M2G

I'm now a big believer in actually TIMING my drinking in regards to eating. For example I will eat Breakfast and the moment I'm done I set a timer on my phone. I will not drink anything until at least 45 minutes have passed, but I usually go an hour. Then I start drinking my Water. This helps keep hunger at bay, and I find that this also helps reduce my tendency to "snack"...because I'm not putting anything in my mouth for a good hour after eating. It's tempting to go and have a handful of nuts, or a nibble of cheese, but I've noticed since I'm actually timing myself it has cut down on snacking a lot. I never was eating and drinking "together" per se after surgery (I knew that was not acceptable behavior post-op due to all the reasons listed above) but my timing had gotten sloppy and sometimes I was drinking in as little as 15 minutes after I was done eating. So I think this is an important thread...

OMG, your post reminded me of that ad from Sears Optical. OMG, way too funny! (and also so he IS paying attention sometimes!! we can give him extra credit for that...lol) http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7dwH/sears-optical-thats-a-mannequin

Oh GT, I owe you an apology! I'm so sorry. My brain scatters sometimes between here, FB, my blog, food tracker site, emails, and I did see that you asked us to google something and my mind filed it in the "later" category and then I'm embarrassed to say I forgot. Also I was confused because you were speaking about two separate things but my mind thought they were related. (Attack where you are stationed, and then attack of diarrhea...related to a possible hernia?) Please forgive us for not seeing/commenting etc. Sometimes I come here and skim through 6 or 7 responses and I'm too lazy to click "multiquote" and then find the breaks in between each quote and type my response and I'm also too lazy to go back up and re-read 7 responses, so my mind tries to grab something and hold on to it so when I start typing I can just address those things that my mind grabbed onto. Thank you for pointing out that we overlooked your post...can you please give us an updating how you are doing on all fronts?

Thanks for the link LV... and thanks BTB for starting this! I'm going to join in! Mine will be mostly treadmill and spin class. My treadmill does NOT count distance/miles, etc. (I know how crappy is that? People don't believe me when I say that.) It only counts heartrate, time, incline, and speed. So I need to find an app for my phone that will count the miles. I'm not used to carrying my phone with me either but I will give it a whirl! Spin varies b/c the instructor does different things each week, but I try to go 2x a week and we usually log between 14-20 miles per class. It's an hour long class and she does an "advanced" class that is an hour and a half (which I'm too chicken to try...but maybe I will try that too someday this month!!) Excited to jump in! Thanks all...

Haha, great post! You look great, CONGRATS!! PS - are you going to try and make group on the 9th? I need to check my calendar and see...

I big puffy-heart you Georgia! :wub:

Well promptly after posting that I *might* fast on Sun. proceeded to eat...lol. I finished yesterday at 1311 tho so all is not lost. Thought about fasting today but will prob. wait until Tues to do an official fast. LV- that is one heck of a road rash...OUCH! but like FYE said it's making you look tough. OD- Have a blast, life is meant for living, you can buckle down later... Coops- I'm over 40 but not yet hitting wacky hormone, so I think that makes a big difference. UK-yay for the loss!!! G - glad you had a good weekend, poor furbaby and being in hiding...lol sounds like my cat. Glad you had fun though! Happy Labor day girls!

Well FYE, interesting about never hearing from them again! I'm very connected to my surgeon's office (go to support groups, once in a while will attend his seminars to be on his "patient panel" and try to see my NUT every 3 months. (In 2012 when I was gaining weight I obv. wasn't seeing them so that is why I decided it was worth it to check in every 3 months or so to keep me on my toes...lol) I'm glad you called for labs, I will be sure to share my results when I get them!

I've never thought about their sizing...the only time I've ever been in their store is to purchase a gift card for my daughter's volleyball coach (who was a self-professed *lover* of all their things.) I never bothered to look at their sizes because I couldn't get past their prices. Who charges that for *workout* wear? gah! Not my bag.

Well you ARE a vet, but you are also a HUMAN. And everyone has "those" days when we are not 100% perfect, nor do I think that you can expect to be 100% on top of your game every single day for the rest of your God-given life. I think that you recognized this probably wasn't productive behavior, but it sounds like you already made adjustments. Now it's chin up and move on and make your next meal the right one. Oh and just a little tidbit...I like to think that my obesity is in remission. It's still there lurking, and multiple bad decisions can bring it charging out of the closet and onto center stage. I don't consider myself "cured" from it, so I can never get too comfortable. At the risk of sounding all high school musical-ish, I need to keep my head in the game to keep it in remission.

We have some blessed "cloud" cover today, so finally turned off the AC and am just enjoying the fresh air through all the open windows. ~~Sending you some clouds Ms. S~~ Cheri I don't know if it gets harder to lose after 40...I think for some it might be true but I also a whole bunch of stellar ladies on here who are "over" 40 and kicking arse. I think maybe it's more related to menopause than it is to a certain age, when the hormones get all whacky (Coops?...) So maybe someone else can come along and shed some light on that. I had a "feast" day yesterday and hit 1311 cals but there was some FF frozen yogurt and a small brownie that my daughter baked (Coops?...hahaha!) how could I say no after her "efforts"...lol. So today I'm on the fence as to whether I should fast or feast. My normal fast day has been either a Mon. or Tues. and then again on a Thurs. or Fri. But I'm not against a good weekend fast. Just harder to do when we are all hanging around and there are meals to prepare for the fam. I've had my coffee already today and feeling no hunger. I might just call it a fast day and see what happens...

