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Hugs. Don't be mad at yourself. We do our best. Sometimes, that means taking care of other things in life, and treating ourselves badly. Then we learn, and our best gets better next time. Head first. Then see what your options are as for the weight. First step is to stabilize, not to dive head-first into a crash diet. You can't make good plans when you're screaming with hunger.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Everything you are feeling is valid, and there is no shame in struggling. You are recognizing it and taking action to get back to health, that first step is the hardest part! As for the gym, I would say just do what you can and be consistent with it. If that's the treadmill or weights or swimming - whatever it is, do it regularly. Once you've made going a habit, you can add in another machine or heavier weights or whatever. But the first step is just making it a habit. We are rooting for you.

Hi! Good job on getting yourself together to move past the trauma and towards getting your life back on track. You can read some of the posts I have made on here - on various threads to understand that I, too, know loss. I maintained a 180lb weight loss from 2005-2019 with just diet and exercise. my suggestion for you in the gym would be to start with stretching. Stretch in between everything you do there. While you're walking on the treadmill or doing cardio, stop after about 10 minutes and stretch. Get into your body! The stretching will allow you to feel your body in ways that you may have not before. This can become like a meditation and also improve your flexibility. You body will love it and it will help to propel you. Feel free to reach out if you want a more guided approach.

So as the title suggests I am mad at myself. Not looking for sympathy just more as a warning to those who are about to have the surgery or just had it.... I went back to all my old bad habits. I lost my mom less than a year afterwards and the depression set in. I'm gonna try and get help for where my brain is at. I've gained just about all my weight back. And I know I can get it off but it will take time. Any advice on where to start as far as the gym. Hugs Sent from my SM-A326U using BariatricPal mobile app

First and foremost, let me say that weight is NOT an indication of character or worth. You are a worthy, loved, valuable human just because you exist. Your weight is a piece of you, but it is not the whole of you. So take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are NOT your weight, you are YOU. As for the rest of it, I would HIGHLY suggest some counseling prior to surgery. Unraveling some of the emotional stuff tied to eating and weight has been extremely helpful for me. Learning new coping mechanisms and learning to love myself well have been invaluable on this journey. You deserve to be happy and healthy both physically and emotionally. Best of luck to you!

Family are the hardest to deal with and often don't accept us as we are. WLS is NOT the easy way out and you are not a bad person for having weight issues. Good luck on your WLS journey.

My dietician said Bariatric weight loss was like a staircase. Drops then plateaus and drops and plateaus. I am in the 2nd of week of my 2nd stall. I always keep tabs of what I eat, just for my own peace of mind. It will break

I did. It took 6 months of focused group therapy to get the eating under control, then 6 months of learning to be weight stable (not on a diet, not binging). Then I was ready for surgery, and I'm now doing my best to stabilize without getting obsessed. I'll tell you this: it won't be easy, but even just getting started with the right help for your eating issues will lift a tremendous weight off your shoulders. And another thing: this forum is not a great place to mirror eating disorders in. Consider the fact we have a subforum for plastic surgery ... but not one for mental health. It's a disgrace, if you ask me. There's a lot of BP'ers who exchange their overeating for other eating disorders post surgery, but know they, too, are doing their very best. We all are. It's just not an easy box to open. It's much easier to tell people not to eat carbs. You gotta get the monster that is your eating, guilt, shame, self-image under control first. It's a real disorder that leads to a real disease. Or vice versa. That doesn't really matter. What matters is you get help. Oh, and I'm in Europe.

You don't have to struggle alone, man. It wasn't very easy to admit I had an eating disorder. It wasn't easy to accept the fact that you have to *not* lose weight while dealing with it. It wasn't easy to get bariatric surgery and pay for it myself because the healthcare system simply refuses to even take a look at guys with obesity. https://www.verywellmind.com/male-eating-disorders-4140606

I think a lot of us here feel the shame and take the blame for our weight issues. In part yes we have all made bad food choices but weight gain and our bad relationship with food are for various reasons. During this process, you will speak with a psychologist or therapist and they can help you better understand your relationship with food and how to make it better. You are taking steps to improve your health and life. Look forward to what will be and dwell on was has been. Best of luck

You’re ok. Stalls are very common & part of the process of weight loss. We all talk about the a stall at around the 3 week mark but they can occur any number of times while you are losing. They tend to last 1-3 weeks. Think of them as your body needing to take a breath & getting used to the changes. If it persists for more than a month, chat with your dietician. You may need a small tweak to your diet or activity.

My BMI is 44.9 how bad is that and i weight 288 so defeated and at a loss as to where did i go wrong to get this big i think it was the day when my jeans wouldn't latch, for lack of a better word it really sucks because i am the only one who is obese ( call it what it is ) in my family who are all state troopers and firefighters filled with machismo who think they can do no wrong i have the kind family are typical " do as i say not as i do" the cops especially say this, they forget i changed their diapers and wiped there bottoms so the cant act better than they are not going to find out about my SX they do not deserve to know , i am, a good guy as we ALL ARE i feel so guilty but as time goes by i will come out of it a better man . like i did in the past, take care guys and be good to yourselves because no one else will.

