I did this as a last resort, my health was taking a turn for the worse, and my pain was getting worse, I was obese by age 5, and tried lots of diets, and cure all medications,my weight loss made me yoyo, until last December on my my mom's death anniversary when I ballooned to 388lbs, I have never achieved the success that I am experiencing now, I'm down to 318lbs after being sleeved on June 10th, my diet is awesome, and I've been able to excel at the gym again, gaining strength very quickly and already starting to show definition, I never intended for the scale to dictate how my progress was going, instead I opted at reaching small milestones, I now find myself looking to see how far I can go with this, I was looking at the magic 299 lbs for Christmas, but at this rate it may be sept, oct, I also wanna see how much muscle I can build, and my knowledge of foods and their nutritional value is growing, I grill and Wok as much as I can, I'm just wondering if it is possible that as I embraced all this I somehow became addicted to it, you know giving up one addiction for another? Either way I don't think it's a bad thing, I just wanna honestly know if anyone else has experienced this, I'm coming up on "the stall phase" and I don't even care, BTW I also have lost 8 waist sizes so my motivation through milestones is working !!!!!

Wow! What tremendous success! Congrats! That must be incredibly motivating! I have just started this journey but had lost 80lbs on my own before and gained it back plus some :/ But during that time, I felt addicted to it... like every day I was ready to beat what I did the day before and felt compelled to get to the gym and eat right because I just couldn't wait to see even better results. It is certainly better than being addicted to food and television.... more beneficial to our health, anyway! Again, congrats on your amazing results!!

Hello Laguerr13,

What a wonderful weight loss and life story you already have in such a short time.

I think anything has the attraction of addiction if we focus on it . However your life changes and attitude are not seen as addictive behavior.

I applaud your hard work dear Fellow sleever and look forward to following your continued progress.

I was sleeved last July 14th So my anniversary is in just a day or so. I have lost 92 pounds bringing me to 191 In one year, close to my goal of 100 pounds but not quite there.

I feel like a new person, my exercise has been low impact because I suffer from schlioses and spinal stenosis. However my endurance has improved and all of my health markers have improved. I am off all pain mess and NSAIDs, BP melds and my cPap machine. Things can only improve.

I have made a FB page featuring salads and I try to post every salad I eat, for motivation to continue, since I am in a huge stall. But I have lost three sizes and feel more energy than I have in over 15 years. This is the new 60. Feels more like 50.

Much encouragement to you, keep going and keep documenting your progress here, kudos laguerr13

Thank you guys, this is the kind of meals I post, my wife bought me a Wok for my midlife crisis and I taught myself to stir fry, it is very interesting what you can do and the variation to Chinese recipes that you can tweak to be compliant, this was my first attempt at Stir Fry Cashew Chicken, I omitted some ingredients and substituted others so roughly 300 cal, 15 carbs, and 35 protein and it was awesome!!!!

This isn't addiction you're experiencing. This is something quite different. Enjoyment, enthusiasm, building new habits, and experiencing positive reinforcement for your new behaviors does not equate to addiction.

It's not even close. Ask a real addict.

There is a very real phenomena called transfer addiction. There have been many documented cases of people who can no longer abuse food easily suddenly abusing alcohol, drugs, and various process addictions. So even go on to become anorexic and bulimic. While it can happen all of that seems to be the exception and not the rule.

When going through major life change people have two common responses. They either fear it or embrace it. It sounds like you are embracing it. My advice as a person living in recovery, take it one day at a time and be honest with yourself. The surgery was one small part of this process. There is a lifetime of work we need to do to understand ourselves if we want long-term health.

Looks like today you are headed in a great direction.

All the feedback has been great, I just wanted to know I wasn't alone in feeling these things,,whether addiction or enthusiasm I also want so badly to pay it forward, and I'm working on that thru here and Facebook and also when others ask me how I am doing all this, I don't worry about anorexia or any eating disorder anymore since I want to see ironically how tone and big my body can get ( at the gym), I hit rock bottom so going into this I made lifetime changes and plans, diet, exercise, focus, and goals, I know the changes are becoming more real everyday, when we went on a week vacation to the beach last summer I had looked into restaurants and new places to eat while there, we are planning another mini vacation as soon as my time off builds up at work again except this time I find myself looking at places we can go like finding a new beach we haven't been to, and a nature trail in the area where we can see alligators, I also told my wife I want to make sure I take my shakes and own snacks, that was the extent about food action this time, I even dream slot of getting my own Kayak finally after 20 yrs of talking about it, " Eat to live, not live to Eat" very deep when I finally understood this phrase!

@@VSGAnn2014

As usual, spot on and beautifully said.

*wipes tear*

This is a wonderful phase of this journey. Your joy is so genuine. You deserve these benefits. You are earning them yourself.