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So I've failed the sleeve already. I just can't beat the head hunger. I was in the office today and everyone but cakes and candies etc. I just can't say no. This isn't even the first time. And I can't stop eating when I'm full. My stomach hurts but I just keep eating. I've been in tears from my stomach hurting, but I still can't stop eating. I really don't think there's anything else I can do at this point. I've gained back only a lb but it will keep going up. I lost more weight pre-op than I have post op and there's no chance of losing more. I knew it wasn't supposed to be easy, but I expected that I would be able to do better. This is just another diet that I've failed except it's permanent and I'm going to be on vitamin shots and pills for the rest of my life. This was a mistake.

Could you please give us some more details Age, weight, weight lost in three months, activity levels and lastly foods eaten, the portion sizes or daily calories. Thanks

Long post alert, just venting and catching up after so much time away... TLDR, I'm getting an arm lift. I want to hear from other people who got it and how it changed their body/body image, recovery, success stories, and whatever else you want to share! Wow, I haven't posted in a while. This forum got me through some dark times when I had my gastric bypass both before and after. I am posting today because I am FINALLY getting some plastics done. I have been waiting a while because I wanted to maintain my weight. I just turned 30, I'm not getting any younger and I've been doing excellent maintaining my weight loss so I finally scheduled a brachioplasty to start. I am getting an arm lift in other words. I included a pic of my arm and the skin hang-age. This is my before. Disclaimer, this pic is from a couple months ago it's the one I had handy on my desktop but I've been doing a lot of weight training and have built up my bicep a bit more. I would like to do a tummy tuck too (I have A LOT of loose skin in an apron belly shape and my boobs sag down to my ribs 😕 ) but I am okay with not getting it for now. I can't afford both and don't really have the time to recover from all that surgery. I am starting with just the brachio for now. I have spent my whole life hiding my body and after losing all this weight, I found I am concealing it even MORE because of how droopy and flappy everything has gotten. I am fed up of feeling uncomfortable in my own skin after all the hard work I put in. I'm sure a lot of people who get plastic surgery post-major weight loss can relate to this. At this point it feels like a necessity. My bat wing arms also smack against my body like crazy, I can't wear short sleeves without this happening and tops do not fit me right because of my wonky proportions. My bicep has very little fat on it and all the bulk on my arm is hanging under it so it's very uncomfortable. I've been holding off because of how expensive it is as well. I am paying out of pocket 15k and it's a chunk of my savings but I'd rather have this than a payment plan and I can start ASAP to recoup my savings. I have a lot of body image issues as one does from being morbidly obese their whole life... so honestly I am almost 100% sure this surgery is NOT going to fix the way I see myself. I am more looking at it as a way to feel more comfortable on a day-to-day basis whether I am exercising or just trying to wear a short sleeve outfit in this very hot state I live in. So that's basically my update. I have been doing well, maintaining my weight loss and a healthy lifestyle. Gastric bypass has completely changed my life and made it so much easier to make better choices for my body and my longevity. I am ready for the arm lift and I am so scared but also excited to see how this all goes. I want to hear from other people who got an arm lift or any loose skin removal and how the recovery went for you and how it helped you and your confidence. Thanks and you're all wonderful people!

Thanks for the reply @ShoppGirl I know I shouldn't but it's a compulsion... and honestly if I *had* weighed myself every day back when I was slim...and taken action when my weight crept up in the first place... I wouldn't be here now 😝 I am NEVER going to not weight regularly again. Thank you @Arabesque, great advice and encouragement as always 😁 ffor double post above, I can't remove or edit it either.

sooooo I am with you right now, there has been a lot going on this week, and I know I am going to start my period soon so its heightening everything I am feeling. But I told my boyfriend I feel fat...he looked at me and said "what part of you are you fat?!" I have maintained my weight for the past month and a half ish? upped my weights at the gym and cardio. Idk I have never been in maintenance so I feel weird. I keep wondering okay when will I start gaining again. I look in the mirror and I see 300lb me and start ripping my body apart. I wonder if I really look better or if I look worse. This journey is a total mind EFF!

