mwrarr

Hellooo! I'm coming up on 5 years...omigosh! I cannot believe I just wrote that. I have just struggled and struggled since the beginning. I hit my low weight about 1 year post op (after fighting 7 months for the final 4# to get there haha) and then it seems i've just gone back the other way. Every year it's another 14-20lbs back on. My surgeon gave up on me and basically said that I need to accept that this is how my body is, and that I can call him when I'm ready for a revision of my failed sleeve. :\ I'm not ready to accept that I can't lose weight on my own. Normal people do it every day without surgery, and plenty do it successfully WITH surgery, so there's nothing special about me. I just need to figure out what is wrong with my head. I have had so many personal life nonsense things over the last 4 years that I'm sort of mad at myself for wasting the surgery. I wish I had either waited until NOW to do it, or been strong enough to love myself more than the drama THEN. However, now I need a plan. I know there used to be reboots, and bootcamps, etc, but I can't remember any of them. I work out at the gym 3-5x/week, lifting weights and I'm going to be adding (more intense) cardio in the next week. I'm doing (at least) weekly vlogs on youtube and trying to get back in the habit of blogging regularly. I'm also a fulltime college student, employee and homeschooling my sons through their senior year of school. I'll take anything you got! haha I'm so confused by this diet vs that diet, vs don't drink this, do drink that... I feel so paranoid and untrusting of the whole industry. Thank you! <3

I definitely see the slower results issue this time around. For me, when I get on plan, I lose a lot quickly (5lbs, for example) and then gain 4.5 back even though I'm not doing anything differently than when I restarted.... it's frustrating. I've actually started reincorporating shakes into my day, and working on mindfulness throughout the day. I've dropped 2Lb since last week, when I had stalled for 3 weeks...so I'LL TAKE IT!

UGH! I feel you so much! I have been told my ENTIRE life that I needed to be different: smaller, tighter, more toned, less flabby, stand up taller, calm down, sit down, stand up.... gross. I'm over it. haha

Drinking postop is wild. For me, I would get exceedingly drunk off half of a drink...and then mentally sober up just as quickly, which I could keep drinking through and not feel drunk anymore. Obviously, I'd still be drunk, but didn't feel it at all. It started very innocently this way for me, and quickly led to a couple years of alcoholic behaviours. These days, I can control it, but I had to take about 9 months away from alcohol altogether. I limit myself to 1 drink and if I'm with people who can't fathom that, I just won't drink with them at all. Additionally, I am convinced that it completely derailed my weight loss.

A fully healed sleeve is more relaxed than a freshly cut one. And yes, it WILL stretch if put under duress. It will become lazy if you consistently eat against the diet. BUT because it's muscle, it will bounce back very quickly - at least in my experience. I have tested my sleeve to the limits - on purpose, out of bad habit, from bad diet... it's harder and harder to recover these days. But if I do liquids for a day, I can feel initial restriction again -- and then bust right through that barrier if I want. Bodies are wild. Short of amputation, nothing is off limits.

Thank you I think that's probably a good idea. I have tried to do the pre-op diet over again, a few times, but I always flake out. Honestly, the preop diet was hard before surgery, too. I'll have to see if I have my old diet papers still around. I was sleeved in 2013 & who knows where they are now!

I'm down 21# of surgery weight & 85-ish since my high weight. I'm definitely better off than I was at 350, but I'm so upset that I let myself slide this far back, ESPECIALLY after going through the chaos of surgery. I'm trying to get back on the right track. It's just that nothing seems to stick anymore. I'm sure it's all in my head. And I'll never give up!

I know I'm a little late to the game, but if I can jump in... TRACK. Either get myfitnesspal or use a little book and do the calories later. Honestly, it's easier to use paper when you're in the "1 bite" & "2 spoonfuls" stage. Write a meal plan for yourself. "Cereal & fruit" is quite a different nutrient load than "egg, sausage or bacon" which is even more different than "cottage cheese & pineapple". 2 of those 3 meals are loaded with carbs/sugar. It's ok to have cereal & fruit one day if you're protein heavy the rest of the day. Also, take into account how far along you are. OP, at 20 months PO, you should be above 1000 calories, I'd think. Every time I asked my drs how many calories to have they'd say "focus on protein, then veg, don't stuff" and track if I wanted, to see how many calories I was full on. I was around 900 forever, but couldn't hit 1500 until 3 years.

So many familiar faces! I had taken a (LONG) break from this site because it got pretty catty for a while but I was hoping some of the tried and true were still around! :] I wish I had some advice. I'm up 60# over the last 4 years. I'm a lost cause.

I was 308 at surgery. 289 (-21) at 30 days post op And from there out, lost 14, 11, 9, 8, 7, & 7 more pounds each month. I completely stopped losing at 6 months and FOUGHT HARD to maintain, while trying to keep losing. I'm now back UP 60lbs. Don't ever get lax. It will own you. I'm starting all over again, pretty much.

hello! I have Aetna, but I'm in upstate. Do you have a surgeon yet?

