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Good luck ladies! A word of advice since I was just there myself: take it easy on the scale postpartum, and remember that it takes time. Postpartum was far more challenging for me than I had anticipated. I'm not sure why but I know that the big thing I tried to focus on was getting the weight off. My daughter is three months now and I'm finally back to my pre-pregnancy weight and would like to shed just a few more pounds to be well into my maintenance window again. Breastfeeding did help me shed weight immediately but this is different for every woman. My friend keeps an extra 20 pounds of padding while breastfeeding that doesn't go away until she weans. I ended up with back to back to back mastitis this time, though, and by the third round of antibiotics (fourth if you count the first set they gave me in my IV!) she wasn't tolerating the taste of my milk and my supply had dropped so much that I gave up. However, within just a few weeks of delivery I was back in my pre-pregnancy pants (the more roomy ones I saved for TOM) so it's definitely possible to shed the weight without too much trouble. Good luck to both of you, and I can't wait to see updates once your babies arrive! ~Cheri

I dug out my dusty 30 Day Shred disc. I like that it's challenging but short. I do my workout each day and feel a sense of accomplishment when I'm done. I have this DVD binder that must have about thirty different workout discs in it...I think I'll try another one once I finish up the month on this one. One of my pre-surgery weight loss resolution habits was to buy workouts and swear I'd start them. I never did more than one or two workouts on any of these discs, with the exception of a really wonderful stress relief yoga workout I have. Maybe my "stay in maintenance and get in better shape" resolution should be to work my way through that binder and stay active. ~Cheri

