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I had a similar loss pattern. It took me 17 months to lose 107 pounds, and I lost, on average, just over six pounds a month. I had two nine week stalls along the way. I also lost all of my weight in the last few days of the month, after being the same weight for most of the month and bouncing up a few pounds around my cycle. It is pretty normal for the folks that lose more slowly to fall on and off because our journey is longer and we can't help but compare ourselves to others that lose more quickly. The important things to focus on: Not everyone loses at the same rate, and a loss is still a loss. Try to accept that this is simply how your body works, and be thankful you have a sleeve to help you maintain a healthy, low calorie diet long enough to get to goal. For me, losing the weight would have been impossible without my sleeve - 17 months is too long to hang in there with any diet if you don't have help. Work on overcoming the poor eating habits and emotional eating habits that might have helped you become overweight in the first place. Being a slow loser gave me a great opportunity to work on these issues while I was still plodding my way to goal. I got to goal well adjusted and without the desire to binge or bury my emotions in food. This is the BIGGEST factor in long term maintenance; overcoming the bad habits is necessary if you want to keep the weight off forever without living on a diet forever. Because you're a slower loser, you might find that like me, you can safely incorporate more carbohydrates and eat a more balanced diet before you get to goal. Once I stopped shaving my calories and carbs down to nil, I found that I was still losing at the same pokey pace but that I was feeling 100 times better. Not only did I feel better and have more energy, but that feeling of deprivation was gone, and I no longer beat myself up with the expectation to see a loss on the scale every single morning. There comes a point when regardless of our size or weight we need to learn to love ourselves. It can't only be dependent on the scale, or you'll live your life in fear instead of embracing it with joy. It's hard to overcome the negative ways we view ourselves. But you need to realize that you are a success. You will reach your goal. You can do this. Try to be nicer to yourself. Keep it up. You know what you need to do to lose weight, as you've already shed quite a bit. If you're off track, record your food again. It's worth the hassle and the time spent. Go back on shakes, and eat Protein first. You know all of this. You just have to decide that you're worth the effort, and that you want to work that surgery you had to it's maximum potential. Good luck, ~Cheri

I'm two years out now, but I cook and did it from just a few weeks post op. I'm a serious baker and I bake three or four days a week. I entertain large groups several times a month, too. I love cooking just as much now as I did then. I just don't eat as much as I used to eat! I'd say that in the beginning, when I was on liquids and soft foods, it was a definite concern. I didn't want to be around food much because I couldn't eat it. My way around this was to simply prepare several meals before my surgery and freeze them, so my family could have the home cooked meals they're used to while I was healing. I did a huge Thanksgiving spread for 22 people when I was about four months post op. I enjoyed cooking, I enjoyed having my family eat everything. Over the course of an entire day I got to try a bite of everything I wanted, and I didn't feel resentful or frustrated at all. I'm back in the states visiting family and the first thing I did was make a menu with my family of all the good things I'd bake and cook while I'm here! It's just a part of who I am and it didn't get cut out with my stomach. ~Cheri

Everyone is different. I'm over two years out now but still don't do much Pasta, rice or tortilla. They swell up in my belly and I go from feeling fine to feeling sick with one bite. I don't care for that feeling, and I find it's harder to gauge when I've had enough to eat with these foods because of how they expand. I'll do a few bites of rice or noodles here and there and I make my own varenyky, so I eat a couple of those a few times a year. I'm not feeling deprived or anything. I can honestly eat any food I want (except cow's milk and more than a few bites of ice cream made with cow's milk) but I choose not to eat certain foods because of how they make me feel. I urge anyone trying these foods to go SLOW and only take a few bites and wait a good ten minutes to see if it's going to cause an issue. Once you know your limit it's easier to avoid issues with these foods. ~Cheri

