VerticalSleeveTalk Newsletter 07/08/2012

[Alex Brecher 10,486]

Hey, Sleevers!

Now that the Fourth of July has passed, we’re well into summer. Hopefully those of you who are experiencing record-setting heat waves have been able to keep cool. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to our members whose power has gone out or who are affected by the wildfires. While we can’t cool you down, VerticalBandTalk.com can cheer you up…so here’s the next edition of the newsletter that keeps you in touch with the happenings on the boards. Here’s a taste of the newsletter.

• Addressing a burning question – why can losing weight too fast be unhealthy?
  
• Member Spotlight: Meet Lissa!
  
• Sleever Challenge: Summer refreshment!
  
• Tip to improve your Boarding skills – do you know how to use the chat room?
  

Do these stories pique your curiosity? Then keep reading – and when you’re done, come on by the boards to lend a hand and get some encouragement in return! Of course, contact us if you have any questions or comments. Take care of yourselves and each other!

Sincerely,

Alex Brecher

Founder

VerticalSleeveTalk.com

Burning Question: Why is it Dangerous to Lose Weight Too Fast?

We’ve all heard it about a million times by now – your weight loss goal should be one to two pounds per week. That’s the general goal after your vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery: losing one to two pounds per week while eating your prescribed diet and feeling good. There’s nothing dangerous or wrong with losing less than a pound a week, but it can be a little discouraging. And losing more than two pounds per week? It feels great because you feel so much better as you lose weight. But, there are some good reasons why the doctor cautions you to stick to about two pounds per week.

First, losing weight too fast can set you up for long-term weight struggles. Of course one of your goals during weight loss is to lose weight – obviously! But another goal is to develop the eating habits that will last you for the rest of your life so that you never gain that weight back. If you’re restricting your food and calories so much to lose weight very fast, you’re probably not eating the same way you will be once you hit your goal weight. Once you hit your goal weight, you’ll need to form a whole new set of eating habits – and that can be tough. It’s much better to take a little longer to get to your goal weight and already have the dietary tools you need to keep the weight off.

Another reason to keep your weight loss to around two pounds per week, unless your doctor suggests otherwise, is for your long-term bone health. So many of us think that this is just an important issue for 90-year-old ladies – but it’s not! Everyone needs to be concerned now about their bones so that you don’t get osteoporosis later. Osteoporosis is a condition with low bone mineral density and weak bones. That means you can break your hip, rib, wrist or back very easily. It takes years to develop and probably won’t show up until you’re older. Rapid weight loss can lead to serious losses of bone mineral density and the risk for developing osteoporosis later. Keeping your weight loss to two pounds per week really supports your bone health. Something else you can do to protect your bones is to take the Calcium and Vitamin D supplements that your dietitian recommends. You need about 1,000 milligrams of calcium per day and 2,000IU of Vitamin D.

So these are just a few reasons for keeping your weight loss moderate. The vertical sleeve is all about a healthy lifestyle – not just losing weight as fast as possible in the beginning. Your health always comes first, and the number on the scale will reflect your commitment to health.

Member Spotlight – Meet Lissa!

This week’s Member Spotlight is on Lissa from Vero Beach, Florida. This 45-year-old has taken matters into her own hands with the help of a vertical sleeve gastrectomy. At her pre-surgery high weight of 352 pounds, she had sleep apnea, pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis, rheumatoid arthritis pulmonary embolisms. As she says, the surgery saved her life.

She got her sleeve in August of 2011 and lost more than 100 pounds within 9 months en route to a her goal weight of a svelte 190 pounds. Food has gone from being the focus of her life to being a “necessary evil” that she is able to work into whatever activities she is involved in. She’s learning to cook for one person after growing up in a family of 17 kids. One of the biggest moments for Lissa was getting out of the Threes and into the 200-pounds.

Exercise continues to be one of her biggest struggles, but Lissa’s starting to learn that it’s always worthwhile to try even if you don’t feel like it. Some of her best workouts come on days when didn’t think she wanted to exercise, and she always feels better afterward. Of course, now she thinks nothing of going to the mall and walking around a few times.

Lissa loves to help other VerticalSleeveTalk.com members the way they help her, so feel free to PM her any time! She also has some other advice. Take your measurements before surgery (or now) so that you can measure your progress in ways other than the scale. Also, drink tons of Water and get your Protein in first each day. Thanks for the advice, Lissa, and thanks for being in our Member Spotlight! Congratulations on all your success!

We feature a different VerticalSleeveTalk.com member each week in our Member Spotlight section. Is there someone you’d like to see highlighted? Maybe you would like to be our highlighted member! Let us know in the member spotlight forum.

Don’t worry: it’s not bragging to nominate yourself. You’re helping others by sharing your own stories. If you’re shy, though, just PM Alex if you want to be in the spotlight. Use the messaging system by clicking on the icon of an envelope toward the top-right corner of the forum. Nobody will ever know that you nominated yourself, and you’ll get to be in the newsletter. Thanks!

Sleever Challenge: Summer Refreshment!

Each newsletter, we challenge you with another Sleever Challenge. It’s a chance to push yourself a little outside of your comfort zone or get you thinking about ways to make your weight loss journey even more successful. The challenge can help you do things you never thought you could, or maybe that you never thought of before! The challenge is completely non-competitive, but we hope you’ll post your results in the Challenge Forum so that others can be motivated by your own challenge actions.

This week’s challenge is inspired by the weather – the summer heat can be pretty uncomfortable. Your challenge is to let us know what you do in the summer when it’s hot. Maybe in the old days the answer was to eat a banana split and go see a movie in an air-conditioned theater. Now, your answer might be to have a low-calorie snow-cone (shaved ice with sugar-free flavored syrup) and walk around the air-conditioned mall. Let us know how you stay cool in the Sleever Challenge Forum. In the Challenge forum, you can always look back at the previous challenges and post your results. It’s never too late to try something new.

Tips for the Board – Using the Chat Room

We’ve got thousands of members at VerticalSleeveTalk.com, and many of you count each other as some of your closest friends. You already know about using the forums, and you may already use the private messaging system to get in touch with your buddies. Do you know how you can communicate with them and others even more easily? The Chat Room! It’s a real-time chat room for instant messaging with anyone who’s in there. Once you enter, you can type and send messages instantly and have real conversations with the other members. When you’re logged into your VerticalSleeveTalk.com account, all you have to do to enter the Chat Room is to click on “Chat” at the top of the page. Welcome!

That’s all we have to this week’s letter. Don’t forget that you can catch up on the old newsletters in the newsletter forum. Come hang out on the boards and spend part of your summer with us!

Take care of yourself and each other,

Alex