6 Year Surgiversary on Wednesday....

My little boy turned two last month. I'm a stay at home / work at home mom. I'm in the gym 6 days per week now.... but my weight is exactly the same as it was two months after I had the baby. That precarious space between 235 and 240. It's going nowhere.

 Backstory for those who don't know me.. I started at 275ish... got down to 155... got addicted to coke... got clean.... battled addiction transfers.. and then decided I wanted to be a mom. I spent 2 years nearly pregnant constantly because I kept miscarrying and retrying...

I have zero restriction.....

I'm sorta depressed about everything. Even doing the 4 day pouch test doesn't produce anything long lasting.... I count calories.... and even when I stick to around 1500-1600 calories (which is tough without restriction).. I still don't lose.

I'm in the gym lifting heavy.... and focusing on working out... But nothing is moving.

I'm considering going to Alvarez and them doing a revision to a tighter sleeve, but it's not financially in the cards.....

I wouldn't have got a divorce, struggled with addiction, came out on top... and be a mom now in a happy marriage.. if I hadn't had the surgery..........But..... I'm obese again and that depresses me.

What, exactly, are you eating every day?  

Have you had your sleeve checked out with an endoscopy with either a bariatric surgeon or a GI doc?  

I have no restriction. I wake up have coffee with sugar free creamer.  Greek Yogurt.

Lunch is usually fajita meat, rice, beans.. But never a full plate.. but not like the first two-three years after surgery either...

Dinner is usually a vegetable and a meat..

If I do snack it's fruit or a handful of cheezits.....

But when I food journal.. I rarely  go  over 1800.....  The only time in my entire life I have lost weight was when I had restriction and was only getting 500-800 calories a day. That's the ONLY time.

And if I could do that on my own, I would.... ALL of us would ;) Or we wouldn't have had surgery.

And I go to see Dr. Garth Davis in August to discuss decisions. They admit they did a 40 bougie and it has a history of stretching.

My advice based on what you're eating is to cut the rice, beans, fruit, and cheezits. 

You have to still have SOME restriction in there.  After we have surgery our stomachs never return to their beginning state. 

Go back to basics.. which means dense protein first.  I think you'll find that after eating some dense protein that you do have restriction still after all.

In addition, if you want to lose you should also reduce your calories.  Maintenance for someone who's had VSG is 1,200-1,500.  If you want to lose more weight you should shoot for around 800-1,000.  I allowed my calories to creep up to the 1,000-1,200 a couple months ago and my weight loss STOPPED completely.  Since then I've resorted back to 600-800 and the scale is finally moving down again.

I'd recommend replacing the greek yogurt with a dense protein.  Skip the rice and beans for lunch, and stick to the dense protein of the meat.  Skip the cheezits.  1800 calories is a lot if you're trying to lose weight - clearly you're eating enough that your body is in maintenance instead of weight loss.  

You don't know if your sleeve has stretched, or if something is wrong with it, without any sort of tests - so that would be my first step.  Have an endoscopy and see what's going on.  

But, to me, it seems like you're eating incorrectly for someone who wants to lose weight.  

I know that the first two years that the only thing I could hold in my sleeve was the meat... I had surgery to assist with the decisions... If I still had the restriction to where I could only eat 4-5 ounces.. I would only be eating the meat...

I can hold 10-12 ounces of dense protein. I can eat an 8 ounce steak and not feel full.

If you look at my older posts.. I was just like you two when I first had surgery... repeating what we are supposed to be doing...

But if I could have stopped myself and made good choices exclusively by myself, I wouldn't have had a restrictive surgery.

I know I've stretched. When I email my doc and say I used to eat 4-5 ounces.. and now can do 10-12.. Clearly, I've stretched.. I appreciate the assistance, but if I could do 1000-1200 calories without restriction on my own, I would've never paid 25k for surgery..

Again, you don't know that you've "stretched" without an endoscopy or other testing.  

Then what do you call it if you could eat 4 ounces ONLY before..

and can do 10+ now..

Even doing the 5 day pouch test... It's 10-12-14 ounces.

Math is math.

I call it a lack of information and, if I was in your shoes, I'd want actual information based on tests by a professional instead of guesses based on fad diets found on the internet and slider foods.