Day 95: Possibly fat forever?

[crosswind 134]

It's been 95 days since my surgery, or 13 and a half weeks, or three months and three days. I have now lost 53 pounds, from an alltime high of 289 down to 236 as of this morning. I come around these boards but I haven't been posting much because I've been in kind of a little observation pod myself, testing out food, working the sleeve, and something else: pouting because my weight is in the 230's and not the 130's.

Usually when I come here I read people saying they're completely pissed about the same thing. So I wanted to put my spice into the pot here and tell you that even though it seems like it's coming off really slowly, and even though day to day you could measure your loss in eye droppersful the fact is it's pretty likely that when you get to three months, you will be somewhere around a fifty to sixty pound loss.

If the loss is faster than that, it's usually because you had more to lose to begin with. If it's slower than that it won't be slower by much. Maybe it will be 45 and not 55. That could be because you had less weight to lose to begin with, or you have some other condition that's comorbid, like diabetes or hypothyroid. It's all good, you're getting better.

If you are reading about somebody who lost seventy or eighty pounds in two months, they are losing the same *percentage* of weight you have to lose. And the prediction by bariatric surgeons for how much you will lose over a certain amount of time is pretty much uniform: *Most* of it will be gone at one year. Not in four months. Not in six months. One year.

I want to tell you why this is a good thing. First of all, if you are eating the starvation calories you would need to eat to lose one hundred pounds in six months your metabolism would be shredded by the time it was over. The minute you stopped and tried to "maintain" you'd really be in trouble -- you might have to stay at six hundred for a year after that, and keep slowly adding calories, and be stuck for the rest of your life eating eight or nine hundred "maintenance" . Besides being trapped at a much lower metabolism, your nutrition would have to suck over time if you had to live that way forever.

Also, when you lose slower, your skin has time to bounce back. Extremely fast weight loss means your outer layer looks like a stretched out sock. But extend that loss over time, over the space of a year -- you end up with taut, glowy stuff that's better than any fashion makeover. You might not ever get the skin of your childhood but the real sag and pucker will be minimized as much as it can be. You might have completely given up on bikini dreams at this point, but...consider the arms. Consider sleeveless. Consider the one piece. Patience can pay off.

I am not a calorie counter. I am not a lowcarber. My BMI was just under 40 when I went down to Mexico so I would say I'm an "average" candidate for this procedure. I've eaten taco bell, gone out for wine, gone on vacation, eaten Pasta and pizza and chips. What I've noticed when I do stuff like this though is that my body starts asking me for chicken and vegetables.

And the other thing I've noticed is that *no matter what* I do, the pounds are still coming off.

When I got back from vacation last month, I was starting to worry. When I left on May 19, I weighed 249. I hung out with my relatives and ate seafood and had wine spritzers, went out to eat every day and lived the life of riley for two weeks. When I got back I weighed 247. I thought I was slowing my loss and I probably was, a little but...maybe not as much as I thought.

So the month of June passes and my decision is not to freak out, not to go lowcarb, and to eat normally, work out a little while I push the Protein and the Water. I went out with my friends and had a couple glasses of wine with them but I'm worrying. Now I'm not losing that twenty to thirty pounds a month, that ten pounds a week. Now it seems like *nothing* is happening. June 15, suddenly it's 245. I'm still thinking maybe I need to lowcarb...maybe I need to push my calories down from 1200 to under a thousand. Maybe I need to do something.

But I don't. I walked a couple miles outside til it got too hot out, and I swam in the pool twice. Ate like I didn't care.

Now it's 236. In six weeks I lost eleven pounds. And I really did nothing at all but live normally. I did not scour the internet for lowcarb recipes, I did not get on some punishing regime to tweak my abs. I didn't do anything but eat and live.

So I just want to say that you *can* make this into a clean, disciplined Jillian Michaels experience, where you only eat cottage cheese and you run on the treadmill for an hour every day. You can force your calories down to five hundred and brutalize those pounds off of you in record time -- you can do that, it's possible and you have medical supervision.

Or you can NOT do it. It's coming off either way.

[mnbsleeve 87]

I really appreciate your perspective!!! There's a real sense of serenity around all this stuff. Thanks for posting!

[S311kyra 1]

I agree. I needed this post today. How true it all is.

[Meandmylittledog 0]

Thanks for your post. I'm 25 days post op and I've only lost 11lbs since surgery, 16 since preop. I feel like I'm way behind but my clothes are fitting much looser and Im into things I haven't been into for years. I need to work on my water/fluid intake, maybe that will help and also start walking more. Thanks for your encouragement.

