christin

Boca burgers are fantastic and have 14 grams of protein per patty. They are very moist as well.

My weight is coming off slow and steady, but I have definitely lost some of my boobs. That is totally fine with me as I stopped buying bras at a double D and started wearing sports bras.
At this point, things look pretty decent. I have noticed a few stretch marks showing as they are shrinking which I don't love, but overall I am pleased they are not hanging on the floor.
I keep reminding myself that just about anything can be corrected in the future once my weight loss is complete.

Let's see.... constantly sweating vs. chilly and in need of a sweater?
Thinking....
Thinking....
Thinking...
Oh yeah... you can always put more clothes on, but you can't always take more off! That settles it.

You can see in my signature what the exact loss has been each month. I have lost almost 45 lbs in 6 months. After the first month, it has been a very slow and steady loss of about 5 lbs per month. I struggled with that for the first few months, but now I have mentally adjusted my expectations and I am very pleased with it. Now I just calculate a 5 lb loss each month when I try to plan where I will be at a certain month later in the year.

About to Celebrate my 6 month anniversary and I can now say that YES you will be completely normal again, but it's a new normal. I am able to eat all the things you mentioned in your post, but in much smaller quantities. I know each person's stomach is probably different in what they tolerate, but I seem to tolerate just about everything fairly well including raw veggies/fruits.
I don't eat too much bread because I try to stick closer to Protein and veggies, but I am able to eat it if I want to. I was even able to eat a quarter of a subway turkey sandwich on wheat last month!
Just be very patient with yourself and stick closely with your post op diet. About the 5 month mark is when I started to try a few things because I could tell I was feeling very normal again.

I had no shots... had something massaging my feet in the hospital that helps prevent blood clots I think.
As for the original question... very much agree with Cheri. I wish I would have known that patience was going to be so important for me. Even though you know the surgery is not the easy way out, I think we all secretly hope it will be! We hope we will just wake up every day and see the scale go down, down, down, down effortlessly. That just doesn't happen for most of us. Our bodies release weight at the pace they want and all we can work on is following our plan, making the right choices, and doing the mental and emotional work that will take us to and keep us at goal.
I am learning to look for the small and steady changes and exercise my patience muscle. With every passing day I become more confident that this is really working and less fearful that I will be the one person who fails to lose the weight.

I had no shots... had something massaging my feet in the hospital that helps prevent blood clots I think.
As for the original question... very much agree with Cheri. I wish I would have known that patience was going to be so important for me. Even though you know the surgery is not the easy way out, I think we all secretly hope it will be! We hope we will just wake up every day and see the scale go down, down, down, down effortlessly. That just doesn't happen for most of us. Our bodies release weight at the pace they want and all we can work on is following our plan, making the right choices, and doing the mental and emotional work that will take us to and keep us at goal.
I am learning to look for the small and steady changes and exercise my patience muscle. With every passing day I become more confident that this is really working and less fearful that I will be the one person who fails to lose the weight.

Interesting responses! I'd say the biggest thing that I see posted about over and over and over again is the speed of your weight loss.
Meaning: you won't lose every time you step on the scale. Don't expect to get to goal in nine months. You will sometimes step on the scale and see the same number for days on end. Sometimes you'll also drop large amounts even when nothing in your diet or exercise has changed. Sometimes you'll be doing everything right and stall out for weeks on end. Sometimes your weight will jump up a few pounds, just to mix things up.
It's okay. It's normal. It's part of the process.
Relax, do the right things and you will reach your goal weight. That's what I wish I had known. It's what I wish every new sleever knew, because I see the same posts over and over again with people driving themselves absolutely crazy because they can't control how they lose the weight!
~Cheri

I am losing very slowly too. I was concerned at first, but have read posts from several veterans that lost at a slower pace as well and it changed my point of view. Who cares if it takes me 6 months longer to get to goal than another person? I am still going to get there. I am still glad I had the surgery because I physically cannot eat large quantities of food or binge. This means that whatever pace I lose, I will be able to maintain when I reach goal. That will be the great accomplishment. I have stopped looking at this as a race. I really am on a journey and everything about my relationship to food is changing. Real change takes time and I have the time and patience to invest in myself.

