katieem

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Someone posted the question: What does success mean to you?

Wanted to save my answer here and refer back to it and maybe expand on it.

I think that success for me means:

Stopping the steady gain in weight since hitting menopause and the constant despair I was feeling about it.
Feeling more comfortable in my clothes and in my body.
Decreasing the amount of pain I experienced daily.
Losing more weight than I had been able to on diets.

Those are successes I have already had.  Some yet to come are:

Getting off BP medication.
Being able to choose clothes to buy and wear that I really like and that are "me".
Not regaining weight I have lost.
Being able to be more physically active without pain.

I am 7.5 months out and have lost 36.5 lbs.  That's 1.14 lbs per week.  And I lost really rapidly (for me) in the beginning.  In the last 23 weeks since my first fill, I have lost 10 lbs or  .43 lbs per week.  I have 19 more weeks until my Bandiversary.  I think originally I had hoped to lose 70 or 80 lbs but more recently I hoped to lose 52 lbs or 1 lb a week.

I have come to terms with being a slow loser.  I think that I would be happy to be losing .5 lbs a week.  If I lost .5 lbs a week until my bandiversary, that would be 9.5 lbs and get me to 46 lbs for the year.  That would get me to my 229.5 mini goal.  At 229.5 I get to buy some new (or used) clothes.  NO SHOPPING until then (I have to find some ways to motivate myself). 

However, the way I have been eating, I will not, apparently, lose .5 lbs a week.  So, I need to buckle down and do better with food choices.  I have really pushing the limits of "following the rules".  A couple of things that I know are interferring with my weight loss are: slider foods, fried foods, alcohol.

I have some restriction with 7.2 cc's in my 10 cc band.  Chicken, tempeh, and a few other dry or re-heated foods have a tendency to get stuck or at least go down verrryy slooooowly.  However, I can eat bread, rice, pasta and just about anything else. 

Slider foods I have been eating: chips and salsa, protein shakes (only had one this week), protein wafers (major trigger food for me).   I am resolving to cut these out or at least cut down on them.  I am going to be more careful about having meals that are just protein and veggies.  I've done well so far today. 

B: 1 egg omelet with ham and veggies
S: 1 soy sausage patty
L: 3 oz chicken, salad

I have thought that having a certain date by which I want to have lost a certain amount of weight was too much pressure and I would be rebellious against the pressure.  Then I tried setting a goal for my 6 month anniversary.  I didn't get close.  I still think that I am going to try to lose .5 lbs a week until June 25th.  We will see how it goes.

My 6 month bandiversary was on 12/25.  I am writing a bit late due to business of holidays.

Here are the goals that I wrote for my 6 month bandiversary.

I hope to decrease my blood pressure medication - NOT REACHED
I hope to have more energy - NOT REACHED
I hope to lose another 15-20 lbs - NOT REACHED
I hope to go from size 3X to 2X in shirts - NOT REACHED
I hope to have less pain in my joints - REACHED due to fact that surgeon let me go back on NSAIDs
I hope to reach 2 more mini-goals (244 and 233) 244 REACHED/ 233 NOT REACHED

Hmmm, I didn't do so well in the second 3 months.  But that's ok.  We had all the holidays during the last 3 months.  And I didn't gain any weight.  That's progress from the last two years.  I'm hoping to really get moving now.

I have scheduled a fill for January 12th.  I scheduled that day because my surgeon is a little over an hour away and the support group is that evening so I'll get a two-fer for the drive.  I haven't yet had any restriction.  I can swallow a handful of small pills with one gulp of water, I don't have to chew a lot or cut my bites small.  I've only been stuck once on dried up, re-heated potato with the skin on.  I can really eat any amount of anything.  I do have to eat a little slower with dry chicken breast, dry roasted almonds and tempeh.  I'm afraid of being too tight but i need SOME restriction.

I have a few new goals to add to the ones above.

My new mini goal is 239.5  This is because I have been in the 240's for almost 4 months.  Getting out of the 240's will be a real scale victory for me.  And one that should come fairly soon as I am hanging around 241.5.

Another goal/challenge/plan is: I am not buying any new clothes (or new-used clothes) until I hit 229.5.  I still fit (fit better!) the clothes that I was wearing before surgery except for the pants (24 to 22/20).  I have not bought anything new (or used) since surgery though I have closet shopped.  I just haven't changed enough to justify it.  But all my clothes are starting to wear out.  If I don't lose the weight soon, I'm going to embarrass myself by wearing fraying clothes to work.  This will be some motivation for me.

Here's the mini goals I started with:

1. 250- because this is the weight I vowed I would never go above.  Never did until 07.
2. 220- because this is below the lowest weight I have been in twenty years.  Got down to 223 on a diet in 02.
3. 199- Onederland!  and because this is the lowest weight I have been in probably 30 years.  Weighed 199 a few days after my daughter was born in '89 because my metabolism was all out of whack and I lost while she gain.  Was 225 when I got pregnant.  The next time I weighed, probably when she was 4 months old, I was up to 230.
4. 185- because this is a goal I set for myself when I started at Curves in about 03.  Seemed like a weight that I could be very content at.
5. 160 - don't know why.  Just seems like I needed a goal between the previous and the next .
6.  148 - 100% of EWL!

I added 259, 244 and 233 i between.

From 244 to 233 is taking forever so now I want to add another mini goal of 239.  The reason for this one is that I have been in the 240's for almost four months.  I hit 249 on about Sept 1.  I've been down to 240.5 a few days lately.  When I hit 239.5, I am gonna be SOOOO excited.  

