FiremansAngel

I'm 5'9 and my starting weight was 254 and I now weigh 160. I look and feel good, but there is still some jiggly fat I'd like to see go away, but if it doesn't, no biggie. Goal weights are very personal, but truth be told, I think a lot of ladies sell themselves short on how low they could go. We've become a society that is so used to fat people that thinner folks seem "out of the ordinary" to us, when that was hardly the norm just a couple of decades ago. I would rather stay on the thinner side of the "normal" range for my height, because it's better for my bones and joints, especially at my age (51). But we all have to aim for what we think will work best for us as individuals! Best of luck on your journey!

Okay, how's about we call it a weapon? A weapon in our arsenal to lose the excessive amounts of fat we have on our bodies from drinking sodas and eating crappy food and eating too much food and not moving enough, etc, etc, etc..... No one said that cravings go away, although many people lose their taste for things they used to love. I was never a "soda" fiend, but did like them on occasion. Now they just taste too sweet to me. I had my first taste about 6 months out from surgery and two sips were enough. The bubbles made me very uncomfortable, not to mention the too-sweet taste. I figure that was my body's way of telling me that I don't need it. My personal feeling is that you (meaning all of us) will either succeed or fail at your weight loss goals, and the end result will depend greatly on whether or not we learn to stop doing what we did that got us FAT in the first place. Sodas and junk food are probably top of the contributing factor list for many people, so keeping those things out of our post-surgery diets is probably a good thing. If giving up bad stuff was easy, we wouldn't have had to have a chunk of our tummies removed to help us lose weight.

Love seeing the progress!

I have posted this article before, but I'll post it again for those who are obsessing over that evil creation called the scale. http://www.carbsmart.com/outout.html The weight WILL come off. It didn't accumulate on your butt, thighs, tummy, boobies, head, fingers, toes, elbows, neck, cheeks, nose, back, calves and chin overnight and it won't come off overnight.... but it WILL come off! Get in as much Water as you can, even if you can't make the magic number! Same with your Proteins. It's really hard in the beginning, but it does get easier! Six months from now, a year from now.......... you will look back and giggle at your aggravation and/or panic over that damned scale! And you'll be responding to folks to stay calm and keep on chugging along....... it WILL come off!

Take a deep breath and relax! Your body has been through some serious trauma and besides the healing it's working on, it's also getting used to operating on much less food! It's in survival mode right now. Just don't compare your progress to anyone elses! Every person is different, with many factors that affect how much weight they lose, how often and the inevitable stalls that ALL of us have experienced many times. You'll look back at this and laugh at your panic state, and months down the road, you will be so happy you did this for yourself.

Stalls happen all the time, and it can be for any number of reasons, including your body just adjusting to your new weight. Consider upping your Water intake, and checking your caloric intake. Often, as we're getting farther out from our surgery and can eat more, we forget that we may need to adjust our calories because our bodies need less due to our lower weights. Plus, if you are doing a lot of exercise, your weight may not go down, but the inches are coming off, because you're increasing muscle mass (which is more compact) while decreasing fat (which is fluffier).

That's pretty cool! Wish I had known about it a couple of days ago when their 20% coupon was still valid! I hate missing out on sales! LOL!

I had someone tell me that they didn't want to say anything about my weight loss because they thought I might be sick or something. Lol Keep on rockin' sweetie!

I love the Twisted Cherry and Roadside Lemonade. They're good mixed together as well. I also like the unflavored and mix it with milk. I ordered mine from Amazon.com.

So I was sleeved on Feb 20th and I'm down 46 lbs, and a wee bit under halfway to my ultimate goal weight. I haven't always been overweight, but for a good part of my adult life, I've been overweight to some extent or another. Like many (most?) of you, I've done the different weight loss programs of the moment, I've been to the "diet doctors" who herd you in, give you pills, then herd you back out again. I've had successes and failures, ups and downs..... all of it. Now I know that our sleeves are only a tool.... a very powerful one mind you, but still just a tool to help us get the weight off, and keep it off. And that tool can be misused and the weight return. But for the first time ever, I was actually thinking to myself, when I get to goal, there's not going to be anymore picking up magazines for their weight loss articles, setting unfulfilled New Years resolutions for weight loss, buying the latest weight loss supplement, having sections in my closet for those "smaller" clothes I'll fit in when I lose weight, and so forth..... We've all spent so much time, emotions and money on dealing with something that was a part of us (the excess weight), that once it's gone, what the heck are we going to do? LOL! Seriously, think about it! I know we all can think of loads of better things to spend our money on and continuing our life's adventures minus the excess baggage, but I also realized that changing our old way of thinking isn't going to happen overnight. I'm just excited to feel like I'm finally on a weight loss journey that is NOT going to end in disappointment, and that so many new adventures await the thinner, healthier me! (and you!) Sorry for the ramble!! LOL!

Small order of fries from McDonalds, but couldn't eat them all. But I'm another one who doesn't track what I eat, but I don't and can't overdo anything. I try to focus on proteins first but if I go crazy on protein, then the horrible constipation comes back.

I am experiencing this regularly. The scale has been put away and if so inclined, I will weigh myself once a week. But I can feel the difference in my clothes and I can look in the mirror and see the changes in my body. I've also had numerous comments from folks I don't see often about my weight loss. So bring on the whooshies!

