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I'm fasting today. Head is not in the game. I just have too much going on. I don't do well with uncertainty and we won't know about when my husband will go for another week. It could be anywhere from three weeks to six months from now, and until that's settled I will stress. We also have a never-ending stream of guests, because everyone is thrilled we're in the states again. It's nice but also stressful. My stepson's girlfriend came in to meet us and all they've done is bicker since she's been here. Needless to say, I'm hoping that she doesn't join the family permanently. My father-in-law and hubby's stepmother will be here tomorrow night...and then I have more guests at the end of next week. I was up three damned pounds on the scale for no really good reason this morning. Not so thrilled. This puts me up over my where I ended the last week. I hope it falls off quickly. My non-fast days are full of imperfect foods but I'm hanging in my calorie range pretty easily. So long as I stay away from the alcohol, that is! Glad to hear everyone had a pretty decent day yesterday. It's good to see you around, coops! Daisy, I can think of so many wonderful things to make with all those cherries! In Bishkek we had cherry trees in our yard and it was wonderful. FYE, I've had some days like that. In fact, I had leftover tiramisu for Breakfast yesterday, with a huge latte. Massive calories first thing in the morning. Oh, in case anyone was wondering, tiramisu IS a slider and YES the dairy will bother a person with lactose intolerance. Hope everyone has a great day. I'm doing a fast but admit I broke it early today. I normally don't do my Protein Shake until at least after ten but I woke up and just needed to jam food in my face. So I compromised with myself - no, I won't eat that last square of tiramisu but I will have my Protein coffee at 8:30 today. It could be worse. ~Cheri

Search out the old threads on binge behavior and grazing. There's some great info there as well as reassurance that you're not alone. After being denied these foods for so long, it's easy to lose control. ~Cheri

Wait - I want to clarify something. You said you were at goal when you revised? So you have ten pounds to shed with the regain, right? What's your diet like? I think a balanced diet of Protein (lots of protein), good carbs and healthy fats is very important because without a good balance I think it's easier to feel unsatisfied and turn to binges or grazing on poor food choices. To shed weight, I'd focus on tracking exactly as you're eating right now and then pare it back by 20% to see if that budges the scale for you. You cannot stretch your sleeve that much, that quickly and without some serious pain. Overeating is an incredibly uncomfortable feeling and it doesn't last too long because you wind up sicking up your last bite. It's simply not possible to stretch that part of the stomach very much. It will, however, relax and heal, leaving you with a slightly larger capacity. We're talking 3-4 oz. of dense protein or 1.5 cups of food at three years out, in my case. Not a huge difference. It sounds like despite the fact that you're a vet (due to reaching goal with the band) you still need to learn how to maintain. It's something every one of us has to deal with - learning what foods we can eat in moderation and those that trigger us to eat more. Making good choices when we're at goal is tougher than doing it when we have a goal we want to achieve. It's possible to shed this weight and it's possible to find a balance and maintain. The band was helping you by making those "bad" foods difficult to consume. You just need to find a way to eat that satisfies your desire to eat those foods without sabotaging your success on the scale. ~Cheri

Oh, I'm sad because I missed drama. Laura, why didn't you PM me?! OP - I think you got some great advice a few pages back. Shaving 10-20% off your current maintenance calorie count might be what you need. The window we can safely eat in post op isn't always as high as we'd like and it's certainly not as high as the window we ate in before surgery. That 2,000 calorie diet isn't going to fly for the majority of us here. Nobody expects you to cut back down to 900 calories a day at this point. But slowly adjusting downward might jump start loss again, always assuming you don't have something hormonal/physiological going on that is affecting your weight. The DS is something I'd say you should seriously consider IF you had never gotten close to or reached your goal. But you did reach your goal, you're just having issues in maintenance. It's not uncommon. Regain isn't uncommon. You certainly shouldn't be made to feel like a failure. There really are a number of people that post about it, but most often they're ignored and if they aren't, they're immediately lambasted, made to feel like failures and told to eat a specific way to get back on track. We don't often see them return. And no wonder. Bounce is common but you did bounce more than you should have - so I really think that instead of trying to play this the way you did immediately post op you should consider what Laura is saying or tracking your intake and cutting that number to see if it helps. It is absolutely possible to lose this weight without another surgery, but if you feel like you need DS you're probably going to get better feedback on OH because they at least have a forum for that surgery. Good luck, ~Cheri