I had gastric sleeve on November 29th and have been the same weight for 3 weeks. Just want to either hear, Yes, that's normal, or if perhaps I need to reevaluate what I'm eating. Thanks!

First, congratulations on your weight loss & that you are feeling stronger & are able to be more active. How great is that! As @MiniGastricBypassDude said you don’t get to choose your body weight set point. Yes, you might be in or close to maintenance or in a prolonged stall. Yes, building muscles could contribute to the weight loss pause but also the more muscle you have the more calories you burn so you may need a calorie increase to compensate. Certain medications can also hamper weight loss. But logging your food & speaking with your dietician is always a good place to start. It can be easy to get a little complacent with portion sizes, etc., not meet protein goals or there maybe something missing in your diet. Sometimes a small tweak is all that is needed. The low blood pressure many experience after surgery is usually caused by an initial lack of nutrients from the restricted diet & dehydration. It’s why it’s usually a temporary experience. The same for the hypoglycaemic episodes you may have experienced. (Unfortunately I experienced them both before surgery & still do now almost three years post surgery. The low blood pressure is worse & occurs every day. Carrying my old weight actually used to help because it raised my BP to a normal 120/80 with just occasional drops. Didn’t expect that!) They get better as nutrition & portion sizes increase & fluid levels are maintained. You mentioned you have your annual check soon. How often do you see your surgeon or their team? How frequently do you have blood tests? I still see my surgeon’s colleague every three months & have a 3 monthly blood test so it always surprises me when people have follow ups much less frequently. All the best.

There's no shame in having a surgery that didn't give you the hormonal change needed for your body to want to be at a lower weight. If your eating habits and thoughts around eating are the problem, the solution is fixing your head. After all, we're highly complex individuals doing highly complex tasks day in, day out. Of course we could eat 'right' if all it took was knowing what to eat. How many people end up on a bariatric forum who haven't done a plethora of diets, restrictions, and calories counting? Really? I don't believe in any rigid diet structures, because I've yet to see them work in happy people leading full lives. I do believe in flexible control and in adopting a toolbox of behavioral strategies. Wonderful that it works for a few people for a while, more power to you. But if it stops working, what then?

I feel your pain as I had pretty much the same thing. I realized in the last 2 1/2 years that the reason I wasn't losing weight was because I ate too many carbs. Honestly, I don't worry about portions on anything, I let the sleeve let me know when I can't eat, if you know what I mean. I started Keto 2 1/2 years ago and haven't cheated. It's very easy to stay under 40 -50 carbs a day with all that's out there. Hardest part is giving up good bread (the Keto bread sucks) But there are great alternatives like the low carb tortilla shells, and they are good. I don't drink water, only diet coke and crystal light. I went from 230 to 178 in less than a year and have stayed at that weight for a year in a half already. Never cheated. BTW, that's with next to no exercising, maybe a walk once in awhile. You've got the sleeve, that's the best start. Good luck. BTW, I posted about my story today and it's in my profile.

When I started this in 2013 weighing 258 lbs. The most I ever weighed and after diets worked (I was down to 175 in 2008 for a little over a year) they never were permanent. I'm going to burst a lot of bubbles now, neither is the sleeve BUT IT IS WHY I CAN NOW KEEP THE WEIGHT OFF. Let me explain. It is now 8 1/2 years later and I am down to 178 for well over a year now. A year before that I was up to almost 230 again. Not because of how much I ate, but what I ate. I was a carbohydrate addict. I've been living 2 1/2 years on Keto. I have NEVER CHEATED even on vacations, and we take a lot. It is so easy these days to be on Keto and eat what you want since just about everything is made low carb with the exception of good bread, my favorite. Now, here's how the sleeve comes in to this. Many ways. First, I was pre-diabetic and all my family, parents, siblings and uncles are, or were diabetic. The 20 lbs just after I took on this adventure at least kept me out of diabetes. The best thing was that it kept me from eating too much at a time. I could eat all day but not a lot at a time. I have had no problems eating anything I was told that I could never eat again before the surgery. Now, I was actually fluctuating from 230 down to 200 but would eventually get back up to the 230. Here's the thing. I have an eating disorder, didn't know it until a year ago. It's called Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). My symptoms are that I've NEVER tasted or eaten, poultry, seafood, most vegetables and no steak, pork chops, in fact the ONLY meats I eat are sausages and cured meats. I will not eat a sausage unless I know that it's only made with beef or pork or both together. I love pizza and pasta and of course bread, so those are the hardest things that I have to avoid with Keto, but here's how I do it. I will order a pizza and always say extra sauce because I'm not going to eat the crust and need to scrape the toppings off the top (so it doesn't cook into the bread). Here's the thing, the crust flavor bakes into the pizza, so I never really miss the crust other than with my eyes. Anyway, 2 1/2 years later I live with it and like I said I don't cheat and the urge to cheat is driven away with this thought. Everyone tells me you have to have a cheat day once in awhile. You know you've told yourself that on each of your diets. Here's the problem with that. Next week I'll think, I didn't gain weight on the last cheat day, I can do it again, and so on. I still truly live for food, but now it's 90% sausage (good hot dogs) or ham, bacon and salami. Just think, you guys can have all the chicken, fish and steaks you want. Load them up with butter. Since I limit myself to 40-50 carbs a day, I eat a dinner roll at a restaurant and load it with butter. Anyway, here are photos of before and after. I'm now 71, very healthy OH, and because of the sleeve and Keto (and some pills) my blood numbers have all been perfect for the last two years. I mean perfect when my Cholesterol and Triglycerides were always high. My glucose is 94 and A1C is always around 5.4.

