M2G

GT, what you wrote, OMG...wow, I just don't have any words of comfort. You really have a way with words and are a gifted writer. Have you ever thought of having a blog or writing a book? I realize everyone can "read" here but it doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm having coffee with my good girlfriends every morning. I've been pretty much off in lala land this week in regards to eating...really need to wrap my head around getting back in the zone. I can't say that I'm bummed or mad at myself though. Conscious choice and enjoyed not tracking every bite. It's also the first week since July 16th that I didn't even fast one day. So that was kind of a nice break, but definitely need to get back to it!

Not only is that an awesome NSV... (to wear something that you could never "feel comfortable" wearing before due to your weight) BUT your husband has great taste in clothing. Looking good GG!

Congratulations! You look amazing, keep up the good work!

Great job Georgia! I'm so impressed at how you jumped in both of these months! And the scale is reflecting all your hard work.

Wow...I can see I've missed lots this week. Just also sending out prayers for all of my gals on this thread. Everyone has some issues and while they might differ, there is definitely a common thread in regards to eating. Hugs to you all!! I've not been "feeling" the 5:2 this week, mainly because my girls are gone. I *thought* it would be super-easy because I don't have to cook for anyone but DH and I, but we've been eating out, buying special stuff and cooking it at home (like a $15 SINGLE steak, nice cut of meat, but it was awesome it fed us both last night) and so just generally being lazy in regards to my eating. We didn't buy Halloween candy but are instead offering to help out at our church's fall festival tonight so we won't just be sitting home handing out candy. I did, however, cave and buy candy corn. I know I know dumb move, but I've been portioning it out and mixing it with almonds. OMG...so good. And when the bag is gone it's gone, NO MORE. lol The one thing I have been doing is killing it at the gym, so that has been nice. Everyone is like "oh are you have so much fun with the kids away?" Um, I'm stuck doing homework (already have my bachelor's from 19 years ago but getting a certificate to up my game in regards to my career) and did something super-exciting like having all my moles checked for cancer. So not exactly FUN, per se, but I know *they* are having fun so that makes me happy. They come back Sun. hopefully I can get my head screwed on right to have a proper fast day at some point...soon!!

Okay final wrap up for the month: Last month I had no idea how many miles I was biking/walking/running so I jumped at the chance of 100 as the goal. Goal: 100 Sept: 121.5 total This month I set my goal for 150 trying to improve upon the Sept. Challenge. Goal: 150 Oct: 172.1 total Need to think about what I'm going to do next month! Thanks and good luck to everyone, you have one last day to push yourself for this challenge...and a good reason to push today...Happy Halloween!

I have to agree with Cheri... To the OP, it's been a month since you wrote this? Do you have any updates for us? What did you decide to do? You've gotten a lot of great advice here...

So I didn't drink for the first year post-op. When I did finally drink it was a glass of wine and I *felt* it pretty quickly. Now 3 years later, I'm still a lightweight when it comes to drinking. My favorite drink is a lemon drop martini. The place that I order it at makes them small, which is perfect. They do still hit quickly thought, so just be careful around alcohol. That being said, I rarely drink at all. Actually the last drink I had was the lemon drop martini when out with one of my good friends back in August of this year.

