Globetrotter

Can you teach me how to read it?

Hey, I would have zero problem with staying low cal, provided I could ACTUALLY GET TO FRICKIN GOAL! My frustration stems from staying at starvation levels of calories, exercising like a fiend, and still not having made it to goal. It took me 6 effing months to go from 183 to 167, and that was staying low carb low cal, and exercising like I was training for an ironman competition. I mean, by any standard, 6 months to lose 16 pounds is pathetic and downright alarming considering the effort I was putting in. And considering how short I am (5'3") even 167 is still overweight by a good 35 lbs. GRRRRRR.

Thanks Feed, so my activity level is probably higher than that - I do hard cardio 30 min every day and 30 min yoga/weight training every day. Also, I am currently eating 750 cals a day and would like to see 130 (or thereabouts) in 90ish days, not 190.

Wow, Lane Bryant has really come to symbolize all that punished us as fat women, lol!! I too consider WLS surgery success when not a single thing in Lane Bryant comes near to fitting me. Also: When I can walk into the Levis store or some other denim boutique and not only wear a size right of the rack, but be able to wear the high end stuff that comes in measurements (ie: 28x32) When someone describing me does not use any word that has anything to do with fat (soft, round, chubby, gordita, etc) When I can run a 5K When my BMI gets to 25 or less When someone looks at me like I'm deranged if I make a comment about being on a diet or avoiding a treat. If someone ever calls me skinny/tiny/little or some variation . Being able to wear anything with a non-flexible waistband and not have it leave red marks or indentations.

That Flexees would leave a huge bulge where my thighs pop out of the leg holes, I have to have one that goes all the way to the knees, up to under the breasts, and best would be if it had a solid back to smooth out the back bulges. My skin is so soft though that even the ones that end at the knee show a noticeable bulge of the flesh at the knee popping out past the end of the garment.

"As long as energy expenditure exceeds that of intake, a decrease in body weight must occur. That can be stated with absolute certainty." - Betsy B. Dokken, PhD, NP, CDE "The Physiology of Body Weight Regulation: Are We Too Efficient for Our Own Good?" -Diabetes Spectrum, July 2007 http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/20/3/166.full It can be tough going with the medical vocabulary but it is really worth it, I kind of feel like I'm having an aha moment - a revelation that calories aren't the end all be all, that instead it is fuel in, energy spent that is more crucial.

Afghanistan, I'm deployed as a civilian (NOT a contractor) with the Dept of Defense and GURL - let me tell you - that eye candy exists, but not as much as you might think! = All these young soldiers should be really fit, with sculpted shoulders, rock hard biceps, flat stomachs, but even though there are a couple like that that I see at the gym, it's not common. Plus I am really there to work out and I just want to do so in peace and work on myself - I don't have time for the drama that accompanies a "locationship" aka, deployment relationship. Now, having said that, when I see one of them doing pull ups, their bicep and back muscles quivering with the strain ... pass my a fan, I've got the vapors!

Hey Feed, my computer won't get to the site, can you go there for me and tell me what it says? height 5'3" current weight 189, target weight 130, age 31.

Hey all, this July will mark my 3rd year surgiversary and I stopped losing weight a year ago. I haven't made it to goal and in the past year I have gained about 25 lbs. If you read the recent threads I have begun you will see that this has been a shockingly terrible year for me and my family, not that it's an excuse but, there it is. I still want to get to goal but I just don't know how to make my body lose weight. Everybody throws out these great suggestions, stuff that really works for almost everybody, but not me. Believe that whatever it is, I have tried it. One year ago I was very fit but losing at an unbelievable snail's pace. In July of 2011 I weighed 183 lbs, by January of 2012 I weighed 164, (starting weight at surgery in 2010 was 294), it took 6 MONTHS to lose 20 pounds, SIX. MONTHS. That is disgusting. And in those 6 months I was working out 5x a week, mixing cardio with strength training with fexibility, tracking my food, staying low carb.. 3 pounds a month is worse than even a non-op on a moderate diet! WTF!! Yeah yeah, I know that as we have less left to lose that the losing process itself slows down and changes but, come ON!! So, only the strictest of post-op diets works for me, if I eat a healthy balanced diet, leafy greens, lean Proteins, all that good stuff, if it is more than 850 calories, I GAIN. Yes, I really do. So, here I am, almost 3 years out, still pretty good restriction so long as i am not eating sliders, still pretty good lack of hunger, so long as I'm not believing the head hunger, but my effing body want to stay a fat miserable squashy unhealthy MESS blob. It makes me so angry, SO. ANGRY. is it all a lie? Is there no such thing as losing weight without a gimmick?

