Danilax

I lost 73, regained 17 and was completely out of the weight loss mindset, got back on track with a new plan and down 9 in the last 3 weeks. Factors leading to gain: - After six months my appetite increased a lot. This slowed weight loss considerably and eventually I plateaued. But I believe this is very common at the six month mark. - My plan revolved around eating low carb homecooked meals and working out 5-6 days a week, an hour+ each day. This was working until a health catastrophe which crippled me for months and I'm still not well though at least I can walk now. But I had no idea of a backup plan. I was under a tremendous amount of stress and fear and the days I ate the worst coincided with the days I felt the worst. I would trudge to the store, barely able to see, and buy a bunch of junk I called "my medicine". I couldn't exercise or cook or clean. I ordered takeout every day and the portions were always larger than I needed. - I disconnected from all surgery forums, didn't/couldn't go to support groups, and didn't see my nutritionist since I always had other doctors to see or I wasn't up to the trip. Also shame and not wanting to hear what they'd have to say. It's possible they would have been understanding and could have helped me but I just expected to hear everything I was doing wrong. I started the see the surgery as part of my past, no longer relevant to my life, like old diets. I know others who regained and seeing the surgery as past rather than a present factor is a major issue. - I still have significant restriction, so gaining weight required eating many high calorie foods and skimping on Fluid intake. My therapist, who I am able to see online, really helped me to take care of myself better. He taught me mindfulness techniques which helped me assess why i was overeating. He also encouraged me to ask for help. I found out I qualify for a home health aide. My family will come over and do the dishes. Diet-wise, I had to stop the all or nothing thinking. So I couldn't do low carb or eat healthy meals most of the time. Even eating takeout, I could get my calories down and I did. My dad took me grocery shopping today for the first time in a long time. I was sick and will pay the consequences in pain tomorrow, I already feel it. But I have a kitchen go of ready groceries! I am following the JUDDD plan with 16:8 intermittent fasting. I realized my sleeve is still working for me and I'm free to experiment. I love this plan and I'm grateful for the sleeve that works though I did my best to destroy it.

It's great, just be careful. It has super-high amounts of Fiber and fiber absorbs fluids significantly as it moves through the digestive system. I started with Carbquik about two months after surgery and I suffered serious dehydration. The standard recommendation is 15 grams of fiber for every 1000 calories you eat, but those of us who are sleeved may take months before we even get to 1000 calories so just be careful, moderate, and make sure to drink your fluids. That said, I'm a big fan.

I won't laugh, I'm just glad to see it's not just me! I haven't started dating again yet and it's been 8-10 years since I last seriously tried. I'm allowing myself to just notice men again now because of course I didn't even think it was possible before so I never allowed myself to be attracted or attractive. But now all the men I notice look to be the age I was when I last dated and that's too young! Hope it's just a phase...

Thanks for the well-wishes. I'm six months out! I don't dismiss anything except the concept of good or bad foods for anyone but myself! I also realize that I am not and have never been addicted to food which definitely has an impact on my philosophy. I do track protein and make sure I'm getting in at least 8 glasses of liquids. When I don't do those things it slows down my weight loss, the lack of fluids impacts my digestive system and low protein starts to affect hair health. Because I have problems with low blood sugar after physical activity I keep small things on hand to help with that. I eat a diet high in fiber and note how that effects my body, because after surgery I've found there is a delicate balance between a better-functioning digestive system and dehydration from too much fiber. I have a lot of structure in my eating. I definitely think we should be very mindful of what we eat but to me that means paying attention to how eating makes you feel and putting yourself in optimal situations to encourage your best eating behavior based on that. This is based on Ellyn Satter's Eating Competence Model, which I've known about for a few years since before surgery I worked with a nutritionist who advocated it, but I never felt the freedom to implement it before because I was certain I would just eat everything. This led to the standard overthinking-deprivation-mindlessness-binge cycle a lot of us have gone through. When I saw it was still happening after surgery, the same "I can't eat this because it's high carbs" or "I have to eat every three hours precisely no matter how I feel" and "every meal must have a vegetable or it's not really a meal," I knew I couldn't live like this forever even if I was losing weight. I would eat too much on my "reward day" (another diet concept) and feel crappy. Reading this thread and getting fed up with the concept of guilt being connected with something as wonderful as food inspired me to get Satter's book "Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family" about a month ago. I read bits at a time and started incorporating elements into my life. The overall philosophy of making meals satisfying, delicious and important and allowing the body to adjust clicked for me, but I still didn't trust that I wouldn't just eat a bunch of donuts or something. But that didn't happen at all. I am highly aware of what I eat and why, it's just that nothing is forbidden unless it makes me feel poorly which at the moment I don't tie one way or the other to weight. I'm still losing weight, another seven pounds in the last couple of weeks. I do work out six days a week and am training for a half marathon. Since I don't track calories I don't eat back my exercise calories, but if I check the myfitnesspal reports at the end of the week I am eating a caloric deficit. The calories consumed on a day of peanut butter and bacon are followed by the calories consumed on a day of chicken and spinach. I got the surgery because I hated the feeling that my body had betrayed me, which is how I felt when I was diagnosed with diabetes. I felt the surgery was my hope for being freed from that because it would go a long way to fix my body and help resolve the diabetes and remnants of PCOS. But it was my attitude about my body that was the betrayal.

