crosswind

You know...if you kept that up you'd be down a hundred pounds in five months...

LMD that makes sense. I don't have access to long term data but it's what I would have expected logically. Usually with major weightloss there's a "bounce up" of some percentage, sort of no matter what you do. Rebound weight gain usually has something to do with people riding the bounce way too far for way too long. But with the sleeve you just really can't get those whole pepperoni pizza binges and triple sundaes packed in fast enough-- or that's what I kind of figured.
Otherwise...if there was a danger of a huge regain, why do it?

Yesterday I decided not to weigh myself. I had been a little obsessive the past few weeks, kind of obsessive, and sort of endlessly disappointed the way I always am on the scale. You know there is that after-party feeling you get when you've just gotten weight loss surgery and even the loss of 30 pounds in three weeks somehow doesn't satisfy.
It's the death of the fantasy-surgery in which you fly back from Mexico suddenly weighing 135 pounds. I mean it was weight loss *surgery*, right? Medical Magic? Where the hell *is* my flying car, by the way?
I know there are people who give you this advice anyway. The Weight Watchers lady, the Jenny Craig lady and the Diet Center lady were all prone to the same advice and now thinking back on it they might have all been the same lady. Remember her? Skinny, size zero dress with a tiny waist and no sleeves, huge grin on her face and at least en years younger than you perkily dispensing dictums about how one should comport one's self in life. I swear she was always the same girl. And as far as I knew I was listening to a person who was subsisting on styrofoam and black tar heroin.
Jenny Craig was probably the worst diet ripoff I ever encountered -- five hundred dollars "registration" fee and then I would come to get "my food", as they called the minsucule globules of prepackaged crap frozen dinners and "snacks" such as two thumbprint sized, elven lemon butter muffins.
Jenny Craig is owned by Nestle Corporation. They are in the food business. The whole thing is designed to sell a vulnerable, aging and overweight population of females their crap food at an astronomical markup. It's all like this, all of it.
All of it.
What I keep thinking about still is all the lies and nonsense I paid for to try to lose a hundred pounds for the third time and I just knew I never would. I would just *keep buying products* as some sort of offering. Sure I was overweight. But I was doing something. I was spending thousands of dollars a year in extra shit I never used or got satisfaction from because those thousand dollars represented some kind of hope but then....after a while..it's just what you do. You're fat -- this is not a condition but a demographic, a role, a llifestyle. Your market speaks and your ears perk up right away. The salesman in your living room gets you to part with only six payments of 59.99 for some Chinese appliance wih moving parts you are supposed to press or move or kick; or some tape or "plan*.
I will never regret the money I spent on weight loss surgery. What I regret is all that *other* goddamned money.
Tangent, sorry.
I decided to stop weighing myself because I am trying to save myself from the feedback loop I seem get sucked into with the scale. I know it's "stall week". I know I'm going to "stall". I would just rather not hear about it from that appliance. Because what it doesn't know is that I barely have a stomach anymore and I am eating less than six hundred calories a day on average so it's very *likely*, I mean one could *project* that I am losing a shit-ton of weight here.
I'm sticking with that for the time being. For as long as I can stand it. It's very zen of me.
And today was much better than yesterday. Special K went down with joy and peace in its heart; and then around 4 I went to Culvers and got a cup of bacon and potato Soup to dissect and pulverize. It also went down like a sleepy baby and gave me a nice, rounded, carby buzz. I had some juice in my veins today and did not cry, although I did get way too interested in mineral makeup products and at-home microdermabrasion which I had to force myself not to buy. I don't look all that great for a person who just lost thirty pounds. I look tired and kind of sucked-in and gray, which is what I hear happens to people who've . had surgery recently. But I decided it was not time to worry about that yet. It's really unlikely I'm going to look like Heather Locklear tomorrow no matter what I purchase online.
A little more new normal today. And no scale, which to me should be the most normal thing of all.

...buttoned, zipped and sat down in a pair of Size 8 jeans.
Yep, pretty tight. Muffin top. 20 pounds to go.
But...wow....

...buttoned, zipped and sat down in a pair of Size 8 jeans.
Yep, pretty tight. Muffin top. 20 pounds to go.
But...wow....

...buttoned, zipped and sat down in a pair of Size 8 jeans.
Yep, pretty tight. Muffin top. 20 pounds to go.
But...wow....

...buttoned, zipped and sat down in a pair of Size 8 jeans.
Yep, pretty tight. Muffin top. 20 pounds to go.
But...wow....

