Wow  what a   ride we have been on.   I wish every one  Happy Holidays  and Season Greetings.

I think that is politically correct. lol

I am still at  188   but  i know that it is a diet now and i have to  expend more calories than i take in.
So i still using my tool and i am sure it will move again soon.

Take care all!!!

Good  Morning.   Hope  everyone had a wonderful   Thanksgiving  week.  I did and it was great.

My labs were great.  My vitamin d  was 32  and normal is  30  but i  have been taking   a perscription  supplement  we made the decision to keep me on  it for at least another six months and then go off and check  it again  at  my two year   out  blood work.  and  then  make a decision if i should stay on it.  I have a feeling that i will need the  extra as the first time they  took  the test and found it low was in the summer when i was outside  in the river alot.  It should of been fine and it wasnt. 
I take  three 2500  B-12 sublingal a week  and  two  children  chewables.  and  4  citracal petites a day.

I have copd and asthma and do not take any medicine for those  now.    Maybe years from now i will need medicine but for the current time i am off all medicine.  I take no blood pressure medicine anymore.  woo hoo.

My weight loss has slowed down seems like i lose  8 pounds in three months but as long as it is  going down i will not   complain.   My  dietician   recalculated  the  weight goal  as they  have decided that  the way the   doctor has given us a  goal  is a little   unattainable  but not always.
My doctor had said  160  my pcp  had said  180  and i said  180  then i would try for  160.  The  dietician has now said  172  so now that is my new goal.   I am at  60 percent of  excess weight loss  and  success is  50 to  70 percent.  so i am happy with that.  I use to  wear  26 to 3 x  clothes and now i am  large and xl tops  i like  lose tops   and  14 w   jeans.   I have lots of  lose skin around my  belly   but i am still losing  inches  and that is a plus.  I am not sure if i will have  my excess skin off or not.  I do have  yeast problems  that i have to stay on top of.  But  i  want to lose more  weight  before i make that decision as that is where most of my weight is is in my belly.  I  am to the point that  diet is now  back in my vocabulary  and i know that  this is still a calorie game  that i can  do now!!!!



This has been an amazing  journey.   I  do exercise which was  unheard of before  and I   make  for the most part  healthy  choices.   I do have to  stop grazing and have been sitting down  to meals instead of grabbing on the run.  I find that i eat less when i sit down  and  get my protein in first.

Hope  everyone  has   a great  holiday season!   I  wish you all the best on your continued weightloss  journey.   Have  a great day!!!

Hi all you November Anniversary Babes!
Wow! What a ride we have been on.  My  surgery date was 11-26-07,  I was completely complication free.

Here are my stats:
highest weight= 299, clothes 3-4x or 26
surgery weight= 289
current weight= 165, clothes pants 10/12 shirts XL (extra skin)
goal weight= 150

I no longer have any of my comordities with my biggest one
being Asthma.
For the most part, life has been good.  I do have carb demons that sometime get the best of me.  I really try to low carb to keep the weight loss going, although it's slow.  If I don't reach goal, I'm still OK with that.  I've lost 80% of my excess body weight.  Energy is abundant!  I actually have all my christmas presents that I've bought wrapped.  I also have been "spring cleaning" the house room by room.
Here's my before and in progress pix's


Judy

 Toni - 

Congratulations on your success!  It sounds like you're doing great and well on your way to reaching all your goals.  And finding the love of your life -- how wonderful!  :-)

I just had my blood drawn this past week and I'm anxious to see how my labs come out.  My iron has been fine all along and I'm hoping its still alright.  But my Vitamin D has been deficient since month 3, hoping it's up where it needs to be now.  

Guess I should answer my own post, huh?  I'm going to go write it out now.  :-)

Pam

It is perfectly NORMAL to be able to eat more once we hit the 1 year mark.  Our pouches naturally grow over time (grow, not stretch) and we are able to eat more.  A year ago our pouches were about 1-2oz in size and only able to eat 2-3oz, but now it's about 4-6oz in size and we can eat about 8oz easily.  This is how it's suppose to work.

Here's a post I put on my blog about how the pouch works and explains a bit about the process of it growing and what size it gets when it's mature.  http://pamtremble.blogspot.com/2008/09/understanding-pouch.h tml

As for eating sweets.  Put down the candy bar and step away!  :-)  This is where we need to really work hard to get our relationship with food under control.  One tiny snack-size candy bar once in a while isn't going to kill us.  Remember before surgery when we'd eat the whole bag of mini bars?  But if candy is a trigger food for you, then you need to set some hard and strict rules for yourself to keep that craving under control. 

Sweets aren't a big deal for me.  I have a container of chocolate covered almonds sitting on my kitchen counter.  It's been there for about 3 months and its still not even opened.  I'm simply not tempted to pig out. 

For me, my trigger is salsa.  Yep... that healthy delicious side dish is my trigger food that I will NEVER allow myself to buy again.  Why?  Because salsa always comes with chips.  And when both are in the house I have no self control.  So my rule-for-life is no more salsa. 

Pam