I get so pessimistic when I track my progress but actually I haven't been doing too bad. Almost 6 months to the day, progress: 266 surgery weight, 202 current weight, 64 pounds in the six months since surgery and now the weight loss is supposed to slow way down argh.... Holy crap, just to amuse myself while writing this post I just put on a size 16 jacket I bought a while ago because it looked so hot. When I bought it it did not come close to closing or even really fitting my arms. I just buttoned that sucker right up! Size 24 at surgery size 16 now I'm feeling better.

I think my dirty little secret is I have thrown away entirely the concept of good and bad foods. Just entirely. A donut is as good as asparagus is as good as a baked potato is as good as some lifesavers candy. Yesterday I had 32 ounces of orange juice and an entire baked potato and a quarter jar of peanut butter and my body felt super-good at the end of the night, carbs and calories whatever. I knew I'd be running today anyway, and I ate some candy while I ran to stave off hypoglycemia since I'm tired of nearly passing out after I work out because I didn't want to have too many carbs. Attitudes and behaviors may be "bad" or disordered but that's not the fault of the food. I'm tailoring my eating to my body which means trusting myself and trusting my body which means it can't be bad. Eating food that I don't like because it's "good for me" is actually bad for me because it makes me dislike the food even more and rebel against doing what's good for me, which means rebelling against my own body. I will try all kinds of foods now but no more forcing. I'll never have a milkshake again because it gives me the runs now. I loved milkshakes but I'm ok with that. And I won't eat avocado no matter how much it's pushed on me as a superfood because I don't freaking like it. That's the only way I want foods to be good or bad, what do they do for me, specifically? No one else can tell me that. Cutting out entire categories of food in order to "maximize weight loss" has been pointless (my scale doesn't seem to care at all how "good" I've been by depriving myself) and unsustainable and leads to binging. Dirty secret: for the past few weeks I have been using a computer script on myfitnesspal so I can't see the calories of food. I don't eat according to calories anymore. Myfitnesspal tracks them but I can't see them until the end of the day when I complete my entry. No more throwing in some last minute exercise so I can bring my calories down (does that even work?), no more planning my meals around any calories at all.

Yeah, the not that good thing has been something I'm noticing a lot. Those are foods I can comfortably be done with and experience neither cravings nor guilt. I am trying to just be more conscious and eat what I really want to be eating. That means I give myself permission to eat whatever I want and however much of it I want (this is part of the competent eating philosophy devised by Ellyn Satter). I just make sure I get my protein and fluids in. I've loved doing this the past few weeks and my weight loss has been exactly the same.

Diet Pepsi, omg. Carbonation is a problem in general with the sleeve, but it's the aspartame that makes me have to run to the bathroom within 2 sips and leaves me messed up for hours.

This decision has actually been really hard for me and I go back and forth. Right now I am using the weight I was at my initial consultation (295). But on another site I use my surgery weight (266). I have a couple thoughts on it. For psychological and motivational reasons I think it's important for me to remember how hard I worked before I had the surgery. It could help me feel less discouraged about what I perceive to be slow weight loss from the surgery itself. On the other hand, I also wonder what other people see when they look at the ticker. Are they assuming it's the surgery weight?

We don't all have the same restriction at the same points because each surgeon has their own preferred bougie size. For something like this, it is very important to go by the guidelines you got from your surgeon because this is something that will be directly affected by how your surgeon performed the gastrectomy. I know I couldn't eat 3 oz of chicken at 6 weeks, but my mother who had a different surgeon certainly could. It was about 4-5 months before I got up to half a cup.

