M2G

I'm so sorry for your loss. Thanks for the reminder that life is precious and we need to take care of each other.

OKAY, you are right Coops! I'm CALLING IT! I saw the new low again today, so I'm going with -12lbs since July 16th (or 17th too lazy to look it up!) Remember Georgia this literally *just* happened to my husband last week. Exact same thing. We were at a PTO potluck and he had something that did NOT sit right and he *knew* it wasn't going to stay down either. Other people ate the same thing (including one of my daughters and my SIL) and they were fine. I thought maybe flu, but he was better once it was gone and took it easy and was feeling pretty ok the next day. I hope YOU are feeling okay also. Thanks Cheri, you were *missed* around here! I'm glad your meds/appetite/scale all got together and had a nice little meeting and cut you some slack. Yeah, we are missing the other Sheila, SuperSweetums... Yeah the exercise DOES help, and you know what? It helps me mentally. I sometimes (okay a lot of times) don't WANT to actually GO exercise but I never never never regret it when I'm done. I'm sore, proud and happy when I've finished a workout. And it has to be regular. Going "once in a blue moon" doesn't cut it. Start out treating it like chores you HAVE to do. Put it on your list like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc. Pretty much force yourself to do it, and you will be amazed at how great you feel after. Dee, I'm amazed at your strength!! I know we all get into funks here and there, but you have steadfastily (is that a word?) stayed the course and I'm in awe of your mental resolve. Hang in there, this too shall pass. And also to MsSkinniness...this funk will pass. I hope that you are taking care of yourself! I'm often shocked at how down on ourselves we can get after losing a bunch of weight, and then how the scale can affect our moods. The scale does NOT reflect who we are, it's just a measurement. (And I need to remember that myself, a LOT!) So working out 2x today so no fasting for me...just hopefully low cal is the plan...1,200 is my goal.

Congratulations to you both! How exciting!!! You both look amazing...my husband and I are both sleeved as well, it's great to be on this "journey" together!

We DID get snow today! Aaargh! It's just cold enough, and they are (so far) gentle little flakes floating through the air. But I wore my warmup jacket ALL the way thru my weight class and only took it off once I got into spin. And I took a quick peek at the scale and saw a new low weight! I'm not calling it yet, because I like to see it a few times in a row before calling it but man I *needed* to see that. If it sticks that will make -12lbs since mid-July.

Okay adding up so far...84.3 after a nice long break this weekend!

Congratulations TexasMiss! I love the new shorter 'sassy' hair!

Heather, CONGRATULATIONS!!! You made a beautiful bride. Loved all the photos!

OD - wanted to answer your ? about cals on fast day...here is my fast day today. FF creamer in my coffee for Breakfast (2 cups of coffee roughly 40grams each of cream) 53 Leftover chicken breast (for breakfast...I usually have egg beaters) 90 BBQ sauce for the chicken 15 lunch was a hard boiled egg 78 cals dinner was 92% lean grnd beef with taco seasoning 142 cals Mexican style shredded cheese 54 Light sour cream 36 Snacks were 2 peppermint candies (like those soft melt-in-your-mouth kind) 34 calories More coffee to last me through support group 23 (cals from my FF creamer again) TOTAL 525 Sorry I did a copy and paste from my food log and it didn't really work so I retyped this. I apologize looks kind of funny. Anyway Calorie Count says it was 27 g carbs, 52 of prot and 22 from fat! Anyway, hope the rest of you had great days!

Beautiful!!! Congratulations!!!

Hugs coops! I hope today is better for you!!!

Really cute! Congrats on winning!

You are rocking in Georgia...I think you can manage 125!!! (and totally missing the jumping cheerleaders and dancing banana emoticons from the old days of VST!!! I would so totally have put a bunch of those jumping cheerleaders here for ya!)

Stalls suck. There is nothing worse than putting in 100% effort and not getting that "payoff" on the scale. But this is a journey of 1,000 miles (or more... ) and patience will be your friend along the way. Hang in there GG! So my spin instructor calls it a butt callus? My first few times at spin my hiney hurt, and everyone was like "oh it will be okay eventually" and they were right. I don't even notice it anymore. Guess I'm a proud owner of a butt callus? Hope you feel better soon!

Can I make my confession too... Hummm, you sound like my TWIN this weekend! I came on here and said "oh my mom will be in town and I tend to eat poorly, make bad food choices etc. and this weekend I will not." Harumpf. So there may have been some apple crisp, ice cream and Cookies involved in this weekend. Gah! Never was I more excited for fast day today! Moving on...

OMG!!! That is SO exciting, I'm beyond thrilled for you coops!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday cals for my feed day were 1,176. Not to shabby. And what you wrote about plastics...omg what a well-worded paragraph. I'm torn. I've been to see a PS. I was not in *love* with him and his approach. That was in May of this year. Now that I've had several months to reflect on it, I realize that I went in looking for "better" and he told me what I would need to be "perfect" and I just can't imagine doing all the work he suggested. So then I've spent a good amount of time trying to "love myself" :wub: where I'm at. I can't say YES I would rush off and do PS, or NO NEVER, because honestly I still don't know what I will eventually do. All I know is I'm almost 3 years post-op and I'm happier, healthier, smaller, more fit than I've ever been my entire life. So that makes me happy.