Agree, don't let it get you down, Oregondaisy! It's better to be in the right ballpark than to skip the counting completely. Laura is looking good, isn't she? I can't believe you want to lose 28 more pounds, woman! But hey, goal is personal for everyone. I can say that from your picture, you certainly don't look like you need to, but then people are always telling me I don't need to lose more. That just annoys me. I'm aiming low when I shoot for 135, anyway, so stopping here isn't a real option for me. So no judgement - but you do look amazing! Sorry about the thyroid - will they remove it, then? Georgia, thanks for the reassurance on my hair. I'm hoping some hair color doesn't make things worse but I'm starting to get those lovely grey hairs and really need to cover it up. When I combed my hair out this morning, I swear I lost half of what's on my head! Good day, Swizzly. Little by little! I admit that I quite frequently drink several hundred of my calories in a day. ~Cheri

I wanted to post an update, even though it’s kind of difficult for me to share pictures this year. I’m three years out from my surgery. My start weight was 242 (I’m 5’1”) and my goal was 135 pounds. I reached my goal about 17 months post op. I was never really able to stay at 135 very easily but maintained almost effortlessly between 137-141 pounds. I was quite happy there and have no problems with that weight, even if it technically puts me in the “overweight” category. The BMI chart is a creation of evil, anyway. Two years post op I chose to get pregnant. I gained 35 pounds between hormone injections and pregnancy. I delivered my daughter almost four months ago. Today I weigh 143 pounds. I’ve been working to shed the baby weight. As before, the last 10-15 pounds just don’t want to come off. I know that my body will change a lot in the coming year as I get back to where I was prior to having my daughter. Right now I’m feeling pretty insecure about my hips/thighs and upper arms. I also don’t like that I feel “lumpy” – my smooth hourglass figure isn’t back yet. But I can't deny that it felt good to climb into my size 20 jeans today to snap a quick picture. The ruffled top I'm wearing doesn't really help show the difference but I'm pretty sure two of me could fit into those pants. Today I wear a solid six and a small in most tops (sometimes a medium) so I really cannot complain. I don’t want this to be a post about my diet or lifestyle; I’m here enough that you can easily search out what I have to say about those things. I do want to stress that my third year was harder than the previous years. For starters, going from maintenance into a gain was HARD, even if I did it to have a healthy child. Shifting into loss again has been a real challenge. I also find that the farther I get from surgery, the more I see that very little of my unhappiness stemmed from my weight. My weight was a symptom of the damage I had going on inside of me. Sure, I had some genetic causes to help me pack on the pounds. But the majority of it was all in my head. The sleeve was not my magic bullet. It doesn’t just work on it’s own. The only thing it does for me is keep me from burying my sorrows or my stresses in a tub full of ice cream (darn lactose intolerance) or from eating a pan of brownies. I can still eat ice cream (and suffer for it) or eat those brownies one by one. Working on ME and trying to find ways to not rely on food or alcohol in times of stress has become critical and while it's not a daily struggle, it can still be a challenge at times. I still feel no hunger. But I do get hormonal and have the desire to eat. I do get sad and have the desire to eat. I do sit and mindlessly do what other people are doing if I’m not paying attention. I say this over and over again and I’m going to repeat myself for the umpteenth time: If you do not work on the issues that made you fat in the first place, you are going to have a very difficult time with maintenance. Maintenance is by far the hardest part of this process and it DOES NOT END. There is no finish line, there is no “GOAL!” there is just the need to stay continually vigilant and to avoid slipping into those ingrained, years-old habits and feelings. This is not about food for most of us. This is certainly not about food for me. This is about me using food to self-medicate, to hide, for pleasure, as a cornerstone of socializing – as everything BUT fuel and sustenance. Removing my stomach only gave me portion control; it did not fix anything that caused the issues in the first place. I’m heading into my fourth year and I’m pleased to say that I would do my surgery again in a heartbeat. I’m happier than I have ever been in my life, even considering the small personal struggles I've had to face since surgery. This surgery didn't just help me lose weight. It gave me a chance to live a better life. I can beat myself up and be unhappy about little, minor things but at the end of the day, I’m 100 pounds lighter and once upon a time I would have given anything to look the way I do now. ~Cheri

