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I mostly agree with BTB on this one. Yes, you will eventually be forced to face this addiction. The sleeve is only a tool, much like a counselor is a tool. It will only work if you utilize it properly. Otherwise, you're wasting your time! You will still be a food addict post op. The only difference will be a smaller capacity. That, and a food addiction could kill you if you choose to overeat during the very strict post op liquid diet, when leaks are a serious risk. I think you need to start working on this now. Don't look at dropping a bunch of weight before surgery as your primary focus, though. Start small. Journal what you eat and record your calories. Ask yourself why you're eating before you eat so you can learn your triggers and coping mechanisms. If you don't learn how to stop the disordered eating, you will not succeed long term unless you treat the sleeve like a lifelong diet. Everyone here has tried and failed at diets, and the same applies to approaching the sleeve this way. It will not work in the long term. And like BTB said, you can eat around the sleeve if you're determined to do so, which will not only stop or slow loss but could contribute to regaining. By recording what you eat you will have the tool you need to make better food choices. If you record every bite that goes in your mouth and are completely honest with yourself, you should be able to see where you can easily cut calories and make smarter food choices. By cutting your caloric intake by 20% and trying to keep your Protein, carbs and fat to a good, healthy ratio (40/30/30 works great for most women; men do better on low carbs than women), you should be able to see success on the scale without feeling deprived. All of that said, the initial six to nine months post op are a GREAT time to work on those food issues. Your hunger, if you're lucky, will be gone completely. If it's not gone, it will at least be far easier to satisfy. You'll have such a limited capacity that you might find, like many of us do, that food isn't a temptation - that it's actually unappealing. For me, eating became a chore because I had a very small capacity, a diet limited by lactose intolerance and a caloric goal that was difficult to reach until several months post op. So you should start now and take advantage of this opportunity to start down the right path. Expecting surgery to do the head work gets a lot of sleeve patients in trouble. You will see many people say this and it's true: they operate on your stomach, not your head. If you don't work on the head/emotional aspects you will struggle not only to lose but to maintain. Best of luck. Congrats on successfully quitting your smoking addiction. Take this time to work ahead on issues you'll have to tackle later. ~Cheri

Great sense of humor and perspective, OP! I feel the SAME way. I considered loose skin prior to surgery but have never been able to relate to the posts from folks that put surgery off or are terrified of loose skin. Maybe my ability to shrug that off is partly due to being happily married through fat and thin for nine years - if the husband can deal with stretch marks and loose skin from a twin pregnancy and still want to see me naked, why on earth would I be concerned about what losing weight will do? So on one hand I can see single people being concerned about showing parts of their body to a new person if they're uncomfortable with their own skin. My husband was far more disappointed that my curves vanished for a short time than he was about loose skin! That said - the big vanity reason for me having surgery had nothing to do with how I'd look naked. It was about how I'd look every day, because only one person sees me naked but everyone else sees me in my clothes. I have a lot of loose skin in my middle but in my clothes you'd never guess it and that's what matters to me. I wanted to be normal, shop regular stores and not worry about breaking chairs in public. Nobody else knows I have loose skin unless I tell them! I plan to have plastics, anyway. What's a second surgery when you've already removed 85% of your stomach? And until I got pregnant, I wore excellent shapewear that hid everything I don't like and accentuated all the awesome bits. Now that I'm pregnant, I'm filling in the loose skin again and don't have to feel bad about it, either. There's nothing to be unhappy about at goal weight, and if loose skin is the worst thing someone suffers post op, that's a big WIN in my book. ~Cheri

There have been a number of threads dedicated to the health vs. vanity thing and I think in most cases vanity plays a role whether we're willing to admit it to ourselves at the time of surgery or not. I spent more than a year researching the surgery, reading success stories, searching out the why of the people that felt they failed and learning about complications. It's the only way to make a fully informed decision. I think it's always helpful to see before and after photos of people that are similarly built so we can see what *could* happen post op. Best of luck. ~Cheri