[Rootman 1,101]

I sum it up thusly: If you're losing - you're winning - weight that is. Losing any amount of weight is better than packing it on. You probably gained the weight slowly, maybe a little more than a pound a month and like 4 years later weight about 50 pounds more, 8 years later nearly 100 or more and so on. Losing weight of any amount at any rate is the RIGHT direction to go.

I've been very fortunate to have lost a lot of weight very rapidly, others very slowly. It CAN be discouraging but remember IF YOU'RE LOSING YOU'RE WINNING and you're heading in the right direction.

[crosswind 134]

. Yeah. I've been thinking about how the next three months are going to go. 12 weeks is three months -- times 2 pounds a week --- 24 pounds in the next three months. This means that by my birthday in October I will still be over two hundred. By January, at the same rate - 188.

That's *if* I don't stall out for a month and get set back eight to ten pounds.

It's still a long time to wait, but what can you do? Go back to the store and return your sleeve? Go to bed and not wake up til next year? You can either enjoy the ride or hate your whole life until you get to your "perfect" weight but part of the reason I decided to do this was because at 46, I was out of time to be unhappy.

[mnbsleeve 87]

Well said! I felt the same here at 48!!! Which gave me the push I needed. If I had NOT done the surgery, next year at 49, I would be have been the same weight, or worse, gained a few pounds.

. Yeah. I've been thinking about how the next three months are going to go. 12 weeks is three months -- times 2 pounds a week --- 24 pounds in the next three months. This means that by my birthday in October I will still be over two hundred. By January, at the same rate - 188.

That's *if* I don't stall out for a month and get set back eight to ten pounds.

It's still a long time to wait, but what can you do? Go back to the store and return your sleeve? Go to bed and not wake up til next year? You can either enjoy the ride or hate your whole life until you get to your "perfect" weight but part of the reason I decided to do this was because at 46, I was out of time to be unhappy.

[crosswind 134]

I sum it up thusly: If you're losing - you're winning - weight that is. Losing any amount of weight is better than packing it on. You probably gained the weight slowly, maybe a little more than a pound a month and like 4 years later weight about 50 pounds more, 8 years later nearly 100 or more and so on. Losing weight of any amount at any rate is the RIGHT direction to go.

I've been very fortunate to have lost a lot of weight very rapidly, others very slowly. It CAN be discouraging but remember IF YOU'RE LOSING YOU'RE WINNING and you're heading in the right direction.

. Rootman, I was including you on the fast track, but part of the reason you're such a lean machine is because you're a guy. *Any* dude is going to lose faster than any female, and usually like a lot faster, like sickeningly faster, because of your excess dude muscles and also because you don't have to swim in the ocean of hormones we do.

It's *quite* unfair really. It's a little *annoying* if you want to know the truth.

But you're right! If you're losing you're winning, and if you can't possibly eat more than a very generous 1200 calories per day, *something* is bound to happen to all of us.

[Chatty 0]

I just wanted to say how I have wondered and thought the same as you on the following paragraph

I want to tell you why this is a good thing. First of all, if you are eating the starvation calories you would need to eat to lose one hundred pounds in six months your metabolism would be shredded by the time it was over. The minute you stopped and tried to "maintain" you'd really be in trouble -- you might have to stay at six hundred for a year after that, and keep slowly adding calories, and be stuck for the rest of your life eating eight or nine hundred "maintenance" . Besides being trapped at a much lower metabolism, your nutrition would have to suck over time if you had to live that way forever.

I was trying to tell the nutritionalist at my pre-med this and that I didn't want my metabolism to virtually pack up (I have problems anyway as I have hypothyroidism badly) - so whilst I'm wanting to lose the weight - I want to do it on a healthy, tasty and varied diet - not just vegetables or salad.

I'm currently on day six of a Clear liquids only - my op is on Tuesday, and then only another two weeks before I can start on soft food... (I could actually eat my dog at the moment I'm so hungry) ;-D

The nutritionalist told me that your body tends to stabilize weight wise and that its a case of eating healthily for the rest of your life ! Like hell, I'm determined to have a little portion of rice and curry or lasagne once a week - assuming I can tolerate it.

It's been 95 days since my surgery, or 13 and a half weeks, or three months and three days. I have now lost 53 pounds, from an alltime high of 289 down to 236 as of this morning. I come around these boards but I haven't been posting much because I've been in kind of a little observation pod myself, testing out food, working the sleeve, and something else: pouting because my weight is in the 230's and not the 130's.

Usually when I come here I read people saying they're completely pissed about the same thing. So I wanted to put my spice into the pot here and tell you that even though it seems like it's coming off really slowly, and even though day to day you could measure your loss in eye droppersful the fact is it's pretty likely that when you get to three months, you will be somewhere around a fifty to sixty pound loss.