And wow! You have lost a tremendous amount of weight and look great! Congrats on finally reaching goal. What an inspiration to people that get frustrated when they aren't at goal within a year, and also to the folks the have more than 100 pounds to lose. Simply amazing work - congrats!! ~Cheri

And those insurance hoops are a PITA. Seriously, I was disappointed my insurance doesn't cover until I realized it would push my date back by several months just jumping around to check all the little boxes. I was lucky enough to be able to self pay and for real, that experience makes me wish I could just self pay for everything I need and be reimbursed by insurance later. Dealing with them is a nightmare. ~Cheri

It's fine to rant, especially if it makes you feel better. Okay, so I'll be realistic here. With the sleeve the long term success rates are roughly 60% of excess weight lost, right? The only long study I've read showed between 50-60% EWL at six years post op. Long term success rates with traditional dieting (say, Weight Watchers) is that you'll be 5% lighter five years later. So even if you were the average sleeve patient (and I still dispute the 60% EWL stat; I think it's higher) you'd reasonably expect to keep off 50 pounds for every 100 pounds of excess weight you carry right now. You should be aware that even with the sleeve you can lose slowly and see minimal returns despite adhering to a strict regimen. If you need instant gratification, you're only likely to see it with the sleeve for a month or two post op. I lost 60 pounds in the first five months (avg. 12 lbs/mo.) I lost 23 pounds over the next seven months (avg. 3.2 lbs/mo.) I lost the last 15 pounds over the next five months (avg. 3 lbs/mo.) There were not just weeks but entire months where my scale did not move. There were months where I logged a loss of one pound or less. If you average out my entire loss period, I lost about six pounds a month. While eating almost nothing for more than six of those months. So - this isn't me ranting at you. This is me saying that the sleeve is AWESOME. It's been the single best thing I've ever done, short of marrying my husband and making a family with him. But even the sleeve doesn't guarantee fast results or predictable results or hell, results at all if you do the wrong things. So know that going in, okay? Because I was really disheartened and disappointed until I came to terms with my inability to control the rate of my weight loss. Good luck - and I stress again that I'm not trying to come down on you. I'm just telling you the other side of the surgery, the one that nobody wants to hear about when you're pre-op! ~Cheri

Join us on the vet board! It's full of good info for you this far out, and your struggles are shared by others there, too. ~Cheri

