IncredibleShrinkingMan

Starting the shakes again, as though you were in clear liquid phase, have worked wonders to break stalls, even without a single other change. But to really keep it going, the other changes still need to be made, i.e., to get over the hump. I have four family visits, three reunions, two weddings, and a partridge in a pear tree that I would like to be in peak appearance for this summer, and I am planning on doing a "reboot" with the shakes and other liquids. These are people that have not seen me since anymore than about a month after surgery, and some who have not seen me since I was at my heaviest.

Any men that respond to this thread please quote this so I can read your response!

As a sleever (9 months out), I give the procedure my highest recommendation. I have lost 85% of what I want to lose, and I am confident the rest will come off. The sleeve is not just safer, but it does not force you to give up as many things forever. The main difference is carbs/sweets. While you will not want to have too much of these foods at any point in the future, the consequences of having some will not be as drastic. That said, an option for you would be to go have the sleeve, see what it does for you, and then if you are not satisfied with the progress after a year or two, you can go back and have a revision. It depends what your weaknesses are...mine weren't sweets, so the consensus was that sleeve would produce the same benefits as bypass. Your analysis may be very different. Congratulations on getting started!

This has been a very philosophically oriented day on Bariatric Pal. A lot of people are posting about the meaning of lying and I will be painfully obvious and say, "you haven't lied unless you've said something that's not true." LOL. If you say you have done this through diet and exercise, you cannot call it lying, because that is absolutely necessary. This is why telling "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" is a hard thing to swear to on the stand because an infinite number of things are true, just like an infinite number of things are false, and therefore there are an infinite number of things that are true that you don't end up saying, even about a very particular matter. Back to you: there's nothing in your story that strikes me as a lie, so don't apply that label, especially seeing as it seems to bother you.

Terribly sorry to hear this. You are doing exceptionally well by the numbers and while I am sure nothing can truly heal this tragedy, you are doing your son extremely proud. You would've been around for him, but now you will be around for his daughter, who is in desperate need of you. I hope you continue to do great and that you heal spiritually as far as that is possible, and that the prosecutor handling this case quickly puts the perpetrators of this crime away from the rest of humanity forever into the cell in which they will die a slow painful death from the meaninglessness of their existence.

It isn't a lie unless you've said something that isn't true. Therefore, if you say you lost weight using diet and exercise, you are not lying, because that is required of both traditional losers and WLS patients. You just didn't mention that you had a little help. A little kid once told me on a subway train that "you haven't lied unless you had an obligation to tell the truth." I was taken aback at his sophistication, and I assume he picked it up somewhere himself, and while that's not strictly true (if I told you I had a salad for lunch when in fact I had pizza, I still lied despite the fact that I had no obligation to tell you what I ate), it should inform much of our interpersonal conduct and communication related to this surgery.

Can't advise about the drugs, but I agree that people need to be more supportive, and should only have clicked here if they had a useful answer. As to the booze, I had a drink at 4 months out and it went perfectly fine. I had been scared out of making that move, and perhaps if I tried earlier I would've been in some trouble, but I enjoy happy hour regularly nowadays and am very grateful for the sleeve for allowing me to do it the right way.

Had my first mixed drink at about 4 months out. Did perfectly fine, and a few at a time haven't been a problem for me. Word of warning...while I hardly follow the 30 mins before and 30 mins after principle with Water, you absolutely must do this with alcohol! Horrid problems will result with food and alcohol in the sleeve at the same time. I get dizzy and feel like I am going to pass out. Carbonation has generally been difficult, as it can cause stretching and horrible gas, so I try to avoid beer or champagne except at special events. Your doctor will probably be pretty discouraging about consuming any alcohol, so this is where you will want to use particularly proactive trial and error to see what works for you and what doesn't, both on the scale and off.

A lot of the language can seem very daunting, but 9 months out, let me tell you that my feelings are nothing but positive and I do not believe my life or my relationship with food is restricted or, as you say, "unnatural," in any way. No, I can't get the weekday large pizza special at Domino's and expect to get through much of it...any more than two slices in an hour, unless there were people with me. Yes, I barely know the word "appetizers" any more. And no, I don't consider Thanksgiving a competitive sport any longer. I'm fine with all of that. My brain had tricked me into thinking these were worthwhile endeavors, but I no longer think so, and I credit the sleeve to eradicating those mental cancers from which I suffered. That really does change forever. But at the same time, there isn't a food out there that I can't enjoy. 9 months out, I give very little thought to food, and I am settling into my desired general weight range, and hope to lose the rest in the next six months. I think you also need to spend some time re-defining "natural" for yourself. What got us here in the first place wasn't the least bit natural. The food environment we live in hijacked our healthy brains and stomachs and made us think that huge heaps of fast food and refined carbs were the desirable norm. This is a return to normal, with some built in protections against a total backslide (which almost all of us presumably have experienced if we ever tried to lose weight "naturally" in the past). I feel like for the first time ever I have a very natural, amicable relationship with food, and one that gives us a fresh perspective on how horrible awry food and eating have gone in this country. Believe me, there are many societies on Earth today where a sleever would experience no restriction whatsoever...and that because that is the natural way of nourishing oneself.

Have you thought about ISOPURE? It's 40 g protein in a 20 oz bottle. I swore by them well after clear liquid stage and they really just taste like iced tea. Get it at the Vitamin Shoppe. I'm pretty sure it's soy free, but it is whey protein. I don't know if that is contraindicated based on your medical history. As always, see your NUT and surgeon.