This is the third or fourth time I've read through this thread and I finally want to post here. It will be long (I mean, even longer than my usual) so I apologize for that but I want to give a lot of detail because I invite conversation about this. I don't know that I have an answer for the OP, except that I think that the PPs are right and women that always want to be ten pounds lighter or anorexics would flock to get the surgery if it were offered as preventative. It's a huge risk and a massive lifestyle change so there's that to consider, too. Before I go further I'd like to ask that I not get attacked for what I'm going to say. I welcome dialogue but I try very hard to be honest and realistic with myself. The issue with preventative surgery is that we don't know what would have happened without it. But I look at my daughter and I see myself. I see my mom. I see my grandmother and I see my sister. Understand, at 250 pounds I was the skinniest woman in my family. I come from a long line of fat ladies! We do not talk about our bodies in my house in anything but a positive way. When we weigh, we simply state our "numbers" and move along. I put no emphasis, positive or negative, on the scale with my kids or my stepkids. I might want to gnash my teeth when I weigh, but we keep it together and we never, EVER put ourselves down or use words that make it seem that one size or body shape is preferable to another. I have four stepdaughters (one with full blown anorexia) and two daughters of my own. My five and a half year old is a twin. She is beautiful and smart and as sweet and caring as can be. There is no denying any of this. But she is also obese. I do not ever say that to her and nobody else has, either. She has no idea that the way she looks is different. But she is going to start school in the fall and I'm sure she'll notice it soon. My second youngest stepdaughter was six the first time she came home and told me she was fat. If you have daughters or you remember being a young girl, you know what it's like and how girls rank themselves in school by smarts and by looks. When we did their school physicals the doctor brought Ahava's weight up and I immediately jumped on her and asked her to wait to talk to me separately. We had to have blood drawn for tests - five vials of it! Everything came back normal or borderline, so no issues per the doc. Well, the same thing happened to me (and to my mom) every time they tested me until I got diabetes and they finally said, "Oh, you're insulin resistant." Gee, thanks for that - would have been nice to know what part of my issue is when I started seeing doctors about my weight when I was fifteen! See, my daughter is not an unhealthy eater. This is the difference between her upbringing and mine. Her favorite Snacks are raw veggies. She does great with moderation and eats a good, balanced diet. Except when she eats a processed bread product, Pasta or rice - then it's like that carb monster wakes up and she insists she needs more food even when I know she's full. I never tell her not to eat more, but we try to divert her choice. Before we realized what an issue this was, the child could eat herself sick on pasta - literally eating so much that she'd puke. Her body keeps demanding more and so she keeps eating. I relate. It's EXACTLY what it was like for me prior to surgery. She's active. She sees that I'm active. She never sees me binge on things (I used to witness my mom eating an entire bag of chips Ahoy or a box of Ding Dongs in a sitting as kid) and she is learning good habits and healthy ways to eat. But she not only outweighs her twin by nearly twenty pounds (he's built exactly like my husband) she's also in plus size little kid clothes. I either have to buy plus for her or size up and hem. It's hard for me. I am a cheerleader for her and I never want her to feel less if she's just made this way and cannot help it. But oh, it hurts me to think she might have the same struggles I had as a kid. Now, in all fairness, she could hit a certain age and sprout up and thin out. We keep thinking it will happen (she's also 90th percentile for height) but it hasn't yet. But all of that aside, I can see how I might consider this surgery for my daughter if she were still fighting her weight in her late teens or early twenties. I do not want her self worth tied up in her appearance the way it is for so many women (myself included, at times) but I also do not want her to feel bad about herself or make her wait for the inevitable health issues to trouble her first. So it's a complicated situation and I feel differently about it now than I might have a year ago. I might have scoffed at the idea, but what would be different in my life had I been able to regain some confidence as a sixteen or eighteen year old girl instead of waiting another ten years? Don't we all say we wish we had surgery sooner? Haven't a number of us expressed frustration with the strict insurance guidelines that insist your life must be in danger before they'll help you? Where's the line here? I certainly don't want her to develop diabetes in her twenties the way I did. Now, again, her lifestyle is totally different than mine. As twelve I found that one of the only things I could relate to my mom about was a love of food in massive, hidden quantities. And so began my own binges on boxes of Ho-Hos or Toaster Strudels in the middle of the night. If I can help it, she will never learn those things from me, but I wonder how we'd both feel later on if this is an issue for her despite a healthier lifestyle. Anyway...enough rambling. I'm thankful for my husband who loved me better than I was able to love myself and who has stayed with me through that journey. He is wonderful with Ahava and is always reassuring her and helping her see that there is so much more to beauty than a size, shape, skin color, whatever. It's harder for me. I do it but I always feel like a hypocrite. I mean, I removed most of an organ to be skinny. Healthier, too, sure, but vanity was a huge part of it. This probably makes no sense. Ugh...I need to find other ways to work things out for myself! I used to journal but when you have half a dozen kids in the house you learn that you have no privacy, even in the places where you thought you had some! ~Cheri

I HATE exercise. I mean, in a real way. Only once in my life have I enjoyed it and that was when I was single and had no kids and could zone out on a treadmill and run my stress out. I never lost weight with exercise alone but it did make me feel better. I am busy. I know we all are, but I have enough trouble getting six hours of sleep in a night (and that was before the most recent addition to our brood) and have never felt that exercise was worth the investment. I'm losing weight without it and I got to goal and maintained without real structured exercise. Just because I don't enjoy formal exercise does not mean I'm a slug. I move all day long every day. It's a big deal that I take fifteen to forty five minute breaks and sit on my laptop. When I'm not here, I'm doing something else, I assure you. I fit exactly one hour of television time into my entire week and thirty minutes per evening reading before bed. Ain't no way I want to replace either of those time slots with getting sweaty and sore! That said...I am actually on day five of a workout DVD that I'm really enjoying and I have done my short circuit workout each day. Am I losing because of that? Doubt it - really. I usually pack on pounds when I start exercising and it takes longer than five days for it to regulate. However, I do feel better. I might get stronger doing this, I might not. But for now, it's a very welcome stress release and every day I do it I feel like I earned a gold star in my "things I'm doing just for me" column. Because as other moms and wives on here probably know (no offense menfolk) everything but that TV and book time is about everyone else. I enjoy my life and I find it fulfilling, but I still need a few uninterrupted minutes to work off my frustration! Will I start to love exercise? Doubt it. But I am getting to the point where even I can't say I don't have thirty minutes to work up a sweat. The big kids are big enough to entertain themselves, my twins are no longer in full time destructo mode and my baby takes three naps a day. I can spare the time, even if I don't completely enjoy it. ~Cheri