The arms are important to me, they can *make* your look of true weight loss, Oprah would go in cycles of loss and gain and periods of extended fitness but, no matter how great she looked, those arms always seemed to detract from all the hard work she did. I always wondered, with more money than god, why she never got an arm lift, probably didn't want to take the time for recovery.. I saw a photo of myself dancing, when I was at my most fit and strong, I was working out like 6 times a week, hard core crossfit and dancing and running and P90X, and this photo just crushed me to pieces because there I was, with a big soft flabby marshmallow looking upper arm draped around my dance partner. Not fair! I looked at the rest of me and if those arms were just average, I would look absolutely not fat.

I want to lift weights/weight train but the gym here is ... a deployment gym, hyper macho testosterone etc. and, have you ever heard the expression "undressed her with his eyes"? Yeah, I always thought that was just a figure of speech ... it gets really uncomfortable, and when you stop and thing about the positions we have to be in to do a lot of the exercises ...

I am a big believer in shapewear, the heavy artillery. But even with that, and well fitting straight legged pants, the upper thigh and lower gut still sandwich together and the upper pubic area is so rounded and pronounced it draws the eye like a magnet. If you drew a perfect circle on a piece of paper, and drew a pair of lines from the middle bottom, like a lollipop, and then drew wider lines off the top of the lollipop, you would have a side view of my body. My pubic/belly is more pronounced than my rear, I'm absolutely seriously not exaggerating v_v

Thank you Cheri, youre words are helping so much. The big difficulty for me is that yeah, at 3 years out I can eat a lot more, and maybe should, but I am still trying to lose weight, a lot of weight. If I were at goal or in maintenance it would be a lot easier to focus on balance, but with 50 lbs still to lose, 30 of which is regain, I still need to be pretty strict/severe with my diet. I will try the sludge tonight after the gym, there was also an incredibly informative thread going on in the research tab about plateus and carbs etc. I will be incorporating that info in as well. Last night I did 12 min treadmill, 12 min elliptical, 7 min stairstepper, keeping my heartrate above 140, then lifted some weights and did a round of yoga downward dogs and crunches. Dinner after that was a few bites of turkey patty, a few bites of cornish hen ... and 2 shortbread cookies v_v. I am craving salt right now like it's my j.o.b. I lost a pound a day for 5 days, then nothing for the last 7 days. I need to increase my water and reduce my sodium and carbs.

CLK, I've seen some beautiful thigh work (did I really just write that sentence? lol) on realself.com I hope to achieve and maintain goal so that I can someday get *the works* - upper arms, torso, thighs, breasts using recycled fat from the rest of my body, and maybe even a neck lift/jawline sharpening. Not to mention something for the forehead lines and cheekbown to mouth dashes. And you know what, I don't see it as vanity like some narcissistic orange county housewife, I see it as reconstructive surgery after extensive damage.

Day 7 of the low cal/carb thing and if I am beig brutally honest, my perfect diet, the one I put into my tracker, IS adhered to, until after the gym, then the gloves come off and I scarf down a mini bag of mini choc chip cookies, or several mini reeses (those little FU**ERS!!) or a to-go thing of peanut butter, thereby royally annihilating my carb score for the day. WTF, noooo! I don't want to do this! I don't want to be so weak! Am I an addict who can't stop?? Am I no better than a crackhead? I wanted to eat post-op style, but truth be told, in the last 7 days I don't think I have managed to eat less than 750 calories. v_v.

