Banned member

How is everyone doing? I just now noticed that next to my profile it says that I had the lap band lol I definitely have the sleeve. Well I'm still slowly losing weight and finally made the mental change that I needed to in order to keep the scale moving. I'm 2 pounds away from onderland and I'm hoping to be there in a week or two. There is no way to rush my body and I don't want to relapse and start being negative again. This article helped me make the mental switch http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/how-to-think-like-a-thin-person I still attend WW meetings about twice a month but I try not to go every week because I noticed that other peoples diet mentality really affects my thought process and I want to get away from that negativity. I'm looking forward losing the rest of the weight and the pace my body wants and I'm pretty sure i will be close to my goal by the 2 years mark post op. Hang in there everyone.

I usually don't have a strategy but I mostly go for the protein and not something creamy like pasta dishes. I was never really into pasta. I love Red Lobster and always get the "ulitmate feast" which is packed full of protein and so filling.

Sorry everyone that I haven't checked back in since I started Weight Watchers on 10/3 but I'm down 9 pounds. Nine pounds lost in 6 weeks, hell I'll take it I did have to play around with the points a little to see how many I could eat and still lose. Well come to find out I can NOT eat my acitivity points and lose, so I'm basically sticking to eating daily points and my weekly points. IMO it's going great. I also met with my surgeon a couple of days ago and all my labs were perfect and he wasn't upset about my slow weight loss like I was expecting him to be. Supposedly with vsg you are only expected to lose 50-80% of the excess weight and I've lost 50% so I guess I'm within range *shrugs*. The good news is that I haven't given up and this is probably what has kept me from gaining back the weight which I could easily do because I can almost eat a normal size portion. I did go a little crazy during the week of Halloween but I still went to the meeting even though I knew I slightly gained but my WW leader is so awesome and inspirational. After the Halloween weigh in I was able to get back on plan. The meetings are helping a lot. I'm the youngest person there and the only minority lol but I feel right at home with people who are going for the same goal and that is to get healthy and learn to change my relationship with food. I wish I would of joined sooner but better late than never.

I haven't lost any hair but the poll wont let me vote since the other 2 questions didn't pertain to me. I'm a little over a year out. I still have 50 pounds until goal, super slow loser but oh well I haven't given up.

I gained .4 lbs BUT I'm on my period and usually around this time I'm up 3-4 pounds. Definitely expecting a loss next week since TOM will be gone

I will I weigh in on Thursdays. I fully expect to still be a slow loser even with weight watchers but I'm confident that this may be what I was missing all along on my journey. I haven't told my leader about wls and don't plan to. She seems very open minded but I don't think it's any of their business. I do plan on signing up for the "monthly pass" since I'm basically paying the same with the week to week or pay as you go plan. Since I lost almost 3 pounds my first week, I'm not expecting a big loss this week and wouldn't be surprised if I maintained. Also it's that TOM :/ (sorry TMI) but I've still counted every point and haven't gone over my weekly points.

Well today was my 1 week weigh in for Weight Watchers and I lost 2.8 pounds! I definitely wasn't expecting to lose that amount since I ate all of my activity points and weekly points. Going to the meetings definitely recharges my battery because I was feeling a little mentally weak yesterday, plus I have a head cold and that always makes me very hungry but I stayed within my points I definitely believe that I will be more successful with WW than MFP. I think the MFP calorie totals screw me up because it's hard to believe which calories are correct and WW tells you how much weight equals how many points. They don't have several different calorie totals for the same food item. WW keeps it very simple for me and I'm way more accurate. I could ramble on but this head cold is making me very tired. Good Luck everyone. Oh and I should add that I've stopped weighing myself at home daily. I only weigh in at the WW meetings. I am less stressed now.

I finally joined Weight Watchers yesterday. I've been calorie counting since July and I've only maintained. In the past the only way that I've ever lost weight is by attending weekly meetings. Hopefully this will get the scale moving again. I'm not using WW online but I do have the WW calculator and that keeps track of my points usage. I will let you all know how it goes.

I've been stalled also (205-209 lbs) for about 5 months. I joined Weight Watchers yesterday and will be attending meetings every week. I've been counting calories for the past 3 months and I've only been maintaining but it may be because I'm getting the wrong calorie totals on MFP. I'm looking forward to having face to face group support. There are plenty of people like us but they don't seem to post anymore :/

I started my period the day of surgery (probably 4 hours before the actual surgery) and I'm not sure if blood thinners made it worse. I had to wear a pad and that sucked so much and of course I bled on the bed. Not being able to take a shower sucked also and every time I went to the bathroom I got blood all over the toilet, it was so bad.

I didn't have any restrictions on pork or beef.

The things that I've learned in my almost one year since vsg is that this is my journey and I have to focus on things that I can stick with and not necessarily something temporary that may get me to where I want to be (goal) but isn't sustainable in the long run. One of the most important things that I realized is that I can't crash diet. I can't pick a calorie number that's so low to where I feel miserable, deprived, and on the verge of bingeing. I do remember advice being given when I was preop and people would say that most people eat between 600-800 cals during the losing phase. That calorie level makes me want to binge and I've never been a binge eater and definitely don't want to start. Weight loss wasn't as hard the first 6 months but I definitely didn't have to try like I do now. Now that I have to try and figure out what different things work, I feel like I'm becoming more knowledgeable on what I need to do and my own needs. The first 6 months I thought I had everything figured out and if I had made it to goal during that time I don't think I would of learned a damn thing. One of the most important things that I've learned is that I don't need to have a huge calorie deficit in order to get the scale to move. I set my calorie deficit goal at 500 (per day) and this will lead to a weight loss of about 1 pound a week or 4 pounds a month. This deficit also allows me to eat like a normal person who is trying to shed a reasonable/healthy amount of weight at a time. I've long abandoned the sprinting to goal approach and now I'm just focusing on slow and steady. There's no award for getting to goal early or losing a whole person in a short amount of time. Plus I didn't want to be one of those people in maintenance who are white knuckling it trying to stay at goal or the ones who freak out because they ate a snickers bar lol. My goal has always been to eat everything in moderation. I don't eat low carb or fat free diet(y) stuff. I'm a human and want to be able to eat normal human things within reason. Could I have lost faster? Probably! Yes the honeymoon period is long gone but I still have the tool *Yes, rambling again lol* Oh and CLK that's how I lose also. I usually have one week where I lose all my weight and then I maintain for the other 3 weeks. I keep track of my cycles and can tell when I'm gonna gain water weight or stall. My cycles have become shorter now 27 days, whereas before surgery it was 30-32 days. You, Coops, and another lady (can't remember her SN) have been very inspiring to us slow losers.