ok...so i've been on here for a few years and have read the statement "i'm gaining weight and i don't know why", and an umpteen different variations of that same statement. the answer to this is to (honestly) track your food intake and weight over a period of time (and tracking your exercise habits, sleep habits, menstrual cycles is an added source of info). you will quickly figure out on the data collected where you can tweak things. and yes, I KNOW this is not for everyone. its not easy and it takes a certain level of crazy to keep this up for forever (*raISES hand* ... yep, im crazy). Now, if you are willing to make changes, then yay! if not, that is ok too! like i said, i've been on here for what seems like an eternity, and another thing that need to be addressed is that not everyone gets to their arbitrary goal weight, let alone stays there. often because this goal weight is not realistic to the efforts they are willing to put forward...wanna be 120lbs with 15% body fat? then be prepared to eat lean and exercise hours every day. forever. for most, this lifestyle is just not sustainable. and that is ok! quality of life is more important than a goal weight. if you lost weight then you won already. if you are off your meds and have energy and can move unhindered, then you won already. if you are angst free and living life, then you won already. BUT, if you WANT to lose more weight, get stronger, look better in that bikini, then go for it. start tracking your intake and be aware of how your inputs and outputs affect you, speak to a medical professional to see if there aren't any other issues that may be at play. adjust your diet and activity accordingly. and again, if that is just not your bag, thats ok...you just need to learn to accept your present and be cool with it. peace, people! p.s. and as GT expressed above, use whatever resources you have available to you (if you so desire), including meds!

Stalls are normal, and I believe 1 month is very reasonable. While I didn't stall during weight loss, I stabilized at 9.5 months only to lose weight again 3 months later! Now I believe that I was probably in a weight stall for 3 months (I was more than happy to stabilize and stop losing weight, but the point is that it was probably a stall). The best thing to do is to stick to your plan, eat well, walk your steps (8-10k a day), get your protein in and introduce some sort of exercise you enjoy. It will come off

I guess I shouldn't respond late at night like I did above because I left out some common mistakes people make when logging calories: Mindless eating: either failing to log those little nibbles here and there (including when tasting food during prep), or trying to log it, but guessing after the fact as to how much they actually ate. Not understanding that raw vs cooked food can have vastly different calories. A classic example: The USDA says 100 grams of raw chicken has ~106 to 120 calories per 100 grams. The problem is that when cooked, 100 grams of this same chicken is ~165 calories. The primary reason is due to water lost during the cooking process. This is not an issue if you properly portion out how much of the chicken breast you ate, but if you are using the raw calories and weighing it when cooked, you'd actually be eating a lot more calories than you think. This is a big one: not counting liquid calories. for reasons I don't fully understand, a lot of people just either ignore or don't log liquid calories. That juice they drank for breakfast? Didn't log it. The milk in their coffee? Nope, not logged. That energy drink they had in the afternoon? Not logged either. I think you get the idea. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not a huge fan of logging calories since it's really hard to do correctly and even when done to the best of our ability, it's still often wrong. I think, as it may be in your case, it also can become a crutch. There is no cheating physics here. If you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you'll gain weight and if you eat less, you'll lose. As I hope you'll see from what I've posted, in all likelihood, you're eating more than you think. Let's just for the sake of argument say you're really great at logging and you really are just eating 1200-1400 kcal a day. The only other explanation would be an exceptionally low BMR. This would really suck if it's true, but if we assume it is true, then that would still mean you're eating too much. Either way, you have to eat less than you're eating now if you want to lose.

Same! I worry about the extreme sheet of ice, not just a slippery slope but a full out avalanche watch me tumble and break my neck covered in powdery snow buried in the gaining the weight back full on Mount Everest climb slope!