Five weeks? Are you kidding? The norm is 6 months to a year. It takes your body a long time to learn to make less acid than it's been making for years! I was able to come off of omeprazole around 4 to 6 months out. I had to resume my pills for about a six week period shortly after I got pregnant, but I'm off them again and doing fine. I did not develop long lasting acid reflux. It just takes our bodies a while to adjust, and five weeks isn't enough! Get back on those pills and try to take a day off between doses starting around 4 months to see how that works. You'll make yourself miserable and uncomfortable trying to live with the acid instead of treating it. I think it's too early to know if you're one of the unlucky ones. Almost everyone gets to come off the pills eventually; of the people that didn't have reflux prior to surgery I've only seen a few here and there still on pills more than a year out. I'm no surgeon but I'd say 10% is a high estimate. ~Cheri

Congrats! As for worrying about the sleeve stretching, it's not going to give much at all. The hormones in our body during pregnancy and breastfeeding relax the stomach so our capacity is larger, but that's almost a laughable statement. Larger, as in, I can now eat a whole sandwich instead of half of one. Or that I can eat about 1 cup of food total, instead of about 6 ounces. This is not going to sabotage your sleeve so do not worry about that. Keep making the wisest food choices you can and I'm sure you'll do just fine. I have put on a little more weight at nearly 18 weeks than I'd like but I used FET to get pregnant and was on hormones for months. I will say that in my previous pregnancies I had always gained more than 30 pounds by this point, was forced into maternity clothes and looked bloated from head to toe. This time I am four months out, can wear my pre-pregnancy pants (even buttoned up under my belly!) and while I've put on some pounds most of them are in my bust and belly, exactly where they should be. Best of luck to both of the newly pregnant ladies here! ~Cheri

No. I'm more than two years out and my life is completely different. I'm currently pregnant and even my pregnancy is different from previous pregnancies. My entire life and outlook has changed and the way I feel about myself and the way I deal with stress and negative emotions is far more positive than prior to my weight loss. Complications are a very real risk. If you can't make the choice to have surgery accepting that you could have a complication and the accompanying misery, do not jump in and make this choice yet. Complications are rare and less likely with a more experienced surgeon but they can happen to anyone, at any time, with any surgeon. They're usually something totally unexpected so you cannot know for sure if you'll fall into that small group or not. Do not ignore this very real risk and please educate yourself about your surgeon and the risks before the operation. Complications aside, almost everyone that regrets surgery seems to have not quite been mentally or physically prepared before the operation. Either it went very quickly and they didn't have time to research or fully understand the challenges post op or they had a much tougher recovery (even without complications) than they anticipated. The good news is that even these people that initially regret surgery tend to come around once they're healthy, fully recovered and close to their goal weight. And I've read many posts from people with complications that will admit it was horrible in the beginning but they'd do it again because of the end result. The choice is very personal and only you really know how much you can take/tolerate. I was lucky and bounced back from surgery easily. My biggest concerns were the development of lactose intolerance, an inability to get good, fresh meat where I live and an incredibly small capacity that made eating a very real challenge for most of the first year post op. I'm sure that in my case, it's much easier to express no regrets. If you use your loss period to overcome the disordered eating that makes us overweight in the first place, you can only come out of this a winner. I wanted a smaller goal weight but could not be happier with where I finally wound up - I cannot deny that I'm better off all around even if my vanity wasn't completely satisfied! Best of luck, ~Cheri

It takes a while to learn how to eat small enough bites and how to eat slowly enough to avoid discomfort. You're probably still not there yet. You get to purees and the food sounds good and looks good but you can't get your brain to understand that you can only eat two or three bites, not the 2 oz. or 4 oz. you'll work up to once you're fully healed. It only took me a few weeks to realize what my limits were on those softer foods. But it took much longer before I could reach my nutritional goals on a daily basis and eat enough in a meal that I wasn't forced to nibble around the clock to get enough nutrition. It takes time. Be thankful that you're tolerating food well. Try to slow it down or go with smaller bites, stopping as soon as you get a cue from your body that you're done. My cues were a runny nose or hiccups. If I went even one bite past that I'd experience discomfort. You should not be feeling discomfort simply from eating if you've followed your post op diet plan, so if you still have that once you're sure you're going slow and small enough, it might be cause to contact your surgeon. Good luck. This stage passes more quickly than you think and you'll take eating a "normal" meal for granted in a few months, mostly forgetting what a challenge it is in the beginning. ~Cheri

