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What's up, folks. I'm a 40-year-old guy who's finally admitting my diet has been complete trash for way too long. We're talking years of wings, pizza, and basically everything that tastes amazing but makes me feel terrible afterwards. I've been researching GLP-1 medications and I'm both curious and overwhelmed by all the options. My eating habits are pretty much what you'd expect from someone who thought fast food was a food group, but I'm hitting that age where I can't pretend my metabolism is still 25, and I'm sick of feeling like garbage all the time. I'm looking to connect with people who've been through this. Whether you're researching like me, currently on GLP-1s, or have experience to share. I'd love to hear about your journeys, what worked, what didn't, and get some realistic expectations. Also interested in how people changed their eating habits alongside these meds, because I know I can't keep living off junk food forever. Thanks for having me, and looking forward to learning from everyone!

Is not just an Iron Maiden song, lol. 😁 27 yrs of marriage, now closing in on 5 years as a widower finding my way in facing the ever-present painful loss, yet continuing forward 9 yrs post op from gastric sleeve emerging from isolation and stepping out from the cave into the world around me interested in living again...enthused about it, in fact. interested in meeting people and possibly dating. Things have changed over the last few years. For example, Facebook. When I was mildly active on there before my wife became terminally ill it was more or less updates from friends on the goings on in their lives. Fast forward to a couple months ago when I reactivated my account I quickly discovered things were way, way different. Bombarded with fakery and insidious marketing schemes. I guess being naive (aka FB ignorant) had a quick learning curve. For example, I had an inbound messenger from a recently added "friend". She'd invited me out for a meet. We met the next day at a coffee shop. I almost didn't recognize her when she arrived. She walked over and introduced herself. Her profile pictures only vaguely resembled her. I am quick to joke about stuff, but resisted the impulse. Otherwise I'd have asked if she was involved with a witness protection program. It was difficult to get comfortable with someone whose first move was a disguise. Now, perhaps there are legitimate safety reasons why she would take such precautions. I can understand the concerns. The next half hour was a conversation that revealed a number of incompatible views on things. Mentioned the meet to a buddy. He laughed and told me that FB is, in fact, a minefield. Working long hours and rotating shifts doesn't lend itself well to dating. I suppose it will be an obstacle that I'll figure out. Certainly expanding my in person outings beyond just work & the shooting ranges. Who knew that the supermarket was a place to meet and chat ? Not me. Who knew that swapping over from a barber shop to a different place for haircuts would also be a meet & greet spot ? How about a doctors office visit for annual physical....new nurses...another coffee shop invite. Or another unexpected introduction & follow up....when buying cologne...for the first time in forever.... I guess the best way for me is to simply live life.....show up in person for any shopping needs vs no more online shopping. Get out there in the daily grind and simply be real. Anyway.....open for suggestions from folks who have been there and found success.

if i ate too much or too fast, i feel it in my solar plexus area, like it is expanding uncomfortably. if i ate WAaaaYYYYY too much too fast, i feel it up higher, like near the base of my throat. 9 times out of ten, if i feel it this high it is closely followed by some vomiting. the goal is always to never have to "feel" it, but even at almost 7 yrs post op, it still happens. i do notice this happens more when im "starving" because i forgot to eat or something and i end up wolfing something down cuz i suddenly realized i am hungry (sounds ridiculous, i know, but it happens to me all the time). so i "try" to eat more regularly, but this is in direct contradiction of my mantra of "dont eat unless u actually want to". so yeah. still trying to work it all out after all these years... do the best you can while minimizing the amount of angst you experience, is all i can say, i guess. good luck ❤️ (sorry, not sure this was vey helpful...may delete later, lol)

I wouldn't know. I have no experience with "small amounts". I don't begin to understand the causation, biology, anatomy, genealogy, etc, etc, etc. All I can say is that I had my WLS at a time when my wife and I were both seeing an uptick in our drinking. Perhaps to mask the problems in our marriage....perhaps to make the best of things.....perhaps we simply enjoyed it. The WLS, gym work and new way of eating were working wonders for my health. Initially this was met with approval and it seemed to be really helpful in calming the stormy seas of our marriage. I was firmly committed to keeping the weight loss train chugging ahead. After healing from the surgery I began drinking. No beer, but high grade tequila and vodka with skinny mixers. Without the benefit of meals, the impact was much deeper than simply sipping beer and then having dinner. This was 7-ish years ago. Fast forward to today. I've been alcohol free for the past 6+ years. It simplifies things. It is one less variable in daily life. It is simply easier for me to abstain than it is to have something else to measure, to control, to monitor. Right now monitoring my diet is enough. I don't know much about alcohol and I'm quite sure my surgeon and his staff all said to avoid it, period. LOL, to me listening to that noise at the time. I can say this....it is refreshing and good to not have it be part of my life. I face things head on and get to solving issues right away vs sulking and sipping on them over a night or two. Strong coffee is a much better substitute for me. Get some professional alcohol-specific guidance on this matter. IT can improve the trajectory of your life. Don't try to wing it and solve this on your own. Get the right advisors onboard and helping you make the best decisions for you.

