Danilax

I have tried that before (another dirty secret?) and it didn't work for me. Instead, for the first time in my life, the liquid just came back up. Never thought of liquid as something that really takes up space but with a small sleeve when there isn't room, there isn't room.
And I'm saying liquid because I've realized my only dirty secret (as in, something I don't talk about) is the fact I rarely drink Water. Didn't really like it before surgery and barely tolerate it now. It makes me sick to my stomach. I drink sugar-free drinks/Powerade Zero all day every day.

Thank you for posting this. It really put it in perspective for me. I was really feeling down on myself for all my recent cheats and seeing your post reminded me that I've had worse days than the one you posted pre-op. I wouldn't have stopped at two cookies.....I would have filled up a paper towel full and dunked them in a big glass of milk! Good luck on your surgery!

Ihave thoroughly enjoyed reading all these posts today..they had me ROTFLMAO! But just to put it into perspective for you all...I am still preop and today I ate 6 slices of bacon with 3 eggs and 2 slices of toast..then washed it down with 2 cran-orange mimosos..then I had 6 McDonald's nuggets with a large fry and large coke..and to top off my evening I had a 15oz Ribeye with a BIG baked tater and a salad that would be enough for most of you for a full day. And then had the audacity to have 2 chocolate chip cookies...so long story short your little cheats are so small in comparison to those of us waiting to walk a mile in your shoes. And now I have to climb in bed miserable and over stuffed. God Bless you all for your honesty and truth in this process...

Ok, so I will add my "confession". I hit a plateau and after the surgeon told me I was "starving myself" and needed more calories, I gave in to my parents taunts and eat chips when I go to their house. They have the single serving regular lays chips.
And I sometime have a hand full of peanut M&M's.
Though I feel this is "cheating" and empty calories (ok I consider chocolate a food group and peanuts have "good fat" right?!?) I started loosing weight after I added this to my weekly routine. (actually 3-4 times a week)
Now I have to go to my parents

Honestly, after reading all of this I don't feel bad or guilty or dirty anymore. The fear is that one "mess-up" will lead to more and more, and it is important to stay on top of emotionally unhealthy eating behaviors don't get me wrong. But it can also be pretty unhealthy to beat oneself up over things. It's that kind of thinking which can lead to binging in me. I would have felt much better if I'd just had the slices of pizza that I wanted and not worried so much over having to eat it all since I'd already begun or to prevent eating only pizza every day for the rest of my life omg. I could have had three slices or whatever and not felt bad about it, just enjoyed it.
So I made pound cake today. I made it a couple of weeks ago and had a slice or two every day and felt guilty and like I was ruining my weight loss. Well today I planned for it and I made it and it's delicious. I've even decided to give half of it away and I've just packed it up, but not because I'm afraid I'll ruin myself but because it's good and I want to share. I don't have to feel bad at all about those slices I've already eaten. They feel darn good in my belly right now.

Honestly, after reading all of this I don't feel bad or guilty or dirty anymore. The fear is that one "mess-up" will lead to more and more, and it is important to stay on top of emotionally unhealthy eating behaviors don't get me wrong. But it can also be pretty unhealthy to beat oneself up over things. It's that kind of thinking which can lead to binging in me. I would have felt much better if I'd just had the slices of pizza that I wanted and not worried so much over having to eat it all since I'd already begun or to prevent eating only pizza every day for the rest of my life omg. I could have had three slices or whatever and not felt bad about it, just enjoyed it.
So I made pound cake today. I made it a couple of weeks ago and had a slice or two every day and felt guilty and like I was ruining my weight loss. Well today I planned for it and I made it and it's delicious. I've even decided to give half of it away and I've just packed it up, but not because I'm afraid I'll ruin myself but because it's good and I want to share. I don't have to feel bad at all about those slices I've already eaten. They feel darn good in my belly right now.

