M2G

Here is a blog of someone who was in a very similar situation... http://jax0120.blogspot.com/ She used to post here but not so much anymore. Anyway, she had lost some weight with the band, had issues and revised to the sleeve. When she did the revision she was at about 160lbs. Now she maintains around 140lbs. Here is right before her revision: http://jax0120.blogspot.com/2011/06/before-surgery-to-vsg-pics.html Hope that helps!

I am right there in the fight with you ladies! Thanks FYE for the article. I've actually READ that article before, but this time I bookmarked it. TY! Here is what I have found for me. I "average" 1,200 calories a day (I've been tracking my food since Jan, but not perfect 100% strict, there are days I don't track what I eat) and I have lost -9lbs of my almost 20lb regain from 2012. It is coming off painfully slow, but I think in order for me to get the weight off faster I would have to cut carbs and calories (I average 70-100 carbs a day) so I would probably have to do the Atkins method and go less than 30g carbs for quicker weight loss. I do have days where I'm around 40g or less of carbs but under 30 only happens on the rarest of days. I have repeated asked my NUT about the final outcome of our surgery being metabolically ALTERED and she agrees that we are but I can't find statistical data showing what changes and how. I'm interested in this (cut and pasted from the article): For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place. Since the VSG eliminates some or all of this hunger hormone, how does that affect our metabolism long-term? I vascillate between annoyance at having to be so vigalent about what I put in my mouth to grateful-ness (is that a word?) that I can subsist on 1,000-1,200 calories a day and not be a raging angry b**ch. To me that has been the biggest benefit of the sleeve, is that I do feel full and (on most days) satisfied with a low-calorie diet. One last mention...when I was about 15 months POST-OP I went and had a body scan done. Fancy equipment that you stand on barefoot, and hold on to, that will send a bioimpedance throughout your body and spit out a very scientific sounding sheet of info. It is a bit fancier than just the hand-held versions or the scale you can buy that tell you your fat or Water ratios. This actually broke down my muscle percentages in my left vs. right leg (arms, torso, etc.) And it said that my RMR is 1,450. Meaning I should be able to EAT 1,450 calories a day while doing absolutely nothing. Factor in working out and I ****SHOULD**** be able to MAINTAIN my weight loss on 1,700-2,000 calories depending on how hard I work out on any one given day. I'm not sure how accurate that is, and I've been wanting to go back and have a rescan done JUST to see if my RMR is the same or different. I will post if I am able to go back for a scan...maybe before or around my 3 year post-op appt in Oct.

Well here is a calorie count from someone who is almost 2.5 years post-op. I generally keep my calories around >1,200 a day. I'm actively trying to lose some regain (I've lost -9lbs since Jan 1, 2013) eating around 1,200 a day. This doesn't give the amounts but I put the calories in there. Yesterday was an oddball day because I don't normally drink shakes. But I had a hair appt. right at noon that lasted 2 hours so I drank my lunch. Breakfast Fat Free Half and Half - Land O Lakes 23 Egg Beaters 36 Mexican Style Four cheese 93 Lunch High Protein chocolate shake 160 dinner chicken, Breast, meat Only Broiled 168 Egg, Whole - Cooked, Hard-boiled 81 Snacks Greek Yogurt - 0% Fat 81 PB2 - Powdered Peanut Butter 45 pure protien bar 190 Honeycomb - Cereal 81 Peanut Butter Snack Bar 100 calories were around 1,058 and about 127g protein. I have some days that go higher, for instance on Mon. I went to a pot-luck (and obv. didn't weigh and measure my food but I'm pretty good at eyeballing amounts by now) and my calories for the day ended up being over 1,700. It's EASY to go high-calorie without hardly even trying. It's a LOT harder to go low-cal. But as I said I'm trying to lose and the sleeve is my tool. My hubby is also sleeved and is able to eat more calories than I can without gaining. (grrr!, lol) So everyone is vastly different.

Perfectly said. Also 100 posts doesn't seem like too many to achieve. I realize there are probably "vets" out there who have never heard of this site, stumble on and would qualify being 6 months or 1 year post-op, but this is a community and I think you need to share and interact, (not just coast along looking) to participate. Just my $.02.

Thanks OD...You are right about the regain being a fight! Aargh. And oh my gosh, I wonder what setting you have? Because I get all these pop up ads, blinking, and whatnot. And while I get that the site needs ads for business, it gets frustrating when they cause the page to time out due to "long-running scripts." Oh and another thing about the ads, I would LOVE to see an ad with someone who has a real post-op belly, not a six-pack without a scar to be found. Just saying.

Not everyone in the world can understand, relate, or basically cares about what you do to your stomach to lose weight. But a huge majority of people here GET IT. I think this site saved me from completely boring the rest of my family and friends with talking about the sleeve. LOL!