Have you made any other changes with the way you treat your body besides dietary changes? Because I think you have to find a way to love and appreciate your body and weight loss alone might not be the key for you. When you look in the mirror you're still seeing your low body image and not what's really there. I'm definitely still fat (you're really not but that's not the point) but when I look in the mirror or think about my body now, that's not my focus at all. For me, I made some other changes in the way I treat my body that made a difference in how I feel and how I see myself. I work out a lot more now, six days a week. And not just to speed weight loss but to make my body stronger and up endurance. And my body is stronger! I can dance for a long time and run and jump. My God I even tried to twerk the other day (in the privacy of my own home, and I fell over anyway but I did try). My legs have gotten bigger and my gut still flops about. I set up my trampoline in front of the mirror and let my gut hang free the other day. At first it was uncomfortable looking, then funny, then I was proud to see it fly! The point is I am really liking what my body does for me and I love being able to feel the changes. Another way to learn to appreciate the body is through fashion and dressing it up. Experimenting more with makeup, shoes, clothes, accessories, hair. The body can really make a fashion statement and the smaller we get the more access we have to great, inexpensive stuff that can really make us into walking works of art. I am not a fashion maven and you may already be, but that's another angle. I love the way my legs look and I wear hot pants and dresses because I just like looking at them so much (sorry if vain). My legs are still big especially since they're more muscular and I could look at my thigh jiggle "fat" or I could love the way I look in tights. I can choose the latter. ANOTHER avenue for increased body appreciation: taking care of all those niggling health problems and concerns that maybe got short shrift when you were bigger. It's all about taking care of yourself, emphasis on "care". Self-care is something so many big people neglect and often because we're told our bodies are wrong and worthless and doctors often focus on the fat. I'm not arguing whether fat is healthy or not, but you're in a better position to get quality healthcare once you lose weight and you've lost a heckuva lot. The better you feel health-wise, whether you had serious illnesses or were generally ok, the more you can appreciate your body. This can be head to toe. Migraines been bothering you, allergies, old injuries, teeth need a checkup, is it time for reading glasses and what's with that pop in the right knee? Whatever it is give it some proper attention.

I think it's a good idea to get to a little below goal (or to set goal a little lower than where you'd really be comfortable) to have the leeway for when you hit maintenance and some weight bounces back. I'm trying to make the most of this faster losing period. I hear you on the breasts! It's funny because they were my one point of body pride as a big woman. Big bouncy breasts. I knew it wouldn't last forever and eventually all boobs lose that bounce but I didn't expect this! I would have taken time to enjoy them more, bounce them around a bit, the night before surgery. Something!

I gained 11 pounds laying in the hospital bed. All those fluids. My mom gained 16. That extra weight will be gone very very quickly.

No, my uncle had the gastric bypass about a year before I had the sleeve. Yes, he dropped weight very quickly but it actually just made him look more sickly until things evened out. But the worst is that he was always getting sick because he had to deal with dumping syndrome. It is possible to dump if you have the sleeve (I do, for diet pepsi) but it won't happen as often or with as many different things. The prospect of becoming that sick so often is not something I'd want. He's gaining weight back anyway as do so many have the rny. If you're worried about how fast you lose weight, then maybe look into the duodenal switch if that's possible. But honestly, you will lose with the sleeve. So if you're worried about whether you'll lose weight, don't.

It's not my recipe, it's from a well-known low-carb site here: http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/pound_cake.html But due to my restriction I cut the slices pretty thin, so the recipe says there are 8 slices but I got 14. I use almond flour (just ground up almonds) a LOT and don't have regular flour, but boy almond flour makes a nice pound cake. And chocolate chip Cookies (yeah I did eat 18 little chocolate chip cookies on Wednesday, I did do that and still lost two more pounds).

I have tried that before (another dirty secret?) and it didn't work for me. Instead, for the first time in my life, the liquid just came back up. Never thought of liquid as something that really takes up space but with a small sleeve when there isn't room, there isn't room. And I'm saying liquid because I've realized my only dirty secret (as in, something I don't talk about) is the fact I rarely drink water. Didn't really like it before surgery and barely tolerate it now. It makes me sick to my stomach. I drink sugar-free drinks/Powerade Zero all day every day.

