Jennifer, you are beautiful and that is a fantastic milestone!!! My surgeon refuses to set a "goal" because he said he does the surgery for peoples' health not for a scale. I expect to keep losing, but honestly if I never lost another pound, I am successul! I can go grocery shopping, I can walk my dog, I can sit in a booth, I can work in my yard and dang it I can wipe my own butt without an assistive device! My blood sugar is perfect, my cholesterol is perfect (first time in recorded history). And my whole outlook on life has improved. I was not someone who thought that WLS was the answer to all my problems. I loved my life and have been tremendously surprised that I have found myself happier, more friendly, and with lots more energy. This is all a process of getting healthier and maintaining that health and you are doing a fantastc job at it. (I cannot imagine getting to a gym! lol) Keep doing what you need and want to day by day. This is a process not a destination.

Well, I'm assuming you are just a month behind and really mean April 7. LOL I haven't posted in so many weeks, I am not sure how much I actually lost in the last week. I have lost a total of about 10 during the month, which seems to be my average. Starting weight: 389 Weight today: 240 Grand total 149 lbs lost. (60 were pre-op) Had an unfortunate experience yesterday with cantelope. LOL I ate too much. OMG I thought I was dying. Guess everything in moderation, huh? Have a great week!

Good morning everyone! I hope it has been a good week for each of you. Starting weight 365 lbs Surgery weight 335 lbs Last week 240 lbs This week 240 lbs Grand Total Loss 125 lbs Loss for this week 0 lbs Oh well, some weeks are like that......

Hi Paige! I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think sugar is one of THE biggest things to stay away from. Sugar and alcohol. Those two things (in more ways than one) can make or break our success. I know I've had a rough time this past week staying focused on doing things the right way. It's been a true test of will. My emotions have been raw this week with several thing****ting all at once. This sort of thing is exactly what used to send me into an eating tailspin. I found myself feeling the same old feelings of wanting the comfort food used to give me. What I didn't get was the same satisfaction that I used to feel temporarily after eating for comfort. This past week was my first experience since surgery of feeling those old feelings towards food. It shook me up a bit, but it also reminded me that when I feel those things, it's ok. I just need to keep my focus on my health and wade through it. That's when I find myself looking up sites or recipes for bariatric eating instead of eating for comfort. So far I have one whale of a collection of recipes I haven't tried yet and my "favorites" on my computer is filling up fast, LOL. I might not read everything I want to read at the time, so I bookmark it and plan to look back at it later. We're all doing great! We will have issues, probably for our whole lives, when it comes to food. But knowledge is power ...so I go hunting down new and different websites full of information, or I go back and look at ones I know have helped me in the past. It seems like those are the times I find something new that revives my sanity and my thought processes. I hope you all have a SUPER week! Let's go gettem! We're all AWESOME!! We can do this for a lifetime! Especially when we look back at our "before" pictures and remind ourselves that we're NEVER EVER gonna feel or look like that again. God bless you all! Brenda

Really great article but I wish they'd included sugar on that list. I'm finding that to be a big clue about who keeps this weight off long term. I'm paying very close attention now to people who had this surgery a long time ago. I know people who are still THIN and people who have gained a significant amount of weight back or never really lost all they probably could have. And before anyone panics I don't know anyone who's gained it ALL back. I want to say that because I see people panicking on here sometimes. But what I've found is it seems to be people who eat CRAP who gain it back. People who were back at McDonald's a couple months after surgery eating stuff like that even though it made them sick. People who seemed determined to work as hard as they could AGAINST the tool. I mean some of these people seemed to put forth some serious effort on making sure they did not succeed. I think that's important to keep in mind when you see people who have gained. I know a few who have remained very thin and all of them have one thing in common, sugar. They avoid it like plague. I haven't met anyone so far who has kept it all off who eats any kind of sweets anymore. They'll tell you they don't eat perfect but I've noticed none of them went back to sweets. Protein, no snacking, water and excercise are all big but I wish they'd added avoiding sugar to the list too.