Sheribear68

Yes. I’m almost 4 months out and just this last weekend me and hubs took my MIL to a bday party for a friend who was turning 80. The food was amazing and plentiful and I went through the buffet line and put a smidge of almost everything on my plate. One single bite of homemade slaw and potato salad and macaroni salad was delish and I was able to stop with the single forkful of each. Oh and the pulled pork and smoked turkey was the main course on my plate. I didn’t use any sauce and not one single person noticed and it didn’t feel weird. I made sure to savor every bite and chewing slowly was a benefit, not a curse. I even had 2 Cheetos which were quite honestly disappointing: my memory of them were better than the actual thing. 🤣🤣 When it was time for cake, I took a very small slice and ate half of it and I promise that I didn’t feel deprived or stupid or the center of attention. Everyone was happy to be here gathering for a dear friend and was having a good time and focusing on one random friend of the families eating habits was not on anyone’s agenda. Quite simply nobody noticed and/or cared what I ate or didn’t eat at the end of the day.

Okay. I’m reminding myself every day for the last 3 weeks to embrace, embrace, EMBRACE this stall!!! I’m a bit over 3.5 months post-op and ran smack into a wall. One thing I refuse to do is take my eye off the prize of a healthier, fitter, happier, and smaller me! NSV are extremely important during this phase and even though my body is in a “still” phase, it got me through an increase in physical activity and it’s still (slowly) losing inches. More importantly, I’ve dropped about a half pant size while gaining over a pound since the stall started. 🤷‍♀️ I’m still almost 50 pounds from my goal weight, but rising the crest of this stall is important to keep moving forward.

Hey guys thanks so much for the kind words. It truly does mean a lot. I’ve bumped my water intake to over 90 ounces and had a couple glasses of wine after work yesterday and enjoyed a half burger patty and half brat from the grill with a bit of chili yesterday. I think I definitely had over 900 calories daily for the last 2 days. *gulp. 😱😱 That’s really out of my comfort zone and I’m 100% sure the wine led to some rebound hunger this morning, so now I’m back to a 600-700 calorie day planned. Got on the scale this morning and I’m down from 195.6 to 192.6 since I last weighed on Saturday. Hopefully it wasn’t just dehydration from wine, but my water % stayed steady and my fat % went down so fingers crossed it’s actual fat instead of water weight lost. Still pretty pathetic for the month as I started May at 198.0, but at least my gain from the last 3 weeks is now a very slight loss. It’s been tough embracing this stall because I’m such a detail and goal-oriented person and it’s difficult for me to set a goal, meet all the criteria that I outlined to reach that goal, yet still fall short. This falls into that frustrating category of “ life isn’t always fair”. Anyway, I guess I’m destined to start June still in the 190’s, but I’m still kicking and fighting In 2 days I have my 3 month follow-up with my surgeon so I’m going to try to hold my head up and be proud of the 48 pounds I’ve lost since surgery instead of grieving over the 5 pounds I didn’t manage to lose to hit goal.

All of this! Let me say first that if anybody goes into this with the attitude that nothing food-related will change in their lives then they have nobody but themselves to blame. The whole point is to change your relationship with food and make different choices and this surgery is but one single tool (albeit a very important one) in the toolbox. I went to a wedding out of town 16 days post op and was able to make it work with packets of protein shakes, milk, and yes....... loads and loads of water. I carried around a water bottle into the church with me and wasn’t one bit embarrassed. Since my surgery on 2/6 this year, I’ve worked Mother’s Day. I’ve worked Memorial Day. I even worked through multiple family bdays. I would’ve given anything not to work those days and have the freedom to have angsted about food I didn’t get to eat, but instead I put on my big girl pants and went to work! But here are the things I do when I’m NOT at work: I get some kind of exercise daily. I journal. I check over my goals and adjust/tweak whenever I’m not on target. I ENJOY the lighter, fitter, healthier me. I plan future days off and schedule in some “fun” time throughout every week. Gotta be honest: the month of May completely sucked for me. I hit the 3 month stall hard-core and I’m still foundering around trying to get my body to start losing again after gaining 1.2 pounds over the last 3 weeks. I have lost a total of a couple inches so it hasn’t been a complete bust. I’ve gone from feeling like a complete diet failure on some days to taking a deep breath and embracing the stall and pushing forward because going back to what I was is not an option. One thing for certain is even on my worst days, I do not regret this decision for even one second. If you are indeed not a troll, I cannot suggest strongly enough to seek professional help. The kind of anger that you’re describing runs so much deeper than what your stomach can and cannot hold. Eating small amounts of healthy nutritious food without being hungry all of the time is a complete joy in my life and I’m thankful every single day I made this choice to give myself a longer, healthier, and happier life.

