Nibbler

I concur. Eat! Eat your protein!
Are you tracking your Protein and calorie intake? And if not, how do you know what you need to do to get your weight loss moving again?
You're at the 'easy' 65-70% of weight loss that's touted as the average loss with WLS. To get to the goal line, you've got to work harder and smarter. Your body is now complacent, and you need to shake things up. Increase Protein, fluids, calories and activity. Eat ONLY lean protien and veggies with every meal and only protein rich Snacks like cheese, nuts, Jerky and greek yogurt. Get rid of the sugar and carbs. Try to steer clear of processed food.
Everyone is different, but at a year out you should be at at least 1000-1100 calories and 80-90 grams of protein.
You follow those guidelines, and I gaurantee you'll get to where you want to be in no time. If you really want it, you get there.

I've used GENEPRO for a long time. All my labs have been perfect. I use it in my kefir shakes and coffee. Sometimes I put it in Soup. I'm not going to go down that path again about the chemistry of GENEPRO (I'm a long time Protein purification chemist.) but I assure you that you PA wasn't wrong in recommending it.

I have used GENEPRO. I don't find it completely tasteless, but more importantly it changes the texture of things I put it in and makes it unpalatable for me. The best I did with it was to mix it up with a small amount of Water and add it to chicken broth. That went down quite well.
However, my daughter has started drinking fruit smoothies in the mornings, and throws the GENEPRO in and she says she can't tell it's there. I'm trying different things to put it in hoping to find something that goes down easily. I got samples of a bunch of different Protein shakes, and even though I liked one really well pre-op, I didn't tolerate it post-op and had to switch to Premier Protein for my morning "get the Protein started" Breakfast.

@@Nibbler You've lost 90+ lbs - that's not a failure!!! You know what you need to do to keep losing - stay positive and get it done!

Went to my 12 mo. post op last week. I've lost 90 lbs. total but have not lost a pound in the last 4 months. The PA said i'm doing great and that stalls are common however you and I know I should have lost some weight in the last three months. Very frustrated and to be honest quite weepy over the whole thing.
I swore that I would not be one of those that fail. I'm doing everything different this time (this diet) than I have done before. First thing I did was to forgive myself for gaining it all and allowing myself to be kinder and gentler with myself.....well I think I forgave myself into one too many slices of apple pie. I also increased my activity and have been walking/bending/stretching/hauling (we are clearing land of dead trees....thats some pretty awesome exercise).
I have struggled with low Protein numbers since day one. I developed a sensitivity to the Protein shakes early on as i had to do the pre op diet twice because i had to cancel surgery due to a death in the family. It kind of scared me off all Protein drinks and I just can't eat enough to get enough of the protein in.
Getting real......I need to put my big girl pants on and drink the damn protein. Its the answer to my problem I know this. I need to increase my Water intake....two simple things that I can do to be successful.
The PA at my Dr.s suggested MR Musclegen Research GENEPRO medical grade protein (amazon.com) Its flavorless and I've only had one serving (in coffee) and it went down ok. The thing that sets this apart is a different method of creating it that is supposed to be more gentle on your tummy and it contains 30 gm in one tablespoon.
My question.....have you used this product? What are you mixing it in? can you bake with it? Where are you buying it from...this stuffs pricy?
Any other helpful tidbits for those of you past the 8 month stall?

I miss beer : - (

My biggest piece of advice - but one of everything. Even if you loved it preop. And then, 2 weeks later your tastes will change. So hold off in giant jars, etc.

Salad was hard for me too but the ability to eat it will return. For me it was at about 5 months. Still can't do green pepper raw but most other salad fix ins do well. I now find that salad aids the digestion of meat for me and also helps digest heavy stuff like potato (in small amounts). As far as my skeletons. I have none. My goal from day one has been to eat like a "normal" person. My weight loss has been slower but I'm banking on it being permanent. So i do indulge in the occasional cheese cracker or cookie. I guess I"m just trying to do things differently now and don't want to go down that deprivation to over indulgence route that has been my modus operandi in the past.

Thank you for this post. This is the truth. We are not alone and have to deal w this problem. I'm about 6 weeks out and margaritas and Cheetos go down too easy. And other things. Luckily I stop and I forgive myself and tell myself it will be ok and try to get back on the wagon. I've learned to love myself and forgive myself. And that's part of recovery
Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

You need to do the real food as much as you can but use the shake to fill in the Protein level you need to be at. I am kind of surprised your dr. would do a sleeve on an 180 pound person. This is such major surgery.