Honestly, after reading all of this I don't feel bad or guilty or dirty anymore. The fear is that one "mess-up" will lead to more and more, and it is important to stay on top of emotionally unhealthy eating behaviors don't get me wrong. But it can also be pretty unhealthy to beat oneself up over things. It's that kind of thinking which can lead to binging in me. I would have felt much better if I'd just had the slices of pizza that I wanted and not worried so much over having to eat it all since I'd already begun or to prevent eating only pizza every day for the rest of my life omg. I could have had three slices or whatever and not felt bad about it, just enjoyed it.
So I made pound cake today. I made it a couple of weeks ago and had a slice or two every day and felt guilty and like I was ruining my weight loss. Well today I planned for it and I made it and it's delicious. I've even decided to give half of it away and I've just packed it up, but not because I'm afraid I'll ruin myself but because it's good and I want to share. I don't have to feel bad at all about those slices I've already eaten. They feel darn good in my belly right now.

Sometimes I actually want to cry when I get full after 4 - 5 bites. I don't even get to get warmed up b4 I burn out.

This thread made me feel better. I'm five months out. Last Sunday I had a ten inch pizza, loaded with sausage, pepperoni, and grease. It took many hours to eat and by the end of it I was feeling very uncomfortable, but I was afraid if I didn't finish it then I'd eat it in the days to come. I still can't bring myself to throw away pizza, don't seem right.
Let's see, I do something downright dirty most weeks. But it's worst when I visit my parents' house which is filled with junk that they don't even eat, it's just there for their kids. And as their child I was doing my duty. Let's see, a pack or Ritz crackers one day, hmm, two pop tarts on another. So last week I thought I'd solved the problem by bringing Pork rinds to their house and eating my own snack.< /p>
And now I see they don't even count. Man.

I love the microwaveable Cookies and I don't even have a microwave. I just think it's great people can have a quick snack and get their Protein in.
Only....I've been following Chris Powell's carb cycling plan where you alternate low and high carb days. On low days you eat high fat, on high carb days you eat low fat. The plan was very clear about that. So I can't figure out when someone following his plan could actually eat these Cookies since they are both high carb and high fat?
Edit: I'll just ask them since he and Heidi are pretty responsive to questions.

Back when I was consuming copious amounts of various hallucinogens, I heard somewhere that aspartame caused hallucinations if you consumed enough of it. Some friends and I went to one of those bulk stores and purchased an enormous amount of it. We all took the equivalent of maybe a few hundred packets of the stuff each.
Unfortunately, nothing interesting happened at all. One of my friends got diarrhea. That was the most interesting thing that happened. No hallucinations at all. Not even an acid flashback.

b***h!! Coke AND a straw???
Humpffff....Made my bottle of wine last month seem tame. Yep, the whole entire bottle. It was so freaking good I cant even tell you! Had a headache the size of Mount whatever the next morning but it was totally worth it. :-) Don't regret it an will probably do it again in the right circumstances.
But coke AND a straw??....20 Hail Marys for Lipstick Lady!