I am losing very slowly too. I was concerned at first, but have read posts from several veterans that lost at a slower pace as well and it changed my point of view. Who cares if it takes me 6 months longer to get to goal than another person? I am still going to get there. I am still glad I had the surgery because I physically cannot eat large quantities of food or binge. This means that whatever pace I lose, I will be able to maintain when I reach goal. That will be the great accomplishment. I have stopped looking at this as a race. I really am on a journey and everything about my relationship to food is changing. Real change takes time and I have the time and patience to invest in myself.

I admit I really miss my diet Dr. Pepper. I didn't even drink it every day, but sometimes you just crave some bubbles. Oh well.....

Congratulations! Seeing that "1" is an amazing feeling!

I chose to only tell a few of the closest people to me and it has nothing to do with being embarrassed about having surgery. I am proud of going to such lengths to take control of my life.
I just know myself well and I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed in everything I do. I decided not to share this with everyone because I didn't want lots of questions from people around me during the losing phase. I had a feeling it might be a little more difficult than I anticipated and I was correct. I didn't want to feel that people were watching me closely or what I eat, how fast I am losing, etc. I knew it would make me feel pressure and I didn't want that. I feel that I will eventually be more open about it as I am successful and feeling more confident in my journey. A good part of the struggle is mental and I chose to only tell people I knew could and would be emotionally supportive to me.
Hope that makes sense.

I chose to only tell a few of the closest people to me and it has nothing to do with being embarrassed about having surgery. I am proud of going to such lengths to take control of my life.
I just know myself well and I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed in everything I do. I decided not to share this with everyone because I didn't want lots of questions from people around me during the losing phase. I had a feeling it might be a little more difficult than I anticipated and I was correct. I didn't want to feel that people were watching me closely or what I eat, how fast I am losing, etc. I knew it would make me feel pressure and I didn't want that. I feel that I will eventually be more open about it as I am successful and feeling more confident in my journey. A good part of the struggle is mental and I chose to only tell people I knew could and would be emotionally supportive to me.
Hope that makes sense.

Congratulations! I just made it there yesterday, so I share in your excitement!

Congratulations! You have done amazing! I just hit Onederland today also! It feels great, doesn't it?

Congratulations! I broke a major stall today as well! Isn't it great when that happens?
You are looking great!

I admit that I expected to lose weight faster, but at the same time I am not disappointed. I think almost everyone is farther along than I am at almost 6 weeks post op, but for the first time in my life I am accepting my body and the pace it wants to go.
When I think back to the slow climb to my highest weight, I remember how much I hated my body all the way from my current goal weight to where I ended before surgery. I can now see all the time I wasted on it and have promised myself that I will embrace and enjoy every weight and every size as I take this journey and be proud of every inch and ounce of progress. I am headed toward the destination and no longer feel like I am hopelessly out of control with my eating. That alone is an amazing relief.

I swear, it's amazing that we get ostracized from the usual weight loss boards because we have surgery, but then people bring that same narrow-minded, "There's only one way to do this" mentality over here to these boards, too.
Carbs are not evil. They do not instantly make you a fat person or an unhealthy one.
Oh yeah, acting like a carb Nazi is going to get you to goal, just like Atkins can get you to goal without surgery.
And then you get to live at goal and try to learn how to eat a normal, healthy diet in maintenance after restricting yourself to forty grams of carbs or less a day. Because the reality is it doesn't matter if you call it a "lifestyle change" while your aim is to lose 10 pounds a month - you can't live your entire life that way if you want to settle into maintenance and a steady weight for the rest of you life. Even some of the very strictest at controlling their carbs on these boards have had to learn this the hard way as they continue to lose beyond their goal weight - they end up having to eat a more normal diet to maintain. Since they waited until maintenance to start this they usually face challenges while they figure it out.
So if anyone here tries to tell me that I have to live on Atkins-level carb intake for the rest of my life or I'll be unhealthy or not lose, I'm going to call them on it, because that simply isn't the case.
On to the topic at hand, I do not believe Crosswind needs a strict diet to lose the rest of the weight. You're not even a year out, and you're in your final stretch. You are going to lose this weight if you continue on your current path, even if you don't lose as quickly as you'd like.
Medifast is wretched, in my opinion. I did a long stint on it myself prior to surgery. I question why you'd want to subject yourself to that when you have a perfectly healthy outlook on food and diet already. Why the rush? I think that simply scaling back your dietary intake (say, by dropping calories/carbs by 20% or so daily) will shock your body into losing again.
At 11 months out I was down about 90 pounds or so. I was very frustrated and thought I'd never get to goal. All of the little tricks I tried didn't make me lose any faster. The only thing I really needed was more time. The last forty pounds were very hard to lose and the last twenty took me six whole months.
If your impetus to try to shake things up so drastically is a fear of not reaching your goal within a year, I'd like to point out that a large number of people (most of us!) don't reach goal within one year. There isn't a honeymoon phase or a time limit. You sleeve is likely as big as it's getting, and if you think about it you'll realize that while having a capacity of 4 ounces over the 1 ounce you had a year ago is a lot more, it's still plenty small enough to lose weight using restriction alone.
At the very least, I think that if you insist on going with Medifast that doing it for short bursts is better than doing it full time to get to goal. But I still think that with regular old persistence and patience you can get there on your own.
~Cheri