Great share. I'll add on and share this recipe for creamy tomato soup - much better and healthier than the condensed version and my picky four year olds asked for seconds. Easy to adapt to your diet and can be pureed if you can tolerate the tomatoes in your full liquids stage. Courtesy of KAF (King Arthur Flour) Creamy Tomato Soup 5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces) butter 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 cup (about 4 1/2 ounces) chopped onions (2 small-to-medium onions) 1 (one) 28-ounce can tomato purée or tomatoes in purée - or 28 oz diced tomatoes, pureed with a blender 1/2 teaspoon basil 1/4 teaspoon thyme a couple of shakes of black pepper 3 tablespoons King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1 can (a scant 2 cups, 14 to 15 ounces) chicken broth 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1 to 3 tablespoons sugar, to taste 1 (one) 12-ounce can evaporated milk 1/2 teaspoon salt In a large saucepan, heat the butter and vegetable oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until softened and golden, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, basil, thyme, and black pepper. Bring the mixture to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine the flour and broth, whisking till smooth, and add this mixture to the soup, stirring constantly. Cover and simmer slowly for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you've used diced tomatoes, purée the soup in a blender or food processor, or use a hand blender. If you've used tomato purée, there's no need to blend; the onion bits will give the soup a bit of body. Return the soup to the stove, and set it on a burner over low-to-medium heat. Stir in the baking soda (the soup will foam up briefly; don't worry, but be sure it's in a big enough pot), the sugar, the milk and the salt. Heat, stirring, to a bare simmer. Serve hot. Yield: about 8 cups, about 8 servings. Nutrition information per serving (1 cup, 239g): 205 cal, 13.0g fat, 5g Protein, 12g complex carbohydrates, 4g sugar, 2g dietary Fiber, 34mg cholesterol, 607mg sodium, 444mg potassium, 157RE Vitamin A, 18mg Vitamin C, 1mg Iron, 166mg Calcium, 142mg phosphorus.

I make these for my husband - I make the English muffins (I can't buy them here) and I use egg rings to cook the eggs on the griddle. I use no meat and two slices of cheese. I make about sixteen at a time, wrap them individually in paper towels, let them cool and freeze them in gallon size baggies. When he wants a fresh, hot breakfast he pulls one out, nukes it for 90 seconds and has breakfast on the go. They freeze/reheat remarkably well if you wrap them in paper towels before freezing and when reheating. If you are carb sensitive, this food could be an issue but for pre-op and even post op, in moderation it shouldn't be an issue. For me, until I was pregnant I couldn't eat the whole thing. It was just too much bread. Now that I'm pregnant and my capacity is somewhat bigger, I can eat one but it takes a while and fills me up for a long time. Prior to pregnancy I could eat half of one and had to reheat the other half for later in the day. Oh, and my homemade English muffins have 22 net grams of carbs. ~Cheri