Congrats on your approval! Oct is a good month to be sleeved. Remember the "farewell" is not forever. You can and will eventually be able to eat anything (not at first!!!) but eventually there will most likely be NOTHING that you can't eat. There will be a lot of things you SHOULDN'T eat. The one thing that is permanent for me (yay sleeve) is the AMOUNT of food I can eat at one sitting. I will never be able to eat an 8, 10, 12 oz steak again at once (that would make several meals for me) so the quantity is permanent. I know of one post-op who is almost 2 years out and he *still* gets frustrated because he can't eat as many wings as he would like to. Definitely don't go crazy/overboard right now. Oh and one thing I haven't touched in over 3 years is anything with carbonation. Never. I gave it up the same day I joined this board over 3 years ago...Sept. 20th, 2010 was my last diet coke. Don't ever miss them!!

67.4 miles so far. I'm taking the next 4 days off to rest my body. I started a pretty intense weekly workout schedule 3 weeks ago (weight lifting, spin class, fusion class for a total of 5 classes each week) and I'm definitely needing and looking forward to resting my body a bit this weekend!

And for the carbonation...I never drink anything carbonated. It has been over 3 years since I had anything with carbonation. Husband will occasionally have a beer but he is 2.5 years post-op as well...

I know my surgeon's rules were "no drinking for one year post-op" but he also acknowledged that was the number one most commonly broken rule. And not to be holier-than-thou but I did it. I did NOT drink alcohol for one year post-op and my husband is sleeved and he also made the one year mark. Obviously it wasn't incredibly hard for me to give it up, and even one year post-op the glass of wine that I had hit me pretty hard (now I'm a lightweight.) I'm not saying you have to do what I did, but I'm just saying that it can be done. I still rarely drink, maybe a couple of times a year at parties, weddings, dinner groups, etc. but just be careful because alcohol does have a harder effect on the post-sleeve body.

The same thing happened to me (except it took me a full month to lose -25lbs) holy cow, 22lbs in 8 days? WOW! Anyway, I think for my situation I must have been 'stuffing' myself into my clothing. They say that every 10lbs is a size, but I found when I was morbidly obese that it was really more like 40-50lbs in between sizes (like AtlantaRed said). The 10lb "rule" doesn't come into play until you are much smaller. Just keep working on it and things will eventually begin to fall right off your new smaller body!

Well right now my focus is getting off my regain. I was sleeved almost 3 years ago (Oct. 22, 2010) and did great until about 18 months post-op. I started working full-time and had to cut back on my exercise, combined with me deciding I was sick of tracking my food, I regained about 20lbs in the year 2012. So I'm trying to lose that (-11 are gone yeah!) and then once the regain is gone I will have another 8-10lbs to get to goal. And then I will just have to see. I'm not really chasing a clothing size although I have a feeling that at my goal weight I might be "between" sizes which would frustrate me so WHEN I get to goal (see I didn't say if...hahaha determination is the name of the game!) I will see where I "land" and then maybe see what I want to do. Exercise has been a fairly big part of my life for the last 9 years but it wasn't until I was sleeved that I really began to get serious about it and even now I have *finally* learned that just doing some exercise...well that's great for some people, but for me I need to continuously challenge myself. It's easy to get complacent and fall into that whole idea that you did something and something is better than nothing when it comes to exercise, so I'm really trying to push my own limits higher.

So my two fast days this week were both a bit over on cals, but that is ok. I made up for it by doing a third semi-fast day and I'm happy to announce I'm back to my low!!! I started a new weight training class (in addition to 3 classes already, so now I'm up to 5 INTENSE classes a week...whew) 3 weeks ago and my weight immediately went up. As much as I knew it was probably muscle-related I wasn't happy about it. I can finally say those lbs are gone! Happy day! GOAL FOR THE WEEKEND...KEEP CALORIES LOW. My mom will be in town and that usually triggers over-eating for me (not binge stuff just more than I would normally eat) so I'm REALLY working hard to keep that in check.

Well, as you know Mark my goal is to not be a slacker... hahaha! I guess my gut (no pun intended...) tells me to do the heavier weight and even if I can't do the required amount of reps, to keep doing as many as I can to push myself harder. I just want a strong fit body, no illusions of being a bodybuilder.

Okay, since this thread has already derailed, why not add this. Please note: this is just for fun...and not serious: In a fit of anger her majesty Queen Elizabeth II issued the following letter to the citizens of United States of America To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II In light of your failure to financially manage yourselves and inability to effectively govern yourselves responsibly, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.) Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, David William Donald Cameron, will appoint a Governor for the former United States of America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: You will learn that the suffix ˜burgh” is pronounced “burra”; you may elect to spell Pittsburgh as ˜Pittsberg” if you find you simply can’t cope with correct pronunciation. Then look up “aluminum” and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter “U” will be reinstated in words such as ˜colour”, “favour” and “neighbour”. Likewise, you will learn to spell “doughnut” without skipping half the letters. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up “vocabulary”). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as “US English”. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter “u”. You will relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above). July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults and then used solely for shooting grouse. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to handle a gun, let alone shoot grouse. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour. The former United States of America will adopt the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland prices on petrol (which you have been calling “gasoline”) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French Fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with malt vinegar. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling “beer” is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater. You will cease playing “American” Football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American Football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies or Jessies – English slangs for effeminate males and blouses for big girls respectively). Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the “World Series” for a game which is not played outside of the United States of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad. An inland revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season. Thank you for your cooperation. God Save the Queen!

Okay, thanks. Glad to know it's not just me who can't seem to find it. I will have to look for Carbquick (never seen that on store shelves either...) I see almond flour and a million and one GLUTEN free flours but it seems to be hard to find low-carb flours. I guess I could just order some...lol