I went from a 44D/DD to a 36D/DD (D or DD just depends on the make) so I didn't lose the cup size, just the band.

Funny I had my gall bladder laproscopically removed about 14 years ago and then the sleeve almost 2.5 years ago, and once I had "fresh" VSG scars I couldn't even FIND my GB ones. They have really faded quite a bit. I'm definitely not rocking a two piece tho...skin, stretch marks and scars..oh my! Good thing I'm married. Oh and appropriate bedroom attire will certain take the eye away from scars OR cover them completely.

Wow, that is just amazing! Your shape has changed completely...you look GREAT! Congratulations on your success! And I love the streaker cat...mine does that too. After all they are part of the family, so of course when the camera comes out they need to be part of it too. haha.

OMG, thanks for the laugh. My brother once made a reference to "dropping the kids at the pool" and I had NO CLUE what he was talking about. I got confused thinking he was taking my daughters swimming. He had to explain it to me and I was horribly embarrassed. But your post just brought back that conversation from many years ago and made me laugh. Thanks.

Lemme send you a PM...

NannieG....Yay, glad to see you back as well! I've been basically counting calories over at caloriecount.about for a long time now. (Obv. not when I spent some of 2012 regaining weight, there wasn't a whole lotta tracking going on from April-Dec.ooops) but I find that I eat much of the same foods day to day. And I will go in spurts, like I will eat a greek yogurt everday then stop for a while. Same with hard boiled eggs. Will do them for a few days then not. I honestly haven't googled Paleo though hearing LOTS about it. I think we all need to do wahtever works for us. One reason that I feel like I was a slow loser was because I didn't want to swear off certain foods for life. I went to one of my surgeon's seminars as a person on his pateint panel (I like to call them dog and pony shows because it's where everyone sits and listens for 2 hours and then signs up for appts with him) and there was a RNY lady there who had done quite well with her surgery, even had the tummy tuck, etc and said "You would have to put a gun to my head to make me eat a potato, or rice, bread now" and I thought...OMG who doesn't love sneaking an occassional french fry? I picked the sleeve because I didn't want the death penalty if I eat some ice cream or a french fry. That being said sometimes it gets exhausting being so on-top of what I put in my mouth. I think that is part of the reason I fell off the wagon...the sheer dedication it takes to maintain...well, that isn't from surgery that ends up being on us. Well, sorry for rambling...My hair is also somewhat recovered. I've been considering growing it longer but cant' seem to get past where I am. Sigh

There is a social group someone started about CO sleevers. But it's really quite dead over there... http://www.verticalsleevetalk.com/forum/160-colorado-sleevers/

I'm in CO! Centennial. Had my surgery Oct. 2012 with Dr. Snyder. Workitoutwoman...perhaps we will see each other at support group? I haven't been going the last 4 months because of a class I'm taking that conflicts with the sleeve group time, but I will be there in May! I'm normally a support-group junkie so the last 4 months have been HARD on me! lol I always get a kick out of CO being the leanest state. On one hand I get it but on the other I see obesity eeeeeverywhere!

Funny how pregnancy affects so many things! Glad you can eat dairy again...I think I would just die if I couldn't do dairy. cheese and yogurt are some of my daily staples of living! Do they have PB2 where you are (I know you can order it online) but it's powdered Peanut Butter with less calories/carbs than reg. PB. You mix it with Water and it turns into a PB consistency. I don't eat it plain but I know some people do. I add it to my plain greek yogurt. 12g adds 45 calories but also 5 more g of Protein to my yogurt! One of my daughters is allergic to peanut butter so I have to be careful ...lol sneak it when she isn't around! haha.

