Hey folks - I tried to post a thread on the Success board in an attempt to stave off some of the frantic "I'm a slow loser" posts.

But what I meant to be a motivational thread that invited OTHER slow losers to share (so it could motivate everyone else) instead got picked up by just a small handful of newbies and turned into a "Yay Cheri!" post. Not my intent at all.

If any of you are also slower losers (as in, you didn't drop 110 pounds in five months) I'd ask you to please share your story there so people can find it. If we get enough good posts there, the thread might merit pinning.

No, it won't stop the frantic slow loser posts but it might give reassurance and help adjust the expectations of people that research.

I know a number of people that could post there (where are you, coops!) but the thread was quickly buried.

Here's a link if you're willing to share. I know a lot of you are at/close to goal after just a year. I'd be happy if you'd share a more moderate experience, too, but I'd love to see the folks that took 1 year + to reach goal posting.

Too many people have this idea that there's a magical window of loss when it simply isn't so. Hungry and hormonal people are already crazy...add in a scale freakout and people lose their heads altogether.

~Cheri

http://www.verticals...w-loss-success/

Yay Cheri.

JK....I can't add anything since I was not a slow loser, but I will say I was just remarking to someone the other day that it only takes one "I lost 100 pounds in 5 weeks" threads to prompt a whole string of "my surgeon didn't remove enough of my stomach" threads. It honestly makes me want to remove all of my weigh ins from my sig and not advertise the "rate" of loss in order to downplay that whole aspect of things. Cause I'm starting to believe that total loss is way more important than how many months it took, and if that attitude were more prevalent around here people might be less stressed about their "slow" weight loss.

I dont rhink I am A slow loser either but slower then some!

Here is the puzzle for me....do people think they will reach a magical day and STOP working out and eating right? I may only lose a few # a month now but i am doing more or less my " forever so I dont regain" plan. Am I off base here?

I dont rhink I am A slow loser either but slower then some!

Here is the puzzle for me....do people think they will reach a magical day and STOP working out and eating right? I may only lose a few # a month now but i am doing more or less my " forever so I dont regain" plan. Am I off base here?

I've been thinking about that same subject quite a bit lately. I'm not quite at goal, but feel like I'm not in any intermediate phase either. I'm doing what I plan to sustain indefinitely. I'm prepared to add a few calories to my diet if I get to the point where I've lost too much, but other than that I don't plan for anything to change. Maybe time will tell a different story. I approach the future with cautious optimism.

I don't know, I think it's really individual.

A lot of folks will stop being as active once they achieve goal. I think it's natural. Right now they have a motivator (the scale) to get the the gym, but it's easier to put it off when you're happy with your body, right? I think that despite good intentions, nobody really wants to spend three hours a day in the gym. The people doing it solely to achieve goal will have to adjust something else in their lifestyle once they stop going or they'll have bounce back and regains.

think the same thing happens to diet, to some extent. This is the main reason I repeat that tired mantra of learning moderation BEFORE goal. If you've incorporated all you will eat and you can feel satisfied with that in a forever sense, then you've done the hardest part of the work.

I thought I'd just leave my calories the same because I was such a slow loser, but after you hit goal they do creep up. In my case, I went from needing only 700-900 calories a day to lose. A few days over that in a row and I wouldn't see any loss on the scale at all. But once I got to goal and fiddled with my diet a bit, I found that for whatever magical reason, in maintenance I can eat about 1,100-1,300 calories a day. And being pregnant, I aim for 1,400-1,600 and am gaining at a normal pace. I wish I wasn't gaining at all, but that's another story.

But I intend to take up the failure of Dr. Aceves to issue me a magic wand with my surgery at some later date.

Outside of pregnancy, I really was able to eat more. And I eat more carbs now, too. Amazingly, my body redistributed my weight really well in that time frame and I didn't notice any issues holding steady on the scale.

That said, of COURSE the idea is to adopt a forever lifestyle change. Even eating more calories and using moderation (meaning that I sometimes eat some of those wonderful goodies I bake) I still eat nothing remotely like I did prior to surgery. And even being tired and pregnant and chasing five year old twins around, I am still far more active than I ever was prior to surgery.

I adopted a new life, so for me, the answer is that yes, my diet changed to be a bit more...well, normal. Normal for a person that never had a WLS or a food addiction, even. But I didn't just reach goal and fly off the rails and say, "Ha! I made it, my work is done!" and expect the sleeve to just work magic to keep me at goal.

But some people DO experience that. I've seen it over and over again here and on OH in the years I've been around. Some people do treat it like a diet...and diets stop when you reach goal, right?

But I think you're on the right track - I think that a lot of folks will eat more and exercise less once they hit goal but if they've done all the head work and did adopt a change its perfectly reasonable.

~Cheri

Some would say I'm a "slow loser" when you look at my percentages, but I had a LOT to lose and I'm very happy with where I am and where I'm going. Some days it seems painfully slow... others, really fast.

I'm all about making lasting changes. If that takes me an extra few months.... so be it.

I think of "coops" when I think of a slow loser who always kept moving forward and sticking to plan. She was sleeved sometime mid 2010 and hit goal maybe just in late 2012. Coops was always my hero, a true testament to the story of our sleeve is but a tool...follow the plan for the weight to come off.

Search members coops and read about her incredible journey.

coops is my hero and was sleeved within days of me! She's fabulous but doesn't post as much as before. I'm hoping she'll find the time to post when she does come back.

~Cheri

I saw she was on the site yesterday. Agree, she doesn't post much any more but when she did, I read every word. So glad we have each other to learn from, lean on and cheer to victory.

Hugs to my fellow vetrans...may this board explode with graduating newbies.