Very few women come back afterward - a lot of us that choose to get pregnant are farther out, anyway, and once the baby comes there's even less time (or really, reason) be back here. I have seen only a handful of regain posts (never once an entire regain, ever, though) and of the women that have posted, a handful did have a pregnancy post sleeve. Just as many did not, however. I have gained more with my pregnancy than I had wanted to gain, but I also used ART to get pregnant and spent months on hormone shots and suppositories. But I have absolutely no real fear that I won't lose the weight again after this pregnancy is done. While my appetite and capacity are definitely larger than prior to pregnancy, we're talking about me being able to eat and entire sandwich instead of only half a sandwich. I did not magically develop the ability to gorge on pizzas or eat a Big Mac when I got pregnant. My sleeve will go back to being tiny after my pregnancy, I have no doubt. I still cannot eat a half cup of salad and a cup of Soup for lunch - I still leave nearly half the food when I'm done. There is nothing keeping me from losing the weight postpartum, except perhaps discipline, should I be lacking. The same thing I tell people about "magic one year windows" (which don't exist with this surgery) applies here: you've removed (or will shortly) 85% of your stomach and it stays gone forever. The increased capacity at one year out is laughable compared to what we ate on a daily basis prior to surgery. Heck, I'm more than two years out and my increased pregnancy capacity has me eating an egg salad sandwich on thinly sliced bread. And feeling far too full afterward, I'll be honest. And that's a meal when I feel like I'm starving! A small bowl of soup and a very small salad is a far more likely meal for me. I will of course be back once I'm done with this pregnancy and report on total gain and loss, but I do not expect any real problems. Every single regain post I have ever, ever seen on VST in more than three years here has had one common theme: poor diet, not being accountable and not adhering to the basic rules of Protein first and counting calories. There are additional concerns now and again like starting a new medication or suffering an injury but first and foremost, poor diet has always been part of the equation. I think a lot of people get burned out because they use their sleeve like a diet, and I think that if you avoid that mentality you'll have no problem with regains in the future. Best of luck to any of you currently pregnant or trying to conceive, ~Cheri

I've been MIA on VST lately. It's just kind of how it is once you're so far out from surgery! I'm seventeen weeks and feeling pretty good. Here's the reality (for me) of being pregnant with the sleeve: 1) My diet is seriously disrupted. Meat makes me sick. Dairy makes me sick. What does that leave me to eat? Eggs. Brothy soups. Protein shakes (already causes a little nausea but not too bad). And the big baddie: carbs. Lots and lots and lots of carbs. I am not a carb avoider - I eat a very well balanced diet normally. But for the past twelve weeks just about the only thing I can hold down are sandwiches...and sweets. I normally avoid sweets, not because I don't want them but because they're not as appealing as they used to be. That changed with pregnancy. Since eggs are "safe" I've been eating lots of egg salad, fried egg sandwiches and homemade egg and cheese McMuffins. I cannot drink any coffee, even decaf, because it makes me incredibly sick. This makes me very sad and probably a little more irritable than I'd normally be. 2) My capacity is about double what it used to be. What does that really mean, though? I've had a very small capacity the whole time I've been sleeved. So for lunch today, I ordered salad made with vermicelli, carrots, cucumbers and a oil/vinegar dressing (got about 1/2 cup) and borscht (got about 1 cup). I was able to eat less than 1/4 of the salad and about 3/4 of the soup. Total intake: less than one cup of food, and part of it pasta, which is still an issue for me. But unlike six months ago, I can now eat an entire egg salad or sandwich. Before, I could only eat a whole sandwich if it was grilled cheese on super thin bread. 3) It is hard to get on the scale and gain weight, even if you're doing it "for a good reason." And it's even harder to see that you're gaining more rapidly than you'd hoped. Darn those hormones I was on for months! I'm seventeen weeks and up roughly fifteen pounds. It's more than I'd want to gain, HOWEVER, I can still wear my size six skinny jeans buttoned up under my belly. I'm still a size small in maternity clothes and I'm still able to wear a lot of my pre-pregnancy shirts, they just look different with a bump under them. So while I'm mentally struggling with the gain, and while I wish I had gained about half what I've actually gained, I'm not the chubby girl I feel like I am some days! All of that said, I have gained only two pounds in the last five weeks, and I hope to keep on at this slower pace but it's really out of my control. I have to eat and now isn't the time to try and diet, because the baby comes first. I did want to share that it's definitely more of a mental struggle than I expected, though. 4) I don't care if it's TMI, but I'm so happy to have boobs again! HA! That's a perk I'd been missing for sure. I joke that half of the fifteen pounds I gained are in my chest and upper arms. I'm glad to be back in Bishkek, honestly. I was in the states for seven weeks and was guilty of using convenience to eat, especially when I was feeling so sick with morning sickness. I can't even buy a decent loaf of bread here: I make all of my bread, English muffins, etc. from scratch. So I know I cut down a bit on the junky stuff by doing that. And produce is CHEAP here and good quality, all local stuff. So it's nice to spend $20 for 15 pounds of produce, instead of paying $2.50 for one bell pepper! My diet has improved since being home and making everything myself again, which is possibly related to the fact that I've been home a few weeks and haven't really packed on pounds. Something to consider. In any case, I'm comfortable, baby is doing well and while I've never been a glowing, cheerful pregnant woman I'm doing well and feel pretty good overall. I'm scheduling an ultrasound for sometime between 19-20 weeks to make sure everything is okay and to hopefully get a peek at gender. Hope everyone else is doing well! ~Cheri