3 years ago today I had the VSG! So much has happened in the last 3 years in regards to my attitudes, abilities and awareness surrounding my body, what I eat, and how I exercise. I will do my best to keep this short! First and foremost, I am one of those people who had a surgical procedure to help me lose weight. And I hit a "low" weight and then, in the space of about 10 months, regained about 20ish pounds. Nothing is more humbling than being a "statistic" in this way. I had always heard that this regularly happens to WLS patients and a part of my brain said "oh that won't be me!" Haha. Lessons learned the hard way are sometimes the ones that stick with us the most. So if any of you have the question "is it possible to regain weight with the sleeve?" ...the answer is YES it is possible. The regain is actually quite easy. You quit tracking your food, you eat a few more calories than you need to, extra "treats" find there way back into your life, and you slack off on the exercising. Losing the extra regain...well notsoeasy. I have lost -12lbs of my regain and will continue to fight until the regain is gone. Here are just a few quick things that are true for ME, personally. 1. We can live on a lot less food than we think we can live on. If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember that statement. During the time that I had regained some weight, I found myself wanting to eat more and the truth of the matter remains that my daily caloric intake needs to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,400 calories or less for me to maintain or lose weight, regardless of how much I exercise. This is completely reasonable, doable and normal for me. And I am finally OK with this. (Yours may be completely different!!) 2. Don't underestimate the importance of exercise!! It's taken me a while to finally push myself out of my comfort zone when it comes to exercise, but I've found out what a really challenging workout does to me mentally and physically and I know when things get to easy that I need to push myself farther. If you have never exercised before in your life, then your goal is to GET UP OFF the couch and DO SOMETHING. And if exercise is not completely foreign to you, then you need to set some goals to push yourself harder. 3. Plastic surgery. I have not had any...yet. I went for an initial consult this past May. It was really hard to see how much damage being morbidly obese has done to my body and how much it would cost to get a nice "perfect" body. I've had a lot of time and space to think about what I learned at that consult and what I realize now, is that I'm not sure I can afford perfection. Or that it necessarily exists. I just know I could put one of my kids through college for what I was quoted for plastics. So I'm currently on the fence and in the mode of trying to be happy with where I am and not worry about chasing a down a body that might not exist for me. 4. I constantly drink Water. I drink (half-caf) coffee (usally 2 cups a day), I rarely drink alcohol and I never drink anything carbonated. I've been carbonation free for over 3 years now. I also rarely use any type of crystal lite, or flavor enhancers etc. Sometimes I drink plain (unsweet) tea. My net loss is somewhere around -90lbs. My husband is also sleeved and did NOT regain any weight. He is 2.5 years post-op and seems to maintain his more modest loss (-70lbs) more effortlessly than I do. He also can eat more calories than I do, so right there are complete differences among sleevers! I just don't think we can ever "give up" ...and there is no "finish" line! There might be a GOAL WEIGHT, but once you are there, it's still a journey to keep the weight off. And for that reason I'm eternally grateful to my VST 'family' for always being here! BEFORE VSG 2010 AFTER VSG 2013 (all of these photos have been taken in the last 2 months) SIDE BY SIDE

I'm 3 years out...no regrets. I posted about it here... http://www.verticalsleevetalk.com/topic/97887-3-years-ago-today-i-had-the-vsg/

You are the POSTER CHILD for this plan. LOVE THIS POST!!!

Actually, from my limited understanding Biotin will NOT prevent hair loss. It only helps with creating new growth. I did take it about 2 months pre-op and for about 18 months post-op and I did regrow hair. Might have happened anyway, but I think the biotin helped regrow my hair. I will say again, I don't think there is much you can do in the way of "preventing" loss. It seems to happen to so many. Those who don't experience any hair loss are in the minority.

So "sliming" is just extra saliva? Not actually throwing up? Thanks for the description, just never had that at all, and honestly really glad to be able to say that. Yep hang with us, there are a lot of us vets who know about how easy it is to regain some weight. Don't give up, you can fight back and keep working your sleeve!

Just copied this post because as usual Dee said was I was "thinking" !!! Love the baby picture, love the nekkid look-ma-no-more-skin picture (HOW AWESOME IS THAT??) glad LV is back with us, and like Coops the piddly stuff that I deal with isn't as big of a deal when you put it side-by-side with death, addiction, etc. Right now my struggle is that I cannot seem to keep myself in line. Seems "toeing" the line so-to-speak for my 3rd surgiversary visit has somehow unfurled into me just not being (or feeling) very much in control. I need to sort that out, but meanwhile, my kids are now on fall break and I'm waiting this VERY second to see if they have safely arrived in CA to visit my dad and his wife. This is their first "solo" trip, we took them to airport watched them climb on the plane and the rest of the week they are with family between CA and AZ. They are 11 and 12 and thank goodness they have each other. Today was bittersweet. I saw that cute baby Shevi's face (not sure I got that spelled right) and it's hard to believe mine are old enough to attempt a brave flight by themselves. Cool, but also sad they are growing up so much. ===Update: girls have arrived safely at their destination! Phew!=== Anyway, gotta get my head back in the right place, it's going to be HARD with the girls gone this week because it means we'll probably eat out more than usual. The leftovers are awesome though!

Hey I didn't write this to hurt your feelings at all, so please forgive me if I did. I also do lunges, squats, throwdowns, tons of different types of weight-lifting, functional form, working different muscles, etc. 2 days a week for an hour and I don't honestly keep track off all the reps and the exact things we do. I work in a small group with a personal trainer and she lays out something completely different for each session (kind of like crossfit.) I'm fine with you continuing to post your WOD and I'm free to read or skip. You are right that it just might motivate someone who is stuck in the "I can't" mentality. I'm impressed you keep track of the details of your workouts.

