simplejaxgirl

wow Congrats on your tuck. How much have you lost overall?
p.s. I don't think you looked terrible before IMHO

What a jerk. Let him think that shirt you are swimming in is a small. Then tell him that you should have listened to him after all.....turns out you were not a small after all, you were an EXTRA SMALL.

Amen!!! I could never sustain long term on 1200 calories before surgery, but I'm finding that between 7-900 post op is my happy place (for now)
And Dana definitely agree with you on the do what works for you thing! We are all made up so differently and what I have seen on this board doesn't necessarily work for me just as what I do isn't always going to work for someone else...
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Squeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! I am super overly excited today I hit my first short term goal!!! <200
HELLO ONEDERLAND Ohhh it's so nice to see you.
I was in a 2 week stall, and after my checkup on Tuesday I think my body was like ok. Dropped another 5+ lbs this week, as I was bouncing between 207-203 all during the stall (whew the ups were hard). It's like a staircase, loose, stall, loose, stall, rinse, repeat....
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Omg my partner is the same way! I have a stash of Protein Bars, Protein milk and a bunch of peanuts and Snacks and he eats them all. I went bezerke and said you can have anything you pig and you eat all my stuff?! He slept on the couch that night.... Ok only for like ten minutes till I got scared of the dark.

Ok you have six days left until surgery?? Dry those tears brush yourself off. Its time to let all the other drama go so you can go into this major life changing surgery with a clear head!
You are going to need it, you are going to have weeks of healing and adjusting to a new life.
Busy yourself by getting things in order for yourself when you leave the hospital.
Take care of the important things right now, you and your health and the drastic step you are taking to improve it.

I attend my surgery groups support groups each month. I need all the help and support I can get!!!
Sent from my iPhone using VST

I attend my surgery groups support groups each month. I need all the help and support I can get!!!
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Cheri - Congrats on your loss! And your baby! Such a wonderful thing babies are, oh yea and weight loss too
SleeveGirl-Tx - Your post is very inspiring! I have about 110 lbs from my starting weight to loose, and this gives me hope that it CAN be accomplished, even if it takes longer than expected.
Supersweetums - Oh how I am hoping to follow in your footsteps and make these life changes permanent habits. I too think that I may not be able to keep ANY trigger foods in my house.
Aroundhky - Congrats on your loss, sounds like you have had much success with being off your meds, and body fat percentages. Sometimes I need to remember that being healthy is a better goal than a scale number!

wow Congrats on your tuck. How much have you lost overall?
p.s. I don't think you looked terrible before IMHO

wow Congrats on your tuck. How much have you lost overall?
p.s. I don't think you looked terrible before IMHO

80% of my stomach.

I didn't have a ton of weight to lose to begin with but I was still way over weight and very unhealthy. My blood pressure could not be controlled with the max dosage of meds and I had to use cholesterol meds to control my LDL, had joint pain and I was at 320 pounds about a few years ago. During the 2-3 years pre-op, I fluctuated between 280 and 315.
I've lost slow, other than the first 2-3 months after surgery (see signature below). I may not get to my goal of 215, but I still haven't stopped losing and I'm almost 15 months post-op. The last several months I've probably only averaged a pound or two loss a month and I'm currently at 227 (not terribly bad for 6'-3"). But I'm also still losing inches, which lets me know the fat is dropping slowly and I'm actually adding muscle and getting stronger every month. I see this in my max lifts in the gym, so I'll take the pound or two of fat loss a month, especially if I can continue that during all of my second year post-op. If so, that would put me at my goal by the end of this second year. Also, when I put that 215 goal out there, it was just a number that I was told to give myself and to shoot for it. Sometimes goals can be measured by more than just what is on the scale. My body fat has gone from around 35% to about 16-17%, I'm off my blood pressure meds completely now with normal range BP, off my cholesterol meds, joint pain in my knees are gone and I feel MUCH better! So slow loss on the scales for me has not been indicative of my overall progress since surgery. My main goals always were to get healthier and off my meds and I have done that. Any other benefits are just gravy for me (pun intended) and I am very appreciative of this surgery even though I've not lost heaping amounts of weight.