Oops, scratch that - I have a friend that gets injections done at Minute Clinic and thought they did her prescription but their site says you must have a previous prescription for them to do the injections. Ouch. Good luck with your insurance - it might be covered.

sublingual B12 pills are just about anywhere - you can find them in a lot of supermarkets and at your local Target or Walmart or wherever you shop. I was living overseas when I started on my B12 so it was actually way cheaper for me to get it locally than through my insurance. My doctor at our clinic told me what to buy and told me a safe pharmacy to use. She also gave me needles and did my first two injections (I was on them weekly for a while) for me so I knew how. It was no big deal; it's a sub-Q injection and I've jabbed myself with all sorts of needles for IVF in the past. In the states, injectable B12 is only available with a prescription, I believe. I think that Minute Clinic (in CVS Pharmacies) will diagnose you and do the injection for something like $20 if you don't have insurance that will cover it. In my case it was roughly $3 to buy twelve vials of B12 and the needles for the injections when I was in Bishkek. So rather than deal with my ridiculous Tricare insurance I just brought home enough B12 to get me through the next 18 months. ~Cheri

Thank you, I was 242 day of surgery and weigh 140 right now. I had a baby a few months ago and am still shedding those last few pounds. My maintenance window is usually 137-141 so I have a little bit to go yet. However, I do not want to derail this thread and turn it into a yay me post - so if anyone else has questions either check out my profile or my posts! I mean that in the nicest way possible, too. ~Cheri

Yep, like clockwork, I gained at least three pounds during my cycle every single month. In fact, my personal weight loss pattern for every month, even the first one, was to remain at the same weight for about the first three weeks of the month. I'd bump up for my cycle, and in the last week to ten days of the month I'd shed all my weight for the month all at once. Put the scale away or you'll make yourself nuts. Your body is going to do what it wants and you can't help that. ~Cheri

Hey now! I think that while I appreciate the sentiment behind mark's post, I think it's misleading to say we'll look like we have cadaver skin if we don't work out. Is exercise going to help with some of that? Well, at least it will make the muscles under the skin look great and burn off more fat. But I'd argue that a huge part of the loose skin is due to genetics and a personal ability to bounce back more than it is to exercise. I have loose skin around my midsection but I also had a set of twins. The rest of me bounced back quite nicely around 18 months post op, and as evidenced by the photos below, I don't have cadaver skin despite not exercising! Again, though, I stress that exercise IS beneficial in a lot of ways. But I'd focus more on building strength, restoring depleted muscle and a sense of overall well-being as the better benefits. I'd hate for newbies to stumble here and think that exercise is the magic bullet for loose skin. It's not. On the other side, people should understand that my genetics allowed me to bounce back in a way some other's might not (and trust me, that's about the only good thing they did for me!) so you can't look at anyone else's progress and predict your own. A good way to hedge your bets is to find a way to exercise that you enjoy and take care of yourself! ~Cheri

