Kat410

Beautiful inside and out!!! Your mom sounds amazing and I am so glad you had her support. Had it with my dad. I am 6.5. Months out and have lost 116 lbs So I know the joy of winning the war !

Yay!!! Good work! Was there anything you changed that broke the stall or did your body decide to start releasing weigh again on its own?

The irony of this post is that I have repeatedly, over and over again, seen you personally insult people. It may be that you reserve that behavior for strangers and behave differently with people you know IRL.

Talk to each other. You both are dealing with tremendous stress - she is dealing with the stress of the additional financial burden and household management, you are dealing with the stress of recovery and disability. People say and do stupid things when they start to hit their breaking point. You need to find a way to deal with the stress as partners and in communication. Get professional/therapeutic help. Schedule times to talk, be in communication and work out schedules - so you can both deal with what you can and can't do right now and she can as well. Good luck and best wishes.

Instead of beating yourself up try to examine what had you do something you had essentially agreed not to do. I have found it helpful to use the things I have done that haven’t worked to examine myself and hopefully learn something that will support me in being powerful and effective in this journey. The first layer to peel back is what I have used to justify eating something I shouldn’t be eating and how I have rationalized those choices. I have gotten better at catching the rationalization before I put it in my mouth. According to neuroscience our brain is selecting actions and behaviors well before we are aware of it happening, yet we think we are choosing something consciously which is a complete illusion. To win this battle all of us need to retrain our brains especially around certain triggers (specific food triggers or that it’s bad to feel hungry). The preop liquid phase in the hardest. During that phase I had a mantra. “Hunger is health.” It sounds kind of weird but it worked for me.

What are you eating now? Are you logging your food? It’s hard to give input without knowing what you are currently eating

The Yogurt will fill you up less than a dense protein.

How do you make your own fast food? Seems like it would take a long time. And no issues with mayo

What do you mean by real food? There are foods that slide right through the pouch. Dense proteins trigger the restriction for all people and other foods for some people. For me beans, leafy greens and other nutrient dense foods do that. For some bread is a slider and for others it sits like a brick in the pouch

I am built like a brick s%%%house with a lot in the rear and thighs. In a few hours I am going to Macy's for my first dept store shopping in the straight size section. I have done that with specific brand stores - but now I get to play with a lot of brands and shop away!

I went back to the gym post surgery after a brief 20 year hiatus from exercise. I hired a coach/trainer who owns a small boutique studio and has just been a gift from god in breaking me into exercise and the right exercise for my body (both in terms of capability and what I respond best to.) Predictably I needed to do a lot of work on the core muscle groups which had almost no strength. Right now I do cardio for warm up and do a lot of compound movements and have built strength quickly which is what is expected for a novice lifter. I stay away from the Weight machines unless traveling and the gym doesn’t have barbells. He has also taught me a lot of movements to do with stability balls, TRX and core work. My typical workout includes some kind of warm up. Then walking lunges, multi-planar lunges, Russian twists, sit ups, calf raises, squats, bench presses, cleans, back extensions, TRX and rows (which he now has me doing in a lunge position with free weights) and finally balance work. I am on the higher end of the weight loss curve for gastric sleeve- I am 7 months out and have lost almost 70% of my excess body weight with no signs of slowing down. I have had one 1 week stall. While everyone is different, I do attribute this success to two things - following my nutrition plan and building lean muscle mass. While hiring the trainer was difficult financially it was the right thing to do. It has taken me quite a bit of time to just get the basic movements down.

I could live with the variability in sizing if the sizing charts were accurate. I almost never shop in brick and mortar stores but now have to. Last weekend I bought a pair of pants at Ann Taylor loft in 14s. The size chart says the waist and hip for that style is 32.5/43. My waist measurements are 36/46.5. The pants are actually lose on me. Can someone explain that?

When you start seeing and feeling bones you forgot you had! Does anyone else like to find and feel your unearthed bones? Last night I was laying down and rested my hand on my belly and noticed my ribs were right there! Counted them on each side! I am also totally fascinated with my collarbone

From day 1 I have weighed myself every day and still do.

Right after surgery I did not experience physical hunger but my brain was so wrapped around food I tortured myself for hours on end watching Top Chef. I fantasized about steak, gourmet foods of all kinds and home made bread in particular. It was a useful process to discover how much my life was oriented around food. It helped me to go for walks, journal, and most importantly have a sense of humor about my life

I’m 7 months out and have had a few carb attacks. The chance of you or I bein perfectly carb compliant may be low. But I create a game of nipping it in the bud or if I am going to do it to have it be well worth it. I ate stuffing and potatoes over thanksgiving then put myself on reduced calories and dense protein only. Not even protein shakes allowed. So pick yourself up and dust yourself off. You got this

About a month post op I was averaging 300-500 calories and I was not getting my protein reliably in until about 3 months post op. I am 6 months post op and range between 400 and 1200 calories a day. I periodically raise and lower my calories for no other reason than it seems to keep my WL on track and curtail stalls. I also periodically add and take out carbs for the same reason.