You need to do the real food as much as you can but use the shake to fill in the Protein level you need to be at. I am kind of surprised your dr. would do a sleeve on an 180 pound person. This is such major surgery.

You need to do the real food as much as you can but use the shake to fill in the Protein level you need to be at. I am kind of surprised your dr. would do a sleeve on an 180 pound person. This is such major surgery.

So glad you posted back with this update! The changes from day to day and week to week in the beginning are so huge. It drags out forever when you are living through it and then you look back and say "I can't believe that was ONLY 4 weeks ago!"

Just short of 4 months post op and I'm just now starting to feel human. I still tire super easy. I know it will get better as I continue to work to my Protein goals. I still struggle with not getting enough Water or Protein. But all in all i'm healthier now than pre surgery for sure. I'm losing 2 lbs a week, i know it would be more if i could up my protein and exercise....i'm not perfect but each day is an opportunity to do better

I'm not quite 4 months post op and am having the same problem. I think its all about the lack of Protein.

I have a very obese father who raised me on his own and never taught me about portion sizes and healthy meals. I'm a fat kid turned fat adult. Then I finally started working out and eating healthy and I discovered alcohol. I gained about 70 lbs over the course of 2 years because I was going out 2-3 times a week. I started working out again, got down to 198 lbs from 255 and then I got dumped and I ate everything I could get my hands on and barely left my house. Ballooned back up to 267 pretty quickly.
I've had two drinks since October, which is a HUGE deal for me. Those were post-surgery and I felt immediately sick so I have no desire to drink at all. I've also learned how to control my emotional eating and have been sticking to a super low carb diet. For once I feel like I can actually beat this obesity thing.

I could type a tome regarding how my parents damaged me and led me to find comfort and love through food. But trying not to rehash those old painful memories.It still makes me cry.
Much effort is being made to forgive myself for being unworthy of parental love
Suffice to say......
Show you child acceptance no matter what.
Make sure they know they are loved and appreciated
Treat them with respect
Be aware of social difficulties that they may be dealing with at school, give them a safe place to fall.
In other words...You just can't give birth and put them in a corner and throw food at them when they cry.

I could type a tome regarding how my parents damaged me and led me to find comfort and love through food. But trying not to rehash those old painful memories.It still makes me cry.
Much effort is being made to forgive myself for being unworthy of parental love
Suffice to say......
Show you child acceptance no matter what.
Make sure they know they are loved and appreciated
Treat them with respect
Be aware of social difficulties that they may be dealing with at school, give them a safe place to fall.
In other words...You just can't give birth and put them in a corner and throw food at them when they cry.

100% dieting. I was put on my first diet at 11 by my mother. I was a normal weight and she put me on slim fast. It hurt my body image and destroyed my natural intuition about how much food to eat.
By high school I had gained some weight from poor eating habits... That I then took off with a crash diet. Worked like a dream.
By college I was anorexic. I figured out dieting was like therapy- I equated thinness and striving to be thin with happiness and self worth. Through college I constantly dieted and rebound binged. I had a cycle of dieting and binge eating for years that kept my weight average to chubby. I always felt fat. I eventually became bulimic in a desperate attempt to deal with my ever increasing binge episodes.
I became pregnant by accident when I was bulimic. I was 150 pounds at 5'6. Pregnancy was the first time in my adult life I wasn't on a diet. I binged and binged and binged and gained 100 pounds in 9 months. I could not handle the emotional stress of not dieting. Plus I was emotionally starved by that point.
Over the next five years I sought therapy for my issues. They told me not to diet again, that as long as I did I would gain rebound weight. The e planned it was a biological reaction to lowering calories. Whenever I didn't diet my weight remained stable, but if I ever did, I would regain everything I lost and then some.
My marriage fell apart over my weight gain and depression over my body. My ex tortured me about my looks and inactivity and I ate even more to cope with that.
Dieting caused weight gain but I also ate to cope. Ever since that first diet I felt deprived of food and it became a way to treat myself to something extra special. Food was never just food for me. It was my drug of choice.
Why do we gain weight.... Emotional eating.. Dieting... The addictive nature of the American processed diet... Lack of nutrition... Inactivity that only gets worse as one gains...
So many reasons.
This surgery allowed me to step away from my emotional eating and have some peace with my food relationship. I find other ways to deal with things now.

