4ALongerLife

Ok Bean! I came on here just to check it out.. and ew. Wow. What else? Man I wanna see pix of the abs once you are healed up and standing up straight. WHAT A DIFFERENCE THOUGH! Awesome Patrick! Congrats!

You mentioned that you have a new job... is something about it bothering you? Or is there a trigger there? Could be nothing. You could just have had an "off" day. You are allowed to have those you know! Just do not "catastrophize" a slip. We all have slips (i.e. dammit I ate x amount over calories, had an extra cookie, whatever). But it's about perspective. Don't let a slip become a lapse, collapse or a relapse. Know with every minute, it's a chance to undo that slip - don't look at it as a chance to say screw it and snow ball into a twinkie over dose. Or dang, was that only me in the old days? Hang in there hon! This too shall pass!

I think you will be fine. You are watching it with an eagle's eye .. and you sound like you realize that if you lose too much, you are going to either have to eat more or scale back on the exercise. That's the two options you have: eat more or work out less. If you do this, make sure you track. My calories went up whenever I went into maintenance. Talk about a mind game! Congrats on all of your success!

We ALL go through this. Whether you are in the honeymoon, or 18 months out like me. My dr. calls it "behavioral fatigue"... you just get tired of the behaviors that you have been doing. He usually tells me that's when I need to "take a break" (i.e. like taking two weeks off of the gym, which I can't let myself do lately, hmm). Otherwise, changing it up, getting a workout buddy or an accountability partner might be a good avenue for you to try to pursue. I do agree with the honeymoon phase... enjoy it while it lasts as it will not be forever. The other suggestion that I can think of... make a list of all of the reasons why you wanted to have surgery/lose weight and go over them a couple of times a day. (If anyone's heard me say this before, my apologies.. I am a broken record.) Reach out like you did with this thread for pick me ups. I know myfitnesspal friends really support me the most when I need it. Best of luck!

One thing I've learned in my journey... why do we associate grumbling of our tummies with hunger? Guess what? That can just be gas and we've assumed that it's hunger. I challenge you to stop and really consider what it feels like to be hungry. Like really hungry. It's not that your tummy makes noises... it's more of an empty feeling, you might get a headache if you go too long w/o food (although post op, this never happens to me anymore). For those of you that are so recently out of surgery, you are going to learn a lot of things about your body and how it changes. I believe in going to support groups and learning everything you can... which thankfully where I live, we have several options. Whenever you are so new out of surgery though, my dr. said to make sure you get x ounces in x minutes (I think it was 4 ounces every 15 minutes) and he suggested using a timer. I have an app on my phone to time things.. or I use an egg timer at home. Hope that might help!

Figuring out what that ideal number was, for me, a hard one. I always thought 160 would be fine, then as it got closer, 150... then I got to 130 and that was TOO MUCH (I'm 5'7"). I lost my weight in 6 months (mostly due to 1000+ calorie work outs, but also due to my leak that I dealt with). The hardest part to wrap my head around in maintenance was that I had to eat more not to lose. I always have gained it back by doing that. But then again, I still do my workouts. Now the goal for me is muscle tone. I am 24% body fat, 22.7 BMI and a 2-8 depending on how it's cut (but I say I'm a 6). Size 8 was my "goal" as I wanted single digits! Oh and one of the best benefits... I was lifting weights today (upper body), standing with my legs together and I have a little "hole" of light between where my thighs fit together - they don't touch. Yay! I no longer start forest fires with my thighs! lol