Oh, and to those considering surgery the longer you wait the better! I swear it's true. I'm two years out and the difference in my skin from one year to two years was amazing. So much bounced back and rearranged even after I was at goal and maintaining. So definitely wait until you're at goal for at least six months because I lost an entire pant size, bra size, and even a shoe size in the months after I was sure I was finally done losing. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe! Now, I still need plastics but certain areas I was sure I'd want help aren't bad and I feel like more of my natural shape came back at some point once my weight stabilized. Just my opinion, but something to consider. I would have had other procedures done that I now think aren't necessary if I had done it right away instead of being forced to wait because of my geographical location. ~Cheri

Thank you for posting this honest response. Because I will have plastics eventually, and I keep telling my husband how long the recovery will be and he just doesn't get it. I bounced right back from the sleeve and he thinks I'm crazy for suggesting one of our mothers comes to stay with us for a few weeks after plastics to help around the house and with the kids! In any case, I'm glad it's worth the expense and long recovery time, and thanks for sharing your experience. ~Cheri

Remember that a cup size is just the inch difference between the measurement of your band and the fullest part of the breast! So a D cup on a smaller person is still the same four inch difference as it would be on a larger person. I plan to have plastics once I'm done with this pregnancy and back at goal weight. I did a consult with a plastic surgeon a year ago, just to get ideas on what I'd have done and what to expect. At the time, I was of the mind that I'd love to have small breasts for once. I mean, I've been a C-D cup (up to a DD for most of my adult life) since grade school. So I was thinking about how nice it would be to wear all of those tops that I normally spill out of, and how nice it would be to have a wrap top look appropriate instead of being borderline inappropriate. The doc said something that really rang true to me. If you've had large breasts for most of your life, it's very likely that you have incorporated them into your own personal feminine ideal. That they could be part of how you view your own femininity, and that being smaller breasted might make you feel insecure or somehow lacking in something you've taken for granted most of your life. This is NOT to say that big breasts are the feminine ideal or that small breasts aren't appealing! But if, like me, you've been toting big ones around your entire life and suddenly decide to stay a B cup, you might feel dissatisfied later on. I can honestly say that now that I'm pregnant and sporting my previous busty glory of a DD/DDD, that in my case, he was ABSOLUTELY correct. I now know that when I have my implants done that I will go with my D or DD cup. And he said the exact same thing to me about size, too. He said that he's never had a woman come back and complain that they were too big. More often women are sad when the swelling goes down or sad that they didn't choose the bigger size that they considered. Just something to think on. Hopefully the OP's surgeon will allow time to experiment! The surgeon I saw had me wear two sports bras and play with some sizers, just to see what I thought. ~Cheri

It isn't one size fits all or we'd all lose weight the first time we tried Weight Watchers. Everyone's body is different. I had my metabolism tested just before I finally decided to have surgery and found that I'd actually GAIN on a 1200 calorie diet, which explains why I had so much trouble and was such a rotten loser on every diet I ever tried, even the incredibly restrictive ones like Medifast. So yes, for some people 1,200 works great and is sustainable. For some, especially athletes, an even higher number of calories is necessary. But assuming that 1,200 is a magic number (as we're taught by diet programs and nutritionists and doctors) and eating to that goal post op might be a mistake for many of us. I lost best on about 800 calories a day, and even then I was STILL what is considered a slow loser. This is just based on my experience and on my observations here over the past few years. But in reality, many of us have tried and failed on those standard diets and it can't all be blamed on willpower. So I think it's a mistake to approach the sleeve as if those numbers are proven for everyone, that's all. ~Cheri