I have lost 23 lbs at a little over 6 weeks. Stop worrying.. you are way ahead of the game! Stalling is perfectly normal and will happen many times during the process. Just focus on following your plan and the rest will happen at its own pace.

THERE IS NO HONEYMOON!!
Sorry, had to get that out. The first thing you need to do is shake the idea that you have a time limit or you're a failure.
The reality is that even at six months out you still can't eat but a fraction of what you ate pre-op. Your sleeve is there and it's in perfect working order. Once you're about a year out your sleeve is going to be as big as it gets.
I'm 19 months out and can only eat a few ounces in a sitting. I get stuffed on one egg scrambled with cheese or two ounces of steak.
Prior to surgery I was certain I would hit goal in nine months. After all, I only had 107 pounds to lose. I didn't realize it at the time but I was intentionally ignoring all of the posts about people that lost weight more slowly, had months long stalls or felt discouraged about surgery.
I hit goal in 17 months. The reality is that we all love the folks that make it to goal in 9-10 months but many more people actually reach goal sometime in their second year post op. I lost an average of just over 6 pounds per month. Is that discouraging? Maybe. The difference is that I GOT TO GOAL with the sleeve and never, ever got even remotely close on any diet. I never lost even close to 6 pounds a month on any diet I tried, and even if I had maintaining said diet for the 17 months it took to shed the weight would have been an impossibility prior to my sleeve.
Yes, it's discouraging. We want goal weight now. We had a drastic surgery and we want drastic results. We want to be skinny. Yes, we know in our heads that we didn't gain the weight overnight but darn it, we really want to lose it more quickly than we do.
The reality is that you just have to accept that your body is going to lose at it's own pace, no matter what you do. The good news is that your sleeve is going to stay restrictive and it's going to help you get to goal, even if it takes you 17 months like it did me. Goal is just as sweet when you reach it after nearly a year and a half, I promise.
As for your eating and exercise habits only you know what works for you, but I've posted a number of times about diets today and I think that if it's stressing you out you need to reconsider what you're doing. We want to be happy about ourselves and just being skinny isn't going to do that - we have to be healthy mentally and physically.
Best of luck. It's tough, I know. I had a journey twice as long as I wanted but I am thankful for every minute of it.
~Cheri

It's amazing to think of where I was a year ago. Unhappy, unhealthy, and unsure of myself.
Today, thanks to dr Rod. , I've taken all those UN's away. I am now happy, healthy, and very sure of the person I've become.
Photos will have to wait tho. At the moment, I'm in Walt Disney World. Celebrating my anniversary by breaking old habits. Instead of gorging on a celebratory meal ( and dessert), I'm running my first half marathon!!! I'm running in the Fit to be a Princess 1/2!!! Yup!! 13.1 miles...... Omg!!
So keep an eye out in the success posts in a few days for how I do. Wish me luck! I'm going to need it!! Lol!
Cheers
Heather

I had no comorbidities and I did it! I thought of it as a preventative measure.

I had a 10 day stall in week 5 and although I was also prepared, it bummed me out totally. It suddenly broke after doing nothing different and I have lost 5 lbs in less than a week. I wish I understood why these happen, but of course they seem to happen to everyone! Hang in there! You will go the other direction soon!

One day at a time is a good focus. You can do it!