Hi! I got a SADI 5 weeks ago and have really been fighting nausea ever since. The nausea pills make it worse for me, and I'm on the double set of PPI to keep the GERD down (which is only working moderately well). I'm not nauseous constantly, but it's inconsistent enough to confuse me. I've been struggling to know what's causing it when every issue seems to come with nausea as a symptom. I'm trying to stay hydrated but not drink too fast, eat but don't eat non-tolerated foods, take my meds but do it with food, etc. Since the nausea goes away each morning I'm guessing it's not an ulcer or something like that. I'm in talks with my surgeon ofc, but I just wanted to reach out and see how you all deal with this? I thought it would be better by now and I'm really miserable. I'd love to stop eating but I know my meds will give me more nausea on an empty stomach.

Well, I guess the OP isn't coming back. 🙁 If any of the rest of you are thinking about trying something like this, I'd encourage you to read up on what dopamine is and isn't. It's not a drug or a chemical that you can diet, detox, or fast your way past, regardless of what the social media influencers may have told you. You can't make it go away and no amount of deprivation is going to lessen your bodies ability to produce it on demand. In fact, contrary to popular belief, dopamine isn't a even the "pleasure" hormone it's portrayed to be. It has a number of functions in the body, but one of it's key uses is as a neurotransmitter (think of it like a messenger from one brain cell to another). Dopamine job as a neurotransmitter is in reinforcing reward-seeking behavior. Said differently, dopamine does not actually "cause" any pleasurable sensations, it simply triggers the brain when we do have pleasurable sensations to remember those and reward the behavior that caused the pleasure. You can think of it like a feedback mechanism. If you do something pleasurable, dopamine kicks in and says: "hey, we liked that, let's remember what caused it." Dopamine is easily manufactured in your body, so as I said, trying to remove pleasurable stimuli in the hope that this will keep you from seeking these reward behaviors in the future just won't work. Plus, once that reward mechanism is triggered, removing the stimuli after the fact makes no difference. Your brain still remembers the pleasurable sensation. If you have concerns about unhealthy behaviors such as late night snacking, the best plan is always going to be talking to a mental health professional. Through counseling and some techniques they can teach you, there are ways past these behaviors. If counseling isn't in the cards right now, I'd also recommend seeking out a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book can teach you to trade out bad habits for good ones. If sleep is a concern, we do have a pretty good idea of things you can do to improve the quality of sleep. As I mentioned, sleep is absolutely critical to weight loss and franky to just staying healthy. If you're looking for tips on improving sleep, I recommend Googling "sleep hygiene". There's a wealth of information out there. Finally, I want to close by mentioning that late night eating is not necessarily bad and is not actually a cause of poor sleep. it depends more on what you eat, but multiple studies have shown that going to be hungry may be WORSE for sleep than eating before bed. It all comes down to what you eat and how close to bedtime you eat it. This is another one of those "common knowledge" things that's just wrong.