Carbs are most likely not your enemy. In fact, I'll say carbs are not your enemy, not at all. Quality of carbs can be an issue for people that are triggered to binge on them. But otherwise? We NEED carbs. Now, I do admit that I avoid rice and Pasta for the most part. But not because of the carbs or even the quality of carb - they're just hard for me to eat with a tiny stomach. I'd rather enjoy my meal, not find myself overfull before I'm done eating! I do not want to come off condescending or preachy. But this is not Atkins, part two. This is about finding a way to eat that you can maintain FOREVER. Because right now? You've got your eyes on goal. That's the big hurdle you want to cross, right? Well, you can't see it yet, but over that hurdle is a long, long and winding road that we call maintenance. Ask yourself right now: "Can I avoid carbs and never eat them again and live on 40 grams or less a day forever?" If the answer is no, you need to find ways to incorporate a good variety of foods and you need to learn how to eat those carbs without going bonkers and binging or without stalling out your weight. If you don't do it now, you'll have to do it in maintenance. Maintenance is hard no matter what; do not complicate it by having to teach yourself moderation there, too. The best diet for you and the right proportions are something only you can figure out - it's when you can eat a diet that makes you feel satisfied without deprivation but also keeps you losing weight. It's finding a way to eat that you can easily adjust once at maintenance to ideally keep at goal for life. So. My advice? Incorporate more carbs of whatever type you like. Track your food daily. Do not view this as the time to add in a ton of processed food or white sugar. Those things are okay, and you do need to learn how to eat a small, sensible portion of them and walk away. But start with the good stuff. Bring in some healthy grains or a thin slice of homemade bread. Add in a little fruit. Find a balance and make it work for you. ~Cheri

PPI, are you on one? You should be. If you're on one, be sure it's working for you - I had to change what I was on from Nexium to Prevacid (didn't work at all!) to Prilosec (I used generic omeprazole) before I felt relief. Do not assume that a lack of burning in your throat means you don't have too much acid. More often, the only symptom is that rumbling tummy and a never ending feeling of hunger. That feeling of hunger is almost always acid and it can fool any of us - I'm three years out next month and haven't had to take a PPI regularly outside of pregnancy since six months post op. But if I'm having a lot of acid? It sounds and feels EXACTLY like a grumbly tummy. So, first line of defense when you feel hunger is ALWAYS to evaluate whether or not you're taking a proton pump inhibitor like Prilosec. Tums does not count, and despite being a PPI, many have come here to report Prevacid doesn't control the acid (it didn't for me, either) so make sure you're on something. Beyond that, in the early days of liquids and soft foods it's hard to feel satiety from a mental perspective. We want food because we can't chew and that makes us think about food all the time. Find a Protein that works. I promise, I've had to try more than thirty over the last three years to find things I like that don't bother my system. There is something out there for you, too. Protein is necessary and it's going to be a long while before you can consume enough food (and in enough variety to keep you from going insane!) to get the nutrients you need. Find samples online and keep trying, it's worth the effort! Spend any time around here and you'll see people remind themselves and others that they operated on your stomach, not your brain. Those desires to eat are so often mental and emotional, not physical. And finally, worst case scenario? Maybe you didn't lose the hunger. It's doubtful, because in four years around here (I lurked a good six months before starting to post) I've only seen three or four people with this issue. Even if that's the case, you have a sleeve that's going to help you immensely. How well you do has nothing to do with even the size of your stomach - it's what you put in it that counts. People that don't feel hunger can still fizzle out before goal and embrace bad habits like binges or grazing. How well you do is entirely up to you and the choices you make. That said, it's most likely acid, I promise. ~Cheri

There is no way that immediately post sleeve you are gaining due to your intake. Sorry, but even if you're scarfing bowls of ice cream (and you're clearly not!) you're not scarfing enough to pack on six pounds. And I promise you, you do not need to eat sugar free and fat free everything or else you won't lose - in fact, I'd strongly argue that eating REAL food will not only be more beneficial to your body, it's going to give you an edge in the mental game by staving off cravings later. Right now when you're hardly able to eat is a great time to learn moderation and how to eat those "normal" foods without losing your cool and eating too much. If you're female, TOM or hormonal changes can pack on pounds. I gained every single month around my cycle. It fell off quickly. Here's the deal: it's hard to remember but you can't compare how you lose to everyone else. Know what? The other folks that are in a pattern like you might not be posting. It's the folks that are dropping a ton of weight that come here to cheer about it and how happy they are. That doesn't mean that everyone but you is losing. I didn't lose anything my first month until about twenty days in. No joke. In fact, I think I gained eleven pounds in the hospital and from my flights. So, breathe. Relax. Focus on getting your fluids in. Try to work on upping your Protein intake because protein, protein, protein is going to help you out. And put that scale away if it makes you mad or depressed. In loss, weighing every few days or once a week is better, in my experience. It's in maintenance that you want/need that daily accountability. That expectation to see a drop every single time is going to get you down, because unfortunately, that's not how the process usually works. Best of luck and congrats on that new sleeve! ~Cheri