There are several brands of protein powder out there that make coffee or espresso powders, Click and Chike are two that come to mind. Click has about 12-15 g of protein per serving and is the equivalent of 2 shots of espresso! When I combine that with a chocolate protein powder and some SF Torani syrup, put it all in a clear plastic cold beverage cup from Starbucks with a lot of ice, I am smug in the deliciousness of something that is good for me and like 1000 calories less than what others are sucking down from 'bux.

Yeah I've wondered about this too; at almost 3 yrs out I don't have that awesome dont-give-a-$h!t lack of interest in eating, except for first thing in the morning. If I put nothing at all in my mouth, food or drink, from waking up at 6am, I wouldn't be interested in eating until maybe 11. If I drink a very cold thick protein shake first thing, I will remain full until around noon. Unfortunately, just because we have tiny tummies and no interest, doesn't mean this is healthy, many clinical studies have proven that for many many reasons having a meal early in the day is very important.

You are a WLS unicorn then.

Here is a link to a scientific research study showing that high Protein breakfasts lead to long term reduction in ghrelin response, that satiety lasts longer with pure protein, and that ghrelin is glucose dependent, fascinating!! http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/83/2/211.long

Well, let's not let the topic go down a rabbit hole, I am not the originator of this thread, it is she who is claiming the sleeve has failed and is seeking a revision. My input was purely theoretical, and I gave my reasons. Clearly, just wanting to feel like a newb post-op again isn't grounds for having a revision done.

You didn't mention how quickly you are eating? One of the worst things we can do as sleevers to cheat ourselves is to eat quickly, thereby fooling the stomach into accepting more than it should. One week out from surgery it took me an hour - a whole hour - to eat a cup of beef consomme, I would work on an RTD (ready to drink) protein shake, a single Muscle Milk, all afternoon, and never quite finish it.

I am 5'3". surgery weight was 294, lowest weight thus far 164, that was one year ago, I currently weigh 189, I am approaching my 3rd surgiversary this summer. I do not doubt for one minute that PCOS is playing a nasty role in your weight troubles, having suffered myself. But, that would have nothing to do with dilation of your stomach, that can only (to the best of my knowledge) come from consisten stretching of the pouch due to eating over the new capacity. Have you ever done a reset, what some like to call the 5 day pouch test? I'm in the middle of mine right now, to figure stuff out. It's where you return to post-op eating for a week, complete with liquids, mushies, etc. At the end of a week you see where you are, how you feel, what your capacity is, etc. Please don't take this as blaming you, as you can see from my numbers, I'm right there with you. I just think that there are a lot of factors at play for us right now, after this amount of time has passed since surgery. Personally, frankly, if I had the money, I would get a revision, I would! I want that feeling back, that feeling of restriction, that could-not-possibly-care-less about food feeling, the absolute lack of hunger ... but once you've had gastric surgery, and then have another, I wonder about scar tissue and complications from that.

I cannot keep any snacks in the house, not even semi-responsible ones like peanut butter or cheese I also cannot keep cash lying around or change because I will find myself - almost against my will - using cash and change at work for the vending machine Until I get a few years at goal/maintenance under my belt I guess I am still like the fragile alcoholic who can't be around any reminders at first ...

I cannot currently get my blood tested for anything, but I had all manner of 0 opanels done before deployment and if anything had shown up deficient you can believe the army would have dinged me for it . I get in about 60 oz of water a day, it's tricky because I have to stack it because I don't have an indoor latrine and going to the bathroom at night is, an adventure When I am done for the day, after the gym and shower and I lay down, I am effing wiped, I mean, it takes conscious effort to lift my arm to scratch my nose. I just chalk it up to adjusting to my new environment, my new daily rhythm, newly strict diet and vigorous exercise. I only just restarted on my vitamins this week, I will give it another week of faithful vitamin use, water drinking, and regulated exercise and food before getting concerned. Right now it just sucks

Thanks UK, that chart does still show me topping out at 131 lbs, which would be fine by me.