I'm not entirely sure if this is a win, but let me give you a little bit of my backstory first. Thanks to a work accident many years ago, I have multiple herniated discs in my lumbar spine that sometimes cause a lot of sciatica. When this was at its worst, I had to use a walker just to get around the house because I had no motor control over my right leg. To be honest, this is one of the things that actually led to me becoming obese. I wasn't able to workout (I could hardly move), and was in a lot of pain, so I self-medicated with food and alcohol. The pain isn't completely gone now, but after losing all this weight, it's so much better than it used to be. Fast forward to this week. I spent basically 4 days (Saturday-Tuesday), trapped in a zoom class and this inactivity took its toll on my back. I'd been in a lot of pain and hadn't worked out at all since taking a short run Monday. Wednesday and Thursday I didn't get the walker out, but i did seriously think about it. Today the pain was still about a four or five on a ten point scale, but at least it wasn't radiating down my leg much. I really struggled with trying to determine if I just needed to man up, or if it was stupid to try to workout, knowing that I might make it worse. I finally decided I just needed to try to run, since I knew that once the endorphins and endocannabinoids kicked in, I'd probably be fine. Plus, the movement should actually help loosen things up in my spine and help me heal. It took a bit for me to work up to going for it, but I did finally go run this morning. (The bad thing was that the delay meant I was running in the heat.) To be honest, the run really sucked for the first mile or two. Thankfully, once I made it to about 4 miles, the pain was mostly gone and I was able to complete the 9 miles I had planned. I'm still thinking I'm going to have to skip my strength training tomorrow (I'll probably log a few running miles instead), but at least I got out there. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that completing the run wasn't actually a win. The win was that I didn't let this pain become the start of a spiral down to a place I never want to go to again. I personally think the most important thing is not actually the highs, though those are great. It's not succumbing to the lows and letting yourself fall back into those old destructive habits. I wanted to throw this out there because i know I post a lot here and I suspect some of you might think I've got it all together since I'm normally the one giving advice to others. That's just not true. Like everyone, I have my own demons that I have to deal with and this back pain is just one of those.

Nope, I’ve avoided straws like the plague. I know I’m not drinking too fast or gulping. The only other thing that makes sense to me would be a stricture? But it seems to be too early to deal with that.

I appreciate your post, its an opportunity to understand human nature and the constant struggles we have fighting the basic life requirement to eat. That being said, I would like to ask fellow forum members the following questions if they too have had/have their other half going down the same paths... seeing your wife having weight/health issues and what others do/say/handle that situation. My husband eats like a 12 year old boy. He knows it, he told his doctor the same thing (his doctor laughed and said he eats the same way). His BMI (I know its not a great metric but its the easiest and most ppl understand it) is 29.98. I've explained obese is 30.00. He says he gets "plenty of exercise" because he walks 12 miles a day, which he does (mail carrier). I say that's moving NOT exercise since its nothing more than a long stroll, not getting his heart rate up. So, my question like what Spartan says how do you help someone see the light? Yes, I realize its like everything else each person has to come to the realization on their own, but how can we help the process along, after all time doesn't stand still and no one is getting younger. I try to get him to eat the meals I prepare, but its not what he "likes": cereals, processed foods i.e. hot dogs, fast food, candy and soda. He has tried dieting, it lasts less than a day or he only "eats a half bowl of sugary cereal until I point out that a serving is 1/4 cup and his half a bowl is 4 servings...etc. What have you tried, done said etc., on your journey to bring your other half kicking and screaming into a healthier lifestyle that worked? I don't want anger or alienate my husband, but do you just stand back and continue to let someone you love keep pulling the trigger?

As a general rule, the effects of supplementation of any kind on weight loss will be extremely minimal. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say for most people, 90-95% of weight loss is calorie intake alone. Other factors like exercise might make up a few percent, and supplements would be down at the bottom of the list probably only making 1% or less of the impact. Since 1% might mean something like 20 calories a day, you can see how it would be really easy to overcome that effect just by eating a tiny bit more. Keep in mind there is no overcoming basic physics. If you want to lose weight, you have to consume fewer calories than you burn. Things people worry wat too much about in my opinion instead of placing the focus where it matters on calories: Types of diets: Things like keto, low fat, low carb, intermittent fasting, etc. may help with compliance, but otherwise make no appreciable difference in weight loss. Bottom line, eat the way you want as long as you meet your nutrient goals and eat less than you burn in a day. Exercise: Exercise is critical for overall health and fitness, but as a general rule, you are not going to lose much if any weight from exercising. The reason is that your body is really good at stabilizing your overall calories burned in a day/week/month. What I mean is that studies show that for the most part, your body will slow down other processes to "make-up" for the exercise calories you burned, so whether or not you exercised won't actually mean you burn more calories per day. Exercise CAN help in weight loss for some people, but as a general rule, you'd probably need to be doing something that burned more than 400 calories a day, every day for you to see any impact at all. One place where exercise really comes into its own is in weight maintenance post-weight loss. Here the data is super clear. Those that exercise at least 1 hour per day were significantly more likely to maintain their weight loss than those that don't exercise. Supplements: As I pointed out above, at best, supplements might have a very small impact on on weight loss and this impact is really easy to negate by simply eating more. Typically weight loss supplements fall into two categories: Thermogenics (things that increase metabolism), and Appetite Suppressants. Some claim to have both effects. Without going into too much detail, the vast majority of thermogenics work simply because they are stimulants. Caffeine is the most well known and well studied (and frankly probably the most effective), but since you already are a coffee drinker, you're pretty unlikely to get any additional benefit from switching to another source such as green tea. Appetite suppressants are really a mixed bag. These sometimes work for some people, but again, the effects are really small. This is a little old, but I still think worth taking a gander: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8406948/#:~:text=A total of 1945 participants,morbidity%2C costs or patient satisfaction. It's a meta-analysis of the impact of green tea on weight loss. The conclusion they came to after looking at 15 different studies: "Green tea preparations appear to induce a small, statistically non‐significant weight loss in overweight or obese adults. Because the amount of weight loss is small, it is not likely to be clinically important." Best of luck.