Hi All I haven't been on much lately because I've had some setbacks, and i didnt want to be whiny, but I wanted to share my progress. Hope everyone is well!

I chose the VSG for the same reasons as everyone else: no rearranging of intestines, no dumping, etc. My surgeon warned me that having more than 100# to lose & having a history of problems with sweets, I may never lose all the weight with VSG but he'd do whatever I was most comfortable with. I wish I'd done RNY. My sleeve has been nothing but a PITA since day one, & I'm still 100+ lbs overweight, 2 years out. And not because I don't follow the plan (that's always the 1st thing ppl accuse you of when you stop losing at 5-6 months post op).

You should consider lodging a formal complaint to their office mgr. She really shouldn't be speaking like that. Congrats to you on all fronts, though!

You won't get true dumping syndrome with the sleeve. But if you changed your supplements or shakes recently, check the nutritional info labels, bc they may have some hidden sugar or something else. It also could be trying to eat too much volume at once.

I'm 2.5 years out & I can tell you that in my case, I stopped losing weight at 6 months, on the dot. I only lost about 60% of my excess weight. And I have struggled to keep it off. Over the winter, I gained some back due to meds I was on & absolutely nothing will budge it. I consistently eat no more than 1000 cal/day. I have NOT returned to old habits. And FTR, I cannot stomach anything. I literally cannot consume grains (rice, quinoa, oatmeal, cereals, all pastas, bread), most veggies (sometimes baked potato, sometimes a few bites of iceberg lettuce but no other types of lettuce for some reason, usually cucumbers, usually Beans are ok), most fruits give me a stomachache, and generally chicken & pork kill me, too. I go to dance class 4-6 days/week, & I jog 3x/week. It's not always "old habits" but from what I've seen in my support group, the losing stops & the maintenance is hard. For nearly everyone. The only people not struggling with maintenance are the RNY patients.

Mine expired around 6 months. I maintain around my current weight, with very little thought, ever since then. I'm happy to be 90# smaller, but I still technically have 85# to go. I've tried rebooting, starving, calorie zig-zagging, carb loading, Keto diet, and I also workout 6-7 days a week (10-ish workouts/week), but to no avail. I've just given up & accepted that this is what I am.

I did it when I was about 15-16 mo post-op, for about a month. I gained 8#. The diet & calorie amounts are completely inappropriate for my diet/body. But I'm a HARD loser & a quick gainer.

Congrats! I'm 20 mo out right now & struggling. BUT something you said just resonated very deeply in me... I never knew the stretch receptors were at the bottom!! That *absolutely* makes the "Protein 1st" part make sense! I need to get back to that. Thank you so very much for sharing.

Hi All! :} I'm just curious if anyone else out there is doing regular bodybuilding/weight lifting, because I have recently started in the hopes that I could break this stall/plateau. BUT...it's not working. I'm not sure if I'm eating too much, too little, the wrong stuff... NO ONE in the traditional bodybuilding/personal training world can help me. They want me to eat like 2200 calories, but I am only 9 months out & still struggle to get 600-700 CLEAN calories in. (Trust me...I can do much more than that if I eat junk) I also feel like when I go back to liquids - avoiding "real" solid foods - I lose again. Am I crazy?! I did the bootcamp diet after New Year's and dropped 6# in 3 days, but as soon as I had to add back the solids, that was it. And now that I'm lifting, I'm bouncing around another Lb. It's ridiculous. I feel like this surgery has made me "skinny fat" (I've lost 97#, but my body fat has actually increased from 35% before surgery to 44% now) & no matter what I do, now that the honeymoon phase is over (about a YEAR EARLY according to *EVERYTHING* I was told/read beforehand--b/c I've been done losing since month 6, frankly), I can't win. I've tried dropping my calories down to like 400-500 again, but I just feel like I need to sleep all day in between those feedings. I just don't know what to do. If anyone else out there has experience with muscle building & can help, I'd surely appreciate it! TIA! :}

I did not stop mine.

Here's mine! :} I was 347# at my highest, & 211# now. I'm 9 months post-op, & 97lbs of my total loss is since surgery/pre-op diet.

I'm mwrarr over there! :}

I'm now 9+ months post-op & it does get better. Or...at least it did once I was in recovery mode & didn't want to eat at all. It bought me enough time to reset old habits. Lately it's started creeping back in but I've recognized my triggers. Usually if I have a bit of Protein right before bed (spoon of PB, cheese stick, etc), I'll be ok. Carbs tend to trigger it, too. Try not to worry too much about the pre-op slip ups. We all have them. But basically unless you have a total harda$$ surgeon (who already probably would've warned you about canceling your surgery for slip ups), once insurance says yes, not much will stop it--unless they have significant reason to think it'd be unsafe. Just get back on track & muddle through. It's seriously the hardest part...after surgery, there's a whole new life waiting.

What?! Holy moly. I've never heard of Aviane.