IcanMakeit

I've been at 111.2 since the day after my last report. If I'm going to lose, it usually happens mid-week, not on Monday. My goal was to stabilize at 112, so I might need to increase my healthy calories if I lose any more.

We just got back last night from a four-day trip to Reno via the California Zephyr. The train ride was slow and expensive compared to driving, but very scenic. It was good to do it once, but I don't think we'll repeat the experience. For the whole four days, I snacked like crazy. I didn't eat anything particularly bad, but I just kept feeling hungry. I also finally got my first glass of wine. Thank goodness for my sleeve. Without it, I probably would have been eating a lot more at each sitting, making this a disastrous departure from my normal eating patterns. But instead, I weighed the same when I returned as I did the day I left. So I got away with it this time. I know I'll have to work on controlling the urge to snack while on vacation, though. I can't rely on the surgery to save me from bad habits.

I think I have a little more sympathy for the posters who seem to be asking for validation for their bad choices. They know they've screwed up, but they need to feel like they are not the only ones in the world who ever blew it. They aren't really looking for permission, they just want to connect with fellow travelers. This doesn't mean that they don't need to hear the truth, it just means that we should just share our truth without sharing our impatience.

I know you might not be comforted by this right now, but let me pipe in with my $0.02. Your body is different from everyone else's, but only up to a point. If you follow your doctor's post-op diet, you will lose weight. Maybe not at the rate you would like, but you will lose. This is when you have to take yourself in hand and breathe through the frustration. Time will pass whether you stress out or not. But it will pass more pleasantly if you try to relax. Don't get me wrong, I felt the same way you do at the beginning of my post-op period. Someone on this board gave me the same advice I'm passing on to you. Good luck. I look forward to reading about your progress.

I'm back to 112 this morning. And that's after a Mother's Day/birthday dinner at a really good steakhouse. I think I am slowly learning how to maintain, but this weekly weigh-in is definitely a part of my thought process when I decide what to put in my mouth. I am very glad that I am participating.

Wonderful. I hope you're feeling great about your accomplishment.

Thanks for all of the thoughtful responses. My iPad ate my original response this morning, but now I'm glad to have AvaFern's perspective as well. From what you all have said, I see that I'll just have to give myself a chance to succeed. If I stay in diet mode forever, I won't be learning to live life like a thin person. I'll just be on another diet, and sooner or later, I'll get diet fatigue and give up dieting. I intend to keep the promise that I made to myself, to never go back to morbid obesity. Since dieting was not a winning strategy in the past, I need to get beyond diet mode and step up to eating like a responsible adult. And whether I can emulate Queen of Crop or must remain like proudgrammy, will only be discovered if I give myself a chance.

The support group might be very helpful, but you won't know if you don't go. Try it. The other participants aren't going to bite you. (Even though some of them might be hangry.)

@@Rev Del, I don't know hope it works on a phone, but on the iPad, you click on your screen name and then click on my tickers. Then click create new ticker.

@@Rev Del, When I was at the soft foods stage, I made sure to avoid carbs as much as possible. I lived on protein shakes, SF Greek yogurt, soft scrambled eggs, SF protein pudding (this stuff tastes like %#<>% but it really packs the protein), and puréed meats and veggies. Thankfully, I only had to do soft foods for a week. My plan kept me on full liquids for the first five weeks, purées for a week, soft foods for a week and then normal foods as tolerated. I'm no nutritionist, but I believe that a protein forward diet really helps with weight loss.

@for_me. I can really relate to your feelings of frustration and disappointment in your rate of weight loss. I posted a very similar post a month or two after my surgery. I got the same responses that you are getting and at first did not feel comforted. Then I looked around at other people's posts and found that my experience was pretty darn normal. Now, almost exactly one year from my surgery, I am below goal and healthier than I was when I was 20 years younger. Please try to take this one day at a time and a year from now, if you stay on plan, you will be able to look back at your old frustration and chuckle.