If the loss is faster than that, it's usually because you had more to lose to begin with. If it's slower than that it won't be slower by much. Maybe it will be 45 and not 55. That could be because you had less weight to lose to begin with, or you have some other condition that's comorbid, like diabetes or hypothyroid. It's all good, you're getting better.

If you are reading about somebody who lost seventy or eighty pounds in two months, they are losing the same *percentage* of weight you have to lose. And the prediction by bariatric surgeons for how much you will lose over a certain amount of time is pretty much uniform: *Most* of it will be gone at one year. Not in four months. Not in six months. One year.

I want to tell you why this is a good thing. First of all, if you are eating the starvation calories you would need to eat to lose one hundred pounds in six months your metabolism would be shredded by the time it was over. The minute you stopped and tried to "maintain" you'd really be in trouble -- you might have to stay at six hundred for a year after that, and keep slowly adding calories, and be stuck for the rest of your life eating eight or nine hundred "maintenance" . Besides being trapped at a much lower metabolism, your nutrition would have to suck over time if you had to live that way forever.

Also, when you lose slower, your skin has time to bounce back. Extremely fast weight loss means your outer layer looks like a stretched out sock. But extend that loss over time, over the space of a year -- you end up with taut, glowy stuff that's better than any fashion makeover. You might not ever get the skin of your childhood but the real sag and pucker will be minimized as much as it can be. You might have completely given up on bikini dreams at this point, but...consider the arms. Consider sleeveless. Consider the one piece. Patience can pay off.

I am not a calorie counter. I am not a lowcarber. My BMI was just under 40 when I went down to Mexico so I would say I'm an "average" candidate for this procedure. I've eaten taco bell, gone out for wine, gone on vacation, eaten Pasta and pizza and chips. What I've noticed when I do stuff like this though is that my body starts asking me for chicken and vegetables.

And the other thing I've noticed is that *no matter what* I do, the pounds are still coming off.

When I got back from vacation last month, I was starting to worry. When I left on May 19, I weighed 249. I hung out with my relatives and ate seafood and had wine spritzers, went out to eat every day and lived the life of riley for two weeks. When I got back I weighed 247. I thought I was slowing my loss and I probably was, a little but...maybe not as much as I thought.

So the month of June passes and my decision is not to freak out, not to go lowcarb, and to eat normally, work out a little while I push the Protein and the Water. I went out with my friends and had a couple glasses of wine with them but I'm worrying. Now I'm not losing that twenty to thirty pounds a month, that ten pounds a week. Now it seems like *nothing* is happening. June 15, suddenly it's 245. I'm still thinking maybe I need to lowcarb...maybe I need to push my calories down from 1200 to under a thousand. Maybe I need to do something.

But I don't. I walked a couple miles outside til it got too hot out, and I swam in the pool twice. Ate like I didn't care.

Now it's 236. In six weeks I lost eleven pounds. And I really did nothing at all but live normally. I did not scour the internet for lowcarb recipes, I did not get on some punishing regime to tweak my abs. I didn't do anything but eat and live.

So I just want to say that you *can* make this into a clean, disciplined Jillian Michaels experience, where you only eat cottage cheese and you run on the treadmill for an hour every day. You can force your calories down to five hundred and brutalize those pounds off of you in record time -- you can do that, it's possible and you have medical supervision.

Or you can NOT do it. It's coming off either way.

[ybnormal 21]

This is what I try to tell people but you have a way with words that I never will so thanks for the post Crosswind! The sleeve is all about what YOU make it. I don't low carb, I don't watch calories (I don't eat enough calories to be honest about it) this surgery was for me. Right now it's all about me and what I make it. I will make it, maybe not as fast as others but I'll get there and have no complaints. I eat what I want (but like Crosswind said, normally my body craves healthier things) and make sure I put something in my mouth every 2 hours. period. That's what I do and will continue to do.

[meggiep 57]

One question dear Crosswind- do you count your Protein and Water? No reason for the question- just wondering... do you start with Protein first? Or just kinda do what feels right at the moment?

I guess I am more on the counting everything team because low carb WORKS for me- and is not a hardship. I haven't been hungry since my surgery and my sleeve is so tiny that if I start with protein I simply don't have room for much else! 1/4 cup is it for me, max. Though if you saw the account of my recent Lost Weekend you know that I do know how to do slider foods too!

I know my sleeve will have more capacity and I guess I want to take advantage of that honeymoon period we hear about.

That said I am not losing really fast- my body is doing its thing as it always has.

[Texasmom65 23]

I love your post. Thank you. I know I will need to re-read it again in the future.

[new_beginnings_ 16]

Thank you Crosswind, for this post! I REALLY needed this pep-talk today! I love your funny and unique perspective and you are one of the reasons that I love this board. Congradulations on the weight loss so far! May we all have continued sucess with our sleeves!