For the past 3 days I've weighed 206.4 looking forward to a woosh in the next couple of days after ovulation passes I tend to retain water during this time. Figured out the calories to my homemade jambalaya recipe and it's only 235 cals per cup and super yummy. My sleeve is still working well (not that I'm surprised). I can only eat about 3.5 oz of dense protein or 3/4 cup of food at a time. So happy for this tool and plus I don't have that overwhelming sense of hunger like I did before and this makes it easier to eat between 1000-1550 cals a day. *Blabbing away, sorry*

NGM we can do this. It may take us longer than others but we can definitely reach our goals I've come to the realization that I probably wont reach goal until the 2 year mark. Maybe I'm meant to lose the first 50 pounds in the first year and then the other 50 pounds in the next year. I never would of imagined still being obese almost a year after surgery but I try to view it as I've NEVER been able to lose 55 pounds on my own, ever. It will definitely take longer and the weight wont come off as quickly as it did soon after surgery but we still have the tool

I started at 260 the day of surgery and I weighed in at 205.8 this morning. I'm 5'3 and 29 yrs old. I so want to get in onderland and I'm finally motivated to make this push for goal. The first 6 months of surgery I didn't track cals or anything and when I stalled I thought my body would just naturally start losing weight again but nope. I definitely think calorie counting will be something that I may have to do for the rest of my life.

That's what happens to me when I don't eat carbs. I have hypoglycemia and if I don't eat every 2-3 hours I get very dizzy and sure enough my blood sugar is around 49.

Not sure if I posted in this thread but I'm definitely a slow loser by every definition. I will be 1 yr post op Oct. 2nd and have lost 55 pounds. Weight loss really slowed down after the 6 month mark and I stalled for about 3-4 months, probably self induced because I wasn't counting cals and probably was eating too much or at maintenance level. Well I've been back on plan and counting cals with MFP for the past month and have managed to lose the 4 pounds that I gained while stalled. I'm mentally back in the game and ready to start losing again and get this weight off. I think during the stall I took a mental break and that's probably what I needed and thankfully I did maintain during that time. I have about 50 pounds to goal and I so can't wait to finally break into onderland. I've been hovering slightly above it for the past 4 months.

I only had to take my PPI for about 4-6 weeks. I stopped once I ran out and I did feel like I had more acid but it eventually went back to normal. I don't like the thought of taking pills long term. I'm almost a year post op and haven't had any problems with acid but I do eat every 2-3 hours.

OP YOU LOOK GOOD! Great job.

My aunt used to talk about her surgery ALL THE TIME! and it was so annoying for EVERYONE and I swore that I wouldn't bore the masses with my constant talk about myself and surgery. Like seriously people do not care and too many people probably yap about it way too much. My close friends and family know but as for everyone else they don't mention my weight or weight loss and just treat me the same as they always have and I prefer it that way. My journey is mine and I don't owe it to anyone to share more info than I'm willing to. Like I've always said, "I'm not the spokesperson for WLS/VSG".

I usually don't post on topics like this because I always end up looking like a crazy person for saying what I do. Well here it goes: I've dealt with constipation since I was a very young child. My butt has been through a lot of painful stools and I wouldn't be surprised if my butt hole has actually shrunk because of all the ripping and tearing that I've experienced over the years (scar tissue). I now squat to poop. I know it sounds weird but it helps get all the poop out and not just little pellets. I use a squatting platform. I'm not saying that squatting to poop makes the issue of constipation go away but when your poop is impacted and very hard to push out, squatting makes it easier. I honestly believe that the way that current toilets are designed is the reason why we have so many problems going. Toilets are often to high for us short people and it's not natural to poop in a sitting position. If you're in the woods and need to poop you will more than likely squat and find that your poop is longer and you wont feel like there is more poop left in your bowel, you will have complete elimination. My husband thinks it's weird what I do but he's tall so he doesn't understand how hard it is to poop when your knees are below your hips and I used to spend hours on the toilet just trying to push out poop and would be so frustrated. Not being regular really effects your mental state. I don't want to go too deep into the theory and most times when I post in these threads I feel as if I'm wasting my energy because most think it's stupid advice but if you happen to be one of those people open to trying something new then definitely google "squatting to poop" and you will find tons of articles on why it's beneficial and that you wont have to deal with constipation as much. I don't use stool softeners or laxatives because they cause problems days later and you will more than likely end up back in the same situation. Drinking lots of Water has helped me and so has squatting. Good Luck

Minks_esposa

Grapes are kind of hard to eat and make me cramp a little but I can easily tolerate about 7 grapes. As far as others foods I don't have a problem with anything. I eat everything in moderation.

My bodymedia (link) should be here in a couple of days Sorry I'm not able to answer your question and I'm mostly purchasing it to use with mfp.