I just want to say before I tell you this that I am NOT a rep for this company -- it's me, Crosswind, who's been contemplating a tummy tuck lately because I hate my belly -- but I hated it before when I had my first kid and it just never snapped back. That was the first time I gained and lost 100 pounds and it was just hopeless.
Well so now I've been applying myself to this problem rather diligently. I do skin brushing, which probably helps, bit since I'm a woman and I put a fair amount of weight on the entire area between my waist and my knees it all looks like a war zone frankly.
But the tummy tuck thing I'm just not sure about. I'd love to have that perfect fantasy body but at the same time there are scars and risks and I keep asking myself if I want to trade marks for scars. Neither option is perfect but in the meantime, while I've been contemplating this, I ran across this stuff on Amazon called Mama Mio Skin Tight, which they sell to postpartum moms who are just confronting the shocking reality of the stretched out belly button.
This is stuff works. It's not perfect -- it won't make you look perfect -- but it does make a *difference* immediately. I am not sure what its real results are over time because I just got this stuff yesterday BUT -- if you just want to look a little bit better right now -- under your arms, lower belly, upper thigh -- really, there is a little bit of tightening and smoothing going on that is just enough to make me think that if there was some slow...even minor change that could occur over time it might be enough to decide to skip the extra surgery portion of the body makeover.
Seriously, try it -- you'll see what I'm saying. I think I paid 30 dollars on Amazon which is a lot, lot cheaper than surgery.
Good luck!

Start: 289
End 179
Twenty four pounds to go

Start: 289
End 179
Twenty four pounds to go

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.

The reason I didn't - and would never -- think about RNY is because of the rerouting of the intestines. That actually *did* sound drastic to me because you process most of your nutrition *after* the stomach and there is a lot we don't know yet about how that truly affects health.
I didn't like the lap band because I didn't want some kind of cap you could open on my belly to inject air and saline. That was just too Matrix for me.
The VS is pretty tame in comparison, and quite honestly I am confused about how anyone could possibly get back to their prior weight after it. You might bounce back up five or ten pounds, but there is just not enough time in the day to really get those calories in unless you decided to eat butter every hour on the hour. I mean it can be *done*, but you you would really have to try.

. Thanks Me, thanks all.
I can't believe it's been a year. I had several thoughts about how I was going to approach my weight loss. I thought maybe I would start a blog. I thought I would have celebrations as I went down sizes and get all excited about it. But I just didn't have the energy for it. My goal all along was to *not* make my weight loss the center of my life. I've spent a lifetime doing that and this time what I realized I wanted was a normal life, normal eating habits, and a balanced outlook.
Instead of *dieting* I've been paying close attention to my nutrition. I didn't go on excessive exercise kick but the job I got requires me to walk about ten minutes each way to the building from the parking lot and I committed to Pilates three times a week. Balanced, you know? Normal and over time. Nothing insane.
Now that I'm here I realize that it's the *obsession* with all this that partially kept me fat. When I was lowcarbing, I would get all wound up over whether there was any sugar in my ketchup; beat myself up endlessly if I touched a slice of cake. In my dieting days I would *make* myself walk for an *hour* a day, every day and be furious with myself if I missed one -- plus the additional workouts, one a day.
I had a serious emotional problem and I did not realize it or know how to stop.
But over time, eating normally, knowing my calories are always in deficit --- has probably been the best thing for me and a virtual guarantee that I won't ever gain it back this time. I have *never* -- probably since I was a kid, been more balanced, steady and normal with food. No binging and starving. No severe deprivation followed by massive calorie overload. Just eating.
My calories, in the past year, have never been in such severe deficit that I started starving. I'm now still losing on 15-1700 calories a day. I overeat sometimes but I can't do this like I used to so I just don't worry about it. I'm thinner, sure, but the real benefit is that my metabolism is no longer taking the beating I was giving it for most of my life. I'm just a lot healthier. It's not the weight loss that's the best part, you know? The best part is that I'm erasing a really bad relationship with food and with my body.
And like a lot of people have said, I wish I would have done this ten years ago -- although ten years ago this surgery did not exist.

I got on the scale this morning and it said: 183.4.
On April 1 it was my one year surgiversary. I knew I wouldn't be at my ultimate goal then, and I want to tell you the truth: I actually never believed I ever would be at goal. I really didn't think my body would go there. I thought I would always be a little fat -- in fact here's the weird thing -- the thinner I get, the more I don't remember being this fat at this weight. I remember feeling really thin at this weight. I thought around 180 would be satisfactory but it's not.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is I only have 28 pounds to go before I weigh what I weighed in high school.
About two months ago I remember getting on the scale and seeing 196. Below 200 for the first time since 2007. Got off the scale, shrugged and figured it I was around done losing.
Now it's 183.
Which means that I am less than 30 pounds away from something I really never believed I would have again. And -- if I have lost 13 pounds in less than two months -- actually I've lost 26 pounds since January -- that means it's getting more and more likely to happen.
I think that's so amazing I just don't even know what to make of it.

