Failed and worried about what have I done to my stomach

  I had VSG 6/2008. I lost 114 pounds and have gained back 60 pounds. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed. I am so worried about what this weight gain has done to my body. What have I done to myself by gaining this weight back? I am worried that I have really messed up my stomach and put my health at risk by gaining back the weight and stretching my stomach. What else could I have done to my 'insides' by gaining this weight back?

Thx-MK

 You may have stretched your stomach to some extent, but I dont think the weight gain would really impact your body any differently than a normal person who gained 60 lbs. You may not have damaged or stretched your stomach as much as you think - it's pretty easy to gain weight without eating huge quantities. Have you started eating more carby/fatty/sugary slider type foods? Drinking your calories? Grazing?  

You still have a tool to use if you decide you want to get back on track. It may not be a "tight" as it once was, but it's still a tool. Figure out why you think you gained the weight and then work on changing some of those things - you shouldn't be embarassed. You are just human, and this is a life long journey that we all have to work on forever. 

If you really are concerned though, you should see you doctor/surgeon. I think a simple upper GI would be able to see what the condition of your stomach is.

I would just go back to the basics and see if that helps. I hear a lot of people saying that that really helps when they do that. Liquid diet for a few days, and then get really strict with their intake. You can do it. You did it once and you know exactly what you need to do. The good thing about the sleeve is it never stops working for us.

 I had my sleeve on Sept 7, 2010.  I lost 60 lbs, and have gained 13 lbs.  I started on stage 5 yesterday, and lost 1 lbs the first day.  My new eating is meat, eggs and cheese.  Just begin a new, and you too can lose your gained weight.  Its hard, but start now.  Are you eating too much or too often?  If you can't eat more than a cup, then you have not stretched your stomach.  I measured my breakfast, which was egg, zucchini, red bell pepper, green onion, and scrambled it with a fat free oscar mayer hot dog.  It was one cup.  I understand you are worried, and it is good to be worried.  Wee must not gain the weight, so start over now.  Let me know how you are doing.  Pat

We all make mistakes, we all have our own issues with food and such. I think the other posts are right you need to try to figure out why you gained it back. Mayby therapist would help to figure out those issues. So you can start new, right now... make changes little by little, write a journal, start walking again or whatever excercise you like... drink more water, eat less carbs, more lean proteins... etc... talk to a dietition who is familiar with VSG. You can do this... it is a journey not a desitination. Life happens... belief is a wonderful thing.... believe in yourself...

Hey, MK!  Glad you're here!  This struggle is for life, and I agree with Alison, you are probably in better shape physically than you think.  I so much understand the embarassment - I have regained more weight than I can count - but this food thing is the hand I was dealt in life, and it's probably my life mission to figure it out.  Today is a new beginning, and we're here for each other.

When I get off track, I have a few basic things I have to do to start feeling comfortable again.  One, I get all my trigger foods out of the house.  Those are foods that I think about too much, that I want to eat when it's not meal time, or keep eating once I start. 

Then I make a plan for what I'm going to eat, just for today.  I write it down.  If I'm really feeling overwhelmed, I call someone and tell them what I'm going to eat.  It sounds really silly, but it helps me so much to say it out loud, to someone else.  During this period, I don't worry so much about calories, but more about the quality of what I'm eating.  Lots of protein, no grains or starches.  Then, I make sure I weigh-measure-record everything I eat.  I do whatever it takes, including white-knuckling it, to get that one clean day.

I can't tell you how much difference that one day of clean eating makes.  I start feeling the hope return, it all seems more possible and not so bleak.  The more days of clean eating I put between me and the off-track times, the easier it gets.

You are doing such a good thing to reach out for help.  If you want, post your food plan and get some help to tweak it.  Or PM a couple of folks and see if they'll go over your food with ou in more detail.  I do not have this thing licked, not by a long shot.  I find coming here and sharing with people that really understand my struggle invaluable.  Don't give up, you can do it!!

Between 3 and 6 years post-op, there is a big risk, statistically significant in fact, of weight regain with VSG. Studies indicate patients gain on average 1/3 of what they've lost during that time going from an average of 77% EWL to 53% EWL.   Weight gain closely correlates with poor eating choices and GERD.   One of the ways people self-medicate for GERD is eating -- it mimics hunger. Your regain along probably warrants a trip to a doctor to see if that's one of the things you have going on.

