I was so happy to have my sleeve and be making such great progress when the stalls started to happen-- as i knew it would. I have been at the same weight for a month now. I have been a little depressed with my progress and now the holidays are piling on my mood. I have always comforted my self with food and have fallen back into that zone. Top my heartache with the new finding that holiday treats slide right by this tiny tummy...

My realism of the night - the bad foods just seems to slide right through and that makes me scared. I went to the Christmas eve party and found that every appetizer slide right down and my sleeve did not really make a big difference. I know that having a glass of water with it was bad, but i really did not expect it to be sooooooo easy. Now, i feel so guilty about what i have put into my body! SCARED!!! What if i have messed up and stretched out my little tummy? Is my weight loss over? Am i going to gain it all back now? I have not updated my tracker in a long time, it became too depressing since it wouldn't move...

newdaycomn,

i have been scared for holiday foods. i'm totally staying away from Cookies et. al - we don't really go out much. A lot of that is my doing.

Every year a neighbor passes out these crumb cakes in a nice container to our neighbors. i put the cake down for DH, i kept staring at it. i took the smallest 2 "covers" from the top. They were so teeny, teeny, teeny -really they were, but i ate them.

it was so good. i didn't feel "too" guilty - but since i'm only 9 days post op, i could tell i felt weird afterwards. Hopefully thats enough of a feeling not to do it again. i think/hope it will work, at least for a long time.

Newday- like your name implimes - tomorrow is a new day, your weight loss will not stop, just get back on the wagon and don't fall off. Its also a new year coming. happy new year bud - best wishes to all of us, continued good success kathy

This is really scary stuff. We take 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I have been eating some sweets with no repercussions. That scares me, I'm afraid I'm going to stop my weight loss, or worst gain some weight.

I'm not sure what sliders are? Can anybody describe what a slider is?

sliders are foods that slide right on through your sleeve. Everyone has their own sliders. Mine are goldfish crackers or any carbs...so I know those are the foods I can eat alot of and therefore get empty calories so I stay away....and to stretch your tummy you have to be really over doing it. I don't think you have over done it in one shot, so don't get upset. I think it's when you repeatidly over eat to the point of feeling sick and vomiting that you can stretch it, and I don't mean the vomiting you did in the begining when getting used to your new sleeve. I mean like really over eating. tomorrow is a new day...just don't do it again. I ate a cookie tonight and felt super guilty.....

I have had a lot of sugar the last week. My weight has popped up a couple of pounds. In reality I was only 1 1/2 pounds over my lowest weight this morning... not 10 pounds like most other years. I can see how easy it has been to snack on all the goodies without any problem... if I kept it up I think i could really see the scales keep moving up up up... Thanks goodness for the sleeve... I left most of my food on the plate and want to be away from the sweets and back to protein and salad soon... get all the junk out. I am going to a party given my my binge party friends tomorrow... I am bringing a bunch of protein finger food... and veggie yummies. I hope this will keep my junk food eating to a minnimum. Plan ahead....write it all down afterward!

As I've said before, I refuse to think of food as good or bad. It's either Protein or it's not protein. That said, the whole goal of being sleeved, for me, is to eat like a normal weight person would eat. I'm not going to beat myself up because I had 1 cookie or a piece of pie.

However, I do try to make sure I have my protein goal for the day met before I have sweets or other sliders. I also make myself accountable for everything I eat by using My Fitness Pal to log everything I eat. It amazes me how hard it is for me to eat sweets/carbs when I know I have to log it for the world to see! My food diary is public for just this reason!

Don't beat yourself up for one day of bad eating, just dust yourself off and get back on plan. And, try allowing yourself a treat here and there, just like normal weight people do. You aren't on a diet, this is a life change. You're not going to go back to your old ways of eating, ever. The sleeve will always restrict the volume of food we can eat.

Our goal during the losing stage is to learn how to eat to live. IMO, if we tell ourselves that we can't have a certain food until we reach goal, it sets us up for that food to remain a problem when we reach goal.

Even though I still have a lot of weight to lose, I gave myself permission to have anything I want on Thanksgiving and will do the same today, on Christmas. I also keep my Water and protein goals in mind on those days. But, if some food I love is on the menu, I'm going to have a few bites. I adore pecan pie, so I'll have a small piece of it at some point today, without guilt. The difference now is that I will only have a piece of the pecan pie. I won't also have a piece of pumpkin pie and apple pie, both of which are just okay to me. I will savor every bite and really enjoy the taste of the pecans.