I think it is a great idea! And I think it helps to put in perspective what "slow loser" really means. I have been sleeved for over 2 years, but it took me 18 full months to reach my goal weight. Cheri, I would say that I took a similar stance to you, although I did not track anything or count calories/carbs, etc. I made changes to my "diet" that I felt I could live with and sustain for the rest of my life. Because I chose not to follow a radical super low carb diet or exercise an insane amount, I did lose slower. But I do not have a problem with that. I still lost faster than any other time I had attempt to lose weight, and for the last 8 months I have had little issue maintaining my current weight.

I really wish that people would not compare their weight loss to others as there are so many things that affect the rate at which we lose. And I also completely agree about people taking a radical stance, reaching goal, and then stopping their efforts because they think the sleeve will do it for them from then on. That is the point that you have to be even more conscious. At 2 years out, I can eat a lot more than I could at 6 months. I think if I would have reached goal in six months, I am not sure how much I would have learned about making good choices and eating a normal diet. That six month frame really is where the sleeve does a lot of the work for you. Because I lost slowly, my good habits are very well entrenched in my everyday life and I have little problems sticking to many of the "rules" that I learned in the beginning! Am I perfect? Far from it! But I am maintaining and enjoying life!

I am a slow loser. I will be 17 weeks out on Monday and I have lost 36lbs. It is an average of 2.25lbs a week which I am happy about. I think my Dr. And Nut stress me more than I stress myself. I stay off the boards because of the negativity around slow "losing" I remind myself that everyone is different. I am losing more than I did when I was dieting and exercising so to me that is a positive. I have been walking for exercise, but joined the gym yesterday and will add in more variety. I will admit I expected to lose more in the first three months, but I didn't and I am okay with it. There is no rhythm to my stalls that I can figure. I do feel I need to drink more which I am still working on because I do feel like I retain Fluid. It is a learning process. All I do is take each day!

Thanks for sharing your stories!! It gives us slow "losers" hope!

Yay Cheri.

JK....I can't add anything since I was not a slow loser' date=' but I will say I was just remarking to someone the other day that it only takes one "I lost 100 pounds in 5 weeks" threads to prompt a whole string of "my surgeon didn't remove enough of my stomach" threads. It honestly makes me want to remove all of my weigh ins from my sig and not advertise the "rate" of loss in order to downplay that whole aspect of things. Cause I'm starting to believe that total loss is way more important than how many months it took, and if that attitude were more prevalent around here people might be less stressed about their "slow" weight loss.[/quote']

There...I put my money where my mouth is. Changed my sig and took out all my monthly weigh ins.

You shouldn't have to do that! You could argue that you've made very serious lifestyle and diet changes to support your swift loss, too. It's not as if you got within twenty pounds of goal so quickly by eating 400 no carb calories a day and watching television all day.

In any case, I'm always jealous because the boys lose so much faster than the girls. I can't think of a single guy posting about months long stalls or consistently slow loss!

~Cheri

At 2 years out, I can eat a lot more than I could at 6 months. I think if I would have reached goal in six months, I am not sure how much I would have learned about making good choices and eating a normal diet. That six month frame really is where the sleeve does a lot of the work for you. Because I lost slowly, my good habits are very well entrenched in my everyday life and I have little problems sticking to many of the "rules" that I learned in the beginning! Am I perfect? Far from it! But I am maintaining and enjoying life!

YES!! This is exactly it. I feel like a broken record sometimes, but I really feel that the longer period gave me time that I really needed to make those new changes into habits I could keep up for the long haul. I had so much time to work on why I ate and how to stop the emotional eating or grazing.

The end result as far as my weight loss is still the same, I just feel like I had a better foundation for maintenance than I would have had if I'd flown to goal within a six to nine month time frame.

That's not to say that people that take less time can't maintain successfully. I just think that taking the time to do the head work and really get those habits incorporated into normal life is critical. I also think it's harder to focus on the bigger head/emotional issues if you're flying to goal with no stops or stalls on the way.

I've seen too many really great, inspirational people stop posting here because they didn't want to keep posting once their weight jumped up a bit after reaching goal, or once they stopped the all-or-nothing approach to food or exercise. Neither one of those things makes anyone a failure but I think a lot of people feel that way about it because they never do shake that dieting mindset.

~Cheri

You shouldn't have to do that! You could argue that you've made very serious lifestyle and diet changes to support your swift loss' date=' too. It's not as if you got within twenty pounds of goal so quickly by eating 400 no carb calories a day and watching television all day.

In any case, I'm always jealous because the boys lose so much faster than the girls. I can't think of a single guy posting about months long stalls or consistently slow loss!

~Cheri[/quote']

You're right I didn't have too....but why not? I realize that there is no point having it out there. I know my numbers were not typical, and some of the credit for that just goes to being a male...and being 400 pounds when I had surgery. It seemed like a big deal to me at the time but now that the weight loss has slowed way down I'm forced to reconcile with the "long haul." I wish I had done that sooner. I just want to send that message out to everyone that it's not a race, and there is no finish line....only a better journey forward.

I just posted on a "stall/slow loser post". If you can see me sig you can see how my lose has been going coming up on my year in a few weeks. I'm not at goal but I just don't feel like I need to "do" anything to make the weight come off "quicker or better". I stick to my plan most days and I'm happy with that. I caution all of the more newly sleeved folks to not even give themselves a label like "slow loser" within the first 6 months. I really didn't even realize I could be considered a slow loser until a few weeks ago now that I have enough months worth of data and weight loss numbers to see my trends. I guess I "dieted" and stressed myself so much prior to being sleeved that for me this surgery really was the savior I wanted it to be. Everyday my body may not being losing pounds according to the scale but my mind is losing its obsession with food and and my spirit feels freer. I hope that this continues for me and when I make it to my scale goal that I don't lose all that I've gained!