VSGAnn2014

Jamie beat me to it ... you can BORROW from your retirement account. You don't have to "withdraw" it. Used to buy all my cars that way. I knew I was a great investment and would repay my loans from my 401k.

Confession time: I'm almost 7 months post-op. I've had: * a glass of champagne (about a month ago) * a small fountain Diet Dr. Pepper at the movies (waited for all the fizz to go away and drank it over a 2-hour period); * half of a bottled Diet Dr. Pepper about a month ago -- and BOY did those bubbles NOT go away. Won't try that again! Honestly, being off of diet sodas of all kinds for 8 months (starting 2 months pre-op) pretty much put me off of them. Not going to make them a habit again.

I think our obsession with stalls (by any name) is understandable. We start out as WLS patients with mega-losses real fast. Then we hit the (pretty common) three-week stall. Then, depending on how heavy we were to start with, we settle down to a 10-15 or even 20 pound monthly weight loss for 3-6 months. Then things slow down. But along the way, when we're weighing daily, we see a graph line (or imagine one) that looks like a trail made by a drunk chicken stumbling up and downhill on his way to the river. And here's a simple conclusion about why the graph looks like a drunken chicken's trail: Our bodies are not robots. Nor are they gas engines that always get X miles per gallon (or X pounds lost per daily calorie intake). Our bodies are complex carbon oxygen machines that are constantly producing hormones and running fancy and changing biochemistry combustions and repairing our bodies and losing weight and none of those things is linearly coordinated. Our bodies produce 60-70 hormones that have specific functions. But those aren't all produced at the same rate all the time and vary according to our ages, activities, diseases, times of the month, times of the day, and they can produce interactions among them, too. For instance, here's just one of the simplest things about Water weight most of us do know about. Remember the pre-op diet that most of us had to do for a couple of weeks? The point of that diet was to reduce the size and slickness of our multi-lobed livers so our surgeons could operate on our stomachs located right next to the liver. The heavier and slicker the liver, the harder it is to man-handle it during surgery and the likelier it is to get nicked or torn during the experience (nicked or torn liver = very, very bad thing). Anyway, the point of that pre-op diet was to use up all the glycogen (look it up) that's stored in the liver. And when the glycogen is used up, we also lose a large amount of water in which that glycogen is stored. Hence, our very rapid weight loss during the pre-op diet (and that's lost at the beginning of almost every diet in the world). Here's another thing: I think about the number of extra capillaries and nerves that my body grew when I was fatter but that I no longer need now that I've lost 77 pounds. What happened to those things? At what point does my body break those down? And when and how are those waste products excreted? And how does that process affect the arc of my weight loss graph? I got lots more questions, too! So here's the bottom line: Our bodies do not lose weight in a straight, linear progression to goal. That is a fact. We all know that. Why not? Because (as Elode said), it's complicated. It's very, very complicated.

Whoa! Really love it. Thanks. I've got the same stats (daily) on MFP. And like others, I've also recorded Excel spreadsheet data for weekly / monthly weigh-ins.

P.S. Also see this post http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/334731-depression-after-the-gastric-sleeve/?p=3777130

^^^ Then add some more suggestions. I thought Babbs's suggestions were great. Here are some more: 1. If your surgeon has an in-person support group, attend those regularly. 2. Make an appointment with your surgeon or a P.A. in her/his office and reveal how you're feeling and invite their suggestions and insights. 3. If you don't have access to your bariatric surgeon, see your PCP and discuss your feelings with him/her and invite their insights and suggestions. 4. Definitely buy that book Babbs suggested -- it's a good one. 5. Walk daily, outside if possible. 6. Start keeping a journal of your feelings -- when and in what circumstances you feel better and when you don't feel so well. See if you can find some patterns in those writings. 7. Try to spend more time with people. Don't let yourself become isolated. 8. Meditate / fantasize about the reasons and goals that prompted you to have this surgery. Get back in touch with those dreams. 9. Follow your surgeon's eating / drinking instructions to the max. Dehydration is notorious for making us feel like crap. It's easy to feel bad (in multiple ways) when we're dehydrated

Kindle, You have the perspective I treasure: the LONG look. As newbies are told over and over again: This is not a sprint. It is a marathon. And your post above with VERY creative metrics to illustrate the three years of this journey (pre / during / post) is what a WLS marathon can look like. This journey requires time, persistence and patience. Respect!

Thinking about you, too. I hope your time between now and surgery is as peaceful as possible. It really is worth all the trouble we go to to get there. Very best.

Some of these "friends" are weird. They act like betrayed lovers. So weird.

That's one of the most infuriating psych experiences I have EVER heard of on any boards. What a fucking imbecile.