I have been weighing daily and I’ve seen my weight go up a couple of pounds on a day. It’s not uncommon to fluctuate. SO many things like water, inflammations or even a full bowel can make your weight fluctuate. If you’re sticking to your plan it’s pretty much impossible for you to be gaining. If you are looking for an easy way to track your macros try the Baritastic App. It’s so simple.

So I had gastric sleeve surgery in 2017 and ever since I have had severe GERD. I just went through an upper GI endoscopy and it was found that I have a huge hiatal hernia, like half of my stomach! My surgeon says the only real way to get relief is the have a gastric bypass but my current insurance does not cover any bariatric surgery. Is there a way to get them to pay since the surgery isn’t for weight loss? I have BCBS of Alabama.

google "waistband clip"... i've only seen lics of it used in front or the side, but i dont see why u couldn't affix them to the back (or at least side-back). full disclosure, i've never tried them myslef, but i did contemplate buying them during weight loss phase, just never got around to it. (im 6+ years out now and my weight loss days are long behind me)

Just jumping in to say that 60lbs in 3 months is a tremendous amount of weight to lose! Have you ever lost that much in three months before? Or at all? Pre-surgery, I could never lose more than about 40lbs before I plateaued and then slowly started to regain. But, I understand you have a long way left to go, so it probably feels like you'll never get there. Focus on building the good habits now, like you are. If you can, go for a daily walk. That may be plenty of exercise for now if you are currently sedentary. But protein, vegetables, and fruits are great choices. Also, take photos of yourself to see the progress. I swear that even at over a year out and within 10 lbs of a normal BMI, I still FEEL obese sometimes. And then I see a recent photo of myself and I am shocked to see a normal weight woman who kinda looks like me. How can I see myself so wrong in my own head? In the first year, I took a progress photo every month on the 21st so I could compare. I'm so glad I did.

HW: 399 CW: 264 GW: 199 Total Inches lost: Waist: 12.5” Hips: 10” Progress video of my non scale victories & some before & after photos attached. ☺️ Hi everyone! I had sleeve surgery on 12/6/23. My weight on the day of surgery was 381, but just a few months prior (October ‘23), I was in the 390s — peaking at 399. 😭 I still can’t believe how far I’ve come since then. 🤯 At first, around this time last year, I was a little discouraged that I wasn’t one of those lost 100 lbs in the first 4 months stories. But now, looking back, I’m so proud of the progress I’ve made and those thoughts are long gone. My doctor even said he prefers when patients lose weight a bit slower, since it helps them adjust to their new lifestyle easier and avoid some of the negative side effects like hair loss. I’m happy to say I haven’t experienced any hair loss at all 💁‍♀️ and my habits are NIGH and DAY from when I was .5lb shy of 400lbs. I gotta say being in the 260s feels unreal. My goal weight of 199 doesn’t feel like a far-off dream anymore but now within reach. When I was 399, the idea of weighing 199 felt like a fairytale ✨ but now, being just 65 lbs away, it feels like I can see the finish line in the distance and it won’t be long until I cross it! 🏃‍♀️💨 If you made it this far, thanks for reading. 🤗🩵🩷 Wishing the best to everyone on their own fitness journey. We got this!! 💪 video-output-BBFB7DF1-7AA4-435F-9BE5-1CD3270BACD2-1.mov

I was going to say some of the same things @Justarwaxx said! I watched a reel on - I think maybe Facebook? - that addressed the notion that some people have on a Monday after having a couple of cheat meals over the weekend and suddenly the scale says they gained 5 lbs - and the fact that thinking like that isn't realistic. You don't gain 5 lbs in 48 hours unless you are eating something like 4500 calories per day and not moving AT ALL. There is a LOT of wiggle room in what the scale reads. When it comes to weight loss, the goal is to create a calorie deficiency so if you are burning more calories than you are putting into your body consistently you're GOING to lose weight. A lot of factors are at play with what the 'scale' reads, including digestion, fluid retention, even hormonal changes. Plus, yes, with the extra exercise you're doing I bet your body is simply trying to find it's consistent expectation so it knows how much energy you need, how many calories it can expect, and how much fat to break down to keep you running like a well maintained machine! Plateaus are GOING to happen throughout this process. It's a marathon, not a sprint, too -- keep in mind that you're going to be losing weight for the next 18+ months more than likely. Just keep at it, and try not to weight yourself too often. I know it's hard, because we want to see those RESULTS, NOW! (At least *I* do ) but... be patient. We're only a couple of months out from our surgeries!

sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but lose enough weight and the butt will follow the same deflated path as the boobs. le sigh. i mean you could do a whole lotta squats and leg lifts and bridges, but unless you gain the exact same muscle mass in volume as you the fat you lost, you are gonna see some excess skin. i've been doing some dedicated butt work, and yes, when i flex i get a little bit of a nice bumpy "portrusion", but my extra skin is draped over it! lololzzz... if i'm feeling adventurous, i'll see if i can post of pic of what i'm taking about. ha! in any case, loose skin or not, deflated boobies and saggy bottoms, if you feel good, it really doesn't matter. cuz when you feel good, it projects outwardly. (and p.s., its projecting in your case ❤️)

Hi, I just had a four year surgiversary yesterday. In the first two years I made it down to 185-187 from 252. I did the calculations, and that was only about 25%-26% of my body weight lost. Doing the research, I've found that anything less than a 50% weight loss in the first two is generally considered failure. I maintained around 185-190 for over a year, and then gained 20 pounds seemingly overnight without changing much--we all have our lapses, but this was not enough to explain a 20-pound weight gain. Also, I am approaching The Change, so maybe this is part of that. All I know is I'm frustrated, and I'm not even sure that my initial surgery was successful. I guess I'm asking what other members of The Order Of The Sleeve who got sleeved at late 40s-early 50s have experienced. I plan to talk to my PCP, but what do you think? Should I consider revision based on the initial results? Would it even be worth doing at this point?

Keep posting. We are all here for you x Also - stalls are the absolute PITS and gains (although always temporary) DOUBLE PITS!

Sorry to butt in as I'm only a little over 10 months post GS but I feel I can share a little of what I'm doing to maintain. I reached my initial goal 3 months post op and continued to lose until about 9 months post op, went much below goal weight and stabilized (I think as I've been the same weight with one +- 1KG fluctuation for 1.5 months). I lost weight very rapidly and the weird thing is, during weight loss I never tracked, I would only check my calorie intake once every 2-3 weeks to see where I'm sitting at but the whole theme was barely eating to survive and insane restriction. Now that I've stabilized I track my intake 3-4 times a week to know where I am at and what daily average intake is. There are non hungry days where I don't bother to track (plus weekends) and days where I'm ravenous and I make sure I track to know. I have also picked up the habit of weighing myself at least a few times a week, sometimes daily or twice a day (during weight loss I weighed once a week only), now at maintenance I weigh more often and only because I never did pre WLS and my weight kept creeping up and I refused to face reality (if I didn't know then it didn't happen). I also believe that what gets measured gets managed. I cook most of my food and eat out about twice a week, I prioritize protein 90% of the time and eat fairly well. I get in at least 140 grams of protein a day but I also don't deprive myself of anything. I eat bread, rice, pasta ,dessert and everything else really, just not in substantial portions and usually after I've gotten my protein in. I workout a lot. Always have and always will and I believe this has been a huge factor in my success so far. I built back all the muscle I lost and I believe my muscles are allowing me to eat much more without worrying about weight gain (I eat between 1500-1900 calories a day, depending on how hungry I am). I walk between 8k-10k steps a day too. Lastly, I have worked out a wriggle room for myself, If I do gain a little of weight then it is no big deal, it does not distress me and I will deal with it when/if it happens. I try my best everyday and I accept that I am not perfect nor do I set unrealistic standards for myself. I also believe maintenance is a mindset shift as much as it's a physical adjustment. Portion control, constant check-ins, daily movement are great habits to build, but also liberating ourselves of food fear and relinquishing the all or nothing sentiment.