I am 17 months out and still losing. :-) It is definitely not a race.
I've lost 83 pounds overall, and I am planning to lose 100 pounds.
August 2011: 25.5 pounds (sleeved Aug. 9, 2011)
September 2011: 14.5 pounds
October 2011: 9 pounds
November 2011: 6 pounds
December 2011: 3 pounds
January 2012: 6 pounds
February 2012: 6 pounds
March 2012: 0 pounds
April 2012: 0 pounds
May 2012: 3 pounds
June 2012: 0 pounds
July 2012: 0 pounds
August 2012: 0 pounds
September 2012: 5 pounds
October 2012: 0 pounds
November 2012: 3.2 pounds
December 2012: 4 pounds

I haven't lost any weight in January "officially." I gained some weight around the holidays, and I've lost it again.
I also went down to a size 10 in jeans in January, which isn't reflected in my weight loss and stayed true even when my weight went up a few pounds. To me, this means I am losing inches and gaining muscle tone as well as losing weight overall. This is good.

I would say, by definition, I was a slow loser. I had a total of 80.5 lbs that I wanted to lose to my goal after I had my surgery.
In the first 6 months, I lost 55 lbs. Then, it slowed to a crawl.
In the next 6 months, I lost 21.5 lbs
I stalled at this point for 3 months and I actually thought I might be done losing, then I lost 3 more pounds, now at 15 months post op.
Once again I stalled for about 2 months and thought I was done losing, still about 5 or so pounds from goal, but I was really that worried about those 5lbs.
Then, 18 months post op, I hit my goal weight of 140lbs and 80.5 lbs lost. In the months following, I dropped a few more pounds!
Now I have a 3-4 pound weight fluctuation. My cycle is a major factor in how much I weigh, so I try not to let it bother me. I can go up as much as 2 or 3 lbs during ovulation and 3-4 lbs during TOM. My weight loss near the end only really occurred in the 2 weeks in between Tom and ovulation, so I highly encourage women to really pay attention to their bodies. I also get wicked cravings and have a very hard time not wanting to eat everything in my path. How do I cope with the cravings? I do not keep anything in my house that I know I will eat.
Now I am over 2 years post op and have not had many issues maintaining for the last 8 months. I am still learning as I go and I still make mistakes. But over all I would say I eat healthy 90% of the time, and 10% of the time I don't. If I am going to be truthful, I never counted anything (calories, carbs, protein), I never weighed anything, and I don't exercise by definition regularly. I did follow my post op guidelines. I rarely eat bread (but I will eat garlic bread when out for supper) and I eat very little other "white carbs" like rice, Pasta, flour, sugar (notice that I did not say never). I do not drink with my meals, I still occasionally drink Protein shakes, I eat a lot of greek yogurt sweetened with stevia, drink 2% milk, eat nuts, and enjoy veggies AND fruits. I will still have an ice cream cone once in a while, I will still eat chocolate and I will still have other treats as well. I just do not keep them in my house so they are not tempting because I do not have any more will power now than before surgery if food is sitting in front of me (hence a 4 lbs weight gain over Christmas that I am happy to report is all gone again).
I wanted to make changes that I know I could live with, maintain, and be happy with for the rest of my life. I am happy with the weight I lost, and even though it was slower in the "sleeve" world, it was still faster than any other time I had tried to lose weight in my life. My new habits are firmly entrenched, and even if I stumble now (like Christmas), it is not difficult to get my head back in the game. I would not change what I did and how I did it and I love this tool that I have been given!

Does it help that I'm 19+ months out and STILL losing? I DID lose 100 pounds in my first six months, but that was less than half of my excess weight.
Folks, it's not a race. Learn your stuff and get it done. Stalls are normal, frustrations are normal. We keep saying "it's not about the finish line, but about the journey" and it's annoying, but VERY true. At this point, I'm losing 1 pound per week, on average (it comes in big spurts... I'll lose 2 pounds in a week and then nothing for two weeks). BUT it's been that way all along, just the amounts have gone down as I get closer to goal.
I've lost over 200 pounds. Heck, I've lost more than some of the STARTING weights I've seen from the really short folks. If I can do this, you can do this. There's no time limit or expiration date on your sleeve. Treat it well and it will be good to you for many years to come.