Anyone who has ever flown commercial has seen the safety briefing, right ? "In the case of cabin pressure drop....an air mask will lower itself in front of each passenger.....put your own in place before helping those beside you" Took me quite a while to realize that our own personal health condition is no different. The WLS provided a wild ride for about three years. Surgery yield excellent weight loss results. Faster than I was ready for. I didn't make the best of decisions and never missed the opportunity to go have fun. One day....I woke up from the hubris and took inventory. My marriage had somehow survived...as it had survived tough times well prior. I was a dad to an insanely gifted son. I had a good job surrounded by great people. Mostly, though....my wife was there at my side and patiently waiting for me to get my head extracted from my arse. I did. We then had what can only be described as the best years of our marriage....like we were dating again. I was blessed and the first to acknowledge such. She had some health issues arise and we discovered it was worse than we were expecting. Diagnosis was cancer....treatment began right away but it was a terminal diagnosis. She fought hard...superhuman efforts. Her pain tolerance was simply beyond my compression. Cancer took her in April of 2021. I maintained my promise to her to keep on with the sobriety. I failed in most other ways. I had zero desire to cook as it was too painful. Anytime I'd try the sense of loss would be overpowering. We had so many fun times in and around the kitchen....I'd cook and she'd help me clean up my mess. Music always on....every day together was alike a date night. I remain so very grateful to have been given those recent great years together....but I chickened out when it involved anything we'd once do together. No cooking of anything other than maybe a quick breakfast.....no music....no movies or shows we once enjoyed, no gym, no maintaining of friendships......just went to work each day and came home....existing off fast food and vending machine garbage at work. Three and a half years went on like that. As the fourth anniversary of her death loomed, I once again took inventory. What I acknowledged was ugly. The mirror sucked, the way most of my clothes fit sucked, my annual checkups with our primary care doc sucked....and I owned every single bit of it. I owned all that suck. I also knew that she would kick my ass for letting myself give up like I had. I've never quit anything in my life....yet there I was....quitting on pretty much everything. I pissed myself off so badly. I made the decision to crawl outa that hole and do what she would have me do if she was here to push & pull on me to get my shyt together. She fought so hard to live....and there I was... giving up...no fight, no attempt, just giving up like a punk. So things began to improve greatly when I started jumping on what I could gain control of. My health was a perfect place to start..... And so it has been going the last few months. Daily macros are improving more each day. Essentially keto but am supplementing with fish oil, fiber, turmeric, powdered greens, multi-vitamins.....trying to shore up every aspect of daily good stuff taken in. I flipped the collective bird to all the fast food restaurants and their drive thru windows. Screw 'em all. Found the stereo again....whether in the truck or at the house. There is music. Took over the yardwork....and there is a pile of it needed. Joined a gym. Bought some new ear buds and gym clothes....and a heap more new music. In short.....I acknowledged that throwing my own health away was what had been selfish......taking control of it was imperative. The loss is still there....but my response to it is now different. Now I am doing much more to honor her by living as she wanted me to. She wanted me to live....all aspects of living. Health first, foremost and always.......and the other aspects of living are becoming more clear each day. Life is a gift. Squandering that gift is a crime. Longwinded answer.