Oh, and FYE, I hope that fair didn't tempt you into indulging. ~Cheri

Today's a normal day again. I had friends over for dinner last night but kept it under control. scale says 142 today, so down 1.4 pounds from Monday (I didn't weigh yesterday) and I'm aiming for 135 pounds. Urg. So far away! I remember that brief spell two weeks ago when I touched the 130s for like, a day. I'm doing pretty good if I can keep it to 142 for the week though, because I'll be down a total of six pounds in four weeks. That's hella fast for me. Fast day tomorrow. Got a call last night from my father in law and surprise! They're coming to visit on Friday. Well, I'm glad we'll get to visit but I expected them in two weeks. Now I have two days to get the 72 boxes that are in my basement unpacked and put away. Thanks, Dad! I'm supposed to take my twins to Chuck-E-Cheese today. I truly hate that place. But the kids have a motivational chart and we've been working on their behavior and little chores for the past few weeks. I told them when we started that if they both got a perfect week they could pick an activity. I expected a day of trudging around the zoo, but they both want Chuck-E-Cheese. I'll indulge it because I'm amazed at the improvements in their attitudes, behavior and helpfulness lately. It's amazing, actually, how far a little positive reinforcement goes with young kids. I'm going to go early and get there as soon as they open, before it turns into an absolute madhouse. I love my children, but other people's kids? They're cute and all but yeah...not so much. Especially when they're amped up on junk food, soda and video games! Laura: You look awesome, lady! How far are you from goal? I'm in Virginia, NoVA actually - right by D.C. Three years in one place, it seems bizarre to me. We normally move every 18 months or so. Good luck on the thyroid issue - how will that affect maintenance for you if they remove it? I have a friend that had Graves' and once her thyroid was gone maintaining her weight or losing weight was very challenging (though she did both and has succeeded quite well for the past nine years). Just curious. Swizzly: Don't beat yourself up. That's a high day but getting in a fast day will help. When I drink with dinner or have an unplanned treat I can easily find myself eating that many calories, too. Just hop on track again. It's hard. It never ceases to amaze me how much my attitude on loss/gains with the sleeve has changed. I once believed a person would have to work at gaining weight with this surgery, but time and experience show me that if we aren't tracking we can easily consume the same amount of calories as we did before surgery. Good job on tracking, and with your fast tomorrow. My calories were hard when we were living in Kyrgyzstan and had events several nights a week. Shots of vodka are pretty much a social requirement there and the calories between that and the meals add up fast. Supersweeetums: I applaud the way you're being conscious of all this with your children. It's a challenge for me but we absolutely do our best with this. I have twins and one is super skinny and one is obese. It's really a tricky line - there have been times when we've wanted to kind of encourage him to eat but not her, but we can't do that. Instead we focus on healthy choices, staying active and we don't talk about good or bad when it comes to shape, size or weight. I worry so much that she'll be like me. It amazes me how much I worry about this - my husband thinks I'm obsessed with weight but that's not it. It's that I know exactly how it feels to be the big girl in class and I still remember how mean kids are to each other. I know how damaging it was for me to hear mean things from other kids and how that affected me into the teenage years and finally carried over into adulthood. i try not to add to that in any way by making her unhappy or insecure. She's built the way she's built and it's unfortunate for her that she inherited my traits on this instead of her daddy's! UKCathy: That's not bad for a fast day. I'm sorry you're going through a rough time and I hope things will brighten for you soon. Oregondaisy: Yes! This is really, truly how I maintained before when I was crowing about how easy maintenance was for me. I wasn't as structured (no tracking on my non-fast days and no conscious calorie limit on fast days) but I weighed daily and if the scale bounced close to the end of my maintenance window I pretty much fasted that day. It was easy. Something like 90% of the time I just ate whatever I wanted and so long as I kept that scale close and had one or two stricter days it was easy. Ms Skinniness: Laura is right, no failures. I've had to postpone my fast day before, too. Good luck on your trip, safe travels! Leann71: I'm an odd one. Years in counseling, grief support groups and just dealing with my demons have made me very open about things that many people would keep very close. I do have a great deal I just don't share with people but for me, I find talking about things beneficial. Do I make other people uncomfortable sometimes? Sure, I probably do. I'm not looking for answers or reassurance unless I ask a question. But I've found that I can talk to other people and that even if only one person in a group relates to what I have to say, they usually appreciate that I was able to articulate something that they'd also felt. You talk about as much as you want to, and never feel any pressure to open up. On the other hand, know that there's not much you can share that one of us here wouldn't be able to relate to. Hope everyone has a good day! ~Cheri

In the beginning when your capacity is small it's perfectly normal to eat many small meals instead of three large ones. I wouldn't necessarily consider that grazing. I ate from sunup to sundown for the first several months, because if I didn't I could not reach my nutritional goals. It was impossible with my tiny stomach. Many people do best on six smaller meals a day. I find I'm happy and my blood sugar stays constant with three meals and two Snacks per day. I space them out pretty well and it works for me. I never feel hungry. Boredom snacking or eating off your plan just because you're home and the fridge is a few steps away at all times is a different story. I'm also a stay at home mom and if I don't pay attention I can find myself snacking mindlessly without even being hungry. Tracking my food at the start of the day and splitting it up into those five meals helps me control this. I also try to stay very busy. If I feel snacky between meals I try getting a large cup of ice Water first. Thirst can still feel like hunger to me and often satisfies me without my needing to eat. If I have nothing I need to be doing but keep finding myself in the fridge, I find an activity. I do something like color with the kids or I grab my knitting while we watch a movie together. Occupying myself helps. I eat just about every 2-3 hours during the day and drink water, coffee or tea between meals. Identifying why you're eating will help and so will having a firm schedule that you stick to. ~Cheri

Anemia, Laura? How's your Iron? Supersweetums, I'm also at that point. I didn't sleep well last night, either so I dodged the scale today. Great work on those pounds shed, FYE! I feel like it's going slow for me but I'm actually doing better than I did shedding those last ten pounds last time. It feels like the weekend to me. Crazy. My husband was home today so we could get our final shipment from Bishkek and it's weird having him home in the middle of the week! Good luck to those fasting today. I would tell you what I'm making for dinner but you'll want some. ~Cheri