I'm two years out. I'm currently pregnant, but prior to this I was easily maintaining my loss despite eating pretty much whatever I want, within reason. I weigh daily to keep myself accountable and gauge my leeway each day based upon what the scale says and I've had no real problems. I have zero regrets with my sleeve. I only wish I had known about the surgery and chosen to have it done sooner. It is always possible to eat around any WLS, so yes, you could gain weight once you're at goal if you aren't careful. For me, the best approach was to NOT use the sleeve like a diet, but instead to incorporate moderation and variety (and carbs!) into my diet long before I reached goal. Everyone is different, but in my case, I would have viewed reaching goal differently if I had spent the previous seventeen months restricting carbs and calories down to nothing. I would have gone on a hell of a binge, I know that from past experience. Doing the head work and eliminating my poor eating habits and emotional eating prior to goal is what I credit for my easy time in maintenance. I have seen nobody gain all of their weight back with the sleeve. I have never seen a total regain post, EVER, and I've been here more than three years (I lurked a long while before making a profile). I've seen people that stall out and stop losing, but even most of those folks maintain the loss and don't regain. They get about halfway to goal and peter out and fall back into bad habits and stop losing as a consequence. But the good news is that it's very easy to not only pick it back up at any point after surgery, but to lose any regained weight very quickly. Because the sleeve is NOT a bypass, with a limited window of malabsoption and a stretchy pouch. Once you remove 85% of your stomach, it's gone forever. Through real effort (and pain) you might be able to stretch it out about an ounce or two, but it's not giving more than that. It will never, ever hold a massive plate of food again. It's possible to eat around it, but it takes dedication and around the clock snacking on slider foods to do it. A sleeve is just as restrictive more than two years out as it was at one year out. There's no reason you can't lose weight on it, provided your body doesn't have something else going on, no matter how far out from surgery you get. ~Cheri

"Full" isn't the same post op. I'd eat only a few small spoonfuls and stop for a while to make sure it will sit well. Then I'd go back and finish, making sure to eat no more than 2 oz. in the very early stage. ~Cheri

Do your research and start the process. If you change your mind, there's nothing to say you can't cancel at the last minute. But why waste time when you could at least be jumping insurance company hoops to get this done if that's what you do want in the end. I was 242 on my day of surgery and I was 29 years old. My only regret post op is that I didn't know about this surgery when I was 20 years old, because I wish I hadn't spent so many years fighting against my weight, dieting and hating myself, just to gain the weight back over and over again. With interest! Only you can decide what to do. I can say that I "only" had 107 pounds to my goal, but I never in a million years would have gotten here and maintained without my sleeve. Even with my sleeve it wasn't a fast journey - it took me seventeen months to get to goal. No way on this earth could I have stuck to a diet for that long. The sleeve was my answer. Maintenance with it is a breeze if you deal with the emotional/head issues of being overweight while you're getting to goal. I weigh daily, and I have a range of weight I comfortably stay within, and very seldom do I need to restrict myself because I've put on more than I'd like. I eat like a normal person - I choose wisely most of the time but have days where I'm sloppy about it, too. It all evens out. And I don't really gain. In fact, I'm currently pregnant - almost 11 weeks - and have only gained five pounds, even though I was on hormone shots until last week. I still wear my sixes and my size smalls, though I admit that this baby belly is going to make me use Bella Bands to keep wearing them before too long. This has never happened to me before - in my previous pregnancies I was up twenty pounds in the first trimester with a single and with twins. Anyway, only you can decide. I can only tell you what it did for me. There are very few people out there unhappy with their sleeves. And even the people that are unhappy usually wind up happy after they heal or get through their complications. We don't see very many people coming back here after a year talking about how they regret surgery. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of a single post like that I've ever seen. Good luck, whatever you decide. For many of us, this was THE answer to our struggles. ~Cheri

