p77tmey

Well I'm here to tell all of you that it IS possible not to gain weight back. I am a bit over 4 years out and haven't gained one single pound back! There is no secret to it folks, this is a lifetime diet or lifestyle...whatever you want to call it. And exercise is most important during maintenance. More important than during the losing phase in fact. I still weigh my food and exercise quite a bit. This is also what normal thin, fit people do too. I see them at the gym every day. They can't have all had WLS, lol. This is no miracle. But it is a second chance to get it right this time. food choices and exercise....no miracle. We all know that, we just don't want it to be true...sadly it is..
Laura

I add a couple tablespoons of dry sugar free pudding mix into a half cup of fage yogurt. Cheesecake flavor is my favorite. It is like eating cheesecake! I love the consistency and the Protein I get. Plus you can use any flavor!!

I dunno,.. this is one of the nicest Care Bear-Rainbow Brite sweetness forums I've ever been on. But then, being a MAN and a dullard as well I don't know there's a problem until the fry pan bounces off my head.

Ok thanks ladies I feel like I have like 10 wives now but that's okay we guys need wives to keep us in order and to keep society civilized. Thanks.

Seriously!! The mean, judgmental, sarcastic people need to calm their ass down! Geesh!! I bet ya'll wouldnt run your mouth like that face to face.. smh! Anyways happy bday to you.. as previously posted by the nice and caring people, i would stay away from alcohol. Take care! Enjoy your bday!

Don't apologize for coming here to talk. Yes it's gastric sleeve but all people in need are welcome, at least I could assume. Seek legal help . I will say a prayer for you!

Wow. Do you realize how angry you are? This is my second post and I'm only posting it because my email box is full of emails letting me know another hateful post has come in. I have seen only this thread and only found this forum this morning. Think about what kind of example your setting. Nobody responds to someone berating them to prove a point. Pointing out the threat is helpful, shame is not. You should be ashamed, I am one new sleeve person who will never come to this board for help or questions for fear of ridicule.

For me personally, there is a right way and a wrong way of speaking to other individuals. One is effective and one is not. If someone is rude, acts like they are better than me, or talks to me like an idiot, I don't respond. I don't know about you, but that's just me. "Sugar coating" has nothing to do with it. All you have to say is, if you do this, this may happen. When you say, "I can't believe you would do such a thing. How ridiculous! You should know better! You aren't ready for this surgery, get counseling because your insides are going to explode! that form of communication is ineffective and the person you are talking to is going to shut down. How does this help? It doesn't.
That's all I'm going to contribute to this thread from here on out.

Wow, I'm brand new and this is the first thread I've read. I will never post about a weakness.

Ah the irony that her great-granddaughter's name is GeauxForit.

Omg this thread is awesome. Fyi...growing up my grandma called it my "twinkie". haha
" wash your twinkie" she'd say.
Did I also mention that I loved the hostess cake twinkies? Every day at lunch I would open up my lunch box and then think about my Vagina.
Dang now I want a twinkie....the snack cake...not a vagina

Seriously? that means when I get to goal I'll gain 13 inches..(400/30}..that can't be right, that would put me in the guiness book of world records for sure. Lmao