I had the VSG. The only other co-morbidity I had was diabetes (just moved from pre-diabetic to diabetic). No GERD, hypertension, sleep apnea or joint issues. My doc recommended RNY, but I felt strongly that the metabolic benefits of the sleeve would give me 80% of what I needed to be effective and I would provide the other 20%. A lot of what I dealt with as I continued to gain weight in my adult years was just freaking being hungry all the time and craving carbs. I am 6 months out - maintenance will be another story, but so far so good. I am loosing steadily and working out regularly (focusing on strength, endurance and flexibility). I have had one week of a "zero" loss. No major stalls. My hunch about what would work for me have turned out to be right. Like you, I ultimately made this choice because I wanted to add decades to my life and have my life make a difference for those that matter to me.

That is probably the issue. Most of us can’t eat whatever we want and expect to lose weight rapidly. You could be different but if I were to eat what I want I would have a croissant, fries and some pizza. Sure it would be a minute fraction of the quantities I ate before and perhaps so small that I could trick myself into some Weightloss Lite fantasy that I am actually doing this. But it’s unlikely that you are eating according to plan. Track your food religiously for 3 days and see what your calories and macros are. I will bet money the problem is there. And I got you don’t like water. But too bad. Acquire the taste. Artificially sweetened drinks do our body no favors. It’s hard but you can chose to do the hard work or be on the low end of the bell curve with VSG weightloss. You can break this and it will be up to you.

We are all different, but truthfully I now like cooking more than eating. Now that we're into cooler weather, I love making savory stews and dishes. I just end up bringing a lot of it to the office and giving away to my staff to keep them fed and happy. The one thing I can't keep around the house is bread - bread is my weakness, I will sell my soul to the devil for a crusty baguette with French butter, or a beautiful piece of brioche toasted with some high end preserves, a buttery croissant (which requires no topping of any kind).... yes, this is the work of the devil! I also am now just hating going out to restaurants. I eat 1/8th of what I order, I am single so the leftovers literally last for DAYS UPON DAYS and then I end up splitting the freaking check with my friends even though I had no alcohol, I did not partake in any appetizers and I gave half my food away. Unbelievably irritating. We need to invent some kind of post-bariatric restaurant etiquette for going out with our friends.

This is a great topic. I had terrible posture between the weight and sedentary lifestyle. I have found that strength training and ab work has made a difference. I have also been surprised at the difference that massage has made in loosening these muscles and dealing with the chronic hyper extension of my upper back and shoulder muscles. Then of course plain old mindfulness helps. I have alarms in my calendar prompting me to sit up straight and suck my navel in!

It's not quite my 1/2 birthday, I was sleeved on 5/26, but I have joined in with this crowd. I am down 105 lbs since 10 day pre-surgery diet, working out (strength training and HIT) and doing great. Time has flown! I want to get to 200 (30 more lbs) and re-evaluate for my final goal. I am wearing a size 14/16 and shopping half straight sizes and half plus sizes. My weight loss has been very slow the past 3 weeks, but I am sticking with the plan and doing the work. In the bigger picture I am confident the laws of thermodynamics will be on my side! Congratulations to all!

I️ don’t have any experience with plastics but it sounds like you need to give yourself a lot of care and patience for the physical and mental stress of healing, not to mention work stress. Rest, hydrate, be gentle with yourself and if it’s your thing binge watch something good

I love to cook and am a pretty darn good cook. I kept that sort of stuff "out of my space" so to speak during the pre-op diet and the post op liquid/pureed stage. But shortly after that went back to hosting dinner & cocktail parties. I have found it oddly satisfying to cook and not eat. Somehow cooking satisfies a big part of what is no longer satisfied by eating. Part of it is creative, doing something that people love, creating a great environment and experience for people. A few weeks ago I hosted a birthday party for a friend and cooked for 20 people in my NYC apartment. I made sautéed jumbo shrimp with blacked corn and jalapenos, carnitas, lime crema, home made pico, a grits casserole, roasted cumin heirloom carrots, a variety of aps - the whole thing was about 10 hours of cooking and prepping with two friends. When it was meal time, I made a teeny tiny plate of protein, ate half of it and had no regrets.

It doesn't take much to get your panties in a knot, does it? I am not sure how expressing annoyance and discomfort with people who I barely know commenting on my body in ways that are best just plain odd makes me entitled or self-centered. The many people who ask genuine questions, offer a compliment or support are doing what you call "trying to connect on a deeper level" are not the problem. And I don't assume I know their motives - but when they talk, it's usually not that. Sometimes it's just curiosity. Sometimes my health change has triggered something that they are dealing with either for themselves or someone they care about. A lot of the times the intention is to support, encourage or acknowledge. I have more of those conversations than I ever imagined possible - and they've been the kind of conversations that have made a difference for both me and those people for lots of reasons. I do not think the random dude in a hallway calling out "how much weight have you lost?" represents any attempt at a deeper connection or even a basic grasp of being appropriate. By the time my workday is done on a slow day, I have had 10 such interactions and on some days 30-40. The volume of unsolicited comments is a function of the kind of work I do. And about a quarter of them are about as clueless as your reply. And while I am generally uncomfortable with a lot of public attention, I do smile and thank the people behaving like a normal decent person and I am annoyed and irritated with the stream of idiots. The best advice so far in this thread is to remember all the shock and awe will fade and the comments will stop. And speaking of high horses, you may want to check the mount you rode in on.