Hey guys it’s been a week or more I think since posting. So far May has sucked out loud. This 3 month stall is no freaking joke and I’ve actually now GAINED 1.2 pounds over the last 3 weeks. I’ve upped the number of Pilates classes from 4-6 weekly, started waking 30 minutes daily on the treadmill and cut my calories from 700/daily to under 500 daily. I dunno... this is getting really old and I’m curious if any other February peeps are having this level of difficulty. I’ve managed to lose a whole 1.8 pounds for the entire month of May. Right now I feel like a complete and utter failure...

Okay so I swear that for the first 6-8 weeks after being sleeved my stomach would NOT stop growling. It was weird bc no feeling of hunger was there, but my head kept trying to tell me it was time to eat bc my stomach was making nonstop gurgling noises. I learned to embrace the gurgling and would even make jokes about it. Now that I’m 3.5 months post-op, the gurgling has slowed down, but it still happens from time to time and it just cracks me up. The other day I was in a Pilates class and it was gurgling so bad the instructor noticed. all I could do was shrug and move on. For the record, I wasn’t even remotely hungry when it happened.

Even at 3.5 months out from my sleeve I don’t drink within that 30 minute window because jt hurts. I always have bottles water right next to me at work and have taken a swig of water without thinking about it too soon after eating and the pain is incredible.

Okay so I’m pretty sure everyone has a stall between weeks 2-4. Mine happened at 12 days post surgery and lasted almost 3 weeks. So here’s how it went: I lost 22 pounds in the first 12 days, then I lost 1.8 pounds over the next 20 days. There were a couple of times in that 20 days where I gained a 0.5-1 pound, then lose it, then regain. After week 5, I started losing again at the rate of 2.5 pounds/week average and 10 days ago I hit my 3 month stall (I was sleeved on 2-6-19). This time I’ve put the scale away and refuse to step on it for at least another week or two. Oh and during these last 10 days when I’ve lost zero weight I’ve managed to fit into a pair of pants that were really tight on me at the end of April so I’m not panicking. The weight will continue to fall off and the scale will continue to move down accordingly

I’m about 3.5 months out and I’m just starting to notice a thinning out. My strategy thus far has been to be extremely low-maintenance with my hair. I’ve cut back on the number of times I wash it weekly and haven’t gone in for my usual color job every 6 weeks. I try to let it dry naturally and I rarely use a curling iron on it anymore. I’ve become a fan of extremely simple updos and ponytails. I am going to get the color touched up next week because my grey is showing, but I’ve already discussed color options with my stylist and we’re going to go with something more in the ash blonde direction so I don’t have to touch it up again for another 3-4 months. Hopefully by then, the loss will have stopped

Being so cold all of the time. Before surgery, I was that girl who was always complaining about how hot it was. I swear I could’ve broken a sweat in a snowstorm. Now the moment it gets below 72 degrees I’m putting on a second layer of clothing.

Things I’ve already been able to do: 1. Completely finish with zero modifications back-to-back Pilates classes. 2. Get back into all of the “skinny” clothes I’ve had in my closet for several years. Started out as a fluffy size 22 and I’m just now wearing the size 16swhich are the smallest I have. Oh yes, and those 16s are starting to get LOOSE on me! 3. Ride as a passenger in my husbands sports car without the seatbelt buckle jamming into one hip and the center console jamming into the other hip. I can also get out of the thing without having to heave myself out of it. 4. Sit comfortably in my Thunder season ticket seat. Before the armrests dug into my hips the entire time and I’d have to slide into the seat sideways and then it was torture to have to move if someone needed done the aisle. 5. Enjoy sex again. 6. Walk upstairs to my bedroom without pain in knees/hips/ankles and feeling like I needed to stop and rest halfway up. Things I that I still look forward to: 1. Fitting into my “victory outfit”. This is a size 8 little black cocktail dress that I bought on clearance in 1993 right after I had lost some weight after having my son. It looked sooooo good on me in the dressing room, and I was so proud of myself for ditching the baby weight. . I bought it for a wedding and then I got very ill and didn’t go. The dress still has the tags on it. 2. Go snorkeling again as an actual normal size person. Of course this requires actually going on vacation which might not happen this year (broke from all the costs from surgery) but I can’t wait until that day happens. 3. Finish the next level difficulty in Pilates. I’ve seen the higher level classes and they’re no joke. 4. Once in my life have someone refer to me as “the skinny girl”.