I got on the scale this morning and it said: 183.4.
On April 1 it was my one year surgiversary. I knew I wouldn't be at my ultimate goal then, and I want to tell you the truth: I actually never believed I ever would be at goal. I really didn't think my body would go there. I thought I would always be a little fat -- in fact here's the weird thing -- the thinner I get, the more I don't remember being this fat at this weight. I remember feeling really thin at this weight. I thought around 180 would be satisfactory but it's not.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is I only have 28 pounds to go before I weigh what I weighed in high school.
About two months ago I remember getting on the scale and seeing 196. Below 200 for the first time since 2007. Got off the scale, shrugged and figured it I was around done losing.
Now it's 183.
Which means that I am less than 30 pounds away from something I really never believed I would have again. And -- if I have lost 13 pounds in less than two months -- actually I've lost 26 pounds since January -- that means it's getting more and more likely to happen.
I think that's so amazing I just don't even know what to make of it.

I got on the scale this morning and it said: 183.4.
On April 1 it was my one year surgiversary. I knew I wouldn't be at my ultimate goal then, and I want to tell you the truth: I actually never believed I ever would be at goal. I really didn't think my body would go there. I thought I would always be a little fat -- in fact here's the weird thing -- the thinner I get, the more I don't remember being this fat at this weight. I remember feeling really thin at this weight. I thought around 180 would be satisfactory but it's not.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is I only have 28 pounds to go before I weigh what I weighed in high school.
About two months ago I remember getting on the scale and seeing 196. Below 200 for the first time since 2007. Got off the scale, shrugged and figured it I was around done losing.
Now it's 183.
Which means that I am less than 30 pounds away from something I really never believed I would have again. And -- if I have lost 13 pounds in less than two months -- actually I've lost 26 pounds since January -- that means it's getting more and more likely to happen.
I think that's so amazing I just don't even know what to make of it.

I got on the scale this morning and it said: 183.4.
On April 1 it was my one year surgiversary. I knew I wouldn't be at my ultimate goal then, and I want to tell you the truth: I actually never believed I ever would be at goal. I really didn't think my body would go there. I thought I would always be a little fat -- in fact here's the weird thing -- the thinner I get, the more I don't remember being this fat at this weight. I remember feeling really thin at this weight. I thought around 180 would be satisfactory but it's not.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is I only have 28 pounds to go before I weigh what I weighed in high school.
About two months ago I remember getting on the scale and seeing 196. Below 200 for the first time since 2007. Got off the scale, shrugged and figured it I was around done losing.
Now it's 183.
Which means that I am less than 30 pounds away from something I really never believed I would have again. And -- if I have lost 13 pounds in less than two months -- actually I've lost 26 pounds since January -- that means it's getting more and more likely to happen.
I think that's so amazing I just don't even know what to make of it.

I got on the scale this morning and it said: 183.4.
On April 1 it was my one year surgiversary. I knew I wouldn't be at my ultimate goal then, and I want to tell you the truth: I actually never believed I ever would be at goal. I really didn't think my body would go there. I thought I would always be a little fat -- in fact here's the weird thing -- the thinner I get, the more I don't remember being this fat at this weight. I remember feeling really thin at this weight. I thought around 180 would be satisfactory but it's not.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is I only have 28 pounds to go before I weigh what I weighed in high school.
About two months ago I remember getting on the scale and seeing 196. Below 200 for the first time since 2007. Got off the scale, shrugged and figured it I was around done losing.
Now it's 183.
Which means that I am less than 30 pounds away from something I really never believed I would have again. And -- if I have lost 13 pounds in less than two months -- actually I've lost 26 pounds since January -- that means it's getting more and more likely to happen.
I think that's so amazing I just don't even know what to make of it.