I dealt with the same thing and honestly, it messed with my confidence at first. I looked into surgical options eventually and found Mommy Makeover Seattle, which wasn't just for moms—it included procedures like body lifts that helped tighten up things after major weight loss. That gave me a boost. Until then, being upfront with dates helped a lot—people were way more understanding than I expected.

Pardon my ignorance! I had gastric Bypass on January 15th. I had mine done due to gastroparesis not for weight loss. I weighed on average 250lbs before surgery. As of now I'm at 220lbs. Yes I have lost nearly 30lbs. Most of my weight loss was right at first and have hit two major plateaus after surgery. I consume little amount of calories. I mainly have protein shakes which consist of Premier Protein or Redcon1 MRE. I eat ground proteins like lean beef or turkey. I am very strict on my diet. I work out daily and put in at least two hours. I would thought my progress would have been greater. I'm trying to lose weight before I return to work and build up my strength. I feel like I'm failing and I don't know what to do. Is this normal? I've been stuck at 220lbs for almost two weeks now. Please don't beat me up too badly in the comments.

I think it's a sad state of affairs when we feel like we have to hide our decisions from others because of how we know others will react. I'm not judging anyone that makes that choice since I did it too. I told my family, but specifically decided not to tell my co-workers since I was expecting people to say dumb things like this. The cheating comment I find specifically odd, personally. To me this was life or death, and I chose life. It definitely wasn't some game where the concept of cheating might be meaningful. I feel like it would be no different than if someone were to say to me that I "cheated" when I had open heart surgery. How could you even think that? My choices were either have the surgery, or die. As to weight loss surgery being "the easy way", as all of us here know there is nothing easy about this. Those of us that have reached our goal weights know that the surgery was just a tool, but the important change is what had to happen between my ears. Nothing about that was or is easy. It's still hard work every. single. day. I also wanted to comment on this: I can virtually guarantee you I eat better and workout harder than your son. I NEVER would have been able to workout as hard while I was still obese. It took losing almost 100 pounds before I could even really walk much. Now I run 40+ miles a week. It's hard for people that are not obese to understand just how hard even simple movement can be. Weight loss surgery was the catalyst that allowed me to be where I'm at today.

@Chatterboxdea I have had a similar problem. I have only lost 3.4 pounds in the last 19 days. I was stalled with a pound or so for two weeks. My foods are where they should. I’m going to the gym 3-4 days a week as told. My water is a little iffy by not too bad. we just have to remember that we did not gain the weight overnight and we won’t lose it that way either. Some of us lose slower than others. It obviously doesn’t hurt to talk to your dietician and get suggestions. But you are not alone.

I think I can count this as NSV! So I am pretty certain my body is done losing weight and I am going to stay at a healthy 165-170lbs, I am cleared to exercise again (i.e walking, hiking, stationary bike, lower body weights). I am back to working out 6 days a week with 3 of those days being strength training/cardio. I have never been in this spot where I am just maintaining, meal prepping is a thing that I do and I don't dread it, working out is just part of my day, not binging and just being able to eat sweets in moderation or if I go crazy then the next day I just get back on track and don't slip. Is this what regular, never been obese people live and feel?! I was reflecting on the past year and reflecting how much I yo-yo'd since I was 12yrs old. How I was killing myself putting junk in my body every single day, easily eating 5000 calories if not more a day, eating well and losing the water weight 10lbs then get discouraged and give up. The day I decided I was going to go through with the gastric sleeve and take my health back was the day I read this!

First stall. It’s not uncommon to experience a number of stalls as you continue to lose weight. Try taking body measurements. Sometimes when the number on the scale doesn’t move (or fluctuates around the same number) the numbers on the tape measure will change.