Wow, congrats on your success! Nice to see a big drop after a "slow" month...you've done a tremendous job, congratulations!

Like BTB said, it takes time for your mental "image" of yourself to catch up to where you are physically in this journey. I have lots of old photos of myself when I was morbidly obese (not as many as I would have liked because usually when the camera came out I would hide, or be the one 'behind' it...) so sometimes I will sit and sift through those old photos to *remember* where I came from. I wasn't a miserable, depressed, binge-eating person before my sleeve, but I was unhappy living in a body that was too large for me to be comfortable and I was unhappy with my relationship with food. So while I don't think that my personality changed much in this process, I always say that I finally feel like my "outsides" match my "insides"...I was here all along, just no one saw me the way I saw myself. If that makes any sense....

Doesn't look like she has logged in since May 9, 2013...

I've seen enough of your over 3,000 posts to know that subtlety is just NOT your area of specialty. But that's all good. You call 'em how you see 'em!

Oh yeah I would be ranting a lil bit too! Snooki? Really? Hope the couch is comfy for him tonight!

WOW! Incredible. You don't even look like the same person! Congrats. Well pushing the counter works...I see the definition there! Awesome job.

Nice job OTR! Where are the "before" pics for comparison? Because (and this is a true compliment) you don't look like you were ever obese to begin with! (Also what are you doing with your hands in the first one?) Just curious, is this a body builder pose I'm unaware of?...honestly looks like you are washing your hands...lol. Or wait, maybe to show definition? Either way you are doing an incredible job. Sorry to hear about the knee surgery, hopefully it's feeling better now.

So you are 11 months out?? Please do pop in when you are 3, 5, and 10 years out. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm editing this because I re-used the reported word and so my post got eaten along with the edit to the OP (Alex why couldn't you just edit that word out like you did on delta_girls post?) Anyway, let's see how good my memory is... I took your post to be like those old makeup ads that said "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" (how annoying right?) Look no one is going to jump down your throat because you have glided through the last 11 months since your surgery. You eat what you want, you don't exercise, and you are happy not being a size 0. YAY! If you can do this for the long haul, I would love to hear all about it.

Well my husband and I are both sleeved, but honestly we can't have a relationship where we are each keeping one eye on our plate and one eye on each other's plate. We will joke about it sometimes (as one of us is popping up some popcorn about "hey watcha eating over there" but it's all in good fun.) I'm happy your husband has lost the weight and that is great that he supports you but you need to tell him to back off (maybe not as directly as Lipstick...lol) but you do need to let him know that this is YOUR journey and that you need to not have him always keeping tabs on you. Good luck, it's hard for some leopards to change their spots...

I don't think I get hit on at all. I do happen to wear a huge diamond ring which I like to think keeps anyone with ulterior motives away. (The only time I don't wear it is at the gym and 95% of the time my husband goes with me...) When I was in the "losing" phase, I would sometimes get polite comments (men and women both...who knew me BEFORE being sleeved) about how nice I looked etc. but OMG, when my husband was losing people were falling all over themselves (men and women again) to tell him how great he looked. I *think* that bothered me more than random interactions with strangers who may or may not be hitting on me. So hard to tell. I'm a talker by nature so I think nothing of having a short conversation with someone at the grocery store or bank, etc. Edited to add: I *just* now read the entire topic of the post...LOL Laura now it makes sense what you were saying. I clicked on this over to the right and it didn't show the whole title, and I never looked up to see what it said. I don't consider myself super-hot...but a WAY better version of myself when I was fatter.

OMG, Chimera. THANK YOU FOR THAT ARTICLE!! Wow it should be required reading FOR everyone who is even considering WLS. I find myself totally identifying with many key points in this article. Everything from not "reaching" goal, to the regain, to the word "failure" being bandied about in my own head. What an excellent viewpoint about the realistic outcome of surgical intervention. I'm happy to say that I do not currently consider myself a failure (but I have felt that before) and while I'm not happy about the regain (-10 of the +20 are gone!) so even though I refuse to accept the regain and will continue to battle it, I will NOT have a "normal" BMI but I'm okay with that. Thank you again for sharing this with us...

K, add Butter to my list up there ^^---^^ And I know it seems like a contradiction (because how do you get to 100lbs overweight by just eating a tad more than the "recommended" 2,000cals/day...but true for me), but I probably used to eat about 2,500 - 2,800 calories a day (not sure because I was a grazer) but when I would attempt to "diet" and control my calories, I would wind up around 1,600 - 1,800. So for me personally, I don't see how I would ever be able to resume (post-VSG) a 2,500 calorie diet and manage to NOT gain weight. And I'm not going to lie, there are some days that I *wish* I could eat more and NOT gain the extra weight, but in all honesty, this is what I SIGNED up for. Please cut out 85% of my stomach so that I can eat less food. Hard to complain about the trade offs.

I just saw your photos in the Before/After thread...girl you don't even LOOK like the same person. WTG! Yes, we want a photo from the bridal shower!! How fun!