Hey just checking in mid-weekend with everyone. Today was a push: ran errands all day and didn’t eat very much. With 3 employees graduating, my sister and my niece having birthdays this weekend AND getting ready for my husband to be gone for 3 days this upcoming week on a business trip, we had to get it all done today. As a result, I Also didn’t drink very much. As I’m about ready to head upstairs for bed, I’ve only drank 50 ounces water today. However I just logged my food and I had over 70gm protein and under 500 calories. We had Cobb salad for dinner with ham,turkey,chicken,blue cheese, shred cheese, and red onion and tomato. Lunch was 1 piece lunch meat wrapped in 1 slice American cheese. Snack was 1 glass fairlife milk. It was pouring down rain here until mid-afternoon, then hubs and I gardened for 2 hours. Lol, I’m already dreading the sore back tomorrow and I’ve got 2 Pilates classes before heading out to a big family dinner at my sisters house. I keep asking what she’s going to be having for dinner and the response back is “don’t worry, you’ll be able to have it”. Kinda nervous, but my sister is one of my biggest fans so fingers crossed all will go well. I’ll be seeing some family members for the first time since surgery so I’m already getting a little edgy about it...

well you could always go and just pay for the buffet and have the 1 piece of chicken I guess. One thing I’ve had to bend my mind around is that I will “waste” food. At first it was weird, but it’s been getting a whole lot easier. Another thing you could do since it’s a buffet is to put small portions of many different things on your plate and only allow yourself 1-2 bites of each one and savor them to the fullest.

This is absolutely the reason. My therapist (had bypass over 30 years ago) has told me about several patients of hers that have gained weight after having WLS. What she tells me is every single time it’s because they didn’t do their head homework. The science behind this is very real whether you get the sleeve or bypass. You will lose more with bypass— it’s restrictive and malabsorptive. The sleeve is mostly just restrictive. However both procedures share a common component which is the complete metabolic reset. This reset only lasts a short time though and we all know that as the “honeymoon”. It’s what we do during that honeymoon that determines future success. I won’t lose as much excess fat as I would’ve had I opted for bypass, but I had to consider my career and lifestyle and many other factors. I made that choice knowing the weight would come off slower and that hitting goal weight would make me have to work that much harder. Now maybe someday I will have to have a revision: I had chronic acid reflux and I can potentially see something like that coming back on me in a couple of years, but I wanted to take a chance on the sleeve because I’m pretty active and have an extremely demanding work environment and I needed something “easier” to take care of. Right now I wasn’t willing to have to worry about dumping or losing even more hair or being chronically tired because maybe I wasn’t absorbing enough nutrients. Either way I know I’m going to be successful because my head is in the right place and now my body is actually cooperating.

Yes transfer addiction is such a pain, isn’t it? I’ve got 2 main transfer issues now. First is my Pilates. I’m starting to feel bummed out if my work schedule doesn’t allow me to go daily and right now I’m in a part of my schedule where I have to miss 3 days! 😱😱😱. So I compensate by scheduling 2-3 classes on my days off. I need to get better balance than that to be honest because last week I cancelled a haircut so I could go to an extra class. Secondly I’m spending a bit more. It’s on little things like smaller work pants on eBay, or visiting the consignment store for a new summer shirt. Heck, last month I redid the guest room, but that’s also because my daughter moved out on March and for the first time ever I was able to do a guest room, but part of me wonders if that wasn’t just a handy excuse for some addiction transference.

Omg. Sashimi (my fave is tuna) has been my reward meal for the last couple of months now. Every 3-4 weeks, hubs takes me out to my fave sushi joint and I order the tuna and a bowl of miso soup. I can only sip about 2-4 ounces of the soup and eat 2-3 pieces of the tuna, but it is divine and hubs gets to finish my plate for me.

Congrats! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 I totally understand about the wine. Wine was my Achilles heel before and I’m so glad I’ve had the equivalent of 1/2 glass in the 100 days since surgery. I keep telling myself one day I will stop missing it... My BMI is still in the “obese” category. lol, it’s at 30.4 so I cannot wait to get it down to 29 so I can say I’m merely “overweight” instead of “obese”. Oh well, I started at 41% so I’m already down from “morbidly obese”. Progress

Good morning! I hope your month is going well also. My goal is kinda weight related, so not sure if this officially counts, but it’s my goal so I’ll post it. Since surgery back in February I feel like all I’ve done is work, go to Pilates, work, plan my food, work, stress about when the next time I’ll poop is, work, log food, work, make sure my protein and water is on point,work, go to support group, work... My current lifestyle is so dramatically different from my previous one. What I feel has suffered the most is my friendships because every activity done with friends also centered around food. My goal for May/June is to get back out and reconnect with friends and just go do something that won’t derail me. There are a couple local arts festivals coming up and while those used to center around what kind of food/drink I could eat, this time around I just really want to hang with friends and be part of the crowd again. Also I’d love to go to the local AAA ballpark and enjoy a game sans the requisite beer and hot dog. It will be tough because I’ve put myself in this little insulated world for the last 100 days, but it’s time to get out and start becoming part of life outside my bariatric bubble.