Thank you all for reassuring me that i am not alone! I sometimes forget that i have you all to fall back on for this new life... I know we can do it - together! I hope today is a better day in my sleeve! It is the guilt of those items i know i should not have put in my mouth and the "fears" that have beat me down some...I know it will be better becasue they will not be here after today. Also, I know with the rain letting up i will get me back outside and on a walk - that will be the best medicine!

Have a wonderful Holiday and thank you all for your words of support!

On Christmas Eve, we had family over to watch the games. We had all kind of Snacks out, some good for you, most, bad for you. For the most part, I ate my almonds, fruit and beef jerkey but I did have a few chips and salsa. I felt that I did pretty good overall. I went to the gym on Christmas morning to do some cardio, wow, it was tough. I think just from sitting a lot of the day and eating things I am not used to eating, it made the workout very tough. I made a decision right then, I am going to eat good and healthy on Christmas day and MOVE AROUND a lot more.

Well, that seemed to have worked, I weighed in this morning and I have not gained any weight, did not lose any but I did not gain any. I went to the gym this morning and the workout went a lot better. It amazes me how heavy food and lack of movement can really slow you down and make you feel sluggish. I feel great this morning after my workout and I survived the Holidays and did not gain any weight.

I was SUPER-BAD yesterday. Or at least it felt that way to me. My family does a traditional turkey dinner but before dinner, of course we had plates of Snacks out to pick at. I found myself grazing during the day, although I did try to focus on summer sausage (yikes the fat!), cheese and veggies/dip. I had a fair amount of the oyster cracker snacks that are made with ranch dressing mix, and those were a heck of a slider food for me. By the time we sat down to dinner, I figured I had already exceeded my normal calorie targets for the day and certainly hadn't hit my Protein goals.

However, when I served my dinner I focused on turkey & green Beans, and had only a very small portion of potatoes/stuffing. I also didn't have any dessert (luckily there was nothing too tempting and I was pretty full from dinner at that point). When I sat down and reflected on the day, I realized in my "old life" I would have not only gorged myself on all the snacks during the day, but then I would have eating a huge plate of food at dinner (and seconds on the carby stuff too, most likely).

Overall I feel like I did not sabotage myself or my sleeve too much given the fact that this was my first holiday post-sleeve (I missed Thanksgiving due to illness, and it was probably for the best!!). It will probably take me a few days to get back on track, but I feel very confident that I survived this holiday with minimal damage.

Well, after reading this stream I got a bit paranoid and after having a not so good eating day I kept thinking I stretched my sleeve, even had a nightmare about it so i'm doing the 5 day pouch test and am just finishing day one which was not as hard as I thought....

This is how christmas went for me. I grazed and munched on the appetizers and I kept thinking omg where am I putting all of this, most days I can eat five bites and i"m done. For dinner I had two small slices of ham, a huge helping of asparagus and a tsp of greenbean casserole (the really fattening one with the mushroom Soup and fried onion) Then after dinner I ate a piece (yes one whole piece ) of tiramisu (that I made home made) which has like 1000 calories per slice and slipped right down, probably coud have eaten more but I stopped myself. I felt so guilty and i swear I went home, went to sleep and had a horrible nightmare that I stretched my sleeve and in the dream I kept sayiing "omg I wasted 12000 dollars" it was horrible.

I'm working on getting back on track today... I am happy I got to attend so many parties lately, and really got to show off my new look to people I hadn't seen in a while... that was fun, but I did a lot more snacking than usual for sure. I also could see emotional eating kicking in, from seeing my family. The parents are getting up there in years, and I can see they are needing more and more support... I have been swinging between 1-3 pounds over my low weight this last week... not really that bad, but I see how I can really just eat a bunch of sugar and refined stuff and then crave more pretty quickly. This is how it was before surgery, and it is still there, mediated by my inability to eat as much at a sitting... THANK HEAVENS! I really have to take care of myself and keep my eye on the prize... better health. My husband has gained a bunch of weight this last year... around 30 pounds... and he is planing on getting into changing his lifestyle for the better, this might make it easier for me too. Well hang in there ladies and gents! And after New Years is should be a little easier to do the right thing.