I have tried to eliminate everything associated with before surgery, and I have found that the people are more critical parts of the past than the foods. After all, I believe, in a certain way, food choices were influenced by circumstances of life, within a few key confines of availability and lifestyle. I am making sure to indulge in things I love, albeit with a very strong emphasis on things that have come to me since surgery, to be sure I am living in the present and not the past. I have met better people as well as better foods!

Kale has been a no go from the very beginning...it gives me violent gag reflexes and makes me hungrier than before. The hell with that as a salad resource...I'll be sticking with mesclun. Steaks and Pasta (in reasonable quantities) have worked since about the 4 month point, which is interesting because that's what people most frequently say they can't do (and that's probably a good thing). Anything with heavy cream gives me a much faster food coma than before, and anything sweet has pretty much the same effect, regardless of calorie count, though I haven't experienced actual problems with anything.

Well, every diet tweak is going to result in a stall eventually, because X number of calories is going to equal maintenance intake for a given weight. You break this one just like you broke the last one...making another cut...however, I don't know where you are or how long you can do that before you reach a point where you have cut too much for it to be sustainable. I speak from prior experience...DO NOT let yourself reach that point!

Anything for a little more on the bottom line. Teenage girl sees jawdropper eating a Thickburger -> runs out after school and buys it -> extra $6 for the franchise -> extra money for the corporation in licensing fees. Maybe one day a clever enough regulator or lawyer or somebody will find a way to require a "bad" image for every "good" image seen on TV. I was pleasantly surprised enough when NYC and Philadelphia began requiring calorie counts in the same font size as the price on the menu above the counter. The only better thing would've been calorie counts posted in font as big as the inflated image of the burger.

Don't be afraid to tell your doctor when he/she has overstepped a boundary or has struck a personal chord of some kind. They often have little to no clue about anything in life in which they haven't been intensively trained in books and classes and can use a reality check. If your surgeon is a skinny person that hasn't battled weight, this goes on yet another front. Just like a thin friend who has no clue why you would want to do this and who says just being more careful is the way to go, don't let the diploma on the wall and the thousands of bogus societies of which they are members scare you out of speaking your mind and representing yourself well. If you think it is between your dignity and actually getting approved, then the answer is simple...keep searching.

They are amazing. 40g protein per bottle. Give them a try. Not everybody finds the shakes too easy to manage, but they have done me wonders and broken me out of stalls. I am a sleever and I see you are bypass, but I would still give it a try unless your surgeon or NUT tells you otherwise. You'll have to take a couple of tries to make yourself believe you aren't drinking pure sugar! They are deceptively sweet-tasting, but they contain no carbs.

My mom's not worth the time of day either. She was horribly critical on a deeply personal level during my heaviest times, and in many other ways no matter what my weight is. Therefore, her puddle-shallow remarks about how good I look now also mean nothing to me, because when her mouth moves I hear noise.

Weight loss success is just one of many factors influencing the progress in addressing your depression/GAD. It is easily muddled by the much bigger picture around it. My intuition is that with everything else being equal, a healthier body improves mood and depression symptoms, but not further than your body thinks is willing to consider a healthy weight. The problem with set point creeping up over time is that your body will not be happy in response to any weight loss. The happiness is in your head and in a healthier overall physical picture. I have not been able to come off of any of my meds.

Certainly not off limits. Smoothies run the gamut from calorie and sugar bombs to a great source of a complete nutritional package. They are just like salads...they are as healthy or unhealthy as you choose to make them. They can be extremely useful for getting your protein (via powder) during liquid stage of post-op, and they can also be great ways to restart weight loss after a stall.

Tuna salad (and tartare), pimento cheese, hummus (limited oil), chicken liver pate, egg salad. I fell in love with these during puree and soft food stage even though I am no vegetarian.

10-year college reunion in early June...that will be around the 10 month mark, so hopefully beginning to bottom out right there (this is important because I was at my biggest ever at 5-year reunion). Hoping for a 10K somewhere in May or June. Since I am currently in a stall that has lasted over 6 weeks, I am hoping to kickstart the loss with shakes and salads, as I have eaten to comfort somewhat over the wintertime.

You've done all you can. The rest is up to God and your husband. When it is time he will either make a concerted effort or, with enough inspiration, head for the operating table. If he doesn't, that means that it's not something he is made to handle like you were. The last thing you would want is for him to have an unsuccessful surgery because he committed to something he truly isn't made or ready for.

Sounds like a real best friend. I held onto my best friend (a former anorexic and dangerously thin) who said some of the same things, and most notably that diet and exercise has worked for her, so it works for me (certain LOL moments). I just turned it into motivation and self-definition. Today she's eating her words (that's about all she ever eats) because she can see that the only thing that's really different about me is my size. I am just as immature and borderline obnoxious as I was at 300+ lbs. However, if your friend ends up jeopardizing your efforts, it's time to start interviewing new candidates for the position.

Moe's Southwest Grill and Chipotle salads have been very good to me. So have most places whose sandwiches have a high meat to bun ratio that can justify just scrapping the bun entirely. Examples are Arby's max roast beef and Hardee's regular steakburger. I buy those and just throw them on some arugula. That said, I have really used the sleeve as the opportunity to break away from those things and explore things I never would have thought to explore before. I consider this the beginning of me and food, rather than the end.

Thanks, @gettinMeBack. I think after two years, some weight regain is pretty common, so this is not all a terrible thing. What is just as common is for the regained weight to be lost. I am 6-7 months out now, and I am fully prepared for some regain when a year hits (I just hope I have some more loss before that point!). You actually did a nice job with the maintenance in the second year, so now I'd say just remember what worked for you then (what kept you in the 130-140 range and try to put it back into play. Good luck and congrats on the awesome weight loss!