Try again every few months. I was able to stop mine between 4-6 months but there have been periods of time since then where I've had to take one again. Definitely during my pregnancy and also during a really stressful time. I weaned off again (skipping a day between doses) until I was able to stop completely. I hope you're eventually able to stop taking the meds. Give it a bit more time. It's not unusual to see a lot of people here on them for the first full year. ~Cheri

Oh, it happens and my pocketbook tells the story! I didn't really start to enjoy shopping until I was closer to goal. I enjoy it a lot more now than I did for years. It was really hard to get used to sizing and hard to break that habit of always going for the XL. But eventually, you find your groove. The only thing I kind of regret is that for a while I'd be so excited I could fit in clothes that I'd buy them just because I could. Now that I've been the same size for well over a year I'm more discriminating about what's worth purchasing and what isn't. When shopping online I rely on my measuring tape and online size charts. I have only had to return a couple of items for sizing problems since I started relying on measurements vs. sizes. Oh, and shoes? Who knew I'd go crazy buying shoes, too? But losing weight made wearing heels much more comfortable so I have amassed quite the collection over the last two years. I even lost a shoe size! ~Cheri

No meal ideas - they're everywhere and you'll get lots of suggestions. I still dig the eggs and meat so I'm not much help. I petered out (and had a nine week stall) around six months. I lost my biggest chunk of weight in the first five months. I had slowed at that point and that was upsetting. I wanted bigger returns on my investment, and now, thank you. I also introduced more normal foods - kinda went off the rails because I had been so incredibly strict prior to that point. It took me a few weeks but I picked up and kept chugging. Same thing happened around a year out, too. I was almost a year out, not really close to goal but wearing a size eight and feeling like maybe it was enough and I could just stop. Again, nine week stall as the result but I picked up and kept on. Depression is more common post op than most people realize. There's a lot going on here and we're changing our bodies but the effect that has on our hormones, our emotions and our mental baggage cannot be underestimated. Fact? I find dieting boring. I don't want to eat the same thing every day. I hate exercise. I don't care if it's good for me, I don't like it. For me, the solution came in moderation but it's different for everyone. Those foods you've introduced are probably not the best choices for you. So many processed foods are addictive and they do affect our moods! I'm not saying go raw. I'm saying find a different way to branch out from a strict Protein, protein, protein diet that keeps you losing weight but also makes you feel satisfied while not having the desire to go off the rails and binge on junk. It's a narrow path but it's not impossible to walk. And do take the ideas here and on the food board and run with them. Make the right foods interesting again. It's normal to lose motivation when loss is slow and we're not having any enjoyment out of the process. Good luck - ~Cheri

Psych eval aside, I think it's important that you find a counselor to talk to throughout your process. In many cases, definitely in mine, the weight is a symptom of a problem, not the cause. Losing weight will help you feel better about some things but it isn't a magic pill of instant happy. As much as I told myself otherwise prior to surgery, it became clear to me afterward that I was in shock when I discovered that it wasn't the miracle cure I was expecting. I think it's a cycle - we have a problem or issue. We feed it. We engage in other behaviors that make us unhappy. We feed that. We feel bad about getting larger, we feel bad about losing control, we feel bad about life - whatever. The point is, we feed that, too. And then we try to diet and lose weight. We fail, repeatedly. So we feel like sad, depressed, fat failures. And naturally, we feed that, too. There's a larger issue at hand here. You're going to benefit from having someone to talk to about it. We don't just wake up obese and unhappy one day. Something else is going on that will probably come to the fore as the weight starts to come off. Good luck, ~Cheri