Hi! Sorry to have found your post so late! There's not a lot of NHS patients on here as this is mostly an American website. I had my surgery in October 2024 on the NHS. I remember the dietician appointment was a video call with other patients before any surgeries were finalised. I will admit that I don't feel like I got much out of it. The main message is eat slowly and prioritise protein first when eating a meal. The session with the psychologist (a ten minute phone call) was probably the least helpful as she just said I need to practice mindfulness and learn others ways to cope with stress other than eating. (Gee, thanks! Where was that advice when I was a fat 8 year old? 🙄) I had a higher BMI than you currently do and the privilege of living in London, so I think I was bumped up a few tiers and fast tracked (I don't know if this true in general, but London seems to get the lion's share of the funding so hospitals are less strict. My Gloucester based friend has a BMI of 44, but because she has no comorbidities, she can't get any weight loss referrals because her BMI isn't 50+) But I digress. Once I had the surgery, it was a year and a half from the initial referral, it's mostly been smooth sailing. I had the gastric sleeve and had no problems. So far, I've lost 39 kg and more fatty liver has improved significantly. My mother had the gastric bypass (also on the NHS). She had a complication, St Anthony's private hospital did the surgery, but the NHS covered it but once they operated again, she had no problems. She never shared exactly how much she weighed with me, but she went from a size 28-30 to a 22 and reversed her diabetes. She passed away in 2023, but if she hadn't, she would be much smaller I'm sure. I've had a great experience so far with my procedure and weight loss. I really do recommend going the NHS route if you are able to do so. Well done on making this decision to change your life! You've got this. Sometimes, just making the decision to get help is the hardest part!

I'm not talking natural sugars that occur in fruit etc. I'm talking processed. Totally understand what you're saying about sugar's role in a balanced diet, but for me, with my ADHD and tendency to get fixated and addicted fast - avoiding processed sugar is my fix for my situation. As always with all things, YMMV.

Definitely don't proceed if you're having doubts. My surgeon advised against the sleeve because of my pre-existing GERD, and I got the Omega Loop/Mini bypass instead. While my GERD thankfully didn't get worse, it still happens every so often so I'm still on Pantoprazole daily (which also stops stomach ulcers which I'm prone to). For what it's worth, I also have ADHD and take an antidepressant for chronic vestibular migraines. I make sure I take them after food and ease off water for a bit so they don't go down too fast, and don't really have any issues. I can't take any slow-release meds though, so Vyvanse and extended release Ritalin are out. I take Ritalin 10, which works fine.

A couple small wins yesterday. Small, but I take note of them and small wins encourage the behaviors that lead to bigger wins, right ? So...this 'un is a two parter. Several months ago, a few weeks before I had taken action to burn off the regains and dig my way back.... I was goofing around on the web... looking through a certain company's website. They make gear that is hobby related. I happened to notice that they also had some logo T-shirts that looked cool. So I ordered two....but ordered them for two sizes smaller than I was wearing then. They arrived and were stashed away with some other clothing, all smaller sizes, that I'd been ordering. The stash had made it's way upstairs to be put away. Soon afterwards... I started putting in the work....burning off the regain and get in better overall health. Kitchen discipline being the first step. Fast forward to yesterday.....laundry day at the hacienda. Grabbed a shower and started getting dressed so I could go knock out some errands. Almost dressed but remembered my normal day off work stuff was on the drying rack. Damn. I spied the stack of smaller sized stuff still in shopping bags....sitting there. Hmmm. Screw it...let's find out, dude...either it'll fit or it won't. Grabbed one of the new cool guy t-shirts and some new flat fronted cargo pants. Cut off tags & peeled off stickers and began to.....WTH !!! This shyt if fitting. Bamsucka. Got dressed and strutted around the room like a bantam rooster....chest poked out....big grin. Small Win Numba One Achieved. While running errands I wheeled into a parking space in front of one of the local gyms I'd been considering. Took my bantam rooster arse up in there and looked around. It was clean, plenty of open treadmills and recumbent bikes...just what I need for pre-habbing my knees. Gonna build up the muscle tissue before getting those suckers replaced over the next couple years. I joined. Small Win Numba Two Achieved. I plan on never having to eat an elephant (although I used to look like I could)......but....but if I did....I'd eat that thang one bite at a time. Thankfully getting healthy may prove to be easier than elephant eating. 🤣