For me it was a history of mental abuse from my peers, and an inability to cope with my emotions. I ate rather than dealing with the problems that were around me. I ate to cope with everything from sadness to depression. I'd done the yo-yo dieting thing since I was 12. I'd tried going vegetarian, I tried cutting out carbs, I tried Weight Watchers, TOPS, Jenny Craig, all before I ever hit 21.
Well, as you can guess, I kept going up and up and up, always gaining about twice what I'd lost. But I managed to hit and stay at a maximum of around 300-320 lbs, thanks to a stupidly high amount of exercise, since I was 'active', even when I was fat. I could run up and down a flight of stairs without getting winded, and I was starting to work around my emotional issues, and things were looking good!
Then at 23 I fell and blew the cartilage out of both knees, after which I was diagnosed with PCOS and had to have surgery, coupled with losing my father to cancer. Between the emotional and physical issues, I just went immobile. I stopped being able to dance and run the way I used to, and I just quit caring about anything, so I started trying to eat myself to death, despite having a wonderfully supportive husband and a halfway decent life regardless of the troubles I was having at the time.
I ended up almost 500 lbs at my heaviest. It wasn't a pretty journey, but I'm determined not to go back to where I was.

To make the roasted cauliflower all you need to do is to get one plastic food bag and put the following into it.
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon garlic granules
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
1 teaspoon hot paprika or cayenne pepper
Salt and ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or whatever other oil you like)
shake in the bag until well mixed.
Break a whole cauliflower into florets and chuck it into the bag with the oil and herb mixture. shake it until the cauliflower is well covered then tip the lot onto a non-stick baking tray. Put it into the oven (450f) and cook until slightly crispy on the outside and just al denote when you poke it with a knife.
Quantities are approximate as I rarely measure anything and just tweak things till they taste right.
Enjoy x

Success=
Being able to paint my toenails
Being able to have better hygiene
Not having rashes under my stomach fold
Being able to ride a roller coaster without fear that I won't fit
Being able to play outside with my teenagers
Being able to be more intimate with my hubby
Being able to shop confidently
Not having to wear these fat clothes that make me feel 20 years older than I am
Being able to eat normal portions and be satisfied
Getting rid of my joint pain
Feeling less self conscious when going to the beach
Vacationing without limits

Success.......was making the decision that I could use the help the sleeve surgery would provide. It took a lot to convince me that it was the correct path to take.
Everything that's occurred since........ be it a big thing or small....are reinforcements that decision was one of the best I've made in my life.
Parking in furthest spaces from store/work entrances.....when just a few months ago my orthopedic doctor completed the handicap parking documentation for me and urged me to obtain a permanent handicap sticker/license plate. I never followed through with it.
Returning to the gym, even if it's just doing cardio at the moment. It's nice to be surrounded by folks bettering themselves and feeding off the energy in the place.
Getting rid of unwanted weight....a long way to go....but not as far as I've come. This really was reinforced last week. I had a semi-formal event that I was planning on attending. I dress casually for work....and for leisure. Rarely do I wear a suit. Dug through the closet and tried on 6 different suits. Each of them looked ridiculously oversized. No way they could be altered enough to ever fit again. Even a couple of sport coats were clown sized. Laughed my arse off at the discovery. Attended anyway in khakis & a tie. Was a tad underdressed but had fun anyway. Looking forward to spending some "suit money" down the road when I get closer to goal.
Looking forward to some other "size-check" moments, too. Plane seats.......amusement park rides.....etc........

Good idea for a topic @VSGAnn
My Dr. looks at her Weight loss calculator and announces that 220 is all that is expected for me (starting weight 350). This makes me quite sad, but not sad enough to throw in the towel.
To me success (long term) would put me at 180. Truly success needs to be measured in smaller increments.
Today......being just 7 weeks post op....my success comes from the physical changes I can already feel. I am going to wave my freekin flags and claim success......my "freekin flags" those loose skin flags that are forming on the underside of my ams. Quite noticeable already....SUCCESS.
Success.......that chair on the porch that pinched my outer thighs......doesn't pinch anymore
Success......shaving my legs has become a bit easier
Success.......my husbands arms encircle me more when he hugs me

I would just post it on this tread. I am sure a few others would appreciate it. Just need approximate amounts of everything and some basic instructions. It sounds right up my alley!