. Thanks Me, thanks all.
I can't believe it's been a year. I had several thoughts about how I was going to approach my weight loss. I thought maybe I would start a blog. I thought I would have celebrations as I went down sizes and get all excited about it. But I just didn't have the energy for it. My goal all along was to *not* make my weight loss the center of my life. I've spent a lifetime doing that and this time what I realized I wanted was a normal life, normal eating habits, and a balanced outlook.
Instead of *dieting* I've been paying close attention to my nutrition. I didn't go on excessive exercise kick but the job I got requires me to walk about ten minutes each way to the building from the parking lot and I committed to Pilates three times a week. Balanced, you know? Normal and over time. Nothing insane.
Now that I'm here I realize that it's the *obsession* with all this that partially kept me fat. When I was lowcarbing, I would get all wound up over whether there was any sugar in my ketchup; beat myself up endlessly if I touched a slice of cake. In my dieting days I would *make* myself walk for an *hour* a day, every day and be furious with myself if I missed one -- plus the additional workouts, one a day.
I had a serious emotional problem and I did not realize it or know how to stop.
But over time, eating normally, knowing my calories are always in deficit --- has probably been the best thing for me and a virtual guarantee that I won't ever gain it back this time. I have *never* -- probably since I was a kid, been more balanced, steady and normal with food. No binging and starving. No severe deprivation followed by massive calorie overload. Just eating.
My calories, in the past year, have never been in such severe deficit that I started starving. I'm now still losing on 15-1700 calories a day. I overeat sometimes but I can't do this like I used to so I just don't worry about it. I'm thinner, sure, but the real benefit is that my metabolism is no longer taking the beating I was giving it for most of my life. I'm just a lot healthier. It's not the weight loss that's the best part, you know? The best part is that I'm erasing a really bad relationship with food and with my body.
And like a lot of people have said, I wish I would have done this ten years ago -- although ten years ago this surgery did not exist.

I got on the scale this morning and it said: 183.4.
On April 1 it was my one year surgiversary. I knew I wouldn't be at my ultimate goal then, and I want to tell you the truth: I actually never believed I ever would be at goal. I really didn't think my body would go there. I thought I would always be a little fat -- in fact here's the weird thing -- the thinner I get, the more I don't remember being this fat at this weight. I remember feeling really thin at this weight. I thought around 180 would be satisfactory but it's not.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is I only have 28 pounds to go before I weigh what I weighed in high school.
About two months ago I remember getting on the scale and seeing 196. Below 200 for the first time since 2007. Got off the scale, shrugged and figured it I was around done losing.
Now it's 183.
Which means that I am less than 30 pounds away from something I really never believed I would have again. And -- if I have lost 13 pounds in less than two months -- actually I've lost 26 pounds since January -- that means it's getting more and more likely to happen.
I think that's so amazing I just don't even know what to make of it.

I know. I did share this with one woman at work who was telling me her knees hurt. I said something innocuous I guess -- and she said, no; I know it's because I'm overweight. And this woman really is --- I'm thinking she's 350 or more. Nicest person. So I told her the whole story of my journey -- I had probably gotten down to 220 or so by then, and she said, " Well, I'd never do anything that drastic."
Which I guess I understand. The thing is....you know....drastic? You're dying. You can't *walk*. Come on....

I know. I did share this with one woman at work who was telling me her knees hurt. I said something innocuous I guess -- and she said, no; I know it's because I'm overweight. And this woman really is --- I'm thinking she's 350 or more. Nicest person. So I told her the whole story of my journey -- I had probably gotten down to 220 or so by then, and she said, " Well, I'd never do anything that drastic."
Which I guess I understand. The thing is....you know....drastic? You're dying. You can't *walk*. Come on....

I know. I did share this with one woman at work who was telling me her knees hurt. I said something innocuous I guess -- and she said, no; I know it's because I'm overweight. And this woman really is --- I'm thinking she's 350 or more. Nicest person. So I told her the whole story of my journey -- I had probably gotten down to 220 or so by then, and she said, " Well, I'd never do anything that drastic."
Which I guess I understand. The thing is....you know....drastic? You're dying. You can't *walk*. Come on....

I know. I did share this with one woman at work who was telling me her knees hurt. I said something innocuous I guess -- and she said, no; I know it's because I'm overweight. And this woman really is --- I'm thinking she's 350 or more. Nicest person. So I told her the whole story of my journey -- I had probably gotten down to 220 or so by then, and she said, " Well, I'd never do anything that drastic."
Which I guess I understand. The thing is....you know....drastic? You're dying. You can't *walk*. Come on....

I know. I did share this with one woman at work who was telling me her knees hurt. I said something innocuous I guess -- and she said, no; I know it's because I'm overweight. And this woman really is --- I'm thinking she's 350 or more. Nicest person. So I told her the whole story of my journey -- I had probably gotten down to 220 or so by then, and she said, " Well, I'd never do anything that drastic."
Which I guess I understand. The thing is....you know....drastic? You're dying. You can't *walk*. Come on....