Ditto what PdxMan said. I felt better and had more energy as soon as I upped my carb intake, and it didn't affect my loss negatively at all. Your loss doesn't seem all that slow to me, either. I lost, on average, just over six pounds a month and you're at just under six pounds a month. I had extreme fatigue and memory issues and found out around 18 months out that I was seriously deficient in B12 and Iron. I got on a new iron supplement (the same one I normally take when pregnant) and take B12 shots and it made a huge difference in how I feel. The best way to know how you're doing is to track your food intake (as is, without changing it up) for a few days and then see where you're at. You might be restricting too much for your body's needs, or too little to lose. We can't know how to help you until we know how you're doing. So why not track for a few days and come back here with your info and ask for help at that point? Far too many people approach the lifelong sleeve as a short term diet, restricting their caloric and carb intakes much lower than is sustainable long term. You may have fallen into that, or you might be trying to eat to the old 1,200 calorie diet we all did so many times before surgery. Every body's needs are different, but as a general rule, reducing your caloric intake (assuming it's not already drastically low) by 20% and eating 40% Protein, 30% carbs and 30% fats seems to work for most people. Good luck, and if you do come back and post again I'm sure you'll get more helpful responses. ~Cheri

Have something small and sweet "enough" to get you over the hump. This is NOT a diet and very few people can live the rest of their lives saying, "I can never, ever, ever eat this particular food ever again and I'm okay with that." You're doing well. This is a great opportunity to incorporate moderation and learn your weaknesses. Eating something sweet to satisfy the urge and go back to business as usual is normal - the goal here is to eat and live like a normal person, right? It doesn't mean binging on half a cheesecake or a pint of ice cream. Sometimes something very small and simple, like a few hard candies, can do the trick. I only crave sweet during my cycle, but even doing something small like adding syrups and sweetening up an evening Protein shake (and making it thicker than usual with lots of ice) can satisfy that craving. If real sweet is what you want, O.T.R.sleever is absolutely right - buy small, eat a single portion, and go back to normal. Normal folks that never have a weight problem eat right about 90% of the time and eat what they want for that other 10%, and there's no problem with learning how to start doing that now, instead of figuring it out once you're at goal. If you find a trigger here, you know what you have to avoid because it's an issue for you. The idea is to find something that's not as bad as your pre-op choices without completely jumping off the wagon and forgetting everything you've learned in the last four months. ~Cheri Oh, and I'll add that in my opinion, go full fat, full sugar or you're wasting your time. I full well remember my diet days of eating half a box of "diet" ice cream or Cookies because they were full of artificial junk that didn't satisfy the craving. If you're going to eat a sweet, make it good enough that you're satisfied after two or three bites! And work on the guilt about eating - because there are healthier and less healthy choices, but learning to control our emotions around food is part of being happy and healthy at goal. This means not feeling guilt for eating like a normal person, not obsessing about food like we used to, and of course, controlling the desire to eat emotionally or binge.

Tastes do change and over the course of my journey I must have switched "favorite" Proteins four or five times. Muscle Milk was one I loved and absolutely cannot tolerate now. For me, I think the artificial sweeteners and flavors are what upset my system. Try something new until you find something else you like. Buy samples or find a sample pack online until you find a few options that work. I found that sticking to basic flavors like chocolate, vanilla or coffee/cappuccino helped me enjoy a flavor much longer. It's easy to get tired of drinking the same shake every day. ~Cheri