Honestly, after reading all of this I don't feel bad or guilty or dirty anymore. The fear is that one "mess-up" will lead to more and more, and it is important to stay on top of emotionally unhealthy eating behaviors don't get me wrong. But it can also be pretty unhealthy to beat oneself up over things. It's that kind of thinking which can lead to binging in me. I would have felt much better if I'd just had the slices of pizza that I wanted and not worried so much over having to eat it all since I'd already begun or to prevent eating only pizza every day for the rest of my life omg. I could have had three slices or whatever and not felt bad about it, just enjoyed it. So I made pound cake today. I made it a couple of weeks ago and had a slice or two every day and felt guilty and like I was ruining my weight loss. Well today I planned for it and I made it and it's delicious. I've even decided to give half of it away and I've just packed it up, but not because I'm afraid I'll ruin myself but because it's good and I want to share. I don't have to feel bad at all about those slices I've already eaten. They feel darn good in my belly right now.

They're at every sleeve forum and in every sleeve facebook group. Since I love meat and cheese, low carb fits me well so they don't bother me but..they are definitely there.

I think tonight after what feels like days and weeks of obsessing over the exact right formula for weight loss I'm finally realizing that a lot of these little tweaks make no difference. If I'm slow, I'm slow. If I'm stairstep, I'm stairstep. You're right, as long as it's going down that is what matters and it does go down when it moves significantly at all.

This thread made me feel better. I'm five months out. Last Sunday I had a ten inch pizza, loaded with sausage, pepperoni, and grease. It took many hours to eat and by the end of it I was feeling very uncomfortable, but I was afraid if I didn't finish it then I'd eat it in the days to come. I still can't bring myself to throw away pizza, don't seem right. Let's see, I do something downright dirty most weeks. But it's worst when I visit my parents' house which is filled with junk that they don't even eat, it's just there for their kids. And as their child I was doing my duty. Let's see, a pack or Ritz crackers one day, hmm, two pop tarts on another. So last week I thought I'd solved the problem by bringing pork rinds to their house and eating my own snack. And now I see they don't even count. Man.

I didn't know that, thanks for sharing!

I started eating bacon again after 4 months but I was disappointed...bacon is only 5 grams of Protein for three giant slices! That's just not right. I thought bacon was the ultimate meat-lover's food. Anyway, didn't stop me from eating it because it's delicious but still

I am kind of a carb nazi but I also know the joy of a good sandwich (I love baking in general and don't think I can ever give up baked goods). I make my own high Fiber sandwich rolls, but I get that this is not an option for everyone and I truly believe the sleeve can work with many different ways of eating in moderation. I was never a Subway person, but I love steak sandwiches. Any hot meat sandwich really. The rolls I make have the same texture and density as normal sandwich rolls so I can tell you that at five months out, I can eat a 6 inch steak sandwich but I can only eat half at one meal and the other half at another. So if you get Subway when you reach this point it would be about two meals, depending on the size of your sleeve it could be more or less. However, I was eating bread after 3 months, specifically the P28 Protein bread I saw mentioned on a ton of bariatric blogs. I ordered it online but health food stores sometimes have it. I ate it for the protein, 14 grams per slice but the slices are gigantic and I could only eat one slice per meal. Just fold it in half. I lived off grilled muenster with onions and the bread also makes a great French toast.

I love the microwaveable Cookies and I don't even have a microwave. I just think it's great people can have a quick snack and get their Protein in. Only....I've been following Chris Powell's carb cycling plan where you alternate low and high carb days. On low days you eat high fat, on high carb days you eat low fat. The plan was very clear about that. So I can't figure out when someone following his plan could actually eat these cookies since they are both high carb and high fat? Edit: I'll just ask them since he and Heidi are pretty responsive to questions.

4/29 SW: 266, CW: 211, so down 55 pounds after five months. Looking at all these huge losses makes me want to give up (but I can't because it's physically impossible due to the sleeve). I wouldn't mind being a slow loser if it was steady, even half a pound a week, but instead I lose in a stairstep pattern, so nothing for two or three weeks, then a couple pounds, then nothing for some more weeks, then five pounds, etc. I just want to lose ten more pounds by my six month follow-up with the surgeon's office so it's not a failure but at this point I don't know what to do. Too many calories (800 on non-workout days but on days I work out more like 1000)? Should I stop working out five days a week so I can eat less? Or am I not eating enough calories? Carbs are under 20 four days a week, no more than 50 the other three days a week, should I eliminate the higher days? My only hope is eating more protein, since I average 55 grams now and perhaps if I get that average up to 70 it'll help. But I'm not sure what else to tweak.