I just now found this thread and feel compelled to join in. In the beginning, when I would hear others talk of a "honeymoon phase" (ie. window of opportunity post-op sleeve to lose the weight) I thought that was the silliest thing ever. Why would there be an expiration on losing weight, I thought. Well, indeed, for me personally, there was a window and it closed during my 4th month post-op. For my 4th month post-op I lost -2lbs. There is no denying that was rough. And before you go thinking I was eating ice cream or slacking off on exercise, quite the contrary was true. I was eating about 800-900 calories a day, mostly all Protein and a few veggies and had increased my working out from 3-4 days a week to 5-6. Basically I was following all of my post-op food/exercise guidelines to a "T" and was rewarded with a -2lb loss for an entire month. Now of course I went on to lose more weight, but I truly felt like that was the beginning of the 'struggle'. I did eventually lose -100lbs in about an 18 month time frame. Which still didn't give me a "healthy" BMI. But I'm ok with that. My goal was never a number on the scale, a certain BMI, or a size in the clothing department, my goal was to reduce my risk factors for many obesity-related issues. So from that standpoint, I had reached my goal...getting healthier. I've always been pretty good about exercise. Even when I was morbidly obese I still worked out 3x a week. And after the sleeve I upped that to 4-6x a week and at one point I went on some crazy exercise binges where I worked out every day for like 50 days at a time. At one point, I went back to work full-time and my workouts had it dropped down to 2x a week and now I'm more balanced at 5-6 days a week. I guess I didn't view exercise as "temporary" I view it as my "me" time. At first it was like a chore, you know laundry, dishes, exercise. But now it's more like a treat because I like the way I FEEL after I exercise. So even though I am 2.5 years post-op I'm not DONE exercising and God willing I never will be DONE exercising. I am happy that there are fast losers here. I'm happy FOR them and happy to see and hear about their experiences. (And yeah, I used to get jealous) but we all have our own struggle. Whether we lose the weight fast, or slow, the whole thing is not a race, because there is NO FINISH LINE. Maintenance is for life. And while I'm at it I will say this: there really is no expiration on losing weight. I'm now just shy of 2.5 years post-op and I spent a good 9 months during my 2nd year putting on some regain weight. Anywhere from 15-20lbs of it. So I have rededicated myself to this journey and now since Jan. 1, 2013, I have lost -9lbs of that regain (that is 9lbs in 4 months and honestly that is about the rate that I gained weight.) That old saying "you didn't gain the weight overnight, and you aren't going to lose it overnight" yeah, well that is true. Again, true to form the weight isn't flying off, just because I'm tracking calories, drinking Water and exercising. So again, I have to have patience that I will eventually work off to where I was and then keep going to goal. Coops is and always has been my hero also. She is my sleeve-sister...not because we share a sleeve date or anything but because we have both shared the struggle of losing slowly and keeping the faith going. She has done beautifully and I can't wait to see her post-TT success. And yes Coops, I think the time has come to change your ticker. Enjoy your journey my SS.

You guys are the cutest couple! I *LOVE* seeing this and hearing about other husband/wife experiences. Since hubby and I are both sleeved, it was one of the best decisions of our lives. I can't imagine life any other way, if you have a morbidly obese spouse, having surgery together (not exactly at the same time) is one of biggest support systems you can imagine. I think that last picture of you guys together tells SO much of the story when you look at the before. WOW!!!

I forgot about hard-boiled eggs. I go in kicks. Will boil 6 or 8 and keep them handy for a week or so. Hubby is sleeved also and likes them and one of my two daughters will eat them also. Then I forget about them for a while and will have a grocery store day when I buy 18 new eggs but still have 5 or 6 sitting in the fridge. They are better to boil when they aren't as fresh. I add a tbsp of vinegar to the boiling water to help make them easier to peel. Thanks for the reminder Linda!

Yes, that is odd...just maybe as I wasn't posting as much, then you arrived? And you are right, didn't think about 'old timer' as negative. Oops. (Miss Tiffy and LilMiss also...) Well, at any rate, pleased to meet you and CONGRATS on your loss! And can I just say that if you had made me guess your age there is NO way in a million years I would have said "oh 48!" HOLY COW! You look amazing!!! Yeah real world creeps in from time to time, and unfortunately as much as I wish it wasn't true, the paying attention to what I eat, tracking from time to time and working out all are factors in my ability to keep it off. I never have and never will be the person who "can just eat anything and I like and never gain an ounce" (don't we all want to smack those people?) Thanks again for the welcome back...

Congratulations on the new baby girl. She is darling! And you are moving and dealing with a new baby and POSTING! (makes my excuses pale in comparison. ) So glad she is here and what a wonderful testament to regaining your health! A happy, healthy mommy makes for a happy, healthy family. Thanks for the pictures...

That is about how often I eat them also. However, back when I was packing a daily lunch, though, I probably ate one a day with about 15g (half of a "serving") of mixed nuts and that would count as one of my "snacks" for the day. Oh, just thought of a another favorite combo (cheese and nuts being one) half a granny smith apple with 1oz or less of cheddar cheese. Apparently this just turned into a post about how much I love cheese (cottage included... )

Thanks for the nice welcome back ladies! Due to some of my classes, I've had to miss a couple of month's worth of my regular support groups. (My surgeon does a TON of support, and I'm a support group junkie, like up until my classes started in Jan. I had NOT missed a single month of support since my surgery!) So this is good for me to realize that I can get support here (and I still need it even being this far out!) So thank you all so much.

This may or may not kick the hunger out, but I keep the light Babybel cheeses in my fridge. The light version is only 50 calories and a whopping 6 grams of Protein. (They are pricey at the grocery store but well worth it at Costco). It really helps me feel like I'm eating something without blowing my calorie budget. They are the ones sold in a plastic netted bag and each cheese wheel is encased in a layer of wax. As long as they stay cold they are quite portable.

Congrats on hitting the one year mark. -115 is awesome, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

AMEN!!!