There is NO window of best weight loss with this surgery. Guess what? You still have a sleeve and 85% of your stomach is gone. You still have restriction, if you eat the right foods in the right order. There is absolutely no reason that you can't start over from scratch and make this work for you. It's entirely your choice. You didn't have a brief window of guaranteed malabsorption as with the bypass. Your sleeve is the same now as it was roughly one year out, because the work and effort (and pain) it would take to stretch it any serious amount would be ridiculous. I mean that - you may have stretched it an ounce or two, but there is no way it's giving more than that. And what's an ounce or two in the long haul? Not enough to sidetrack you forever. So, you've lost 100 pounds AND KEPT THEM OFF and cannot possibly consider yourself a failure. If you want to lose more, work at it, because you can do it. Do the five day pouch test. It's a bypass thing but the detox works for us, too. It'll be tough and you'll hate it, but if you get through it, and then start over with the basics you can do this. Track every single bite you put in your mouth, even those drinks. If you don't have a realistic picture of what you're eating, how can you expect to keep it under control? If you can't do the pouch test (I'm not judging, it'd be hard for me at this point, too) simply record your diet as it is now for three days, and adjust your calories downward again by 20%, eating in a good ratio (I do 40% Protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat) and within two weeks, you should have kick started your loss again. Once the loss stops, adjust downward again. And you know you should be eating dense protein first, then your healthy carbs, right? I guarantee that if you try to scarf six ounces of steak you'll have a problem. You've still got restriction, you've just to work with it, not against it. Do that headwork - do it or you'll always have trouble with this. Talk to a counselor or come here and vent, but do something. Get a handle on when and why you eat and try to learn better habits. Find a new emotional outlet and coping mechanism. Find a way to do things in moderation. If you approached your loss as a diet, strictly cutting calories and carbs down to nothing, it's unsurprising if you then fell off the wagon in a hard way. Isn't that what we all did prior to surgery? The sleeve isn't a diet. It is possible to eat a variety of foods, to never feel deprived, and to eat those perfect food choices 90% of the time and do whatever the hell you want with the other 10% and lose weight, and maintain that loss. Right now you're probably addicted to carbs...and food, eating in general. You've gotten back into bad habits. But even though it will be tough, you CAN pick this up and get to your goal. I fell "off" a few times during my journey and had to pick back up again. It's normal, until we learn that we really can have it all if we're smart about it. And really, congrats to you - you have lost 100 pounds and are in a great relationship with someone you love. You have no reason to consider yourself a failure, or to beat yourself up because you haven't achieved goal yet. Good luck, ~Cheri

I've never needed a card to order off the children's or senior menu. Most restaurants are understanding, especially since we're always ordering other meals at the same time. I've never had to go into detail about surgery - I just say I don't eat much and hate to drag home leftovers. Nobody has ever refused me. I couldn't possibly go to a buffet now. Not only could I hardly eat a thing, but if I've only got about twenty bites in me, I want them to be tasty, higher quality food - not bland and tasteless buffet fare. And I admit it - I'm a bit grossed out by all of the people piling high plate after plate after plate of food at a buffet. Can't help it - against my will I became one of those people: the judgmental (only in my head!) ex-fattie. ~Cheri

My BMI was 45 when I started and was higher (53) before I finally opted for surgery. I had high hopes that when they cut out most of my stomach, they'd leave behind a sudden love for exercise but that's not what happened. I still hate it, and will not lie - while I became far more active post op, traditional workouts and sports didn't happen. I still got to goal. I love the way my body looks and I have no real complaints. Loose skin was a given for me due to the amount of weight lost and a twin pregnancy, so I was prepared for it - and it's mostly around my middle where exercise might not have done much for it, anyway. Nausea was an issue for me, but only because I unexpectedly developed lactose intolerance post op. As soon as I eliminated the dairy, the nausea went away. The farther out I get from surgery, the more dairy I'm able to consume, though it's likely that ice cream made from milk/cream and cow's milk will always be off limits for me. I should also note that I had already started exhibiting symptoms of a mild intolerance to dairy prior to surgery, and the sleeve just sped along the natural course of things. It's normal to second guess. I think at some point, even once we're sleeved, most of us hit a stall or a rough spot and think we'll be the first ever real failure at the surgery. shakes can be a challenge but I love mine now and still drink one most days. You just have to find a shake you love and liquids you like mixing it with and you'll be fine. But the sleeve got me to goal and I couldn't be happier. I think once you learn your new normal it's easy to adjust. Good luck, ~Cheri