Cara,
I may be an odd ball, but I do NOT struggle at all with keeping the weight off. No white knuckling here! I reached goal in six months and that was back in Dec. 2010. I've been maintaining for over 2.5 years.
I would do this again in a heartbeat, I wish I had been 35 or 40 instead of 50 when I had VSG!!!! It's life changing, life altering - it's wonderful, every day is STILL is exciting to me. I've been on board and beyond thrilled since I woke up in recovery. It's fun, it's a wild ride and you will not believe how different your life is a year into this journey!!!
I am pretty darn lazy, and by that I mean, I am not a gym rat, I am not a member of a gym and I do not do any 'formal' exercise. I park as far out as I can in parking lots, even in triple digit heat, and I do it on purpose, I go up and down our stairs more times than I need to. I have a 5 lb weighted ball that I toss around on occasion and I have even started doing 'wall' push ups. That's it. I know me, I have the attention span of a four year old. I did NOT want part of my weight loss to be due to my sudden interest in exercising....so I can honestly say, NONE of my weight loss was due to joining Curves, Gold's Gym etc. I DID know that I would need to make lifestyle changes that I could do forever, changes that would become my new life, my new normal. That is what I did and that is what I will continue to do. Age, boredom nor a twisted ankle will be a stumbling block and deal breaker!!!
There are things I do that I call my 'dashboard' - just like on my truck. I watch my dashboard and if something needs 'changing', I know it right away.....not eight or ten pounds down the road.
1) I weigh every morning
2) I weigh and/or measure my food when I'm home
3) I log my food on line (my fitness pal, I keep track of calories and protein)
Last but not least, I attend support groups. Most people go to one, I have four that I attend each month. I feel like I'm paying it forward. So many folks let ME pick their brains and ask numerous questions & calmed my fears early on. Now I am doing it for others. I am usually further out than most people at the support group meetings, so I seldom come across somebody to answer MY questions, but there are plenty for me!!! LoL
There are other little things that I started doing prior to surgery and continue to do, at least most of the time. Keep in mind, a lot of our 'issues' are all in our heads!! I eat on a smaller plate, a salad plate or bread and butter plate, it's great for 'visually' seeing a plate that isn't all plate and a dab of food. I eat with a seafood fork most of the time. Little changes like that, also become habit and it is helpful.
Good luck on whatever decision you make. Make sure to research, ask questions.....get on board, all of you, to make lifestyle changes. I feel like I eat like a naturally thin person, for the first time in my life, I am in control, food is not. Know that the doctor removes approx 85% of your stomach, after that, it is all up to you. This is a life time commitment, and like I said, I don't consider it work or time consuming, it's my new life. It is forever, there is no end date and it is worth every single change I've made. I still eat, nothing is "off limits" to me except carbonation, big deal, right???!!! There are things I choose not to eat or at least not often, but no hunger makes it much, much easier to resist when I need/want to.
Again, good luck!!

I am pre-sleeve and had my first NUT appointment last week. I know all docs and all NUTs are different in their info, but she said something in regards to why we need to chew, chew, chew that I haven't seen on the forums yet.
She explained that the large portion of the stomach that is removed is the part responsible for grinding the food that we swallow. Therefore, if we don't chew the food well before we swallow, it sits and has nothing to start grinding and that is why a lot of people either have significant pain when they swallow something too big or they throw it up.
I found that interesting and thought I would share. Again, no clue if it is true or not but it was something I had not seen mentioned before.

I am kind of a carb nazi but I also know the joy of a good sandwich (I love baking in general and don't think I can ever give up baked goods). I make my own high Fiber sandwich rolls, but I get that this is not an option for everyone and I truly believe the sleeve can work with many different ways of eating in moderation.
I was never a Subway person, but I love steak sandwiches. Any hot meat sandwich really. The rolls I make have the same texture and density as normal sandwich rolls so I can tell you that at five months out, I can eat a 6 inch steak sandwich but I can only eat half at one meal and the other half at another. So if you get Subway when you reach this point it would be about two meals, depending on the size of your sleeve it could be more or less.
However, I was eating bread after 3 months, specifically the P28 Protein bread I saw mentioned on a ton of bariatric blogs. I ordered it online but health food stores sometimes have it. I ate it for the Protein, 14 grams per slice but the slices are gigantic and I could only eat one slice per meal. Just fold it in half. I lived off grilled muenster with onions and the bread also makes a great French toast.

