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Awesome! Congrats!

What an awesome benchmark! Congrats!

Great idea! I started a blog 2.5 years ago to document my journey & still update it a couple time a week. So glad I did it. :-)

I have struggled with disordered eating all of my life. It started with a battle with anorexia in my teenage years, then I went the complete opposite direction after having kids and struggled with binge eating disorder for most of my adult life until surgery. Let me first say that contrary to what you may now think, it is still completely possible with the sleeve to continue over eating or binge eating. It's just kind of spread out over the whole day instead of one large sitting. So, my point is, that I think it is SO smart and a good indicator of your potential success that you are already thinking about these things. I am now 2 years post op and am maintaining a 150 pounds weight loss, leaving me around 128 on a daily basis. So it is completely possible to beat this. I - like you - see an eating disorder therapist every single week. It is fundamental to my success. Something else that has helped me immensely are Geneen Roth's books, "When food is Love" and "Women, Food & God" ("God" is used loosely, so if you are not religious, it still completely applies). I can't stress enough how much I wish I had read these books before I started my journey. If you want to see more of my struggles and victories along the way, I've tried to be as honest as possible throughout this whole process in my blog. It's linked in my signature if you want to check it out. Good luck to you!!!

If your are at all a self-sabotager, I totally recommend "When food is Love" by Geneen Roth. I read it at the recommendation of my therapist when I was doing the same thing to myself right around goal. It has totally changed my perspective. You have done a lot of hard work physically with changing your eating habits and lifestyle. Sometimes you have to work at the underlying issues too. Good luck!

I think that is pretty typical from my experience and reading the experiences of others as well. Somewhere right around 6-7 months or so it seems that a lot of the internal healing has taken place and it becomes physically (and maybe mentally) easy to slip back into old habits. This is a pivotal point for you. You have to purpose whether you are going to continue with your new habits or slip back into old ways. I think it is so important that you have already identified this and started to get a handle on it. Good for you!

I do not "eat" my exercise calories. The way to lose weight in its most basic version is to create a deficit between calories consumed and calories burned.

I never ran a day in my life until after surgery. In fact I HATED being outside and the thought of RUNNING outside made me cringe. lol. So I joined a gym after surgery and when I walked in , the least intimidating thing looked like the treadmill. At least I knew how to start it. So I downloaded a couch-2-5k app on my phone while on the treadmill and started working through it. It gave me structure so I didn't have to wonder what to do. I followed it the whole way through and was indeed running a 5k by the end. I ran my first 5k last June without stopping and was on top of the world. I kept training from there using the Hal Higdon app and have since run 10Ks, an 8-miler, a 1/2 marathon and am training for my first full marathon at the moment. I know it sounds cheesy, but the day I finished my first 5k and the day I finished my first 1/2 marathon were seriously right up there as 2 of the best days of my life (aside from my kids and my wedding...lol). I was so proud of all of my hard work and the fact that I pushed my body to accomplish something I never thought was possible. Trust me on this....if I can do it, you can do it! I now actually do consider myself a "runner" and my husband has actually referred to me in conversation as "athletic" which is the craziest thing in the world. Having my family there when I completed the 1/2 marathon was just amazing. My teen daughters were so proud of me. Also the time that I have to myself in training is my only "me" time and it is kind of a meditation time in a way when I process through a lot of the stressors that I used to just "eat away". So.....I know that was long-winded, but all you have to say is "running" and I'll talk forever. lol. I say go for it!! You may find you love it, or you may find something else you fall in love with on your cross-training days. Either way it is a win! Good luck!

Nice job! Congrats! Keep up the hard work and you will be so happy with your results!

It definitely gets more "real" once you get that approval and set a date. Just remind yourself of all the reasons that you thought this was the best move for you in the first place. And then go over and visit the "success stories" forum :-) Good luck to you!! And congrats!

There are some on my blog if you want to look there. I also posted before & after surgery pics. Honestly in clothes you really can't tell a difference between my before TT and after TT pictures. I think the "underwear" picture you can for sure see a difference. Anyway, it's linked in my signature if that helps. :-)