I remembered this article from my first foray into low carbing (Atkins Diet), and thought I'd share it. It's a funny, informative explanation of why we need to drink our Water, and why that damn scale can drive us nuts by not moving, while our body is getting smaller. http://www.carbsmart.com/outout.html Out Out Damn Scale! By Sonya Tilley, CarbSmart Contributor Here we go again... How the hell does your body hold onto weight and still manage to get smaller while you are on your chosen low carb diet?!? Losing inches but not weight? You know the scenario: You are on Induction for two weeks, and you haven't cheated even once. You notice that your clothes fit better, that you are stepping a little livelier, and as far as you're concerned, all's right with the world. But then you step on that evil construction of the Devil himself, the bathroom scale, and you instantly feel betrayed. The stupid thing insists that you have done nothing! Sometimes, it even states you have done less than nothing; it accuses you of cheating because it tells that you haven't lost any weight! Well, there area couple of simple explanations to help you get through this trying time. First of all, if it is at all possible for you to do so, throw that insipid Monster Scale in the trash. Or at least put it up somewhere that it is really, REALLY inconvenient to get to so that you won't be tempted to ask it's opinion every single day of your life. Face it. If you are feeling better and your clothes are looser, do you really need the scale to tell you that you're on the right track? No! You don't! Why do you think you do it, then? I'll tell you why. The low fat diet demons have a tenacious hold on your brain. That's right, you've been brainwashed. All your life they have told you through doctors, dietitians, newspaper and magazine articles, surgeon generals and the like, that you give up X calories per day and you will lose a pound of fat. They even go on to tell you how much fat you should lose each week. In the process, they've made you dependent on the Monster Scale to gauge your progress! What a big lie! Even on the diets that "they" advocate, the Monster Scale does not often cooperate. You go back to the Diet Demons and demand to know why the scale does not reflect the torture you have put yourself through for a month. They immediately start backpedaling on the "give up X calories and lose a pound of fat" story, and start talking to you about water retention and muscle buildup. Sometimes, they even blame it on you with questions like, "Are you sure you counted the calories in everything you ate?" (This is delivered with a knowing little smile that makes you want to rip their knowing little face off.) Being the type that is given to blaming things on yourself, anyway, you cooperate with an answer like, "Well….." They pounce on this with "Ahhhh, well.." Then, they launch into one of their scoldings/lash/encouragement speeches. So, get off their bandwagon, already! Then, there's the competitive spirit. You hear about what other people have done on your chosen diet. Yes, Brian went on Atkins a year ago and lost over a hundred pounds. Yes, a hundred pounds in a year is over eight pounds a month, or 2 pounds a week, or .0119 pounds per hour….but, "Hello? You ain't Brian!" And, did Brian ever say that he lost .0119 pounds per hour? No! He said a hundred pounds in a year. This only proves he got on the scale twice; a year ago, and yesterday. Take a hint from Brian. Stay off the scale! The second solution is to understand what is going on in your body in light of the current state of human affairs. Today, all a person has to have to eat every day is money and transportation to a grocery store or, better yet, a nice restaurant. However, your body's survival instincts have not matured in a million years. Your body still thinks you are a hunter-gatherer. Yes, in spite of a million years of evolution, your body still thinks you are going to have to go out and kill a mammoth to eat. The survival instincts with which you are going to have to come to terms are read-only memory. You can't overwrite them. Deal with it. That said, let me tell you what happens when you lose a pound of fat. Your body has been saving this fat for that long hunting expedition you're going to have to go on to track, kill, dress and retrieve that huge animal. It keeps the fat in little pillows distributed throughout your body. When you start losing fat, it doesn't trust you to continue whatever insane path you have chosen that is causing the fat to dissipate. So, when the fat comes out of the pillow, it injects water as a "place holder." Sometimes that water actually replaces the weight of the fat it lost. Sometimes it replaces the volume. Water weighs more than fat just like lead sinkers weigh more than feathers. If you stuff a pillow with a pound of feathers, you'll have a nice big pillow. If you stuff a pillow with a pound of lead sinkers, you'll have a nice (but rather hard and uncomfortable), small pillow. Now, let's say your body removes a pound of fat and replaces the weight with a pound of water. Your weight will stay the same, but you will be smaller. But, if your body decides to replace the lost fat by volume, that is a quite different story. Remember the great big feather pillow as compared to the tiny lead sinker pillow? Well, now think of a gallon of feathers and a gallon of lead sinkers. Try to pick up the gallon of feathers. Piece of (you'll pardon the expression) cake. Now, try to pick up the gallon of lead sinkers. Sucker's heavy, ain't it? So, you will be smaller, but you will have gained weight. Eventually, your body makes the executive decision that you are not going to replace the fat you lost, and it lets go of the water. In the words of Danny Skaist: "When your body accepts the fact that they are no longer needed, the water will be expelled and the cells closed. This is known as the "whoosh." What makes your body decide to replace by weight or replace by volume? I dunno. But I do know that it does not seem consistent to the casual observer. What makes your body decide that you are seriously not going to replace the fat you lost? I dunno. But now you know why it's so important to drink your water, huh? Loss of fat is inextricably related to water intake. It's more than a little foolish to go on a diet that facilitates the removal of fat and then refuse to give your body the tools it needs to do so. Bottom Line: Stop getting on the scale and drink your water. If you stick to your plan and wait for the "whoosh," it will come.

I just got the Roadside LemonAde and it is great. Not too sweet and kinda creamy. Also got the Twisted Cherry and it smells yummy, but I haven't tried it yet. There are some in depth reviews of the flavors by some users on Amazon.com.