katesuccess

When I finally got below 200 I wanted to Celebrate with this darling (expensive!) red Kate Spade purse, but decided a heart rate monitor was more practical, and I really needed it - so practical too! My daughter (who's also my personal trainer) informed me that rewards aren't supposed to be practical and she thought I should have bought the purse. She has a point, but it was SO red, which of course I NEVER wore at 289 pounds, right? I "hid" in black and navy mostly. I kept eyeing the purse, and during a recent stall I started cheating a bit with buying a couple of chocolates here and there, eating a treat more often than I should for my plan, and typically I'd be at the checkout stand and succumb, slipping it into my purse for later. I recognized that a horrible habit I was returning to, and made an appt with a counselor and stopped myself from the reward/stall/shame/treat cycle I could see was slipping back into my life. Then the purse went on sale....and after two trips back to see it (did I mention it's expensive?!) I finally bought it today, deciding it will be a Chocolate-Free purse! It's bold and red and happy, and in the grey wet northwest winters, anything that bright and happy has no business being a place for me to hide chocolate or feel like I need to eat anything secretly. Nope--not gonna do it! So the purse is nicely gift-wrapped in my car, and I'll open it for Christmas and enjoy knowing it's entirely joyful, bold and beautiful...and so am I. Kate

That's a terrific weight loss! Congrats! I happen to think our body somehow stops or stall at places of emotional hurdle or comfort, and it seems a combination of deciding to wait it out and change some things up are what eventually move me along. My change ups are switching to different foods from my standby rut type things, and switching up exercise challenge levels and even amount of calories and fat, within a narrow margin. (Carbs I keep low and Protein high!) I hope you get through this stall soon. Is about lost my mind on this last one and realized I was getting depressed. Just when I got a doc appt and a therapist appt the scale started to move again, so go figure. That's part of my reason for thinking three a definite connection emotionally. Hang in there. You'll start losing again. Enjoy how much better you feel at this weight though. ???? Kate

Gotta love a Thanksgiving that leaves me a half pound lighter than the day before!! I'm 192 today. ????

Yup - I was discouraged then too, and you have every right to feel what you feel. Just remember it's not your forever identity or reality, okay? I gained 12 lbs of Water weight in the hospital and it took three weeks to lose it all, and by the end of the month I'd "only" lost 9 pounds from surgery-date-weight. It was SO frustrating! I kept trying to focus on the posts I'd read about this working, and about how thankful I was not to have had bad complications as some have unfortunately had to deal with. I also kept trying to plan and sort out how to get my food in and my water--which took lots of that poor-me time up! I've been a plateau loser most of my time now, and so i'll lose some and then sit at that weight for what feels like too darn long. I'll hope good things for you in the weeks to come @@mezzomaybe, and if you keep on it, it'll work. Really! Last thing I'll say is that it took forever for people to notice. I carry my weight well and hide it adroitly, so I was down over 50 lbs before people really started to notice. About killed me! You've lost 38 pounds and that's fantastic! You are doing great - AND you're smart enough to reach out and check in here. Good for you! Let us know how it goes, okay?

Thanks for this, @feedyoureye. I'm finding i'm more satisfied with around 800-850 and at 7-750 I feel more like it's disciplined eating, so dripping back to 550 or so on fast days might work if I up to 850 the other days. I'll play around with it in the month to come. I finally broke my long stall after doing a modified version this week, so I'm optimistic!

I've been reading this thread on and off for a while as I've wrestled with stalls and slow loss for a while now (two+ months). Thanks to everyone who's been posting, it's great to hear the mutual support and encouragement, and that this helps so many of you. I"m hoping it'll help me as well. I can shift to the calorie changes now, but will read the book when I have some more time, unless anyone thinks it's a must-do first? I too have slipped in terms of logging my food, since I noted I seemed to be logging just different combinations of the same food all the time, and the same numbers kept coming up--paired with no losses. So I got frustrated and blew off logging, and now that i'm doing it again I realize how I've slipped in extra calories all over the place! I"m not yet sure which will be my two days - but I'll figure that out next. This week I went lower on Sunday, and will see about which other day works. Do you all do the same two days each week, or mix them up? What is your higher day in terms of calories? My current calorie intake has been about 750 with 70 gm of Protein a day--slippage lately has gotten me to 850-900 a lot of days, darn it! Kate

You CAN hold onto that loss @@madwife2002, I know you can! Think of it as a springboard to the next lower number, not to the higher one. I'm finding attitude makes a big difference in this for me, and hope you can enjoy seeing those numbers keep creeping down. I gotta say, I love seeing that on a person's descriptors below the name, and it's downright exciting! Congratulations! Kate

I'm at 195 today. Not so bad. ????