Today marks 2 years since my surgery. I never, ever would have thought I would be in the 120s when I started this journey. It has- and I have- surpassed my wildest expectations. I remember vividly the exact day I decided I had to do whatever it took to lose weight & be healthy. I was at Hershey Park with my then-6th grader daughter on a class field trip. I love parks, and since I didn't have the littles, I was excited to ride the roller coasters with my daughter. So we came to the first one, I squeeeeezed myself into the seat & to get the lap bar down the attendant had to step on it to push it past my huge stomach. I was mortified and my daughter felt terrible for me. I was nearly in tears; in my minds eye, I was no where near that big. I didn't ride another ride the rest of the day & swore at that point I would not let my weight hold me back from experiencing life with my family one more day. It HAD TO change. Don't you worry. Since then I've OWNED that park!! In fact, the next time I went back was not only to ride every freaking roller coaster in that park, but also to run a 1/2 marathon through the park just over a year later. Take THAT!!! Lol. Anyway, these 2 years have been amazing. I've learned that my body is capable of so much more than I gave it credit for. I've learned I absolute can accomplish even the most seemingly unreachable goals. I've learned that I could not achieve long-term success without overcoming my eating disorder. I've learned that I deserve good things. So, it's definitely NOT about the numbers, but I feel like I would be leaving out something someone following this might really want to know if I didn't include them so.... I started my journey at 278.4 pounds & 2 years later I am at 128 pounds. That's a loss of 150 pounds :-). What an amazing journey it's been!!! I even rocked my first bikini ever this year! Ha!

Unfortunately I do think about weight a lot. I struggle with an eating disorder and am in therapy every single week to beat it, so yes, my struggle with food is still a daily battle. I think that was one of the only disappointing things to me about surgery.....to get to goal and realize that you are still the same person with the same struggles as you were on day one. That is frustrating, but I know that it will get better if I keep working on it. As for what life is like, I've been "maintaining" for about 5 1/2 months now. I do fluctuate within a couple pounds, but I think that is normal. As for gaining weight back, my absolute lowest weight was 123 and I'm up about 5 pounds from that right now. But it was after my TT and I wasn't really eating anything, so it wasn't a "true loss" if you know what I mean. Plus I think looking back I looked a bit too thin at 123. I'm more comfortable maintaining for the long run around 129-130. Could I get back down to 123? Absolutely, but it would be through strict calorie/carb/protein counting and that is kind of counter intuitive to trying to beat an eating disorder. Sooooo yeah. I am trying to find balance. :-) Good luck to you. You look amazing!

Starting weight 134.4 Goal weight 125

Thank you :-)

Thanks everyone :-)

The sleeve. I also had a tummy tuck & panni in April of this year

That is awesome! Congrats! That is also the beauty of the sleeve. It's always there, it's just all in how we use it. Good job!

Congrats on your successful journey! I will be 2 years post op with the sleeve on Friday of this week. It's been an amazing journey as well for me. I've lost and maintained a 150 pound weight loss. I will add for me that the second year was more about doing work on myself emotionally and working on the underlying emotional-eating issues that got me to a place where surgery was my only remaining option. Without doing that hard work, I don't know what my long term success would look like. Good luck to you on your continued successful journey!

It's a good reminder that the surgery is only what we make it. If I didn't deal with the emotional eating issues (totally not directly related to the sleeve) I can specifically look at a point around 7 or 8 months post op where I know I would have started regaining. But you have to deal with the underlying issues.

I take this mainly because I need the Wellbutrin part of it, but am terrified of taking a depression/anxiety medication on its own because of potential weigh gain side effects. My doctor thought this would be a good fit because I would still get the wellbutrin benefit without having to worry about weight gain. So far so good and I was able to lose the last 10 pounds I wanted to get off.

I am SO in on this one. I've kind of let some bad habits slip back in and I'm ready to get rid of them again. I stocked up on Protein shakes, pudding, hot chocolate, and oatmeal, so I'm ready to do this! :-) Goal: 125

I did not have drains for my sleeve surgery, but I had 2 drains for my tummy tuck/panni. It was the absolute worst part (having the drains). Ugh I hated them. They hurt so badly when they were in. I could not get comfortable at all. So yes, I know what you mean about looking forward to getting them out, but dreading it at the same time. The first drain they pulled out wasn't terrible. But then the second one stayed in longer, got irritated and I swear it felt like they ripped a huge chunk of skin out when they pulled it out. I was SOOOOO glad to have it out though. I guess I was just surprised with how much tube was actually in there. Yuk! Good luck!

I can find something pretty much everywhere. A chicken salad eating mainly the grilled chicken, a sandwich eating only the meat part of it (hold the bread), a bowl of soup, etc. A lot of places will let you order 1/2 portions as well if you ask and they typically have special pricing for that. You can also sometimes order off of the kids' menu, but sadly most of the time the kids menu is more unhealthy than the regular menu.

How long after surgery did you hit your goal weight? Did you work out lot? I hit my first goal around 10 months post op and then felt like I could keep going pretty easily, so I lost another 15 or so pounds after that. I started running around 4 months post op (wish I would have started sooner) and I continued to be an avid runner throughout the process.