Hey welcome to the group as an official poster! Secondly, CONGRATS on your successes to this point. So many times we tend to overlook the good things we’ve done because they aren’t “good enough” at this point to satisfy us. Goodness gracious you’ve dropped TWENTY PERCENT of your body weight so far which is amazing progress! Give yourself a pat on the back and then go over any journals or food diaries that you have and see where things were going “better” and “not-as-better”. Maybe you can spot a trend? For me, my biggest hurdles are stress and sleep and usually they hold hands together to try to derail me. The studies on increased levels of cortisol and its effects on weight loss are downright depressing when you take a look at them. Also, if you’ve been bobbing for 5 weeks, time to schedule an appt with your nutritionist/doctor/therapist/trainer just to be sure that there’s not something that you’re missing. This week I redoubled my efforts to log food and water and I even journaled in my personal diary for a bit this morning because I don’t want to allow myself to fall into a negative head space. I also went out and cut some herbs from my garden and put them in a vase. It took about 5 minutes and it made me feel more positive about the day. Besides, I made hubs take the scale away for 10 days, so I got to save those 5 minutes by not agonizing on the scale this morning. 🤣🤣🤣 Take a deep breath, take a walk, smell some flowers. We will figure out how to do this thing.

Yeah I’ve only managed to lose 47 pounds since my surgery on 2-6. Actually since I gained a pound this week, make that 46 pounds lost. It’s been a long day and I can’t wind down from work tonite. Here I am up so late and I’ve got a full day tomorrow. Oh my those cortisol levels will be elevated tomorrow because of my lack of sleep.

Still here and still observing and learning. I’m now >3 months post-surgery so not quite ready to jump on the IF train just yet Question: when did most of y’all feel like you were far enough out from surgery to start IF? My sleeve is usually so tight in the morning that I’m basically doing 14:10 or 15:9 every day because about the only thing besides water I can take in before 11am is coffee with a couple ounces milk. Once midday to early evening hits, I can hold about 1-1.25 cups of food in my sleeve before the pain hits

Update: Was foolish enough to get on the scale this morning. I’m UP 1.2 pounds from yesterday. 😭😭😭😭😱😱😱😱 This is after making a concerted effort to drink 96 ounces plus water per day and keeping my calories below 700. Yeah so because the math just doesn’t add up, I’d say I’m in for a rough 2-3 weeks coming up. Okay so I’m looking for ideas for NSV. I measured this morning and I’ll check back with measurements in about 10 days then re-weigh. Until then, the scale goes into hiding. I’m having my hubs take it to his lab and I don’t see it again until the 25th.

Yeah I had the week 3 stall and it lasted 3 weeks. I remember losing 1.2 pounds during that time and it seriously messed with my head. And sadly I don’t get the benefit of a fast drop afterwards. Mostly I feel like Sisyphus with that damn boulder. I’ve heard that 3 months out is a typical stall-point for a lot of people and I’m seeing my typical 2-2.5 pound/week come to a screeching halt this last week. Losing 1.4 pounds in 8 days is almost freaking me out. Okay, so it’s not truly a stall because something came off, but I’m still over 50 pounds shy of getting close to goal weight. I mean, I’m 5’7” and I’ve got a goal weight of between 140-145 so it’s not like I’m shooting for some unrealistic low number. Ahh well..... if it does end up slowing way down for a few weeks I’m going to fight through it like the fighter I am. I mean going back to the before time isn’t an option, IMO

I am so thankful for the clinic psychologist at the place I had my surgery. His lesson that he hammers every time he gets the chance is that WLS has 3 major traps: Trap #1: you will initially lose weight NO MATTER WHAT. You can have the worst habits and diet ever and still lose weight. This is a bad trap as there isn’t negative feedback for unhealthy behaviors. Trap #2: because of the reduced size of your new digestive tract, you can eat small portions of metabolically disruptive foods (carb-laden and devoid of protein) and be “okay” because it’s only a few bites. Nope,nope,nope! Even in teensy amounts, foods that promote insulin resistance are only going to put you right back into a bad metabolic state over time. Best to avoid them (or save them only for very special occasions) altogether. Trap #3: You don’t stop becoming a “fat” person just because you lost a bunch of weight. It’s kind of like being a smoker or an alcoholic. Just because you’re not actively smoking or drinking, it doesn’t mean you can magically pick up smoking or drinking again and not expect difficult consequences. Fat brains stay fat brains for life and we need to be ever-diligent to not fall into any of the “fat” behaviors that got us needing WLS in the first place. I actually wrote all of these traps down after my sessions with him and I keep them taped to a cork board in my bedroom. I see them every day and try my best each day to keep those lessons close to heart.

Oh yes. I would say this is exactly why you got so sick. You poor thing, that must have been absolute misery. Omg, I’m shuddering at the thought of erythrital in my sleeve...... 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