VerticalSleeveTalk Newsletter 01/15/2013

VerticalSleeveTalk Newsletter

Happy New Year! It’s time to leap into 2013. You might have slipped a little during the holidays, but January is a great time for a fresh start! Of course, VerticalSleeveTalk.com is here for you as you work to lose weight and get healthy. Allow the January Newsletter to motivate you to get back on board if you lost your focus in December, or to inspire you to keep up the good work if you were able to stay on track during the holidays. Here’s what we have in this newsletter.

• Looking Ahead to 2013!

• Member Spotlight: Meet Velena!

• New Year’s Resolutions that Work!

• Sleever Challenge: Make Your New Year’s Resolutions!

• Casting Call: Looking for VerticalSleeveTalk.com Members to be in a Book!

As you get back into the swing of everyday life and your commitment to your health, we hope you continue to make VerticalSleeveTalk.com a regular part of your day. So, enjoy the newsletter and then talk about it or anything else on the forums! See you there!

Sincerely,

Alex Brecher

Founder

VerticalSleeveTalk.com

Looking Ahead to 2013!

2012 was a phenomenal year for VerticalSleeveTalk.com. The forums grew tremendously and we came out with mobile apps for the Android, Kindle and iPod, iPad and iPhone. We have plenty more changes in store for 2013! Keep watch for even more improvements. We’ll be sure to let you know in the newsletters and on the forums, too. 2013 will be an exciting year! Thanks to you, our members, for continuing to support the community.

Member Spotlight: Meet Velena!

We’re delighted to start off 2013 by shining the spotlight on Velena from Madison, Alabama! She says she spent most of her adult life obese. She didn’t want to spend “second half” of her adult life obese, too, and set the goal of weighing under 200 pounds by her fiftieth birthday. She lost about 25-30 pounds through dieting, doing fitness DVDs and taking weight loss pills, but was still 30 pounds short of her weight loss goal.

She wanted to lose weight to be able to enjoy life instead of being limited because of her obesity. Velena wanted to be able to ride a motorcycle and enjoy hiking with her husband; the final straw for her was on a hike when she couldn’t follow him down to the falls because of the steep stairs. She had high cholesterol and high blood pressure. In addition, Velena has diabetes and needs to eat well to control it. She says she always ate healthily, but portion control was a problem.

When Velena started looking into weight loss surgery two years ago, her insurance didn’t cover it. This year, she attended another seminar and found out that now her insurance would cover the sleeve. She didn’t like the idea of bypass “rearranging my plumbing,” and a friend had had a bad experience with the lap-band. Velena did like the idea of the gastric sleeve, and got her surgery in September of 2012. Her top weight was 264 pounds.

Now, Velena is down to 197 pounds! She feels light on her feet and her balance is much better after losing so much weight! Velena now has her own bike to ride around the neighborhood. Some of her great moments have been buying a jacket in the Misses section, instead of the plus size section, and trying on a winter coat at costco and finding out that it was too big. Of course, stepping on the scale and seeing a number under 200 was a thrill for her!

She faced some challenges along the way, such as having trouble swallowing right after surgery. She got dehydrated and had to get hooked up to an IV! Eating slowly enough and ending her meal before she’s too full are still challenges for Velena, but she’s working on them and it’s paying off. Velena uses Vertical Sleeve Talk daily to catch up with friends, get ideas and encouragement and provide support. She says the forums keep her focused on her nutrition.

We’re sure that you’re keeping up with your nutrition because you even managed to lose weight during the holidays! Congratulations on your success so far! Thanks for being in the Member Spotlight, Velena! Welcome to 2013 and the second half of your adult life!

The Member Spotlight Forum is the place to go to nominate another member to be in the spotlight section of the newsletter. You can also nominate yourself – everyone on the boards will be pleased to meet you! You can even send Alex Brecher a private message telling us that you want to be featured. Everyone has a great story to share. Thanks!

New Year’s Resolutions that Work!

What are your New Year’s resolutions? Whatever else you’re resolving to do in 2013, your resolutions almost certainly include losing weight or maintaining your goal weight. Too often, we stop following our New Year’s resolutions pretty soon and fall back into old bad habits. How can you make New Year’s resolutions that you’ll stick to so that you can meet your goals for 2013? Try out these simple tips as you make your resolutions.

• Make them specific. You want to get healthy and lose weight. Those are great goals, but those resolutions aren’t specific enough to be helpful. Instead, choose resolutions that will help you meet those goals. Resolutions to help you get healthy might include exercising at least three days a week and choosing olive oil instead of butter for your servings of fat on your bariatric surgery diet. To lose weight, you might resolve eat at least 80g Protein per day so you feel more full.

• Make them doable. Keep your resolutions realistic so you’re not setting yourself up for failure. Nobody’s perfect, and your resolutions’ success shouldn’t depend on you to be perfect. Instead of resolving to drink more Water, resolve to drink an extra 8 ounces of water in the morning at least 5 days per week. This resolution gives you some room for error just in case you forget your water a couple of times in the week. Plus, the resolution is specific, so it fits with the first tip!

• Make them controllable. You can’t control whether you lose a certain amount of weight within a certain amount of time. What you can control are resolutions such as sticking to your diet or exercising to burn off an extra 300 calories per day, 3 days per week.

Keep these tips in mind when you’re making your own New Year’s resolutions. Solid resolutions together with your best intentions can help you make 2013 a great year for your health, weight and happiness!

Sleever Challenge: Make Your New Year’s Resolutions!

This is the part of the newsletter where we challenge VerticalSleeveTalk.com members to take a step forward by doing something new. The experience can help you grow and gain confidence when you do something you hadn’t even thought about before, or you find out that you can do something you hadn’t even realized that you could do. This month, we’re sticking to the theme of New Year’s resolutions.

The challenge for this newsletter is to make one or more resolutions based on the advice in this newsletter. We challenge you to make your resolutions specific, doable and controllable – and we’re eager to see what you decide to do in 2013!

Tell us about your resolutions in the Sleever Challenge Forum. We’d love to hear about why you chose those resolutions and how you think you’ll do on them. When you post, you get to help other members who may need ideas for their own resolutions. Of course, if you ever miss a challenge, you can always go back to the archived Newsletter Forum to check out the old ones. It’s never too late to try – or retry! – a Newsletter Challenge!

Casting Call: Looking for VerticalSleeveTalk.com Members to be in a Book!

Are you eager to have your gastric bypass story published in a book? This is your chance! Our first book was focused on the lap-band, and it is called “The Big Book on the Lap Band: Everything You Need to Know to Lose Weight and Live Well with the Adjustable Gastric Band.” It was inspired by our sister site, LapBandTalk.com, and we’re so pleased with its success that we’re going to add a vertical sleeve book to the series!

If you want to have your story published or you have advice, tricks or recipes to share, let us know! All you have to do is contact Alex Brecher (username Alex Brecher) via VerticalSleeveTalk.com’s private messaging system. We’d love to hear from you no matter where you are in your sleeve journey, even if you’re just thinking about the surgery. Thanks!

That’s it for this month’s newsletter. We invite you to head on over to the forums and get a head start on a healthy 2013. Again, Happy New Year to you and your loved ones! May 2013 be the best year so far. Take care of yourself and each other.

Sincerely,

Alex