Lately I've seen a TON of posts about lucky sleevers that drop 100 pounds in six months.
Congrats to them and to their loss. And I would never, ever begrudge anyone the right to crow about a fantastic success. It's part of why we're all here, to share the ups and downs of this surgery!
But frequently, these posts are followed by folks that feel frustrated because they aren't losing at the same pace. All too often, we forget that everyone loses at a different pace. It's easy to lose sight of the real goal (long term maintenance) in the face of the scale goals we set for ourselves. And it's also easy to forget that this isn't a race and that there's no special prize waiting at the end for reaching goal more quickly.
I would like to contribute my loss pattern so that people can see that there is more than one way to achieve a goal. Being successful is about reaching your personal goals, overcoming your personal food demons and maintaining your weight loss for life. It's not about hitting goal in nine months.
I encourage everyone else with a slow loss story to contribute their successes here as well. It's hard to research this surgery and find only the stories about extremes - people completely thrilled with surgery or people that regret every minute of life post op. The same goes for loss. When people search out stories on this, it's too easy to only find rapid loss or stall posts but nothing showing the more realistic and moderate journey many of us take. The sleeve is a permanent tool that does not have a special window of easy weight loss. There is no reason to feel discouraged when you haven't reached goal at one year out, or even two. There is nothing preventing you (short of your own body's natural stopping point) from achieving or re-achieving goal at any point post op.
I lost 60 pounds in the first five months after my surgery.
And I slowly lost 32 pounds over the next seven months.
It took me another five months to shed the final 15 pounds to my goal.
I lost 107 pounds over the course of 17 months. I stalled twice for nine weeks each time. I had months where I only lost one pound. I regularly experienced a gain of three pounds around my cycle, and often only lost weight in the last week to ten days of the month, after sitting at the same weight for nearly three weeks.
I am a success, and at 2.5 years out (and currently pregnant) I still have good, healthy eating habits and maintained my weight loss quite easily. Even 30 weeks pregnant, I am still wearing a size 6/small (in maternity clothes, of course) regardless of how I feel about my expanding body!
I learned what was important on this journey and am in better health today (not just physically, but mentally and emotionally), than I have ever experienced as an adult.
Good luck to those currently on their journey, and I encourage everyone to share their stories here so that newly sleeved folks can see that slow vs. fast loss doesn't really matter in the end.
~Cheri

Amen!!! I could never sustain long term on 1200 calories before surgery, but I'm finding that between 7-900 post op is my happy place (for now)
And Dana definitely agree with you on the do what works for you thing! We are all made up so differently and what I have seen on this board doesn't necessarily work for me just as what I do isn't always going to work for someone else...
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Amen!!! I could never sustain long term on 1200 calories before surgery, but I'm finding that between 7-900 post op is my happy place (for now)
And Dana definitely agree with you on the do what works for you thing! We are all made up so differently and what I have seen on this board doesn't necessarily work for me just as what I do isn't always going to work for someone else...
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Congrats! That is an awesome amount! You are doing fabulous.

Congrats! That is an awesome amount! You are doing fabulous.

That is so exciting. I am and have been slowly making my new habits at 9.5 weeks out, I'm down 40 lbs and I can't wait to come to that love myself point. I am not sure if I will ever get to that point but this gives me hope! I am in a much better place with food now than I ever was before surgery so maybe over time...
Thanks for sharing your positive story.
Sent from my iPhone using VST

Hi all! I am 5'2. I was sleeved on 8/17/12 so I am almost 6 months out. My surgery weight was 217 and my current weight is 157. I'm happy this thread popped up because I love seeing the progress of other vertically challenged girlies like myself congrats to all

What she said....
Sent from my iPhone using VST