, then 14s fit and now theyre getting just a little looser. I have a pair of size 12 Gap jeans from the *last* time I got under 200. I remember going to the store and trying them on and being thrilled I was in a normal size at 196. I tried them on this weekend -- I've still got a lot of muffin but they buttoned up and they zipped. I was counting up the length of time it took me to lose 40 pounds -- in August of this year i was around 240. NOT ANYMORE. Coming off. Excruciatingly slowly, but it is. I'm trying not to obsess. Trying. But I'm starting to feel hopeful that I might actually get to *goal* one of these days after all

Hey there! I got the recommendation from this board ten months ago to go to Dr. Aceves and I was *never ever* sorry I did it. It was great, it was completely safe, I had to worry about precisely nothing, they kept me drugged to the gills, and as of today I am aaaaaalmost 90 pounds lighter, I've been exercising and watching the weight fall off month by month. I've got about 40 pounds to go and I'll be at the weight I want to be. So I'm now thinking about plastic surgery. I want a mastopexy and *maybe* a mini-tummytuck ( we'll see in about 4 months) with a little lipo. This seems like it would be about 20K in the states, so I'm looking to re-enact my 100 percent successful surgery a second time to save money by going to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina or Costa Rica. I do not care to go to Bolivia or Colombia. Thanks anyway. Has anyone here done this? Do you know of anyone who's done it? Any surgeon recommendations? I've been poking around the net but the best place for plastic surgery recommendations and reviews is RealSelf.com; but they really only cover the US. Anybody got any intelligence on this? Thanks!

Hey thanks! And also thanks for the heads-up about those docs, I was looking at their profiles today. Is it Dr. Chavarria? http://www.surgerycostarica.com/

It just showed up in a banner ad when I was searching on something else. Is it all it's cracked up to be? Because it sure looks interesting to me.

I was getting concerned that the loss was slowing down, but I just realized that in the past seven weeks I've lost 14 pounds, or two pounds a week since November 1. I'm down to 208. I had a sort of hope that I would get under 200 by Christmas and I probably won't, but I'm not that far off. And I'm starting to get the feeling that I might actually reach goal at some point if this keeps up. I've also noticed that my restriction is holding up just fine. I can eat junk or eat around the sleeve with the best of them, but the minitummy really can't handle more than half a cup of food still. Eightish months and going strong; a total of 81 pounds down; headed South.Pretty cool yall.

Puja -- there is a lot of fat in peanut butter but it is really good, and I can see why it is popular in India. But the thing I'd worry about more than the fat is that PB is all Omega 6 fat and not Omega 3. If you like nut butters, almond butter is also yummy and is all omega-3. Much better for weight loss and most people don't get enough. Also if you're a veggie you'll be getting a lot of omega-6 in your cooking oil -- corn, soybean, canola, etc.

This has been slow going. I started out at 289 on March 29 of this year. I had no idea what kind of weight loss to expect and within the first three months I had lost about fifty pounds. I was happy but, you know, it's still major surgery and I was still at almost 240 which is, by the way, still fat. it's now five months later and I've lost roughly another 30 pounds. This is also marvelous, but it's been a total of eight months and I am around 210, which is..you know...still fat. I spend very long periods of time not thinking about this. In fact wondering or worrying if I will ever Be Thin only comes to consciousness when I realize I have dropped another ten pounds. I spent what felt like decades at 222; I got a new job, moved to another apartment, all at 222. I really just weighed myself occasionally because I REFUSED TO OBSESS. But this 210 on the scale is pulling me down to Onederland, which makes me wonder if I will actually ever get there and that makes me wonder if I will ever get to goal. I still have four months left in the Magic Sleeve Year but people also say they lose after that if there's more to come off. A passable adult weight for me would be 175 at five foot ten. A brilliant weight for me would be 165. A Beyond My Wildest Dreams result would be 155, but I'm thinking that at the rate I'm going it will probably take me another year. This isn't horrible news, because really slower *is* better than faster for metabolic reasons, but then there is the question of whether I will ever get there at all. What do you think, longtimers? Do you think I could get another 55 pounds out of the sleeve at eight months in and a current rate of five pounds a month?

Hm, that's true about the 50 percent, and I'm already at 210-ish, so it's more than 50. One thing I've noticed is that I really can't go below a certain number of calories for too long or I get really, *really* tired. I also need a certain number of carbs. A week or so ago I tried to get under a 1000 and I made it no problem, but by the fourth day I couldn't get out of bed or think straight. When I dropped my own restriction I overate a little the next two days and went up two pounds. It's really interesting to see this clearly finally; food for fuel and its affects. I also don't have any cravings. If someone offers me cake I'll eat it to be social and think hum de dum, someone went to the trouble to make this stupid thing. So my body tells me all kinds of fascinating things about what and how much I'm eating. It *adjusts itself* and tells me stuff like "eat more" or " that was a very stupid thing to waste calorie on, not only did it not taste good, it's made us all kind of sick". So it *seems* like the downward trend continue. It's not terrible to be down eighty pounds at all -- I just wonder if one day I'll be really thin again -- btw, last year? I would have cut off an arm to weigh 210.

You know there could be increased stomach capacity but the probability of it stretching back to the size it was has just got to be zero. How could a person get back eighty five percent of a stomach that's been cut out? My stomach is probably the size it was when I was six years old -- if it grows back to a ten year old stomach I figure I'll still be doing pretty good. I dunno, a lot of the findings according to what I see online are kind of murky. For example, I don't see how a person could stop losing weight at exactly a year if they're still running a caloric deficit. You're right, I wouldn't eat differently or exercise less - this is all naturally what I do as a sleever.

I don't think it's a hard stopping point either, except in terms of research. One thing I've also refused to do is to try to make it on 6-800 calories per day. I'm more at 12-1400 and the reason I don't obsess about this is because I really don't understand the science at all behind forcing people to live on those few calories. Over time it seems it would make your metabolism really slow down and *stop you from losing* beyond a certain point. What makes more sense to me is a solid calorie deficit that's not starvation. It's slower but it just seems to have more of a chance of longterm success. What happens eventually is that your ( anyone's) calorie deficit is meeting up to reduced caloric needs. In order to fuel an extra 100 pounds of fat you need roughly 1000-1200 calories a day. In order to fuel an extra ten pounds you need 100--120 calories a day. So obviously you're not going to burn off the excess as fast. For you -- four pounds a month makes sense if your calories are 1200 or so. According to most calculators I still need 2000 calories or a little more than that to maintain my weight right now. I think this is what's realistic and I think the rest of it...20 pounds a month and so forth -- is unrealistic. The reason I think it's unrealistic is because I've lost that fast before and just ended up piling it all back on.