[crosswind 134]

One question dear Crosswind- do you count your Protein and Water? No reason for the question- just wondering... do you start with Protein first? Or just kinda do what feels right at the moment?

I guess I am more on the counting everything team because low carb WORKS for me- and is not a hardship. I haven't been hungry since my surgery and my sleeve is so tiny that if I start with protein I simply don't have room for much else! 1/4 cup is it for me, max. Though if you saw the account of my recent Lost Weekend you know that I do know how to do slider foods too!

I know my sleeve will have more capacity and I guess I want to take advantage of that honeymoon period we hear about.

That said I am not losing really fast- my body is doing its thing as it always has.

I start the day with my favorite Protein Bar and then after a while get interested in lunch, which, if it's got carbs in it will also have protein. Like if I want a handful of crackers, its crackers and cottage cheese or mozzarella. If I order Pasta at a restaurant I get something with chicken and make sure I eat the chicken and not around it. There's only enough room left after that for a bite or two of the carb and that's enough to satisfy.

i buy sweets sometimes and eat them, but I'm getting less and less interested. They look good at the store but for some reason they just lose their appeal going down. I bought a red velvet cupcake today and cut myself a quarter of it. Boring. When I was on vacation I bought black licorice and ate on it for a couple days and threw out the rest. Just lost interest.

Lowcarb is awesome and it really is the fastest way to lose weight. it's also really good for blood sugar disorders, fatty liver, and now they say even cancer. I was a hardcore lowcarber for years but my personal opinion now is that it can have a backlash later on. This is my personal experience and I would never argue with another person's medical protocol, especially not after major surgery.

However, there are some disadvantages to being lowcarb *forever*. One is, when you stop eating that way, you get rebound hyperinsulinemia, which means you can gain weight back from eating a higher carb diet if it just breathes on you. This is not just the rush of a fast glycogen fill: bodybuilders for example are constantly shrinking and expanding due to carb overloads when they're out of training: I call this the puff and stuff effect.

Also, carbohydrate ( healthy carbohydrate including fruits and vegetables) has other benefits besides having antioxidants. In moderation they regulate mood and anxiety, promote sleep, increase serotonin and regulate brain function. Some people say they love lowcarb and they would never go back but there are a certain number of us ex-speedracers who found that after a couple years with carbs pushed down under 40 we were nervous wrecks. The answer to that was supplements and drugs, valium, alcohol..etc. Anything but eat a potato.

So...now to me eating clean is eating everything in moderation. fruit. Watermelon. White wine. cheese and crackers. Drunken Thai noodles. Crockpot chili. Whatever. My stomach is tiny too, and I *have* to stop when I'm full. I was a serious yo yo dieter before, really my whole life, and healing my metabolism from that means eating everything, but eating less of it, over time. I tried the other way -- down to nine hundred, 20 carbs with "cheat days" that turned into "cheat years" and all of that. All I got for my trouble was more eating disorder.

As far as the "honeymoon effect"...well -- it lasts two years. That's plenty of time. I would rather figure out how to eat everything than walk around terrified of English muffins.

Not that I even really like those anymore.

But that's my deal Meggie. I'm reading people here who have their flux capacitors set to six hundred and that's that, and they're doing great on their journeys too. My point was that we don't have stomachs anymore, and undereating to basal metabolism is enough. Starvation isn't necessary, and neither is staring down the scale. The time is going to pass and we're all going to get there.

[meggiep 57]

I really do agree with you- mostly. I certainly don't want to get caught up in to that huge denial thing that gets paid back with interest, bigtime. I want to live life in a natural way, without the food devils.

The thing I was trying to say though is that I do want to get my 60-80 grams of Protein and the probem is in trying to do that, plus some veggies and fruit- I just can't fit anything in! Today, for example, I started with my morning protein/coffee drink for 30 grams- then an hour later had a 1/4 cup of cottage cheese because I am crazy about it right now with a little dusting of hidden valley ranch powder- yumm...and I was stuffed after that... a couple of hours later after coming home from a long walk I had some chicken salad- again- couldn't even finish my 1/4 cup- when do I add the calories and carbs? Tonight I really wanted some cream of chicken Soup from our local Hofbrau- they have it on Saturdays- I stirred in half a scoop of Protein powder to help with that...and now it is 10pm and I have only had 490 calories and 17 carbs. It's really wacky having this tiny sleeve. When you look at a 1/4 cup measuring cup- well that is my world and there is just so much you can fit of anything! I don't deny myself- the main thing I strive for is my Protein grams and my Water.

I am thinking my sleeve will get more capacity eventually- that maybe judging by the state of affairs at 7 weeks out is not forever. Maybe?

Edited to add- how do you manage to get 1000-1200 calories in? I can't do it!