The gummies are better than nothing, and for a while were the only thing I could tolerate. But they're not complete, so you should keep trying for the chewables, liquid or regular Vitamins as you progress post op. I found that a chewable prenatal was better than the Flintstones vitamins and while it still had a taste that I didn't enjoy it did not make me nauseated all day long. They also included Iron which was a huge plus to me; I require an additional prescription iron supplement and was able to cut my dose because of this. A big thing to always take is your sublingual B12. No joke. For me, the sublingual wasn't enough (I do injections) but sometime after about nine months the B12 deficiency started to really drag me down. Until I had panels done more than a year post op I wasn't aware there was such an easy fix, so try to stay on top of that. Good luck, ~Cheri

You can PM me with specific questions about pregnancy or look at the posts I made on the board. I can say that I did NOT get the nice window of remission after delivery this time. I'm only three months post partum. I had been using Nuva Ring to control symptoms but it's not cutting it this time. I don't want to try any other hormonal treatments until I'm well into my weight loss window again (I'm just a few pounds away now, so soon but not yet) because I cannot lose weight on hormones. My endo is causing me more pain than it has in years and years. Initially post VSG I did seem to experience a lessening of symptoms. And no lie, for about six months after my Mirena was removed I still felt no symptoms or pain. But now it's pure misery and I'm hoping to get back to my usual weight so I can have one put in again. It's hard enough to enjoy "alone time" with my husband postpartum but the pain is just horrible this time. I'm also a bit concerned that my lower back pain is a sign that I have widespread adhesions...again. It's frustrating, and I don't really want another lap right now. At least they don't (yet!) appear to be on my bladder again - incontinence AND pain is not something I ever want to repeat! Best of luck to the ladies here - I hope you can find something that works to control your symptoms and also helps you lose weight. ~Cheri