So when you hear people say WLS saved their life, you really understand. How fortunate that you listened to your doctor and went through the pretesting. Edited to answer the question. I had WLS because I was living a miserably unhealthy life and I believed that without it, I was heading for an early death. I chose the VSG because I have several family members who had gastric bypass with varying levels of success. I thought that I could do just as well with a less drastic surgery. So far, I was correct.

@@MistyAnnMoon829, Ooh! Cute. I'll bet you look great in it.

Welcome. You will learn a lot from the posts on this site. It's also a great place to find out if what you are going through is normal. You will probably have so many new sensations and reactions that you'll be certain that something must be going wrong. Then when you check this site, you'll find lots of people have had the same experience, and you'll feel relieved. (At least that was my experience when I was newly sleeved.)

@@CanyonBaby, I am so sorry to hear of your husband's colonoscopy result. I hope it helps to know that all of your friends here on BP are pulling for you and wishing you and your husband well. Even if you can't check in often, you will still be in our thoughts. Also, I'm sure the doctors will tell you this as well, but treatment for colon cancer is a lot better today than it used to be.

Yesterday a very thin friend told me that she thought I had lost too much weight and that she is getting worried. I'm not sure how to feel about that. Although it's true that I don't need to lose any more weight for my health, I am not now as thin as she has always been. Maybe she thinks that because all my remaining fat is concentrated around my middle so my legs are pretty thin. But maybe it's just because I am so dramatically changed that she can't get used to it. In any case, I won't be gaining weight on purpose unless my doctor advised it. I like the new me, skinny legs notwithstanding.

@@Babbs, I don't think you should discount the possibility that you might lose more weight than you originally hoped. You seem to be very determined. Even though your weight loss rate may be slower than some others, eventually your body has to release the extra weight, since you are eating less than you burn.

She's about my height and weighs a few pounds less. But she has always been thin. I'm new at being thin and since she has known me for over 20 years, she may take a while to get used to my new body. I'm hoping to be able to maintain my weight loss for the long term. I know that most people gain a few from their lowest weight and I actually purposely lost below my goal just in case that happened. I'm not overly concerned about how I look. I'm finding that I have better stamina when I exercise than I did 10-15 pounds ago. If I can maintain it, I think this is a good place to be. If I gain as I add calories, I'm going to do what I can to gain the least possible.

I hate that you were made to feel that way. That's a problem some (especially young) health care professionals have, they forget that their patients are actually people, with feelings. They don't bother to use tact and kindness because they are too focused on "doing the job" rather than helping the patient. You deserve to be treated with respect. I think I'm all for your husband's probable reaction.

@MistyAnnMoon829. Can you post a picture of your cute bolero?

I guess I'm unusual. I never experienced a change in my food preferences. As soon as the immediate post-op ickies were over, i wanted to eat all the same goodies I liked before. I only avoided them because I wanted to lose weight, not because I thought they were too sweet. The only change I have noticed is that since I am still less hungry than before WLS, I have an easier time walking away from temptation.

Uh oh, you'll have to remove the challenge achieved box from my weight on the spreadsheet. I'm up to 112.6. I've been exercising more and have raised my daily calories to 1000, trying to stabilize my weight. But it seems that my body doesn't want to cooperate. I'm not panicking yet and will continue in maintenance mode.

@@Zachnchrissy, give yourself some time and things will improve. Right after surgery, your body is going through so much trying to heal itself, that you retain water and lose slowly. After the initial shock is past, things will begin to pick up. Hold on. You're in for a real ride!

Yes, it seems that most of us drift away from BP once we attain our goals or get close to our goals. We assume we're done. But from what I can see, once you've been obese, you do not become "normal" once you reach normal weight. You become "formerly obese," and that's a much less stable status than "normal". Just as I know that if my eating habits change significantly, my diabetes will return, that is also true for my weight. I hope we all stick around BP to remind each other of all the possible outcomes of our choices and to support each other through the failures and successes.