I agree with the above. My twins were nearly three when I had surgery and my stepkids ranged in age from 11-20 years old (four of them are girls). The impact on all of them has been bigger than I thought. In fairness, my stepkids do not live with me, but seeing me shed weight in a way other than the extreme diets their mom does has been very positive for the girls. They would emulate their mother and simply skip meals over a perceived need to lose weight. Now their approach is more balanced. I can't help them all - I have four stepdaughters and one of them has battled anorexia (and other equally serious issues like drug addiction) for the past five years. The huge impact is on my kids and how I raise them. My children eat a very healthy and balanced diet. We do not follow the clean your plate rule; we eat until we're no longer hungry. Just that one change is huge. My kids don't eat from boredom and we're all more active. They do not remember big me. They sometimes know that the larger lady in older photos is me but they forget just as often. Their mom does not look like that. Furthermore, while it's still sometimes a struggle for me to be nice to myself, I am not raising my kids to look in the mirror and declare themselves fat or unattractive. We're trying very hard in this house not to put too much emphasis on size or weight. We focus on healthy choices and moderation. My kids know cake isn't a very healthy choice, but they also know that if they don't eat it every day, it's okay to enjoy it sometimes. Too many moms I run into on the playground these days wonder why their kids binge on candy and soda when they get the chance - but they told their kids those foods were bad and forbid them from being in the house. Well, you have to find a balance here and one extreme is just as damaging as the other. The only thing I'd be wary of is the portion sizes with your seven year old. Kids are very observant. What you don't want is for them to think that it's normal for everyone to eat a few bites or spoonfuls of food and declare themselves full. My one stepdaughter has a number of issues, but a huge factor in her body image problems is due to her mom's constant cycle of failed diets, coupled with continually putting herself down for not achieving her goals. Every one of those four girls has at times completely blasted their bodies and told me how fat they are. And every one of them is in truth, very thin. Do not ever underestimate the power you have over how your children feel about their bodies. You cannot control it all, but being mindful of what you do and what you say is incredibly important. Best of luck. Your kids will benefit from this as you become a healthier and more active person. I can actually play with my kids and chase them...I'm not just huffing and waddling behind them hollering at them to slow down for Mommy anymore. ~Cheri

Seriously, I think I see that it's kind of split. Most people either come from damaged backgrounds or else they had bad habits reinforced by family. I had a decent fast day. I apparently can't sleep well, though, so I might skip weighing today. A few things directly affect the scale for me and lack of sleep is one of them. Crazy. Normal day today, though, full of baking because we have a guest in now (in addition to the stepkids) and more coming over the next week. I'll bake extra bread and freeze it so that I'm not as busy when folks are here. Otherwise I won't have time to do the tourist thing with everyone. Ugh...I'm grateful for the number of free activities to do here, but kind of wish we weren't in such a tourist destination. My kind of vacation is the one where I lounge around and do a bunch of nothing. I don't relate to these relatives and friends that want to go see stuff every day. I mean, is it a winery? No? Then what is my reward from walking around all day? ~Cheri

The thread was moved into a group. It's certainly not any attempt to exclude anyone - I think we just wanted to carry on with conversations that were a little more private. ~Cheri

Laura - first, I cannot believe you said you had your second child at 36 - you keep saying you're older than me but you LOOK the same age. Second, there are so many things I can relate to that you've posted lately. I, too, wonder who I might have been if I had grown up with parents that wanted me and with people that loved me. I've worked through a lot of that stuff but the insecurity and that feeling that I am never doing good enough or that feeling that I have to keep everyone around me happy is something that while faded, is probably never going away. I had a lightbulb moment a few months ago, just beating myself up and feeling like I'm not a good parent or I'm not doing enough for my family. What else I'd do I don't know, but logic doesn't factor into my self-abuse! In any case, out of the blue my five year old daughter just walked in the room, signed "I love you" climbed in my lap and told me she was having a great day and that she loves her Mom. And I realized at that moment that I'll never be a perfect parent, but I am 1,000 times better than my parents - that I am NOT damaging my kids the way they did me. I never in a million years would have initiated contact with my mother as a kid. I never, ever cuddled or hugged her. I never told her I loved her and she didn't tell me she loved me for the first time until I was 19 years old and burying my daughter. She never touched us as kids unless it was in anger and she was punishing us. What does that do to a kid, how does that shape an adult? And that's just one of the many fine effed up things in my lovely train wreck of a life - at least, until I started working on ME, built a family with my husband and had my fantastic kids. I have completely reconciled with my mom and we have a decent relationship, though I'm more of the parent than the child. But that took a lot of work to build. Ms. Skinniness I get what you're saying, too. The body and our habits really do tell stories about our upbringing. I have entire branches of my family tree that I cut off once I started realizing how damaging those relationships were to me. I can't believe how much letting all of those toxic people go has improved my life. In any case, even preparing your own meals is a big deal. Did you know that overseas (at least in Eastern Europe) they believe American women do not/cannot cook? My housekeeper in Bishkek was floored by the fact that I can cook and bake. For me, it's a quiet place. I started doing it as a kid to escape. I'd just grab a cookbook, find a recipe we had the ingredients to make and cook something new on the weekend. Now I do it to feed my family and find it incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. I'd hate to earn my living this way but it's just amazing to me how enjoyable it is to spend time teaching my twins how to cook and teaching myself new skills and techniques. Anyway, blah blah. I'm off to get my crown fitted - hooray for that. Good luck today, oregondaisy! I hope that your root canal is as painless as mine was. Hope everyone is doing well. Dodge those Mars bars, FYE - no way you want any of that! To be honest, I've never had one of those...or any fair food for that matter, beyond cotton candy, funnel cakes or kettle corn. I suppose I've lived a sheltered life. ~Cheri

