FebruarySleever

Congrats. I remember all too well. I wanted to scream from the pain. It gets better and better. Whether you end up being a slow, medium, or fast weight loser, know that you will lose. Be kind to yourself. Be patient with yourself and embrace the changes. Including listening to your body and what t can and cannot handle.

Be encouraged

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' date=' 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

[/quote']

Hi. Thanks for the post. I am 7 months out and I haven't weighed for about a month or so. I got tired of "stalls" and allowing the scale to control my mind and my life.

I determined only when I felt certain that I was no longer in the "overweight" category would I get back on the scale.

I stared yoga classes twice a week a couple of weeks ago. It's been wonderful

I am 5 weeks post op and ever since I started purée food at week 4 I hvnt lost any weight in almost 2 weeks

I only eat 600 calories a day and I don't understand why

I've lost 33 lbs from per surgery up until now but disappointed I hvnt lost any weight in almost 2 weeks and I barely am eating

I expected the weight to fly off ESPecially in the beginning

Has this happened to anyone ?

Stalls are common as other sleevers report. I'm stalled right now too. Keep the faith. You'll keep losing