I could have written this post Dee! Nothing is a no-go for me. But I still weigh and measure my food. Just the other day I had some leftover lean ground beef and I was just going to pop the whole thing in the micro with a little cheese and call it dinner. Looked at, and decided I better measure it. Came out to 5.4oz of ground beef. I cut it back to exactly 3oz, topped with 10grams of cheese and that was my dinner. I would have NEVER been able to stuff all 5.4oz in at once. The leftover 2.4 went in the next morning's egg beater omelet. I also have never thrown up, slimed or anything else similar to that. What is slime? Just extra saliva or things that come from your stomach back up? Sorry I'm unfamiliar with sliming.

Agreed. And also vote for just ONE thread...even though there is some whining (ah hem, LV ) I think one thread is probably easier to manage than two. Everyone can set their own little "goals" so that they are getting pushed because as Butter said that's what this thread is really all about. Call it the 50, 100, 150, 200...and BEYOND thread. As for the crossfit stuff....I wonder Fiddle, do you WRITE this all down each day? Or copy n paste from some Crossfit WOD site? Can you edit it down to the miles for the purposes of the thread since that was the original intent? Or maybe start your own WOD challenge? And I'm totally 100% with you on still needing to be pushed. I've picked my classes and instructors for specifically that reason, so they will push me. My fav NUT is like "but you can do that at home" um, nope, I would I KNOW I would not be as hard on myself as my PT and other instructors are.

I use my highest weight because it was probably a month before surgery so it's not like it was a weight from 10 years ago. However, sadly my highest weight was actually higher than either of my pregnancies!

Okay I'm at 137.1 miles today...that just blew right past my 121 for last month! WOO HOO!!! My goal is 150 for the month...*I THINK I CAN* since I have a week left!

Well that's a bummer that he was so negative towards fat people. (Not everyone from Colorado is like that...just saying ) And no grey hair? OMG I'm so jealous!! I started with grey around age 21, so not fair!!! But yay for you...lol. Fasting today girls...after seeing a super-new-low on Tues, I've been sort of not watching it closely, so I'm looking forward to today's fast to put me back in my place.

Nothing like wishful thinking ^^^up there^^^ from 292-177 where do I get some of *those* $70 antibiotics?? I'm totally joking with you and hope you realize that. You are probably all drugged up anyway...so I shouldn't poke fun. I just couldn't resist. Seriously, I hope you feel better soon. Sorry you got an infection that stinks!

OMG, I love this. Vanity and Bounce insurance. Do you think State Farm or Allstate will sell that. SIGN ME UP! LOL LOL LOL!!! :lol: I feel ya GG...in my fourth month post-op I lost exactly -2lbs. I was like "what the _____!!!" I was extremely frustrated. I felt "robbed" of my "honeymoon window" because I was 100% compliant with regards to food, exercise, Water, and that was it...my big payoff? So yeah, I've totally been there and it's a tough spot to be. But I moved on and eventually lost more weight and got over it. (Well mostly over it... ) You can follow all the charts, and go by what others (i.e. surgeons and medical professionals) tell you but at the end of the day this is YOUR body and you have to be comfortable being you. Any amount lost that you can keep off for 5, 10, 20 years is the goal. Not a neat little chart that tells you what to weight. Just my humble opinion.

ODasiy.... BEAUTIFUL! How nice to "see" you!!! Good luck with dating adventures.

What BMI chart are you looking at... as for 5'6" I believe a 25.0 would be 155lbs with 25.0 being considered "healthy". 145lbs at 5'6" is 23.4 which is fine if you are going for >25. At any rate, my loss slowed way down (there were many stalls and stubborn pounds not wanting to leave my body along the way) and it sort of picked "maintenance" before I was ready. My surgeon at first was going for that BMI around 25-26 but then at 9 months he went, "oh yeah, that isn't going to work for you" so we bumped things up a bit. I just don't think you can put much stock in the BMI chart. You need to figure out what works for YOU, where YOU feel comfortable, and where YOU are able to maintain without a huge struggle. Since you asked for my 2 cents, I think 145 is too low for someone who is 5'6", but if you are someone who can achieve/maintain it then that would be great! You will find your way, and figure out what works for you, as you get further out.

WOW ladies! That is totally awesome!