My number one piece of advice would be not to compare yourself to others. I get it, it's comforting to know someone else went through the same thing as you, but when you factor in genetics, epigenetic, diet, exercise, starting weight, % lean mass, etc. any comparisons will fall short. This will become even more important after surgery when the process becomes really hard and you feel like it's not working like it should. We see multiple posts a month from people who are losing weight, but it's coming off slower than they expected and they want to know why. The response is always the same. Trust the process, we're all different and how we lose weight is going to be different. I think it's fantastic that you're losing so well right now. Keep in mind that the rate of loss WILL slow down some as you lose more. That's perfectly normal, so don't let that discourage you from continuing to eat well and exercising. I would caution you about fasting. There's no scientific evidence that it works any better than any other method of calorie restriction. Normally I'd say do what works for you, but fasting is not something you'll be able to do post-WLS (at least early on), so it might not be the best thing for you right now. Especially since your real goal at this point is to learn how to eat better, I'm not sure fasting is the best plan currently. I also think you need to include more cardio into your exercise routine. I love resistance training for lots of reasons, but cardiovascular endurance is the number one predictor of all cause mortality, so please don't skip it, even if you don't like it as much.

Hey guys, brand new here. Halfway through my bariatrics process, and just a general question, hopefully from people who are around my same size? Started this process at 373 pounds. Goal weight to achieve was 345.6 pounds. Im currently at 337 pounds and still dropping, as I cut everything out of my diet first day after consult. Started fasting, portion control, intake control with what I was choosing to eat, and hitting the gym 5 days a week for resistance training. I am 6ft tall. Mainly posting to see what process yall went through in how much expected weight loss. I know all bodies are different, but trying to get a better idea to compensate for loose skin. Still have 3 months to go until im scheduled for surgery due to insurance requirements, and im not stopping now. Im ready for the better side of me I can find. Any information is greatly appreciated! Currently looking at getting the gastric sleeve done.

I had been part time following the pre ops diet and cutting down on my food sizes a few weeks before I got news of my operation date : may 26, the same date 5 years ago I knew I was going to gain weight because of pregnancy complications. So the first two and the half weeks I just did more pre- ops eating (modifast in 4 different flavors) . They are quite tolerable. I usually had a normal (small sizemeal) in the evening with the kids. Now starting last Sunday, (18 may) I am on a full water fast for 5 days. Meaning my fast ends today at 19:20. I have my modifast oatmeal ready should I really need to eat something at that hour. Tomorrow Saturday I shall be on liquid pre ops meals as prescribed. Sunday will be another day on liquid only in preparation for my operation on Monday. I tell you what this is my body and I am determined to get it back. The operation is not a magic pill. It is just a tool in my toolbox. The way I think about food and how and why and when I ingest it- that to me is the magic. I am focusing very much in discovering my cues and knowing what triggers my eating habits. I am learning to say no all together when I am invited to that snack moment at work to eat what so ever what when I truly know I do not need it. - I am learning to say ’No’ and knowing it will be okay. I take it a minute at a time. We shall get through this and we will not turn back. I want to be able to jump into every photo without cringing I want to feel good and run about with my kids without feeling pain, exhausted and above all guilty. I am doing this for my boys and then for myself. We will be alright guys. We got this.

We started off about the same weight, and at month 4 (I just checked my spreadsheet), I'd lost 52 lbs, so not much more than you. It seems to be pretty common to lose about 10 lbs a month for the first few months (although some people have a big drop the first month (I did not), which is likely a lot of water weight - before settling in at a slower rate of loss). After the first six months or so, I dropped down to maybe five lbs a month - and after I passed the year mark, there were some months when I only lost about two lbs. It took me about two years to reach goal. If you stick to your plan, the weight will come off, whether fast or slow. There are so many factors that influence your rate of loss - age, gender, body build, how muscular you are, your metabolic rate, how active you are, whether or not you lost weight before surgery, starting BMI, etc. The only things you really have any control over are how closely you stick to your food plan and how active you are, so if you do well with those two things, the weight WILL come off. I ended up losing over 200 lbs, so definitely don't lose hope! P.S. of course, if your scale actually weighs differently than the one at the doctor's office, well then there's that, too...

Just adding to my accountability post! Had a reality check recently. As I was going over food log I noticed that I was letting too much processed stuff creep into my routine – protein bars, powders, low-carb bread, cookies (not just 1) fast food (small amounts but still) – and my gut wasn’t having it. I had to get honest with myself about what I was actually eating. So, I hit the reset button and went back to whole, real foods. I even started making my own sourdough again, and let me tell you, the bloat is basically gone, my energy is up, and that annoying food noise is finally quieting down. The scale is moving down, but more importantly, I just feel so much better!