If it's bothering you so much try a sip or two. Instead of trying to drink an entire beer, pour two oz. in a glass and slowly sip that. There's a way to satisfy the craving without overdoing it, and learning moderation is key for all of us. I can say that at one month out I hadn't had any beer but I did drink a very small glass of wine with dinner once a week. Carbonation is not forbidden for some people and is for others - it varies by surgeon. Mine never told me to avoid carbonation, but he did stress choosing healthier beverages to drink. And I agree that there is something to be learned by simply NOT indulging and knowing that you can some day, but choosing not to do so today. But a small glass of beer isn't a terrible choice in the long run. Just record those calories so that you're keeping yourself accountable, and remember that if we make great choices 90% of the time, we do get 10% to flex. ~Cheri

I had a similar loss pattern. It took me 17 months to lose 107 pounds, and I lost, on average, just over six pounds a month. I had two nine week stalls along the way. I also lost all of my weight in the last few days of the month, after being the same weight for most of the month and bouncing up a few pounds around my cycle. It is pretty normal for the folks that lose more slowly to fall on and off because our journey is longer and we can't help but compare ourselves to others that lose more quickly. The important things to focus on: Not everyone loses at the same rate, and a loss is still a loss. Try to accept that this is simply how your body works, and be thankful you have a sleeve to help you maintain a healthy, low calorie diet long enough to get to goal. For me, losing the weight would have been impossible without my sleeve - 17 months is too long to hang in there with any diet if you don't have help. Work on overcoming the poor eating habits and emotional eating habits that might have helped you become overweight in the first place. Being a slow loser gave me a great opportunity to work on these issues while I was still plodding my way to goal. I got to goal well adjusted and without the desire to binge or bury my emotions in food. This is the BIGGEST factor in long term maintenance; overcoming the bad habits is necessary if you want to keep the weight off forever without living on a diet forever. Because you're a slower loser, you might find that like me, you can safely incorporate more carbohydrates and eat a more balanced diet before you get to goal. Once I stopped shaving my calories and carbs down to nil, I found that I was still losing at the same pokey pace but that I was feeling 100 times better. Not only did I feel better and have more energy, but that feeling of deprivation was gone, and I no longer beat myself up with the expectation to see a loss on the scale every single morning. There comes a point when regardless of our size or weight we need to learn to love ourselves. It can't only be dependent on the scale, or you'll live your life in fear instead of embracing it with joy. It's hard to overcome the negative ways we view ourselves. But you need to realize that you are a success. You will reach your goal. You can do this. Try to be nicer to yourself. Keep it up. You know what you need to do to lose weight, as you've already shed quite a bit. If you're off track, record your food again. It's worth the hassle and the time spent. Go back on shakes, and eat Protein first. You know all of this. You just have to decide that you're worth the effort, and that you want to work that surgery you had to it's maximum potential. Good luck, ~Cheri

I'm two years out now, but I cook and did it from just a few weeks post op. I'm a serious baker and I bake three or four days a week. I entertain large groups several times a month, too. I love cooking just as much now as I did then. I just don't eat as much as I used to eat! I'd say that in the beginning, when I was on liquids and soft foods, it was a definite concern. I didn't want to be around food much because I couldn't eat it. My way around this was to simply prepare several meals before my surgery and freeze them, so my family could have the home cooked meals they're used to while I was healing. I did a huge Thanksgiving spread for 22 people when I was about four months post op. I enjoyed cooking, I enjoyed having my family eat everything. Over the course of an entire day I got to try a bite of everything I wanted, and I didn't feel resentful or frustrated at all. I'm back in the states visiting family and the first thing I did was make a menu with my family of all the good things I'd bake and cook while I'm here! It's just a part of who I am and it didn't get cut out with my stomach. ~Cheri

Everyone is different. I'm over two years out now but still don't do much Pasta, rice or tortilla. They swell up in my belly and I go from feeling fine to feeling sick with one bite. I don't care for that feeling, and I find it's harder to gauge when I've had enough to eat with these foods because of how they expand. I'll do a few bites of rice or noodles here and there and I make my own varenyky, so I eat a couple of those a few times a year. I'm not feeling deprived or anything. I can honestly eat any food I want (except cow's milk and more than a few bites of ice cream made with cow's milk) but I choose not to eat certain foods because of how they make me feel. I urge anyone trying these foods to go SLOW and only take a few bites and wait a good ten minutes to see if it's going to cause an issue. Once you know your limit it's easier to avoid issues with these foods. ~Cheri

