Shae

I am a food addict. There are soooo many emotions that go along with realizing it, fighting it, and relapsing. I saw a show where the guy compared being a food addict to being an alcoholic who has to have a drink 4 to 6 times a day but not too much. I was able to quit drugs and cigs because I completely stopped having them. You just can't quit eating. It's a constant struggle. I have not found a psych in my area that specializes in food addiction but I am still looking. Good luck. Feel free to PM me if you need support.

I would add that you should look at your average weekly weight loss. You are averaging a loss of 2.25 lbs a week. My surgeon said to expect 2 to 5 lbs per week loss with some weeks being outside the range. I think that 2.25 lbs per week puts you right on track. The averages are what keep me sane because I seem to be a stair step loser but I average 4.3 lbs a week. Keep in mind thought that I stayed at 212 for three weeks and then doing LilMissDiva's Boot Camp plan took off almost 7 lbs (6.4 lbs but close enough for me) in 4.5 days. Good luck and don't fret! You are doing great!

I started this midday on Jan 5. I didn't get a gallon of Water in (more like 20 oz or so) and being from the south, I didn't avoid salt. By the morning of Jan 7, I had lost 4.9 lbs. Today, Jan 10, I have lost 6.4 lbs. I added other color veggies last night and had about 40 oz of water yesterday. This means that MY STALL IS BROKEN!!! And, it means that I was causing the stall. I have learned so much about myself in the last three months that it's hard to keep up. I sometimes just ignore what I know and do what my addiction to food drives me to do. I am better equipped to recognize and deal with these issues thanks to the people on this board.

I deal with hunger all the time. Sometimes, it's real hunger. Sometimes, I believe that I need more food (head hunger) and I actually cause a physical response by obsessing over food. Sometimes, it's my GERD flaring even though I am on Nexium 40 mg. I also notice that stress (I have a teenage son who has a high IQ and an ego the size of Texas!) and worrying about whether I am doing what I'm supposed to can cause me to feel hungrier all day. Finally, I am a food addict. I can do good for a couple of days then I go back to eating fast, taking large bites, drinking to empty the sleeve so I can have more, etc. I am sharing this here so that if anyone is experiencing any of these problems, maybe this will open their eyes to it. I didn't see the self sabotage until someone said that they were doing it. I know heartburn and indigestion because of a lifetime of GERD so I thought people were nuts when they talked about hunger being acid instead. But I had never had an empty stomach prior to the sleeve so I really didn't know what excess acid felt like before it became heartburn or indigestion. I didn't realize that head hunger could elicit a physical response from your body. I can only share my experience and draw from my experience to offer advice to someone is struggling. I sometimes reference other's experiences but I feel that firsthand information is way better than second or third hand. I hope that this post helps someone.

I have heard nothing positive about the lapband either. I personally know a woman who has had nothing but complications and vomits at least once a day. She has had to have it repositioned twice. Twice at an out of pocket expense of $36K each time because she was self pay and her "insurance policy" that came along with the surgery expired a month before the first slip. She is always getting colds and never has any energy. Add to that her weight loss of about 2 lbs a month. She finds ways to get in the calories (slider foods and starbucks and beer and shakes and ...). Watching her go through this, my research, and my constant hunger drove me to choose the sleeve. I think it was the best decision for ME. My surgeon stopped doing the lapband because of it's high complication rate and high revision rate. All this being said, it definately needs to be your decision. Make it an informed decision by doing a lot of research and looking up complication rates. Don't let any one person's story sway you one way or the other.

I Lost 21 lbs the first month after surgery, 5 lbs the second and so far this month, 5 lbs. I read somewhere that your body remembers a certain weight. If you were 200 for say 6 years or so, then you will likely stall at 200. I wish I could remember where I read this because it was interesting. I stayed at 210 for around 4 years and I have been fluctuating between 212 and 209 for about 3 weeks now. I weighed in this past weekend and I'm at 207. I have my fingers crossed that the stall is broken. It's frustrating but it will pass. As long as you are staying on plan, you should see losses again soon.

I had the "loose" version of IBS prior to surgery. Now, I have not had any problems since about two weeks post-op. I am 2 1/2 months out now and have started taking fiber supplements. Prior to the sleeve, I would "go" about 20 times a day if I ate any kind of fiber or fresh veggies. Cooked cauliflower and broccoli were strictly off limits because my stomach would swell by 3 to 5 inches about 30 mins after eating it. Staying away from my trigger foods cut down my bathroom trips to about 10 a day and taking Acidophilous cut that by half again but they were always urgent and loose. Now I don't have that problem at all so I would say that yes, the surgey has "cured" my IBS even though my surgeon swears that there is no connection between the two.

