A YEAR Later...well almost

[sascijo 0]

Birdee,

If its any help, I just wish I weighed 186. I would think I was a "50 year old BABE". My daughter started out at 236 and it has been a year and 3 months and she weighs 180 - 177 depending..... on the day..... She is BEAUTIFUL..... You probably just don't need to lose as much... Some people look great at 186 where some are going to look bigger. My sis and I talk about this all the time. Just keep on trying sweetie... It's working.

[birdee 1]

Thanks guys so much for all of the support and kind words....I think my biggest problem is I compare myself to other all the time!!! It's normal I suppose.....I think another thing that is gettin to me is that I recommended a person for the surgery and for some strange reason, I need to get to goal beforse she does. I know that sounds silly, but let me elaborate....she told me that I should have been at goal, and that I am not doing what I am suppose to. So I guess when you have someone telling you something like that, it makes everytime I get on the scale and it doesn't move feel like another failure. I have however done something to help...I have made myself take in more Water...no less the 4 cups a day. Working up to 8. I have been going to the park. Not this week though...it's that TOM...so I have not felt up to much of anything!!!!

Well it obvious that I have somethings to deal with.....

Thanks again guys!!!!

Birdee

[New Hope 37]

Birdee, you've done wonderful! I'll be proud when/ and if / I reach that far! My dr. told me when I first talked w/ him about the band that I would "lose 50 lbs.". He couldn't guarantee any more, some did, some didn't. I really considered doing the bypass and came home and thought it over. I'm so glad now that I didn't! Plus I never would have met all of this great group of Bandsters!

[MeganA 35]

Birdee- It sounds to me like you need to rethink your friendship with that person. Right now you are beating yourself up because of her comments and you know what? You deserve friends who are positive and careful with you during this time in your life. Rethink your friend, not how you feel about yourself. YOU ARE WORTH IT.

Megan

[DeLarla 22]

Even though I lost 40 pounds, I'm still over 100 pounds overweight. But dumping that wad of fat makes me feel fantastic. 50 pounds gone? Wow. I'd float.

As far as being married, the grass is always greener on the other side. Tonight I wasn't supposed to work my part time job, but I offered anyway because my husband hates being alone. He asked me why I agreed to work tonight, and I told him he needs to sit alone and miss me and realize how disrespectful he's been. I know him pretty well, and if I avoid him a couple days he starts to miss me and shapes back up. Megan, you're so right that unfortunatly we have to play head games to make people behave sometimes.

[leo 4]

Your have just set your goal a bit on the low side, If you set it about 10 lbs above your lowest goal. your actually very close to goal. For example, my real goal is actually around 145lbs. But I set it at 155lbs .... smart ehh???

You also have to understand that you didnt start at a very high weight, most people are a lot more heavier then you and thats why they loose large amounts of weight the first year.

Look at me, I have been stuck around 180 pounds for more then half a year, thats about the same weight as your are at right now. Just keep plugging along and forget about the need to loose weight, and enjoy life.

Once more thing, goto a supermarket and try to find something that weighs about 5lbs. Like a bag of dog food. Now grab 10 bags of those and put it on a pile. Thats how much you have lost.....

A lot isnt it??

Congrats!!!

[Alexandra 55]

I think we need to be chilling out about the rush to thinness. We are all on our way, and making progress at our own individual rates.

This is worth stitching into a sampler, if you ask me. What gets me depressed is reading lots of messages about that "last 20 lbs" from distressed people. I mean, people, really: We started, most of us, more than 100 lbs overweight!! If we've gotten to a point where we can no longer be considered morbidly obese, where that label no longer applies, THAT IS THE SUCCESS!!!

Numbers are just numbers. Birdee, I'll bet that there are other achievements in the last year that are exponentially more important than the numbers on the scale. I know for me, at 317 my future was bleak. Now at 260 I'm still way overweight by any standard, but for ME it's a whole new world.

I'm like anyone else, I have to remind myself of my accomplishment regularly. I also really like the reinforcement of lower numbers and it's very easy to get frustrated or depressed when the scale stalls--but I'm getting pretty good at it and hope I can share a little of that outlook with you.

