Honestly, there are a lot of misconceptions over just how much control and influence we have over weight loss (or weight gain). When 1200 calories is a BIG day, like Tiffykins says, you're still going to lose weight or maintain. Consider that pre-op, most of us probably had NO IDEA how much food we consumed... but thumbnail guesses on my part, looking at portion sizes, what I ate, and how frequently I ate, would be that an AVERAGE day pre-op was around 3000 calories.
So think about it again -- you've gone from 3000 calories (if you were like me -- and while I was obese, I wasn't even one of the true giants) a day to less than half of that on a "cheat" day. How could you NOT lose weight?
Also, the plateaus and stalls are more due to the body's own homeostatic mechanisms -- trying to maintain blood sugar levels and so on -- than our actions. That's why you can literally do everything right and still stall for a week or two, and then stop exercising, start eating more (and worse) -- and then suddenly the stall breaks. Being human, we want to assume it was "something we did" that changed things, but considering the calorie margins involved (going from "good" to "bad" means MAYBE a 300-400 calorie/day change... maybe), it's far more likely that our body just finally "gave up the ghost" on hanging on to that bit of flab, and changed our homeostasis (blood chemistry/hormone balances) so that we started losing again.
In short, the great thing about the sleeve is that as long as you "mostly" do the right things you know you're supposed to do -- avoid too many sweets/starchy white flour products, eat lots of good fruits, vegetables, meat, and whole grains, get in some kind of regular exercise, and drink lots of Water -- you're just about guaranteed to lose a lot of weight, if you're patient. It's not really under your control once you get on this roller coaster, so sit back and enjoy the (weight loss) ride!