Like Butterthebean, I also feel like I looked for struggling posts before. But I know that while there are more now, I think that I also didn't want to see the negative side before. So I'd quickly browse those posts and think "Well, that won't be me" and move along. The vets that were here when I was researching are mostly gone, with the exception of Oregondaisy. I think part of why you see so many people sharing is the plain awesomeness of the group we have hanging around. Okay, more likely it's that we 1) have a place of our own to vent that stuff. I mean, where would you do it before the vet board? Would you charge into the general discussion area and throw it out there? Probably not. Also, 2) People are staying active here on the forums for more than nine months. I think the real struggles for most folks are more than a year post op. The norm before was about nine months, come back to post a one year hooray me! post and disappear again. Only a small handful of people were the vets "in charge" of answering all those questions and giving support all over the forums. For them, it was surely exhausting and probably made it doubly difficult to realistically post about struggles. And I know for a fact that two of them, in particular, spent a huge amount of time answering personal PMs for people. It gets draining and it's also hard to admit (while cheerleading and leading the way for others) that you're struggling, too. Just my opinion, but I have lots of those. As for the rest - I cannot do the abstinence thing. We are all different. For me, that instantly makes whatever I'm avoiding the thing I want most in the world. I put myself in a position where I must summon a mountain of willpower to stay away. I know this because it's how I lived as a diabetic. Abstain, abstain, abstain, BINGE, guilt, weight gain, guilt, abstain, abstain, abstain, BINGE, repeat until you're 120 pounds overweight and positively miserable, and oh yeah, your blood sugars are a disaster, too. So if it wasn't bad that your mind feels like crap from this cycle, your body does, too. But some people really, really have to stay away entirely. I think for me, the enemy isn't the food. Sure, I limit my "exposure" to the issue so to say by keeping some things out of the house, especially when I'm feeling bad. But for me the real issue is mindfulness. If I think about what I eat, I have no problems. So my issue isn't obsessing about food - I only do that when it's forbidden. It's in my head. If I think about what I plan to eat that day, if I have a plan, I'm fine. If I just sit around and eat or join in with my friends at a restaurant and have everything they're having, without thinking about it or logging my food first, I have a problem. And when I'm stressed or emotional or whatever I'm less likely to put myself first and plan my food out. It's when I "wing it" for dinner that I run into frying homemade pizza rolls rather than roasting some chicken breasts. So for me, and my very organized and in charge personality, I need planning and mindfulness to stay on top. It's different for everyone, though. I think that those with the real triggers are the ones that have the toughest struggle. Abstaining is hard and one little slip for those people can mean sliding down the whole darn slope. I feel like I went crazy off the rails last week. When, in fact, I didn't track my food for roughly ten days and spent about a week eating whatever I wanted. I gained one pound. For me, that's a big deal. For other people, that can be part of every month, you know? That makes it a totally different place to be coming from and I think it also means you need a different approach. I think that's why 5:2 is working for a lot of the vets lately. No abstaining, a little less stress and pressure about food choices. It's not a free pass but I dunno. I feel like I can breathe more easily and be more forgiving of myself. And yeah...I'm putting the scale away (no, I really am this time, my husband hid it from me again!) but I'm down another pound today. Make that ten pounds, five days on 5:2 and I'm two pounds away from usual goal weight window and one pound under my pre-pregnancy weight. Today is day six and I feel like I didn't just shed weight I shed a load off my mind. I don't know if the fast did it or what but I feel less foggy and unhappy. ~Cheri

Oh man, I love a good bowl of grits with some salt and cheese. I was horribly sick with my pregnancy and couldn't keep anything down until I finally tried some grits. Sure enough, that worked! I must have eaten a bowl every day for three months because it was one of the few foods that wouldn't give me morning sickness. Mmm...now I need to find a good reason to make baked cheese grits for supper... ~Cheri

Congrats! I actually had a couple "doh" moments during my pregnancy. I'd been off my PPI for a long while because I didn't need it. But boy, as soon as I got pregnant I did need it. I felt hungry around the clock and it actually took several weeks for me to realize I needed Prilosec again. Oops. Now I only need to treat acid once in a while but sure enough, I'll get that grumbly tummy and feel hungry and that's when I know I need to take something that day. ~Cheri

Oh, and I mean to add that if you're at/close to goal and Mirena is an option it is the only treatment I have ever tried that stopped the pain. It also (after a few weeks) stopped my cycle - so not only was I not experiencing the daily pain, I wasn't forced to endure that terrible ten days of the month, either. Caveat: I had to have mine removed because while I was in early loss I simply could not lose and I felt more hormonal with it in. I can honestly say that my hormones were wacky the entire first year I was losing, though, so the only thing I can be sure it did was slow my already slow loss down. However, there are plenty of ladies here (check the powder Room) that use it and love it and have no problems. Good luck, ~Cheri

I did the one shot mega dose of Lupron...not to treat endo but to conceive (we did a FET last year). I actually had less side effects than I had in 2007 when I was morbidly obese. That time I was miserable with the side effects and felt horribly sick for days. This time, I couldn't even tell a real difference. ~Cheri

