M2G

So I woke up to SNOW this am! Sheesh....we've already had snow twice but I wasn't expecting it today. Argh! So yesterday ended up at 1,310 so that wasn't too bad over my goal of 1,200. Fasting today and sitting here drinking coffee and my tummy is TALKING TO ME. It's making all these weird gurgling sounds. I'm not hungry and this is quite usual for me (am coffee, check VST, wake up kids, get them to school, etc.) so I'm not sure WHY my stomach is being so loud. Goofy. And ladies I KNOW that creep creep creep all too well. It's what I did for MOST of the year in 2012....creep, creep, creep and then BAM +20lbs found me and I was somewhat shocked that it's been so hard to lose them. I think having WLS lulls us into a false security that we CAN drop weight just like "that" when we want to when in reality once you are past that honeymoon window you are just like everyone else trying to drop a few lbs (if not worse due to the WLS metabolism changes.) Anyway, that creep is a real CREEP and I hate him! LOL!

Brown...I realize that everyone is different and I just have to say that I'm not near goal either. If I go by the BMI scale I should be losing another -42lbs. But for me and MY goal I'm planning to lose another -17lbs and then WHEN I get there figure out where I'm going to go. Please don't give up. Even though I struggle and there are times that I want to just quit, I know that mentality will get me NO WHERE. I realize that the 5:2 may just not be for you but please know that weight loss is not the biggest health reason for doing the 5:2 (to be honest it was the benefit I was MOST interested in). I know you don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but what I hear from your post is typical of how I used to think when I was on a DIET. "Well, I did this for XXX time and I didn't lose XXX weight, so forget it! I'm not wasting my time!" I would encourage you to stick to the 5:2 a little longer, but I do understand if you want to go a different direction. Hugs to you...

I'm so sorry for your loss. Thanks for the reminder that life is precious and we need to take care of each other.

OKAY, you are right Coops! I'm CALLING IT! I saw the new low again today, so I'm going with -12lbs since July 16th (or 17th too lazy to look it up!) Remember Georgia this literally *just* happened to my husband last week. Exact same thing. We were at a PTO potluck and he had something that did NOT sit right and he *knew* it wasn't going to stay down either. Other people ate the same thing (including one of my daughters and my SIL) and they were fine. I thought maybe flu, but he was better once it was gone and took it easy and was feeling pretty ok the next day. I hope YOU are feeling okay also. Thanks Cheri, you were *missed* around here! I'm glad your meds/appetite/scale all got together and had a nice little meeting and cut you some slack. Yeah, we are missing the other Sheila, SuperSweetums... Yeah the exercise DOES help, and you know what? It helps me mentally. I sometimes (okay a lot of times) don't WANT to actually GO exercise but I never never never regret it when I'm done. I'm sore, proud and happy when I've finished a workout. And it has to be regular. Going "once in a blue moon" doesn't cut it. Start out treating it like chores you HAVE to do. Put it on your list like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc. Pretty much force yourself to do it, and you will be amazed at how great you feel after. Dee, I'm amazed at your strength!! I know we all get into funks here and there, but you have steadfastily (is that a word?) stayed the course and I'm in awe of your mental resolve. Hang in there, this too shall pass. And also to MsSkinniness...this funk will pass. I hope that you are taking care of yourself! I'm often shocked at how down on ourselves we can get after losing a bunch of weight, and then how the scale can affect our moods. The scale does NOT reflect who we are, it's just a measurement. (And I need to remember that myself, a LOT!) So working out 2x today so no fasting for me...just hopefully low cal is the plan...1,200 is my goal.

Congratulations to you both! How exciting!!! You both look amazing...my husband and I are both sleeved as well, it's great to be on this "journey" together!

We DID get snow today! Aaargh! It's just cold enough, and they are (so far) gentle little flakes floating through the air. But I wore my warmup jacket ALL the way thru my weight class and only took it off once I got into spin. And I took a quick peek at the scale and saw a new low weight! I'm not calling it yet, because I like to see it a few times in a row before calling it but man I *needed* to see that. If it sticks that will make -12lbs since mid-July.

Okay adding up so far...84.3 after a nice long break this weekend!

Congratulations TexasMiss! I love the new shorter 'sassy' hair!

Heather, CONGRATULATIONS!!! You made a beautiful bride. Loved all the photos!

OD - wanted to answer your ? about cals on fast day...here is my fast day today. FF creamer in my coffee for Breakfast (2 cups of coffee roughly 40grams each of cream) 53 Leftover chicken breast (for breakfast...I usually have egg beaters) 90 BBQ sauce for the chicken 15 lunch was a hard boiled egg 78 cals dinner was 92% lean grnd beef with taco seasoning 142 cals Mexican style shredded cheese 54 Light sour cream 36 Snacks were 2 peppermint candies (like those soft melt-in-your-mouth kind) 34 calories More coffee to last me through support group 23 (cals from my FF creamer again) TOTAL 525 Sorry I did a copy and paste from my food log and it didn't really work so I retyped this. I apologize looks kind of funny. Anyway Calorie Count says it was 27 g carbs, 52 of prot and 22 from fat! Anyway, hope the rest of you had great days!

Beautiful!!! Congratulations!!!

Hugs coops! I hope today is better for you!!!

Really cute! Congrats on winning!

You are rocking in Georgia...I think you can manage 125!!! (and totally missing the jumping cheerleaders and dancing banana emoticons from the old days of VST!!! I would so totally have put a bunch of those jumping cheerleaders here for ya!)