I respect everyone that came here to share their struggles. It's hard to post non-positive things here and it takes courage to admit when you're sliding.
I've posted at length about this in the past. I think that even when we tell ourselves before surgery that this isn't a magic fix, part of us will still want it to be one post op. It takes work to change. We are not fat because we eat too much. Okay, yes, we are. But WHY we eat too much is the real issue, not finding new ways to eat less so we can be thinner.
Far too many approach this surgery like a diet. Every one of us can lose weight with 85% less stomach. The challenge is to keep the weight off in the long term, and while the sleeve makes that easier it does not do the work for us forever.
I'll be 2.5 years out in January. I am currently five months pregnant, so I am also currently 18 pounds heavier than my goal weight. For me, there was a tiny bounceback - I set goal to 135, but had really hoped to hit the 120s as I'm not even 5'2" tall. That did not happen. My body LOVES the number 137. I can live at 137-139 pounds and not worry about anything I eat, and I will not leave that weight window even during my cycle. But the second I take it lower, it's a constant struggle and I have to be a calorie counter to keep those stupid two to three pounds off. So for me, I just have to accept that short of getting plastics, my body doesn't want to be 135 pounds or less, BMI chart be damned. That very minor issue aside, prior to pregnancy, for me, maintenance was very easy. And I have only gained fifteen pounds in five months of pregnancy, despite the fact that I eat about double what I ate prior, just because I really am hungry all the time and I have a larger capacity.
But there is a reason for that!
I spent the long seventeen months to goal learning how NOT to eat emotionally. Every time I put food in my mouth I tracked it, even four M&Ms. I made myself be honest about my intake because for me, this was the only way to stop excess. If I found I was eating more, or poking my head in the fridge more frequently, I asked myself why and learned to recognize emotional and boredom eating. This in turn helped me stop doing those things, for the most part.
I did not eat like I was on a diet when I could hardly eat anything at all. I ate a reasonable amount of calories and carbs instead of restricting myself to 500 calories and 40 grams of carbs a day. I did this specifically so I could learn to eat normally, in moderation.
I don't care how good your intentions are as far as eating healthy and making life changes go. The reality is that nobody here is going to live for the rest of their lives eating only 500 calories on a no-carb diet while heading to the gym for three hours a day. We cannot live that way long term. Sleevers NEED to use that first year to learn how to eat reasonably so that they can live at goal later. My tastes changed a lot and I enjoy eating healthier now and I choose to do it about 90% of the time. But I do not deny myself the opportunity to eat what I want to eat. I simply do it in moderation now. I could still get carried away if I allowed it to happen, I'm sure. But the point is that the desire to just stuff myself with junk food is completely gone. I don't even enjoy most of the foods that I once lusted over.
For some people, therapy is going to be a huge part of overcoming this obstacle. For some, doing what I did can help. I read books about the topic. I read stories about regain here and on OH. I made myself focus on changing, even when it frustrated me and even when I really felt like I would go crazy from wanting food. Once the habits weren't habits any longer, it became a much easier journey for me and I reached goal in a very healthy state of mind.
For those of us that did bounce back a bit, or for gals like me that are pregnant and watching the scale go up, albeit very slowly, or watching their waistlines expand it's still a challenge. We are all afraid of failure. Nobody here opted for the sleeve as their first attempt to lose weight! All of us tried and failed, many of us for years on end, before opting to remove most of a body part.
I agree with a previous poster - there is no reason to start the negative thinking and the hate game with myself because I lose 90% instead of 100%. I cannot let the scale control me forever. If I have this child and cannot lose all of the weight afterward again (an issue I do not expect to have, honestly) then that's what my body wants at my age. I can only do so much. And I have come TOO FAR to let myself feel badly over a few pounds.
OP, thanks for the very real post. Anyone prior to surgery should read these types of posts. There are a LOT of them out there. Most of us more than two years out don't hit VST to read the forums every day, so sometimes you have to do some searching to find what we've said on a topic in the past. But getting this out there for people to read is only going to help people. Because surgery on your stomach is not going to fix what's going on in your head and making you overweight in the first place, and thinking this will be easy will lead to disappointment and possibly failure.
Good luck to everyone out there struggling. There is no reason that you cannot pick up and get back to your personal goals (assuming they're reasonable!) at any point after surgery. There was no magic window and your stomach at two years out is only slightly larger than it was at one year out. You still have restriction and if you use it like the tool it is, you can get back to where you want to be.
~Cheri

No my surgery wasn't a factor but my weightloss sure has given me the confidence to finally get out of 10 years of abuse and infidelity.
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Ladies, I travel the nation, I can make house calls.

I confess that after losing 47 lbs., I finally had sex with my husband NAKED!!!!!

I confess that I immediately had to try this, and I can too.

Who the hell asks your dress/pant size??!!!
(I'm sure it's fun to give a single-digit answer, but how rude to even ask!)

Some of these are really sad, though I can understand things being said in jest. Confession is disclosure of an offense. And an awful lot of these things are our nature, not our sins. I really really from the bottom of my pragmatic heart hope that you guys aren't seeing things like "I want McDonald's" or "I've eaten desert" or "I'm craving favorite foods" as things to incite guilt or emotional unrest. We're still humans, we're just humans with partial stomachs.

Ok, I know at least one person was interested in an update..lol
Just wanted to let you know that i did warn him about having some loose skin due to losing alot of weight, and we had a few makeout sessions and since we both liked how those went - well we decided to partake. It was really good! Plenty of enthusiasm on both sides and we are definately doing that again! My body feels so good now during sex, I mean i just feel so strong, flexible, comfortable even on top - it just really adds to the experience. Makes me glad i exercise alot! From my side, I didn't even think about or worry about the jiggly tummy during. I was worried in advance that the extra skin would put a damper on things (although mine is not as bad yet as some i have seen but i still have 20# to lose) but at least with this man it just seems to be unimportant.
I read somewhere om the internet (so it must be true) that once a man decides he wants to have sex with a specific woman it takes ALOT to turn that desire off so maybe that is why it was no problem and eager for more...haha. We have good chemistry - alot to talk about etc too so it is a fun time all around.

Your body will hold onto Water if you aren't taking in enough fluids. The more fluids I get in the more weight I lose.