Miralax in the beginning...and oatmeal every few days now that I eat like a normal person. ~Cheri

I've never enjoyed eating first thing. For me, a protein coffee or tea is the answer, though if you're having issues with coffee it might not be your answer. I mix two scoops of Nectar (chocolate or vanilla) with tea or coffee (sometimes hot, sometimes iced) in a shaker cup and drink that up first thing. By the time it's gone, I'm ready for actual food. Maybe you're one of those folks that needs to start the day with a saltine before anything else. My mom is this way and always has been. She keeps sleeves of saltines around the house and has to eat one or two before she can eat or drink anything else. Weird. Good luck, hope you find a solution! ~Cheri

I think at some point - maybe that first Thanksgiving dinner or holiday party - everyone sort of misses the eating until you're stuffed thing. Or if not that, at least the ability to eat a bite of everything you want to try, instead of just the three things you have room for! But it's fleeting and for me it was easy to adjust to my new normal. I'm now on the other side and completely disgusted when I see people inhaling tremendous portions of food like there's no tomorrow. I never thought I'd be that person (the judgmental - if only on the inside - ex-fattie) but I can't seem to help it. More than two years of very small and now more reasonable portions and anything more than 3 oz. of meat or 1/2 cup of a side seems like excess to me. ~Cheri

Didn't experience this myself (the benefits of self-pay) but wanted to chime in and say that you're not alone. I've seen this posted before. I completely agree with actingnurse - honestly, why on earth would yet another diet make the big difference and somehow prove that cutting out 85% of your stomach is going to be successful? I half think they do it simply to get people to drop out and not have the surgery! The good things you can do in this time (and I wouldn't fret too much about losing, only be careful not to gain) are work on some of those emotional things that have helped us get/remain overweight. Try to pay attention to your eating habits and avoid overeating. This is something you'll have to do at some point so why not start now? And if you're at least tracking your calories, you're building a good habit that will help you achieve success post op. Good luck. If 1,200 calorie diets and extra exercise worked for everyone, none of us would have surgery. We'd be sporting skinny bods from our first round of Weight Watchers! ~Cheri

I never dream about food but did it briefly post op. I think you just miss chewing your meals and it messes with your head! I can tell you from experience that actually eating a sandwich isn't very exciting post op. It took me forever to be able to eat enough of one to feel like it was a worthwhile option! ~Cheri

Cottage cheese, seitan, tofu (in moderation), shakes mixed with soy or hemp milk, and my favorite: Protein coffee. ~Cheri

A plateau is being the exact same weight for three weeks straight. It takes your body time to learn how to deal with major surgery, drastic weight loss and a significantly lower amount of calories. I'm not saying this to tell you to stop complaining - we all get frustrated on our journeys. I'm telling you this because for some people (myself included) losing in stops and starts is our body's normal. I lost all of my weight for the month in about ten days. I stayed the same weight (with a three pound gain around my cycle) for the rest of the month. I lost, on average, just over six pounds a month. And I had two nine week stalls in the 17 months it took me to get to goal. So, my advice is to take heart in the fact that you're losing. Try to let go of the expectation that you'll lose every time you step on the scale. At least once or twice you're bound to see a small gain instead of a loss, and as you near your goal, you'll find that you stay the same weight more often, too. You'll lose. You just removed 85% of your stomach and can't help but lose if you do the right things. ~Cheri