Every doc is different so see if yours had guidelines. Lettuce was hard on me. In fact, I still can't really consume much iceberg or I get very sick. I think most people don't do raw veggies until four months, and I have read a number of folks complaining that they're hard to eat for even longer than that. All you can do is try it out and see how you do. I always recommend going very slow when introducing a food known to bother people, though. I was hardly able to fit any salad in until more than a year post op. Now I eat at least one salad every day, sometimes I'll have two or three different kinds in a day. Of course, we eat salads in the Eastern European tradition - there are always four or five different ones in the house at any given time! ~Cheri

Okay, another vote to try 5:2 from me. You've struggled for a long time with those stubborn pounds and with staying at goal. Me, too! Well, not with staying at goal...but we all know I scooted my goal up because I just couldn't get smaller! I did a detox starting last Friday and fasted. I was making myself cuckoo over food and the scale so I put the scale away. I hadn't intended to start 5:2 yet but honestly? I had already done the two fast days so I went ahead and tracked my food and kept my calories under control and was watching what I was eating. I'm not sure if it's that I finally stopped dieting or if not looking at the scale did it, or even if just not stressing out and talking to my husband about the crap bugging my brain lately...but my pants were loose this morning so I did weigh and HOLY FREAKING SH*T I am down 9 pounds. Yeah, you heard me - I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight and it only took 4 days. Now yeah, PdxMan can hop on here and tell me it was my glycogen stores and he's probably right, but lemme tell you - I'd been watching what I eat like a hawk for 2.5 months before sliding off track two weeks ago. I have no idea what's going on, but there is nothing to stop you from giving it a shot. And the reason I finally tried it was that after really looking into it, this is how I was maintaining so easily before I had my daughter. Without realizing it, I was pretty much doing 6:1 and it was absolutely effortless to maintain. Join us and give it a shot. Nobody wants to diet forever, that's for sure. I'm actually going to stay on 5:2 and see how far I can go with this. I still intend to stay off the scale and not weigh daily for right now, but this plan clearly does something that works. Thank you for posting this. I have definitely been guilty of phrasing things this way. It is SO easy to be cocky when you're not hungry and eating isn't of interest. Until my recent struggles I really felt that it was a clear-cut and simple choice and of course I would never make those choices. But the reality for me is that I do not have to be hungry to eat. I've spent my life eating for a myriad of reasons and you know what? I enjoy it. I like food. I love to cook, I love to bake and I get pretty darn excited about my KAF catalog showing up. I mean, I order cookbooks for fun and I read them cover to cover like books! Food and I? We have a serious relationship. A pretty dysfunctional one at times, but it's there all the same. We're smart people. But we're also human. We've also found a method to deal with things that involves food. And our emotions about food have got to be pretty darn similar to a drug addict's feelings about their drug of choice. We don't get to walk away from that just because we have sleeves and just because we can get to goal. I may not have to diet forever. But I will most assuredly have to watch myself for the rest of my life when it comes to food. I am only lately really, truly grasping the meaning of that. The quote about treating the primary symptom? Yeah, that's exactly right. Because the rest of it - everything that helped make me fat - is not ever, ever going away. Oh sure, some of it can be dealt with and shelved but I doubt many of us ever get rid of all of it. If it were so simple, WLS would be 100% effective at ridding us of 100% of the weight 100% of the time. And that's definitely not the case. Hop back up on the wagon with us. Give 5:2 a shot if you need a jump start. I can't give you any different coping mechanisms than I've posted elsewhere. You have to find that thing that works for you to stop, or at least stay in charge. Best of luck - I think it's easy for us to beat ourselves up over not being perfect. Here we have this great tool to help us, but we still find ourselves struggling. Well, the issue was never in our stomachs in the first place, so removing them only does so much! ~Cheri