I am nearly 5 months out and still have no idea what restriction is.  Before fills, I followed the rules and didn't feel hungry most of the time.  I thought maybe I had some restriction but at about 8 weeks out, before my first fill, I went on vacation and discovered that I could eat ANY amount of ANY thing.  So I guess I didn't have restriction but was lucky enough not to be too hungry during that time.  Then I had a 1 cc fill at 10 weeks.  I found out that after the fill I had 6.2 cc's in my 10 cc band (my band was primed).  I went into an almost 3 week stall right after my fill, unlike some people here who lose for 2 or 3 weeks right after a fill.  I still could eat any amount of anything, just didn't MOST of the time. 

Then I got fill number 2 at 19 weeks out.  He added .5 but said the total was 6cc (discrepancy between what the NP said was in there).  Again went into a stall for 3 weeks (so far).  I did feel some restriction as I got a little bit of first bite syndrome (the first bite or two feeling like they aren't going to go down).  But I am hungrier now (actual tummy growling hungry) than I was before my fills.  And I discovered while off track this week that I can eat three slices of bread (not toasted) so definitely not major restriction.  I can still pop my whole handful of meds down with a gulp of water though they are mostly small.  I know some people can't swallow any pills.

I went for a nutrition visit and my second fill today.  I had my first fill at about 10 weeks.  I am now about 4 1/2 months out. 

I have officially (by their scales) lost 33lbs.  The nutritionist was one I hadn't seen before.  My regular one wasnt' available.  Last month I went to the group nutrition appointment, weighed in but barely spoke.  Apparently the nutritionist running that group wrote notes to the effect that she was concerned I was losing too fast and maybe not getting enough calories.  What?!  She didn't say anything to me about it.  Today's NUT  also wanted to make sure I was getting AT LEAST 1200 calories a day.  She thought I was losing pretty fast too.  I feel like I am a slow loser.  After my initial weight loss of like 17lbs in the first 10 days, I've lost 16 lbs in 16 weeks.  That's the bottom of average for the band.  I'm ok with it but it was very wierd for them to be concerned about my calories intake being too low because I am not doing a super low cal diet.  I just follow the rules of protein first, then vegies then carbs, no drinking with meals or for an hour after.  Sometimes I eat highish fat stuff.  And on vacation?  well that was another story altogether.

Then I went and saw the surgeon.  I had to talk him into a .5cc fill.  He also thought I was losing pretty fast.  He was very pleased with my progress.  Part of me wanted to say "but you should see some of the folks on OH that are losing much faster than me".  I got my .5cc fill but there was a discrepancy between what he found in the band and what the NP had recorded was in it last time.  Typical I guess.  So I now have somewhere between 6ccs and 6.7ccs in my 10cc band.  I'm hoping to not be getting hungry after two hours now.

The best news was: my surgeon was fine with me restarting my Mobic (NSAID).  I'm really hoping for some decrease in pain and inflammation.

Yay, reached my third mini goal today.  I have been half a pound from it for 11 days.  Its slow going these days but I'm happy as long a I continue to lose.  This mini goal (244) was because I had lost down to this goal twice in the last few years but never below.  So here I am again and this time I am going lower.  The last time I was below 244 must have been 5 years ago.  Next stop 233.  This is a long stretch, 11 lbs, so I don't expect to reach it before December.  Two months of slogging ahead.

I had my surgery 3 months ago yesterday and:

I have lost 30.5 lbs
I am 1/3 of the way to my goal
I have lost 19 inches
I have reached two mini-goals (259 and 250) and then next one is one lb away (244)
I am no longer morbidly obese (BMI under 40, started at 44+)
I am down from a very tight 24 pants size to loose 22 or tight 20
I am more comfortable in my clothes and in general in my body
I have lost more weight than I have on any diet since I was 18
I have lost 24% of my excess body weight

Hopes for the next 3 months:

I hope to decrease my blood pressure medication
I hope to have more energy
I hope to lose another 15-20 lbs
I hope to go from size 3X to 2X in shirts
I hope to have less pain in my joints
I hope to reach 2 more mini-goals (244 and 233)

The first 10 weeks after surgery, I lost some weight at least every week and sometimes twice a week.  At about 10 weeks, I had my first fill and lost a lb that week.  Then it stopped.  I stayed at the same weight or slightly above for 2 and a half weeks.  It felt really good to be losing every week.  I think it boosted my mood.  So when it stopped, I had to really fight so as not to let the stall affect my mood negatively.  Each day with no loss became more of a struggle.  I think the primary reason for this was an illogical voice in my mind telling me I was done losing, it was over, failled again.  I had a harder and harder time countering this voice with the logical voice. 

Today, I'm down 1/2 a lb.  Yay!  I have proof that it is not "over" and I haven't failed.  Phew!  This has been a good lesson for me.  Some people write about 3 month stalls.  Now, if I have one of those, I think I will have more tools for keeping myself positive while my body readjusts itself to the idea of being a different size.

Ever since my surgery (3 1/2 weeks), I have had another mini goal in mind.  It was 259.  I reached it today (258.5).  The reason that this stuck in my mind as a mini goal has been hard for me to sort out.  I finally realized it was because it was what I considered my true starting point of this journey.  Up until spring of 07, 250 was the highest that I had ever been.  I went on a road trip with my DH and DD and gained up to 259.  I dieted down to 245 and by the fall I was up to 259 again.  In spring of 08, I dieted down to 245 again and by summer was up to 259 again. I got despearate and started researching WLS (recommended by my PCP).  I decided by September that the only way for me to ever be a healthy weight was WLS and that was the beginning of my WLS journey.  After September, due to a variety of medical and emotional issues, I steadily gained weight until my surgery date in June.  I topped out at 275.5.  So even though this was my high, I started at 259 so it demanded a place as a mini goal.

Yay for reaching my first mini goal.  Next stop 250.