SleevePlicationTalk Newsletter 07/08/2012

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, SleevePlicationTalk.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 Pranjala!

• Sleeve Plication 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

SleevePlicationTalk.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 goal after the plication: 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 sleeve plication surgery 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 Pranjala!

This week’s Member Spotlight is on…Pranjala! Growing up on traditional Indian food, Pranjala struggled with her weight her whole life, from being a chubby child to an obese teenager to a young woman trying every diet under the sun. She yo-yo dieted for years as her weight continued to climb. Finally, enough was enough after she hit 207 pounds. She barely had enough energy to care for her young son, whom she had just weaned, and knew she had to do something drastic and permanent.

First, she scheduled a gastric sleeve resection surgery, or vertical sleeve gastrectomy. But, she wasn’t ready to lose so much of her stomach function. She continued to look around for other options and cancelled her sleeve resection. She discovered the sleeve plication surgery and looked into it. The new procedure wasn’t offered in India and she’d have to pay for it herself, but she managed to convince her husband that the cost of the trip to the U.S. and the sleeve plication was worth it.

Only 20 days out from surgery, Pranjala was already 12 pounds. She’s learning to shift from a high-carbohydrate to a high-protein diet and to focus on eating only what’s on her meal plan. Pranjala knows that any diet will work if you can follow it, and she’s confident that the sleeve plication was right for her. She recommends it over the bypass or gastrectomy because it’s better for maintaining your natural ability to absorb nutrients.

Don’t forget to say hi to Pranjala when you see her around the boards – after all, she herself said that this is the most welcoming and encouraging sleeve plication community out there. Thanks for being in our member spotlight this week, and we’re all eager to follow you on your weight loss journey!

We feature a different SleevePlicationTalk.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!

Plication Challenge: Summer Refreshment!

Each newsletter, we challenge you with another Plication 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 Plication 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 SleevePlicationTalk.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 SleevePlicationTalk.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