Welcome! As you can see I am not Latino but I can relate to your story. I live with two guys (my husband and my son) who are what I call String Beans. Both are 6' tall and weigh 135 to 140 lbs. They eat like there will never be another meal! My plate is litterally 4" in diameter and sometimes I can't finish what's on it while they take large dinner plates and usually get seconds. One thing I would highly recommend for you is a change in how you refer to yourself. I use to always refer to myself as the "Fat Lady" or "Fat Girl". You referred to yourself as a "Fat Spanish Chick". I would recommend "Spanish Chick" because you will be FAT NO MORE! I have said that I "divorced" the Fat Lady when they took out 85% of my stomach and I am no longer allowed to call myself that. My husband pointed this out to me and said that I had to stop thinking of myself as fat and start seeing myself as he does - Hot, Sexy, Beautiful, etc. Good luck on your journey.

I was sleeved 10/19/11 and lost 21 lbs the first month and 5 lbs this month (the ticker includes 18 lbs lost on the pre-op diet). I am at a weight that I stayed at for years pre-sleeve. I wonder if this has anything to do with the body "remembering" this weight. I have seen my size decrease from a tight 24W to a loose 18W and can fit in one pair of 16W's. Just in the second month I went from a 20W (barely squeezing in) to the 18W and I found my neck. My breasts stick out further than my belly for the first time in forever! I am baffled by losing size but not weight but I'll take it! I try to look at all the things that are changing rather than the number on the scale but it's frustrating to have it say the same thing every day. I'm sure it will move eventually...

The day after Christmas sounds good to me. That gives us just over 7 weeks to meet goal.

Are you planning to start a new thread with the Valentine's Challenge?

My words were as follows: "I previously pledged to lose 20 lbs by Christmas. So far I have lost 11 lbs and it's not even Thanksgiving. Therefore, I am re-setting my goal to 30 lbs. SW : 230 CW : 219 Goal : 200 Wish me luck!!" Boy did I ever jinx myself!! I am only down to 212 lbs. I guess I should have stuck with the 210 goal. No way I can lose 12 lbs in the next 4 days. My solution is that I will lose it by Jan. 25. I have discovered that I am a slow loser and need to adjust my goal accordingly. I will take this as a lesson learned rather than a failure to meet my goal. Ok, 12 lbs in 30 days = 0.4 lbs per day average or 2.8 lbs per week. That should be doable. Shae

I also concur with the ladies above. You employ this team of doctors and as such, you can fire them. Talk to the hospital's patient advocate and tell them how you are being treated. The doctors get smug sometimes and need to be put in their place. I feel so bad for you and wish I could offer more than a cyber hug! I wish you all the best!

Doing something once or twice does not mean that you have developed a disorder nor does it mean that you will. Habits take a long time to form and even longer to develop into disorders. Please do not stress out about the possibility of developing an eating disorder if this is something you have done only a couple of times. That being said, if you find that you are doing it on a regular basis, then you probably need to take steps to stop the behavior befor it does turn into a disorder. Shae

As someone who is only two months out, I have no clue whether you have stretched the sleeve out or not. What I can say is that you need to remember why you chose the sleeve in the first place. You, like most of us probably chose it as a tool to help YOU lose the weight. You bought a hammer to put a nail in the wall, so to speak. Now you have put the hammer down and are trying to get the nail in the wall with just your hands. Not going to work. Here is my advice. You are a woman therefore you are strong (sorry guys but it's true). You have the inner strength that it will take to get yourself back on track. Don't be down on yourself; rather remind yourself that you are beautiful and you deserve to be happy in your body and you deserve to feel sexy! Remind yourself that you are worth the effort it will take to get back on track. Now, to get back on track (I have read) is no easy feat. Go back to the basics - Protein before anything else. Eat slow. Drink non-calorie drinks or Protein shakes only. You could even try the pre-op diet that the docs put us on (protein shakes through the day and a small meal at night with no snacking). Or maybe try mushies or soft foods only. Stay away from the carbs until you no longer crave them. Exercise. You can do this. As I said, you are a woman and you have inner strength that is virtually limitless. Reach inside, find it, and put it to work for you!! You are worth it! We all share a bond of our struggles with food. These struggles are not something that will ever go away and we will always need to remind ourselves that we can overcome them because we are worth it. Shae