Back up if you're feeling pain and discomfort. Return to the previous food stage until you do not feel pain. In my experience, it's more "normal" (read: common) for people to still be on liquids at two weeks post op. There are exceptions but on my surgeon's post op diet I never felt pain after eating. I felt like I couldn't eat much, but there wasn't discomfort unless I ate too fast or too much. ~Cheri

Since when is losing 79 pounds and keeping it off failure? If you aren't losing at the pace you'd like, but you are active and adhering to a healthy diet, you need to accept that you might just be a slower loser. I thought I'd be down 107 pounds by nine months out...it took me 17 months to hit goal. If you're not already, you need to track your food. Without changing your current diet, track every single bite you put in your mouth for three days. Then, shave 20% off your calories and return to a healthier balance (I do 40% Protein, 30% carbs and 30% fat) and if you don't lose weight after two weeks of doing that, come back and ask for help again. Odds are good you've simply fallen into denial or gotten complacent about your diet. It's normal - I think a lot of us that take longer to lose the weight do this at some point. Pick it up and get back to basics. If you've dropped your Protein shake, reconsider. It's a great way to up your protein totals for the day without adding a ton of extra calories. I always aim for 90+ grams a day. And be sure you're drinking Water between meals and not drinking a lot of excess calories (or diet soda, which isn't good for anyone) without realizing it. Diet alone should help you jump start, but adding in new exercise will certainly help. Consider finding something you can look forward to doing as a daily physical activity. I won't lie, I have trouble with this myself. There is no reason you can't reach your goal weight in your second year post op. Your sleeve is as big as it's getting. It's the same tool it was a year ago - so if you buckle down and get real with yourself you can reach your goal this year. ~Cheri

You look fabulous!!! Hope you had a great evening. ~Cheri

I was eager at about nine months post op to just do another cycle (we used IVF/FET for our two pregnancies) I'm glad we put it off because SO much changed in my body between one and two years post op. It seems like an eternity to wait but the longer you give your body to adjust the better. Between one and two years out, I hit goal and maintained it. Not critical, but because of this some other things worked out. I got over my Vitamin deficiencies. It takes a LONG time for your body to get it together once your diet changes so drastically. I didn't just feel okay, I got to the point where I felt darn good. I was just plain healthier, all around. Eating wasn't a struggle any longer. I could eat everything I need for me and for pregnancy. I wasn't living and breathing my menu for the day because I had to eat around the clock. So, the longer you wait, the better. I am currently pregnant and I can tell you that I never counted on feeling so darn sick this time around. I'm losing hair again - not huge amounts but definitely more than a few months ago. I just struggle with days where I'm so sick I can't eat anything but saltines and dry toast and days where I can eat a small steak, salad and some baked potato. So even at two years out I'm struggling with nutrition. The surge in progesterone doesn't only make me sick - some days it makes me HUNGRY. If I hadn't worked on head hunger vs. actual hunger I'd be eating around the clock. It's like PMS that never goes away...well, without the actual period. But the desire to just eat and eat and eat is there some days. And besides all of that? It's been a bigger mental challenge for me than I expected to expand. Oh, I wanted to be pregnant. I want this baby. But gaining weight, even two pounds? Not easy. Slipping into my favorite pair of jeans and realizing my belly has popped enough that I can't button them? That makes for a bad day, no matter how much you want a baby! These are just some of my experiences but they're things you should consider. A lot of women report increased fertility once they lose weight. Not everyone, though, so don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it once you do start trying. Some MTFs have programs where they do fertility workups and treatments. Oh, and BE CAREFUL with birth control. Many, many women get on here after surgery because their hormones are out of whack and their birth control causes unwanted side effects. I had Mirena and had to have it removed because I simply could not lose weight with it in. So if you change your birth control post op and notice an issue remember that our bodies don't always react the same as they did prior to surgery. Best of luck to you. For this year post op, focus on YOU. Lose the weight, get it all together nutritionally, shed the head issues that come with being overweight and get to goal. After that, start trying and focus on adding to your family. ~Cheri