I am 1 year post-op today, and I have (pretty much) hit my goal! I can't believe it has been a year already, it has gone so fast. To think that this time last year I was having surgery (BIG shout out to Simon Monkhouse), and I was starting a new chapter of my life. I have learnt that I can adapt to change quite quickly, something I didn't think I was that good at previously. I think we shock ourselves at how quickly we can adapt to our new way of living post-surgery. The NSVs have been life-saving for me. Every time I am walking about, up hills and at a fast pace, I still catch myself thinking "I can't believe I can do this". Before this I would have to stop 3-4 times just on a short 8 minute walk as the pain in my hips and back was awful. Now I can jog and I can ride a bike uphill!! I feel happier in myself and in my day-to-day life, and while I may still have a long way to go in terms of being kinder to myself, I am learning to love my body. It is so nice to be able to just think less about what I am wearing, how I will look. I am grateful to feel smaller and to have people not notice me in public (as weird as that sounds). Next part of my journey is just to see where my weight loss goes, then to look into some plastics in the next year or so, but overall, my goal is just to keep living feeling this free ❤️

Usually people experience their first stall at around the 3 week mark +/- and they can last 1-3 weeks. However this isn’t a hard and fast rule. There are some who experience small stalls of only a few days. I was one who wouldn’t see any loss on the scales for only a handful of days and then would drop again. I noticed this simply because I weighed myself daily and recorded my loss. As you weigh once a week you may have missed a brief plateau at around that three week mark and you are having a larger more average length stall now. Your friends may not have noticed stalls if they weighed once a week or less frequently. The only thing you can rely on is regardless of how often you stall or how long there last they will break. Just stick to your plan & everything will be fine when your body is ready to start losing again. Is there a reason you are only eating one real meal a day and your other meals are shakes? At almost three months post surgery most of your nutrients should be coming from real food not shakes. A shake should only be to supplement your protein intake or as an occasional convenient meal alternative (work commitments, travel, etc.). I also wonder if that could impact your weight loss and the length of your plateau. Personally I never had another shake after the first 2 week liquid stage & was eating real food meals from week 3 post surgery. By around week 8 I was eating all meats (fish, beef, chicken, pork, lamb) & 1 or 2 vegetables for lunch and dinner and eggs or oatmeal for breakfast. This is when you should be introducing better food choices and eating habits for the long term. This would be worth a conversation with your dietician & surgeon.

I realised my response above was a bit lacking on practical recommendations. Let me try to summarize what I'd suggest: Since you're right where I'd want you to be in terms of weight loss per month, don't change anything at this point. Only consider changing if you find the weight loss completely stops for 2 months or more. If weight loss does stop for at least 2 months, I'd actually recommend UPPING calories by 250-300 calories a day. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, especially considering that a negative energy balance is the only way to lose weight, but let me explain. Remember when I said above that one of the main jobs of our metabolic regulation system is to keep us from dying? No matter what we do, our metabolism slows when we diet. The rationale behind upping calories (by a small amount), is that we want to convince that system that the "bad times" have passed, and it's okay to ratchet up metabolic processes again. I'd recommend eating this increased calorie amount for at least a month, but two months would be better. Somewhat surprisingly, most people won't gain weight if they do this because their metabolism will increase to compensate. After that diet break, only then do we drop calories for a month or two in order to drop some more weight. You can keep up this intermittent dieting (not to be confused with intermittent fasting), until you get to your goal weight. I know this sounds like a slow process, but I promise, in the long run it's actually faster than if you just tried to keep cutting calories to get to your goal. Please keep exercising for your health, but also so that once you do get to your goal, you'll have a much easier time maintaining the loss. I would strongly recommend a minimum of 3 days per week of aerobic exercise and 2 days per week of strength training. This will set you up really well to maintain weight, as well as for excellent health as you get older. Don't be afraid to seek out a good mental health counselor. None of us got as big as we were by having a healthy relationship with food. The vast majority of people that fail to lose weight or that regain lots of weight after bariatric surgery do so because they fall back into old poor eating habits.

Talk to your medical provider. Yes, GERD occurs in some SG patients, in some others it improves. There are too many factors to have hard and fast simple rules. I’m pre operative and totally geeked out researching, and the more I learn the more I understand our knowledge is evolving and the best we can do is get as much information and make the best choice with the information at hand. Find a good program that does multiple surgeries and talk to them about your concerns l.