Does anyone know if there is a link between not getting enough sleep and stalling? I have always read that sleep deprivation can cause you to gain weight and/or not lose any but I wonder if that applies to us sleevers. I have lost only one pound since Thanksgiving and since then have been averaging about 4 hours sleep every night. I have never been one to sleep more than 6 to 6 1/2 hours and when I do, I feel groggy all day. Lately, I have not been able to get to bed earlier than midnight and I get up around 4:00 am to get ready for work. Does anyone have any info on whether this could be causing my stall? Shae

My first resolution is to work out more and do more strenuous excercises. My second is to be open minded so I can "see" when I am headed dowm the wrong path and change directions. My last one is to be happy about my weight loss regardless of how slow or fast it is occurring. Shae

I had something similar happen with a Reese's Peanut butter cup. I thought I was going to faint. Bad feeling. It was effective though. I have not had one since!

I am normally full of advice and quite positive about things but right now I am really frustrated with myself. I weighed myself the Monday after Thanksgiving and I was 215. Today is almost two full weeks later and I am still 215. There were a couple of times during the last two weeks that the scale read as high as 222. I weigh in the mornings in my birthday suit (after I potty). I know it is a stall and it will pass but of course, I have been stressing over it. In the past, I would get to a certain point in my weightloss and then subconciously self-sabotage. I realized a few days ago that I was doing this by topping off, snacking, drinking full fruit juice, drinking while eating to make the food pass through faster so I could eat again sooner, etc. I usually am pretty good when I recognize a bad behavior in that I will take steps to stop what I am doing. This time seems to be different. I know I am not doing things right and I still don't stop. A few minutes ago, I made myself a snack of shaved chicken, a laughing cow wedge, and a hard boiled egg. I was not hungry because I ate a meal an hour before. I ate it quick so that I could get it all in before my sleeve protested and then drank some fruit juice to ensure that it digested quickly. I know better. I know that I am going against what I am supposed to be doing but yet I don't stop. What is wrong with me? I know I have an addiction to food and I will battle with that for the rest of my life but geesh! This is sad. I get angry with myself because I am screaming in my head to stop, put the fork down, throw it away, and still I eat it. I have also started eating things that I know I should limit. I had three oreos after dinner last night. THREE! I felt miserable both physically and emotionally but it didn't matter. An hour later I was snacking again. I think that the stall has worked on me in a bad way. I feel like this is it even though I really know better. The kitchen is the thruway in our house so to get to the family room from the front door, you have to go thru the kitchen and to go to the bedrooms, again thru the kitchen. I am having a ton of trouble walking through and not thinking about what I could grab a bite of. I guess my mind thinks "Well, I tried, this didn't work either." and then I try to make the statement true. I need to find a support group in my area and find a counselor that specializes in WLS patients. If anyone has any advice, please share. Am I alone in doing this type of thing? Anyone else fight with themselves and lose? Thanks for reading and I'm sorry for the long post.

Start by going online and searching out military treatment facilities that are close (relatively) to you. Get the numbers and call general surgery. Ask if they do the VSG there. If they say no, ask if they have a bariatric department and ask them the same. If you get a yes at an MTF, then the next step is to see your PCM and ask for a referral to that MTF's general surgery department (or bariatric department). Then, be sure to follow up with the MTF to ensure that they get your referral and ask them what the next steps are. I hope this helps you...

On of the side effects of Nexium is headache, another is upset stomach. Both go away after about 3 to 4 days of taking it. I take 40's also and have for years but when I was taken off it in the hospital and started taking it again a week or two later, I went through the headache and upset stomach again. It passes and then when the Nexium starts working, you will swear by it. I know I do... Shae

I was told that my B-12 levels were off the charts at my 6 week checkup. I took a grand total of 4 sublingual B-12's in that 6 week period because I would get jittery. The last one was almost 2 weeks before labs. I guess I'm one of those people who still absorbs it well (too well).

Happy Birthday Diva!! I am nearly the exact age as you (you are 5 days older )!! I read your posts and see your pictures and hope that one day, I am as sucessful in my journey as you have been in yours. Thank you for being you! Shae

I chose the sleeve because (amongst other reasons) I have degenerative disk disease and often have to take Celebrex, an NSAID, for extended periods of time. My surgeon says that the sleeve is the only WLS that allows you to take NSAIDs. I would be curious to know what other surgeons tell their patients...

I know it is VERY difficult right now but try to stay positive. Thinking positive and keeping yourself with as little stress as possible and as happy as possible will definately aid in your recovery. Hugs and well wishes coming your way from all of us here!!!