You guys are good inspiration and make me hopeful. I lost my sense of addiction and cravings for stuff off my plan for a long while, and then it seemed to come back. Now I fight it every day again, and I HATE it. I wish I could unhook from the thought of sweets - but it's like it's always there. I don't keep stuff like that around the house, so if I eat it, it's when i'm out, so not constant--but I do it and wish I hadn't. I'd love to get that feeling of freedom from addiction I felt during my first 4-5 months after my sleeve. I"m wondering if these occasional indulgences are part of the trigger for it being ongoing now. And yes - I've thought about therapy, so have a referral appt with my primary care doc today to get that rolling. Sigh. I hope I can get someone who knows something about WLS though. Different issues than for most folks I think.

I need those tips too! I was sleeved six and a half months ago, and my weight loss has really slowed - bad! I exercise a good deal (hard core at it 6 days a week, alternating running and functional weight training) and eat about 750 calories. Some days I admit I go over out of sheer angry frustration with working so blessed hard and getting no weight loss. Which of course is Stupid with a capital S since eating the wrong foods NEVER helps me lose weight. I've lost 86 pounds now, and have another 50 to go. I've heard people talk about a 6 month slump though, or stall, so maybe this is it. I was at 201 for about 3 weeks, at 199 for over two weeks, and now at 197 (=/- a half pound) for another two weeks. it's SLOW! So - all I can say @@mfm116 is to hang in there, and know it'll start to move off again, and mostly I hear people say the loss gets steady again. I'm hoping good things for you, and CONGRATULATIONS on your fabulous weight loss! Kate

Sorry - I wrote my post before the 7th, but I was having computer issues, and although it looked like it went through, somehow it didn't "go" and i'm not on this challenge yet. If it's not too late to jump in, my weight on November 7 was 199 and my weight on the 14th was198. My Goal for January 2 is 185.

I do my body composition every six to eight weeks (and i'm at about 750 calories a day, no starchy carbs). Even as I lose weight and work out my fat decreased a good deal and my muscle is increasing - not just percentage but actual number of pounds. Just FYI--

When someone pressed me a bit about what I was having (out of care, not so much nosiness I think) I said "Well it's the sort of surgery which is necessary, but not-such-fun-to-talk-about kind of thing! --And it means I need to avoid travel/lifting for a couple of weeks." and they always respectfully demurred. People are all in different places about whether to tell others or not, and in the end its such a personal decision, and one only you can make. I often hear of people who told everyone and did or didn't regret it, or those who started by telling no one - then told everyone! My big hope is that no one judges each others choice in this. For me my work is such that I know my choice for privacy was the right one, and my not telling people hasn't made anyone become pushy or overly inquisitive. Mostly they want to be supportive of my own self care and choices. Go with what your gut says, and know that it really IS your call.

I'm in much the same mindset. I told people I work with (a few hundred in my case - i have a rather public job) that I was having some "long-recommended surgery to take care of a gastric problem." I mentioned that part of what they were doing was repairing a hiatal hernia, and a related issue. Both true - but WLS is no one's business but mine. There's too much projection and strangeness in people's reaction, and given the nature of my work, it might affect it in negative ways. Plus being a bit vague about it indicated to people that I considered it personal and not a discussion topic, which is true. No one's said anything much since then, except how great and healthy I'm looking! (SO nice!) Kate

Well, I nearly made it - 198.5 yesterday! Hey - I'll happily take it.

Thanks so much - I'm looking for a way to celebrate. I bought myself some flowers tonight on the way home, and then opened them and found the stems were all rotted with black and white mold - sooooo not what I had in mind! Ick. I'll return them and retry tomorrow though. I did load a picture of what my scale showed as my lock screen on my phone, and that felt good. I"m almost afraid to step on the scale tomorrow for fear it'll turn out to have been a fluke or a mistake. Hah! Thanks again for the good cheery message and encouragement!

FINALLY! I hit 199 today. I'm so happy I could...do darned near anything! Just had to share the moment.

I use the Unjury every day for breakfast, and to supplement my protein when needed. I also used it pre-op and loved it then too. I mix it up with sugar-free Torani flavorings, and sometimes make it up with espresso and freeze it, so when I put it in my bullet I get a frappucino - SO good! Anyway, I tried a bunch of others and didn't like them as well, and none were as low calorie and high protein as Unjury. I tried several flavors of Isopure pre made and hated them all, but that's just me. I know a lot of people who loved them. Good luck!