[DeLarla 22]

Little Bird, I weigh over 270 pounds, but today I'm wearing jeans that I couldn't get past my hips for nearly a decade. It's so exhilarating that I put my hair up, and I'm wearing one of those big fake red flowers in my hair today to match my red hippy blouse. If I lose another 10 to make my weight loss 50 pounds, I might get one of those Bo Derek braid jobs and wear daisies on my whole head!

Now about my mom: Growing up, she was slender and beautiful, while I was her dumpy fat [neglected & abused] kid. It was always really hard watching the men chase her and wondering how I could be so ugly with such a beautiful mother. I have pics of her standing sideways with hipbones pressing through her clamdiggers (capris in today’s language.)

But it wasn't until a couple years ago that she told me the truth. She told me she was constantly weak, shaking, starving, had regular horrible & sometimes debilitating hunger pains, and she often fainted. She told me it was a miserable life even though the medical charts said she was at her perfect weight because she had to eat next to nothing to stay in her "normal weight" range.

My point is that some people aren't meant to be stick-thin. Once we've lost the big chunk of our weight, maybe some of us are supposed to be a few pounds fluffier than others.

"Exponentially" is another big word. Very impressed. I'm going to find a way to use it today 3 times in casual conversation.

[birdee 1]

Thanks guys...everything everyone has said, is true and makes a lot of sense.

All of my 18/20's are too big ( I refuse to by smaller clothes, I'll wait until they fall off!!!!).

I have had to have my wedding ring sized.

My shoes are too big,

My shirts are too big...even the ones that use to gap in the middle.

I guess at this point I need to focus on what I have accomplish and strive for more than what's on the scale...if I meet and my goals, the weight will fall off naturally.

Thanks so much for the wisdom and advice....I LOVE THIS BOARD!!!!

Birdee

[Alexandra 55]

My point is that some people aren't meant to be stick-thin. Once we've lost the big chunk of our weight, maybe some of us are supposed to be a few pounds fluffier than others.

I'm convinced this is true. Especially if we've been carrying around lots of extra weight for years, our bones will be denser and heavier than those of people who have always been slender. This is just a fact of life, and is why 170 on one 5'10" person is too much, while on a different 5'10" person it would be too little. (That'll be me.) More important are the yarsticks of clothing, stamina, strength, blood pressure, and all the other things that are negatively affected by extra weight.

Lisa, you want I should buy you a dictionary for your birthday?

[Lil Miss 0]

The Tide doesn't say "for proper use must have vagina

OMG I just read that and since then have quted this to everyone!!!!

I am so gonna save this in memory to recite at the propper moment

[claraluz 2]

Hi, Birdee. I'm glad you posted because hopefully you will see that you are not as much of a slow loser as you think you are. I remember that when I was about six months out, someone posted asking everyone how long they had been banded and how much weight they had lost. I had lost about 35 pounds at the time, which I thought was a dismal failure. But I was surprised to see that many others had lost about the same amount at six months.

Now I'm 11 months out and I've "only" lost 56 pounds, but I had more to lose than you did. As I've said many times, I eat the wrong things and I'm trying to change that. But I definitely don't feel like a failure! I feel great! I'm not merely 55 pounds slimmer than I would have been without the band. It's probably more like 65 pounds, because I surely would have continued to gain weight without the band. I know I'll get closer to my goal as time goes by. In the meantime, I'm happy with my progress.

I hope you can perhaps re-evaluate your progress and know that you are a success, not a failure.

Nancy

[DeLarla 22]

Quote "Lisa, you want I should buy you a dictionary for your birthday?"

When I was a kid I wondered how my mom could be so smart while being such an airhead. She went from zero to millionaire, but doesn't know what a VCR is. I asked her how come she managed to pass her broker's test with the highest score but couldn't program our answering machine. She said her head was filled with too many important things to remember little stuff.

I have a couple dictionaries, but I mostly use my medical & legal dictionaries for work. After 40 hours of quare clausum fregits, ex aequo et bonos, ipso factos, radiculomeningomyelitis' and artheriosclerotic aneurysms, all I gots left are me some 2 syllable grunts.