Conscience, schmonscience! I think you're doing great. I say the bigger, the better. You could even add these: 1. They discovered I have a tapeworm, and it's so big they have to operate to get it all out. 2. Now, they've discovered that the big tapeworm has had baby tapeworms, and they have to do even more complicated surgery to remove the baby tapeworms. It's becoming very dangerous! 3. Turns out it's not tapeworms, after all. It's Amazonian leeches that have attached themselves to the inside of my intestinal walls. We have NO idea how they got in there. It's possible they crawled into my mouth while I was asleep on a Caribbean beach last fall when hubby and I were on that cruise. But it's bad! 4. I just had a pre-op endoscopy, and now it seems that I've also swallowed some car keys--three of them, the electronic kind. And none of them are a match to our cars. My husband thinks this could also have happened on that cruise. One night I didn't get back to our cabin until 5:00 am and don't remember a damn thing after the baked Alaska. Hubby won't stop teasing me about it. I'm pretty pissed. 5. Hubby bought me a beautiful new ring for my birthday and also as an apology for teasing me so much about the car keys in my stomach. Trouble is that he hid it in a piece of birthday cake, and I swallowed the ring! And it hasn't come out the other end yet! The doctors are worried that it's been swallowed by one of the Amazonian leeches. So we're adding that to the list of things they're going to remove during gastrointestinal surgery. See ... you could get much more creative about all this. Have fun!

AWESOME! So, so impressed. Really.

I don't think the internet is for everyone.

Still LOLing at this thread's title.

@@CowgirlJane ... I like your new dating attitude.

@@BeautifullyCreated1982 ... have you had your surgery yet? Seems like it's getting pretty close. And @ ... yeah, you should definitely not have any therapy.

So sorry you're hurting. But it does sound like you have a great plan to address your issues. Smart, smart lady. I imagine your dad would be very proud of you.

Yup. Every single day. It comes from milk, chicken, fish, red meat, Beans, Protein drinks. Love my protein. Pre-op, I certainly didn't eat enough protein.

Not been there yet, but I see lots of stories like yours -- reversing a small weight gain -- on this forum.

I'm pretty much with others who've posted here. I track my food daily (use MFP to plan / track it). I do drink some wine these days, but just count it like everything else. I follow the basic rules -- I have a calorie target, Protein target, eat healthy veggies, drink liquids I'm supposed to, exercise at least 5 days a week, walk a helluva lot more than I used to. In short, I'm just in control since the sleeve and wasn't before the sleeve. Compliance, consistency, accountability, a good support network, and a little patience. IMHO, those are the "secrets" of success.

1200 cals and 100+ Protein grams sounds good to me. That's about what I'm doing, too. I am CRAVING protein these days. Really craving it. Am 6-1/2 months out.

I DEFINITELY am not a veteran yet. I'm 6-1/2 months post-op and have lost 77 pounds, with 8 pounds to go before goal. At some point it became obvious that I'd lost enough that my weight loss began to slow. After all, a body that's 77 pounds lighter doesn't burn as many calories. That's just logical. And the longer I've been post-op, the more my stomach has healed (it's no longer swollen) and the more volume of food I can eat. BTW, I SHOULD be eating more food than I did initially. If I were still eating only 600-800 calories a day, my metabolic rate would have accustomed itself to a starvation menu and I'd be missing important nutrition. By the end of Month One I averaged 800 calories/day with 60-70 grams of Protein. In Month Five I started eating an average of 1,000 calories a day with 80-90 grams of protein. A few weeks ago I began eating more like 1,200 calories a day with 90-100 grams of protein. With 8 pounds to go I'm still losing weight steadily, but more slowly. Although I've enjoyed a few special meals, I haven't gone "hog wild" (and couldn't have with the sleeve's restriction). I haven't had any unusual cravings that I haven't been able to control. I sometimes eat small amounts of "bad carbs" (Pasta, rice, potatoes, breads) but the amounts are small, and I don't do that daily. So I guess, behavior-wise, I'm still in the honeymoon phase. I don't fight eating protein first or eating lots of protein and colored vegetables and fruits. I don't plan to indulge in lots of high-starch and high-sugar carbs until after I've reached goal. And I'm certainly don't have maintenance figured out yet, because I'm not there yet. For me, the sleeve has given me the head space to build and practice the basic eating habits I have always wanted to follow consistently. Those habits are just a lot easier now than they were before the sleeve. I think the factors that will help you be successful with WLS are compliance, consistency, common sense and personal accountability. BTW, I plan and track my menus daily on www.myfitnesspal.com. Good luck to you.

I think your weight loss will stop if you don't get back to basics.

Very interesting post, @@AvaFern . Thank you.

@@Onyx999 ... good questions, but you should start a new thread. This thread is about loose skin and plastic surgery. You'll get more responses if you give your new thread a title that summarizes your concerns, e.g., "20-year-old worries about life after WLS". Good luck.