I'm two years out. I'm currently pregnant, but prior to this I was easily maintaining my loss despite eating pretty much whatever I want, within reason. I weigh daily to keep myself accountable and gauge my leeway each day based upon what the scale says and I've had no real problems. I have zero regrets with my sleeve. I only wish I had known about the surgery and chosen to have it done sooner. It is always possible to eat around any WLS, so yes, you could gain weight once you're at goal if you aren't careful. For me, the best approach was to NOT use the sleeve like a diet, but instead to incorporate moderation and variety (and carbs!) into my diet long before I reached goal. Everyone is different, but in my case, I would have viewed reaching goal differently if I had spent the previous seventeen months restricting carbs and calories down to nothing. I would have gone on a hell of a binge, I know that from past experience. Doing the head work and eliminating my poor eating habits and emotional eating prior to goal is what I credit for my easy time in maintenance. I have seen nobody gain all of their weight back with the sleeve. I have never seen a total regain post, EVER, and I've been here more than three years (I lurked a long while before making a profile). I've seen people that stall out and stop losing, but even most of those folks maintain the loss and don't regain. They get about halfway to goal and peter out and fall back into bad habits and stop losing as a consequence. But the good news is that it's very easy to not only pick it back up at any point after surgery, but to lose any regained weight very quickly. Because the sleeve is NOT a bypass, with a limited window of malabsoption and a stretchy pouch. Once you remove 85% of your stomach, it's gone forever. Through real effort (and pain) you might be able to stretch it out about an ounce or two, but it's not giving more than that. It will never, ever hold a massive plate of food again. It's possible to eat around it, but it takes dedication and around the clock snacking on slider foods to do it. A sleeve is just as restrictive more than two years out as it was at one year out. There's no reason you can't lose weight on it, provided your body doesn't have something else going on, no matter how far out from surgery you get. ~Cheri

"Full" isn't the same post op. I'd eat only a few small spoonfuls and stop for a while to make sure it will sit well. Then I'd go back and finish, making sure to eat no more than 2 oz. in the very early stage. ~Cheri

Do your research and start the process. If you change your mind, there's nothing to say you can't cancel at the last minute. But why waste time when you could at least be jumping insurance company hoops to get this done if that's what you do want in the end. I was 242 on my day of surgery and I was 29 years old. My only regret post op is that I didn't know about this surgery when I was 20 years old, because I wish I hadn't spent so many years fighting against my weight, dieting and hating myself, just to gain the weight back over and over again. With interest! Only you can decide what to do. I can say that I "only" had 107 pounds to my goal, but I never in a million years would have gotten here and maintained without my sleeve. Even with my sleeve it wasn't a fast journey - it took me seventeen months to get to goal. No way on this earth could I have stuck to a diet for that long. The sleeve was my answer. Maintenance with it is a breeze if you deal with the emotional/head issues of being overweight while you're getting to goal. I weigh daily, and I have a range of weight I comfortably stay within, and very seldom do I need to restrict myself because I've put on more than I'd like. I eat like a normal person - I choose wisely most of the time but have days where I'm sloppy about it, too. It all evens out. And I don't really gain. In fact, I'm currently pregnant - almost 11 weeks - and have only gained five pounds, even though I was on hormone shots until last week. I still wear my sixes and my size smalls, though I admit that this baby belly is going to make me use Bella Bands to keep wearing them before too long. This has never happened to me before - in my previous pregnancies I was up twenty pounds in the first trimester with a single and with twins. Anyway, only you can decide. I can only tell you what it did for me. There are very few people out there unhappy with their sleeves. And even the people that are unhappy usually wind up happy after they heal or get through their complications. We don't see very many people coming back here after a year talking about how they regret surgery. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of a single post like that I've ever seen. Good luck, whatever you decide. For many of us, this was THE answer to our struggles. ~Cheri