Stalls suck. There is nothing worse than putting in 100% effort and not getting that "payoff" on the scale. But this is a journey of 1,000 miles (or more... ) and patience will be your friend along the way. Hang in there GG! So my spin instructor calls it a butt callus? My first few times at spin my hiney hurt, and everyone was like "oh it will be okay eventually" and they were right. I don't even notice it anymore. Guess I'm a proud owner of a butt callus? Hope you feel better soon!

Can I make my confession too... Hummm, you sound like my TWIN this weekend! I came on here and said "oh my mom will be in town and I tend to eat poorly, make bad food choices etc. and this weekend I will not." Harumpf. So there may have been some apple crisp, ice cream and Cookies involved in this weekend. Gah! Never was I more excited for fast day today! Moving on...

OMG!!! That is SO exciting, I'm beyond thrilled for you coops!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday cals for my feed day were 1,176. Not to shabby. And what you wrote about plastics...omg what a well-worded paragraph. I'm torn. I've been to see a PS. I was not in *love* with him and his approach. That was in May of this year. Now that I've had several months to reflect on it, I realize that I went in looking for "better" and he told me what I would need to be "perfect" and I just can't imagine doing all the work he suggested. So then I've spent a good amount of time trying to "love myself" :wub: where I'm at. I can't say YES I would rush off and do PS, or NO NEVER, because honestly I still don't know what I will eventually do. All I know is I'm almost 3 years post-op and I'm happier, healthier, smaller, more fit than I've ever been my entire life. So that makes me happy.

Congrats on your approval! Oct is a good month to be sleeved. Remember the "farewell" is not forever. You can and will eventually be able to eat anything (not at first!!!) but eventually there will most likely be NOTHING that you can't eat. There will be a lot of things you SHOULDN'T eat. The one thing that is permanent for me (yay sleeve) is the AMOUNT of food I can eat at one sitting. I will never be able to eat an 8, 10, 12 oz steak again at once (that would make several meals for me) so the quantity is permanent. I know of one post-op who is almost 2 years out and he *still* gets frustrated because he can't eat as many wings as he would like to. Definitely don't go crazy/overboard right now. Oh and one thing I haven't touched in over 3 years is anything with carbonation. Never. I gave it up the same day I joined this board over 3 years ago...Sept. 20th, 2010 was my last diet coke. Don't ever miss them!!

67.4 miles so far. I'm taking the next 4 days off to rest my body. I started a pretty intense weekly workout schedule 3 weeks ago (weight lifting, spin class, fusion class for a total of 5 classes each week) and I'm definitely needing and looking forward to resting my body a bit this weekend!

And for the carbonation...I never drink anything carbonated. It has been over 3 years since I had anything with carbonation. Husband will occasionally have a beer but he is 2.5 years post-op as well...

I know my surgeon's rules were "no drinking for one year post-op" but he also acknowledged that was the number one most commonly broken rule. And not to be holier-than-thou but I did it. I did NOT drink alcohol for one year post-op and my husband is sleeved and he also made the one year mark. Obviously it wasn't incredibly hard for me to give it up, and even one year post-op the glass of wine that I had hit me pretty hard (now I'm a lightweight.) I'm not saying you have to do what I did, but I'm just saying that it can be done. I still rarely drink, maybe a couple of times a year at parties, weddings, dinner groups, etc. but just be careful because alcohol does have a harder effect on the post-sleeve body.

The same thing happened to me (except it took me a full month to lose -25lbs) holy cow, 22lbs in 8 days? WOW! Anyway, I think for my situation I must have been 'stuffing' myself into my clothing. They say that every 10lbs is a size, but I found when I was morbidly obese that it was really more like 40-50lbs in between sizes (like AtlantaRed said). The 10lb "rule" doesn't come into play until you are much smaller. Just keep working on it and things will eventually begin to fall right off your new smaller body!

Well right now my focus is getting off my regain. I was sleeved almost 3 years ago (Oct. 22, 2010) and did great until about 18 months post-op. I started working full-time and had to cut back on my exercise, combined with me deciding I was sick of tracking my food, I regained about 20lbs in the year 2012. So I'm trying to lose that (-11 are gone yeah!) and then once the regain is gone I will have another 8-10lbs to get to goal. And then I will just have to see. I'm not really chasing a clothing size although I have a feeling that at my goal weight I might be "between" sizes which would frustrate me so WHEN I get to goal (see I didn't say if...hahaha determination is the name of the game!) I will see where I "land" and then maybe see what I want to do. Exercise has been a fairly big part of my life for the last 9 years but it wasn't until I was sleeved that I really began to get serious about it and even now I have *finally* learned that just doing some exercise...well that's great for some people, but for me I need to continuously challenge myself. It's easy to get complacent and fall into that whole idea that you did something and something is better than nothing when it comes to exercise, so I'm really trying to push my own limits higher.

So my two fast days this week were both a bit over on cals, but that is ok. I made up for it by doing a third semi-fast day and I'm happy to announce I'm back to my low!!! I started a new weight training class (in addition to 3 classes already, so now I'm up to 5 INTENSE classes a week...whew) 3 weeks ago and my weight immediately went up. As much as I knew it was probably muscle-related I wasn't happy about it. I can finally say those lbs are gone! Happy day! GOAL FOR THE WEEKEND...KEEP CALORIES LOW. My mom will be in town and that usually triggers over-eating for me (not binge stuff just more than I would normally eat) so I'm REALLY working hard to keep that in check.

Well, as you know Mark my goal is to not be a slacker... hahaha! I guess my gut (no pun intended...) tells me to do the heavier weight and even if I can't do the required amount of reps, to keep doing as many as I can to push myself harder. I just want a strong fit body, no illusions of being a bodybuilder.