OA can really help a lot of people. There's a great book, a very short read, about overeating called "Hungry" by Allen Zadoff. He's not a surgery advocate and didn't have surgery, but it does address his journey with overeating and how he overcame it. The sleeve WILL prevent you from eating massive amounts of food and it will do it from day one for the rest of your life. Eating enough to stretch it even the small amount it will give will cause you pain and you will simply toss the extra bites of food back up. This is not a pouch that will slowly give way to overeating. It will never stretch out to anything remotely like a preop stomach. That said, it's possible to eat just about any food with the sleeve, and we have no malabsorption. So if you make the choice to eat massive amounts of, say, ice cream or pudding, there is nothing to stop you. Nothing in the sleeve forces you to eat less calories, at least once you're healed. If you make the same poor choices after surgery, you will not succeed in reaching your goal. Sure, you can't eat a whole pizza, an order of wings and drink two liters of soda. But you could easily consume over 2,000 calories a day if you made them slider foods. I've seen very few people post about regains on here. I've seen a small number of people come back here because they've only managed to lose a third of their excess weight and need help getting back on track. There could be a larger number of people struggling and they're simply not admitting it out in a public forum. There's no way to know. Just like any WLS, the sleeve can only take you so far. I think the most important part of reaching and maintaining goal is working on the emotional/mental issues that make us fat in the first place. Beyond that, the sleeve really is only a tool that gives us the restriction we need to feel satisfied with less food. Don't hold me to it, but I'm pretty sure that every single time someone has posted on here with real issues losing, they admit to not really following a good diet. I know that every regain post I've seen has had to do with people not working on their issues prior to goal and being unprepared for life in maintenance. You would have to WORK at eating the wrong things to fail at the sleeve. But the most important thing any of us can do to ensure a fully healthy body and mind after surgery (and for the rest of our lives) is working through the baggage, not just aiming for a number on the scale. So OA, counseling, coming here - whatever it is that you need to do to work on things - you have to do it. If you don't, you'll get to goal and have learned nothing more than how to lose weight restricting calories and you won't have the tools you need or the healthy outlook to easily maintain. I, personally, LOVE my sleeve. It got me to goal. It took away my hunger and let me stick to the restrictive diet I needed for the 17 months it took me to hit goal. It gave me the time I needed to work on my emotional eating and overeating issues, which was much easier to do when food wasn't as appealing and it was difficult to eat much. I'm maintaining pretty easily and I now eat pretty much whatever I want but I do it in moderation. I'm normal, and I couldn't have done it without my sleeve. ~Cheri

Boy, my body stuck at 160 exactly for nine stinking weeks! It didn't want to move past what had been a previous low weight. But I hung in there and kept on and eventually broke through it. I think I blew through the 150s in only four weeks. So what I'm saying is keep going and it happens. There's absolutely no reason you can't keep going as long as you like, until 100% of your excess weight is gone. Once your sleeve is a year old, it's as big as it's getting. Good luck! I'm sure you'll blow past your doctor's more conservative goal if you work at it. ~Cheri

There's nothing to stop you from losing well over 100 pounds with the sleeve and I've seen posters here that have done that. I lost 107 pounds. Unlike a bypass, you do not have a perfect window of opportunity where you have the best malabsorption and an unstretched pouch - your sleeve remains the same from roughly one year onward. There is absolutely NO reason you cannot continue to lose weight until you've lost 100% of your excess weight if you adhere to a healthy diet. If you have less than 150 pounds to lose, I'd very carefully weigh the pros and cons of bypass vs. sleeve, particularly a blind stomach, stretchable pouch and a lifetime of supplements due to nutrient malabsorption. That said, every single person here chose the sleeve - so we're all biased and feel we made the correct choice! ~Cheri

I topped out at my very largest somewhere around 280 (I'm 5'1" and some change) but was 242 on the day of surgery. At goal I'm 135 pounds, but I currently weigh 139 pounds (I'm two months pregnant). ~Cheri