Let me tell you as someone sleeved three years ago next month - not only no, but hell no. Oh yes, it's so easy in the beginning not to eat. Your sleeve is puny. I hated food. I hated eating. I resented that I had to eat around the clock just to consume 400 calories and 60 grams of Protein. I got cocky, no lie. I was sure I was the one that was never going to have a problem because I didn't even want to eat and never felt hunger. Fast forward to life after goal and in maintenance, a sleeve with double the capacity (still small, don't go freaking out on me) and any stressful life event. Guess what you want to do? EAT. It doesn't matter that I almost never feel hunger and that I'm not obsessed with food any longer. I still love it. I can still get out of control if I let myself. I still have to make good choices. I can easily, EASILY eat over 2,200 calories in a day if I don't think about what I'm eating and if I make poor choices. It's come to my realization that you do not have to FEEL hungry to stuff your face. You can eat mindlessly, just because it's there. You can eat emotionally, just because you're sad. You get to maintenance, you're not eating on Atkins part two anymore and day by day that little evening treat can go from a few pretzels to a cookie to a few Cookies to a dang bowl of ice cream to a sundae with hot fudge and whipped cream. I've seen people post about it over and over again here. Do not deceive yourself. Will the sleeve make your journey easier? In some respects, yes. Those months when food is challenging are the perfect time to build new habits. Does the old you go away? Nope, not ever. Or at least not after three years, in my experience. My personal issues are still there. Whatever made me feel good about food before, whatever memories it evoked or whatever feelings I hid in an entire pan of brownies? Those things are still there, waiting to rear their ugly head. I've worked on a ton of my issues and I'm in a far better place, no denying. But these things do not go away just because we get smaller or learn to eat well for a year. Maintenance is the real challenge. If you haven't already read it, I enjoyed "Hungry" by Allen Zadoff. Believe it or not I did not even realize (or admit to myself) that I was an overeater until I read that book. I tell you what - going through the drive through and eating a meal in the car before going home to eat dinner with your family? That's a problem! But I was completely in denial until I read his struggle in print. He did not have surgery and isn't a surgery advocate, but his book did help me. Good luck. If you opt for surgery, great. Just know that you'll be in for a challenge. Good news is that you're not alone. You can join the rest of us battling the same thing! ~Cheri

Get onto the insurance forum and check around for other folks that have your insurance and see what they did and if they had any luck with an appeal. I self paid. I'm Tricare; they do not cover the sleeve. I didn't want a band or bypass, so I went ahead and paid for my own surgery. Not a light decision but honestly? Paying for it myself probably made me the teeniest bit more determined to succeed. Best of luck, sorry you're going through this. ~Cheri

Staying around keeps you accountable. No lie...almost every large regain post I've seen (and really, I've only seen a handful in something close to four years) is someone who was not active here at all. They were out there living life and struggling but not sharing it or forcing themselves to be accountable by talking about it here. I'm guilty of it myself, because when I was having trouble after the birth of my daughter I went off to my hidey hermit hole and avoided VST for a while. I spent a few days doing the mindless snacking thing and gained one pound while still having eight to lose from the baby...no big deal, really, but it goes to show how easy even those of us that have worked very hard at breaking habits and changing our lives can slide in times of stress or anxiety. Being addicted to VST is far less painful than being addicted to french fries. I'll take this addiction any day. ~Cheri

Try Syntrax medical unflavored. It's my favorite unflavored. Mix it in with whatever you're drinking. Okay, not plain Water (I've never tried it but it sounds gross) but Crystal Light, juice, tea, coffee, soup, whatever. I've mixed with all of those and it's undetectable despite the fact that it smells a bit in the container. I could NOT tolerate the unjury products. I ate one or two packets of the chicken flavored but ugh, that Protein had a wretched smell that would make me gag if more than a Tbs. was in anything I was eating. Good luck! Your tastes will change throughout so don't be afraid to try new things. The small tubs of unflavored run about $15-18, so it won't break the bank if you hate it. Oh, and I put two scoops in most everything I make with it, since it's lower in protein per scoop. I can't help with PB2...I hate Peanut Butter. But my only suggestion would be to mix it with a chocolate Protein powder and make a shake, but if you're avoiding sweet things that won't do, will it? ~Cheri