I am kind of a carb nazi but I also know the joy of a good sandwich (I love baking in general and don't think I can ever give up baked goods). I make my own high Fiber sandwich rolls, but I get that this is not an option for everyone and I truly believe the sleeve can work with many different ways of eating in moderation.
I was never a Subway person, but I love steak sandwiches. Any hot meat sandwich really. The rolls I make have the same texture and density as normal sandwich rolls so I can tell you that at five months out, I can eat a 6 inch steak sandwich but I can only eat half at one meal and the other half at another. So if you get Subway when you reach this point it would be about two meals, depending on the size of your sleeve it could be more or less.
However, I was eating bread after 3 months, specifically the P28 Protein bread I saw mentioned on a ton of bariatric blogs. I ordered it online but health food stores sometimes have it. I ate it for the Protein, 14 grams per slice but the slices are gigantic and I could only eat one slice per meal. Just fold it in half. I lived off grilled muenster with onions and the bread also makes a great French toast.

I just saw Chris and Heidi Powell post a recipe for Protein Cookies using Protein shake powder as a primary ingredient. Might be an interesting way to use up some of that powder you can't stand drinking anymore, or just a different way to meet those Protein goals.
http://heidipowell.net/2790/cinnacocoa-frosted-protein-cookies/

My stall broke!!! I can officially say it!!!! After bouncing between 176.4 and 174.6 for over a month I now weigh 171.8.
Missed my Labor Day goal by a pound. But who cares? scale is moving again! Goal is 169 by sept 21. Fingers crossed I get there! 16lbs to goal.

Update........
FINALLY!!!! Felt like I had to starve myself the past two months to make a push for goal weight...........but I finally made it (21 and a half months after my sleeve). I'm a little weaker since I've not lifted weights quite as often, upped my cardio and cut calories/carbs. So I'm going to get back to my normal routine of lifting more, a little less cardio and up my cals and carbs slightly and eventually settle back into the low to mid 220's.
On the sliding type scale......it finally balanced just under 215 1/2 and closer to 215 1/4......so I'm rounding down and calling that my goal weight of 215. If I stripped all the way down I think I would have lost half a pound of clothes. I had to get down to my shorts and socks to get the 215 1/4. Since I was at the gym and the scale is located by the Water fountain.....I couldn't strip any further. :wub:

I didn't start changing clothing sizes until about 60 pounds out. Plus sizes are incredibly forgiving and stretchier than straight sizes! For a reason, I'm sure. But I didn't need any new clothes until about sixty down but from that point onward I shed sizes fairly quickly. Once I was out of plus, the "regular" sizes could drop with anywhere from ten to twenty pounds. I even skipped over an entire size (12) on the way down - just flew from 14/L down to 10/M and didn't pause on the way. My current size is far less forgiving - I have about a ten pound window where my clothes fit and if I get too large I'll have to size up. It's one way I stay accountable!
I eat real everything. Unless you have a reason to avoid fats, sugar, salt or some other ingredient, eat real food. Stay away from the fake stuff. Number one, it's fake - it's usually made with unpronounceable ingredients and barely counts as food. Two, real fat and real sugar are more satisfying. Being satisfied keeps you from the desire to binge or graze. And finally, you can't eat much - even at three years out I can't eat much - so why would you waste your precious space and calories on anything less than outstanding food?
I'm not sure how far out you are from surgery but I lost the desire to eat for nearly the first whole year. Food is boring when you never feel hungry and can't eat much. Eating is a chore when you have to do it around the clock to get enough calories and nutrition. And frankly, pushing protein non-stop gets old. I got to a point where I thought I'd scream if I saw any more eggs, tuna or chicken breast.
I still drink a Protein Shake each day. I still have a lot of restriction. Where I was with my sleeve around 14 months out or so is where I still am - so I find that I can eat a larger variety of foods if I boost my protein with one shake a day. I mix with coffee, tea or Water and have one each morning. When I was in loss, I made myself drink two a day. I had to, otherwise I'd never reach my nutritional goals.
Once I had room to actually eat a little bit of salad or some vegetables and a few small bites of cous cous, rice or bread, I was SO much happier about food and eating. Not only did I find I was able to get in more carbs without sabotaging my loss, but I felt so much better. It stopped feeling like a diet and a chore.
What is right is what works for you. It's the balance of protein, carbs and fats that will help you lose weight without feeling deprived and without slowing your loss. It's the way you eat that you can easily carry over into maintenance, so that you can stay at goal weight for the long haul. And that magic formula is different for everyone. Some people cannot do carbs at all or they stall out or trigger cravings. Some people need more than others (I eat about 40% carbs) with only beneficial effects. Some people can do moderation and enjoy all the foods they want to eat but stop before it gets out of hand. Some people are never able to go there. It's entirely on you, your body and your relationship with food.
If I were you? I'd add in a second shake - find one you don't just tolerate, find one you actually enjoy. And then from there track your nutrition and branch out. Try foods you didn't try prior to surgery. Your tastes have likely changed. Eat something besides chicken breast! Get a variety of foods and increase your carb intake a little bit. See how that affects the scale. If it keeps going down (albeit slowly) there's nothing wrong with making your diet more enjoyable and easier to maintain for the long haul. I give any adjustments about two weeks to see how they're really doing and how they make me feel. If you're working out a lot, odds are good that you need to eat even more than you are eating, especially if you're already pretty sure you're not doing too great on that front. You need to find a way to balance it. That guy from Extreme Weight Loss can tell you what works for most people and he can get you results, sure, for as long as he's working with you! But he isn't going to be able to tell you exactly what to do for you to get results that you can keep up forever. The people on those shows? How many actually maintain their losses for the long run? I read that 80-95% regain their weight.
Off on a tangent: Those shows make me really angry. They don't help anyone. They increase the idea that obese people just need to want it badly enough to lose weight - they teach non-obese people that it's a simple matter of working hard enough and eating right and that anyone, even the morbidly obese, just need to get off the couch to lose the weight. It is not that cut and dry. They get results because of a strictly regimented routine that nobody - not even people that have been on the shows! - can maintain for the long run. Nobody in the real world has six hours a day to exercise, I'm sorry. Furthermore, they teach us, the obese and formerly obese - that our entire self worth and our attractiveness are entirely dependent upon the number on the scale. We're only a success when we reach a certain weight. That's not uplifting. That's the opposite of uplifting! It's defeating and negative and frankly, just serves to make skinny people view all fat people as lazy, and makes fat people view themselves as lazy, unattractive and unworthy. It's just one of the many reasons people like me that are living close to goal feel bad about a measly 7-8 pounds and let a half pound bounce on the scale (totally normal fluctuation!) ruin their entire day.
/end rant
~Cheri

So, I just thought I'd update my status on this thread. I reached goal yesterday. It took 2 years and 23 days, but I finally hit 225 pounds lost. I started at 375 and now weigh 150. Slow? I guess that depends on how you look at it. I didn't lose it all in a year and I didn't stop when it got hard, but I did it.

Candy reached goal weight by CandyTX, on Flickr

I hadn't visited this thread in a while, but thanks to everyone contributing and sharing your experiences here!
There is no real norm to weight loss and how to achieve goal. It's important that we stress that over and over again, both to folks doing research and to discouraged sleevers.
Everyone has a different approach and you have to do what works for your body and your mental well-being. Not giving up is really important, and when we're feeling frustrated and discouraged it's easy to feel like we're wasting our time.
Add in a months' long stall and, well...it's a recipe for disaster if you don't adjust your mindset!
I wish more people would come out of the woodwork, stop hiding and share their struggles. There are far too many extremes here and I think it fails to really represent an accurate image of life post sleeve. Not everyone whips to goal in six months on 20 grams of carbs a day and not everyone takes two years to shed their weight, either. I think that there's this idea that if you're not a very quick loser or on an exceptionally strict diet and exercise plan that somehow you're less knowledgeable or less successful at navigating post sleeve life. What works for you is what works for you, and sharing that experience can only help other people figure out what works for them.
The goal isn't the scale goal, even though reaching that is highly satisfying. The goal is to lose a significant amount of our excess weight and keep it off forever. Do not ever forget that!
~Cheri

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