Everyone should cook!! I guess I say that because I enjoy it so much, but it's true. I know everything that's in my food, I can adjust/tweak recipes to meet my needs and it's so much more enjoyable. It doesn't matter if I can only eat 5 pieces of that chicken I made (roughly 2 oz.) when I'm at the table with my family and I'm really enjoying my food. Same calories in a Protein Bar, but not nearly as satisfying. I'm sorry that my hair loss is due to my little one, but I figured as much. I hope it slows soon. Supersweetums, I'm firmly of the belief that I was to some extent 'destined' by genetics to be fat. I mean, I come from a family where even at 250 pounds and a size 20 I was the skinny one. But I also think that what started the gain and kept me gaining was emotional. I think my weight was just a big external sign of the special kind of messed up I was (am?) on the inside. I forgot to report yesterday that I was down 4 tenths of a pound. Week three on 5:2 loss: 2 tenths of a pound. That, my friends, is my old loss pattern. I hope I have a better week! Fast day today. Was down 2 more tenths on the scale. I hate crawling to goal. I'd like to fly there, thank you. Hope you gals have a great day. ~Cheri

I bounce up on the scale when I start exercising. It eventually adjusts but it takes a while. I hit a nine week stall between 9-12 months post op and my loss slowed down to a crawl from 12-17 months, when I finally hit goal. I think that you've lost a tremendous amount of weight in one year (good work!) and that your body is going to lose more slowly now that you're closer to goal. What is your goal weight? Let's assume it's 145 since that's out of overweight on the BMI chart (damn that thing, I hate it) and it's not unattainable. So that's approximately 45 more pounds to lose? I'd keep doing what you're doing and possibly work on increasing your calories if you find yourself totally stalled out now that you're exercising. Give what you're doing another week or two and see where you're at. It's normal to see our loss slow after a certain point and you've just thrown a new thing (exercise) at your already shocked body. Good luck - I doubt you'll find this is your stopping point. But I regret to say that it's likely that your days of shedding several pounds a week are either at or coming to an end. It happens! So just work on that mental shift you need to do and keep plugging. Great work so far - that's a me-sized person you shed in the last year. That's amazing! ~Cheri

Everyone does what works for them and I admit I did not read the earlier responses so forgive me if I repeat. But full fat, real sugar, real food - REAL food. Always, always, always. Those fake foods do not satisfy us the same way and in many cases (especially with sweeteners) they're chock full of chemicals we cannot pronounce that do dangerous things our bodies. Those recent studies on the effects of artificial sweeteners on insulin resistance/diabetes are downright scary - the OPPOSITE effect of what people thought they were doing, you know? Look, this isn't a diet. This is a way of life. You want to eat and feel satisfied. You can hardly eat a sizeable amount - yes, I've got more capacity but I still can't sit down and eat a lot. A spoonful of real sour cream vs. fat free is not a huge difference, so unless you have heart disease and high cholesterol there isn't a need to pare calories down to the minimum. And I did happen to see swizzly's post, above and agree on some fronts. Being told to never ever touch a certain calorie range again assumes your body is like someone else's. It's not. It's individual what's going to work for you. So I used to hang between 700-900 calories in loss but in maintenance I could eat all the way up to 1,600 calories (maybe not every day, but most days) and not see any movement on the scale. You need to find what you can eat that will not sabotage your loss or cause a regain, so focus on the numbers, yes (by tracking) but don't feel like 1,200 is this magical stopping/starting point. Work with what works for you. ~Cheri