And there's another component here: science. I don't know what your surgery teams promise you, but mine showed me their actual statistics. After a year, their RNY patients were a little above 80% EWL and their sleeve patients a little under. That's an average, which also means some fall under that. At no point should any bariatric patient expect to lose 100% of their excess weight (and we do. not. need. to.) I know this may be hard to hear for any individual patient, but if you think about it, it's liberating. Losing 70% of your excess weight is excellent. Losing more is even more excellent. You're not a failure if you don't get to 100% EWL, you're the very rare exception if you do.

all I can say is that the last 20 lbs were a bear for me to lose. We're talking like two lbs a month, despite the fact I was really working at it. And after being down there for a few months, those 20 lbs came back on - and here I sit. I do know that it's very common to have a 10-20 lb rebound after one hits their lowest weight - but in my case, I also wonder if maybe where I am now is where my body really wants to be (my set point). That's not to say I couldn't lose it again, but that would involve dropping back on my calories, and having to fight to get down there again - and then continue to struggle to keep it there. of course, you could also just be in a long stall, too. Mine tended to last longer the closer I got to a normal BMI. Or...yes - it could be that you're building muscle. long story short - it's hard to tell. It really could be any of these things. That's a good idea to run it by your team next time you see them. In the mean time, just keep up with the good eating and exercise habits....sounds like you've done really well so far!

At first I only told my husband and two adult sons. Then I made the mistake of telling my sister. She was not very supportive and said things like “you aren’t that fat” and “why don’t you try the Optifast diet instead?” I decided not to bring it up anymore when we text (she lives far away) but she kept bringing it up and asking negative questions like “aren’t you worried about dying? What if you lose too much weight? Are you sure your surgeon is qualified?” I couldn’t stand the questions and interrogation from her so I did a bad thing. I lied and told her that I didn’t get approved for surgery by my insurance. Now keeps asking me what diet I am going to do instead. She is super skinny and I think she enjoys me always being the fat sister. It’s like she is worried that I might become skinny and pretty too.

This is odd because I feel like a lot of people prefer more showy clothes after losing weight but my weird NSV is that I can actually do the baggy look now and not look like it was my only option or I'm a big ball hahaha. I love the Korean Hanbok clothing style (google it) and am so excited to be down more lbs to REALLY rock it! Here's my first Hanbok inspired outfit. Sent from my SM-G975U using BariatricPal mobile app

I think i am going to like it around here i get so much positive feedback and i like it because my family certainly would not support me and my journey through this tough process i am not kidding myself if i think this process is going to be easy only kidding myself anything worth fighting is worth it , right , my relationship with food is so skewed i can't seem to get a handle on it i try so hard to lose weight or at least eat salads poultry and it works for a little while and i go right back to my old ways , i become so angry that i say screw it i just eat anything is there anything as far as advice goes that anyone can offer me about why i get so emotionally attached to food it would be nice to understand if i could what a freedom that would be , thank you for taking the time in reading this i appreciate it. 😀

I really empathize with this, but - ! - you unfortunately don't get to set your new weight set point at surgery. Your body may decide this is where you're good, and fighting it too hard could lead to a new cycle of overeating --> restrictive dieting --> more overeating ... Is there not a chance you could be happy where you are now? (And if not, why?) I'm BMI 26.8. Heck, last week I was BMI 28 for a while. I am well within a healthy weight range by any account but the BMI scale.

An oldy, but a goody: Mr. (effortlessly) carried me up stairs last night cuz i was being sucky about stubbing my toe 😂. When he first did this a couple years ago during weight loss phase, I felt self-conscious and uncomfortable. Nowadays (3+ years out) im like: “Carry Me!” any chance i get 😇