Yay! Thanks Susan - I"m in too.

OMG _ I love them and they're my lifesavers. I use the chocolate chocolate chunk ones as my treat food - and only eat a half bar at a time because they're dense in calories. I keep some in my car for emergency days I can't get to a healthy meal, and have a half a bar after a good workout, since eating high protein within 30 minutes of strength training helps rebuild muscle I"m told. I order them online from different places (according to price) and often split two boxes with my daughter who's a personal trainer. The best part about them is that they're low carb and high protein--so good for us! And hey - I happen to think they taste great. Worth every penny.

I'm up a pound from earlier this past week - this morning 202 darn it all! I thought I'd weighed in yesterday but I guess not. Sigh. Oops - ignore the above post - apparently I not only weighed in but forgot I had! Sheesh.

Hey zayadern - I am fighting the same struggle, though I was sleeved 6 months ago. I have lost 75 lbs since surgery and have 56 more to go - but this past week has found me slipping back into bad habits and I've gained 1.5 lbs. Not a disaster, but a definite warning bell! It may well be true that 4 lb on vacation isn't much to worry about, but you know yourself best, and so if you need a bit of challenge or encouragement to get back on track feel free to send me a private message and we can 'buddy up' on getting back to what we each know works for ourselves. For me that's logging food, no more sweets (except my Calcium chews) and staying within my calorie range. I'm doing well on exercise though--thank goodness.

I use 3 rounded tsp of benefiber twice a day and that helps keep me more regular, but then once in a while I get constipated even taking that, and need a dose of Miralax (I've tried MOM and the 'natural' remedies to no avail, so my RN said to go with Miralax). I"m also fighting that urge to eat the wrong stuff or overeat other things, and the scale is up 1/5 lbs this week. Darn! I'm about deciding that I need to reset my food intake and calorie limits. The nutritionist said i'm not getting enough in (i was at 650 before I began eating dumb stuff!) and now am up to about 900-1000 when I count those darned Cookies or a chocolate or two...or three. It's head stuff I know, and so I need to revisit why and how I feel and what my best self feels like when I eat that and when I don't, and that they CAN be part of my life sometimes, but are NOT part of my daily plan if that plan is to continue to lose weight. I like losing weight, and how I feel when i am doing so - and I love feeling so much freer to live a good life in a more active body. I just need to remember that when staring sweets in the eye! Sigh. We can do this - it's just not going to be easy. Don't mean we can't do it though!

I feel that pain Bandora! It's so hard when they last so long. I went to a support group meeting today, and talked about mine – I'm still stuck but now have eaten some of the foods that got me here in the first place, like two Cookies yesterday and two much lunch today. I'm going back to logging more faithfully, and trying to ignore the scale a little more. My weight actually went up by 1.5 pounds today, and I know it's the result of eating the wrong stuff, (or perhaps more salt then I usually have) but I am determined to reverse the trend and look hard at why I'm doing what is basically self sabotage when I feel frustrated by lack of progress. I'm so used to enjoying positive feedback from weight-loss, and feeling so much better physically then I did prior to losing these 75 pounds, that I'm realizing I don't have as much emotional resources to withstand a long stall. I guess developing that resource is my next work, eh? Kate

Thanks LilMsDiva, labwalker, Justwatchme, Rogofulm, esskay77 and Bandista – that’s my plan at present, and I hope your progress is going along too! I’m also keenly aware that the higher loss rate is this first year, and don’t want to feel like I’m wasting that high-burn time on stalls, since it’ll be harder as the months go by. I’m six months post-op, eating about 700 calories a day (70 gms Protein, no starchy carbs), alternating gym with jogging six days a week. My next post-op appt with the doctor is not under early December. A couple times earlier on I hit stalls and then when I upped my calories for a couple days and then dropped back down, that seemed to fix it and move my loss along again - but that's not helped this time, sadly. I agree about that subconscious chatter, and what a good term for it. I just wish I were more adept at ‘listening in’ on it and knowing what’s going on that keeps me here. My insurance doesn’t cover seeing a therapist unless I’m referred as depressed or some other malady, but I’m about to ask for a referral, (even though I’m feeling great psychologically in other respects) – just to see if I can get some professional help with figuring out if this has a significant emotional component to it. Until then—I’ll keep logging food, and YES – it does seem almost magical. Of course entering two Cookies and three Hershey’s kisses wasn’t much magical fun last night, but it sure motivates me NOT to eat them today!