Whether or not you've stretched your sleeve is a different question. It's easier to eat around the sleeve than it is to stretch it.  Again, it warrants a trip to the doctor.  Given the amount you have regained, a revision to DS may well be your best.

Dear Mollykate,

We have all lost and gained weight.. i did it for 45 years. 

Give yourself a hug and forgive yourself.  And look to move forward.

Whatever size your stomach is, it is still a lot smaller than it used to be.

I think the key to not regaining is to identify the foods that control you instead of you controlling them and then set firm boundaries not to eat those foods again.  Until you remove the foods that are a problem for you, dealing with other causes of overeating such as depression, frustration, anxiety with therapy will be like wearing a hat to keep your feet warm. 

After gaining you may have lost confidence in yourself.  But think of this as a new journey starting with a clean slate, and think about what you really want for the long term.   If you are not motivated and committed it is hard to sustain the effort to keep the pounds off.  You have to be clear in your mind why you lost weight and why you want to stay at your new weight. 

A good way to begin with gaining confidence would be to do a liquid diet for 2 to 3 days.  (For me, it is easier to be on a water fast than to be on 400 calories a day.)   A brief liquid diet is a good way to jump-start your back-to-basics food plan. 

You have to have a strategy for dealing with the addictive voice of the Feast Beast.  Learn to ignore the addictive voice that pops into your head reminding you of the immediate gratification you would receive from eating a particular food.   At the same time think long term -- Would eating cookies, ice cream, chips, help me with my long term goal. 

You know that volume/compulsive/addictive eating stinks.  You don't have to dig up the corpse of your addiction to see if it still stinks.  It does!  So avoid those addictive foods like they are the plague. 

Better days ahead!  You can do this.

Hey Mollykate my ol' friend :-)  I'm so glad that you came back to tell us about your reality.  Your sleeve was just a couple of months before mine, so we were doing the same thing at the same time. We lost about the same amount of weight, too -- I lost 115.  Then I lost about 25 more when I was sick for a number of months (nothing to do with wls).  THEN I gained back 55, so I can relate to your 60-pound gain. I ended up at 180 when even my goal of 150 is pretty hefty for a little old crone of a gal who is, in my old age, now only five feet tall!  A few months ago I got sick again (again, nothing to do with wls) and for a couple of months could barely eat.  Isn't THAT a new one for us???  The up-side was that I lost about 20 of my excess pounds, but I sure wouldn't recommend getting sick to do it!  It did, however, get me on the road to straightening out my food.

Now MK, I wouldn't wish an illness on you for anything, heh heh.  However, what those two months proved to me was that we can straighten ourselves out again if we get off track.  Your sleeve is not broken, it is probably not really even stretched very much, since, if you recall, one of the coolest reasons to choose the sleeve over some of the other wlses is that our stomachs are not really very stretchable. The sleeve is fashioned out of the tough muscular (is that the right word?) part of our stomachs, not the stretchy part, the fundus.  That part was chopped off, thank goodness.  You probably just learned how to outsmart your sleeve, as I did, by eating slider food, junk carbs, and sugar.  

If you set your mind to it and get back to basics, as the above posters have suggested, you will see the scale begin to move in the right direction again.  Toss out of your house TODAY all the sugar, the junk food, the simple carbs, the sodas, etc.  Think about TODAY which approach you want to take to get rolling again -- do you want to do the "liquids, then mushies, then solids" thing; or do you just want to start fresh with protein and veggies and jugs of water?  Either one would work.  Give yourself the rest of today, or maybe tomorrow as well, since it is a holiday ... and we all know that the way to memorialize our fallen soldiers is to get together with friends and eat like pigs.   But either way, by Tuesday you should have your plan in place and be DOING IT!!  No more excuses, no more regrets, no more guilt.  Toss off that stuff, because it doesn't do any good.  If it helped, it would be okay, but it only makes us feel bad, and a gal can't do the right thing for the right reason when she is feeling guilty :-)

You can do it, MK!!!  You did it before, now you are wiser, and you can do it again, my friend!!  Best wishes, and stay in touch....

Love, Dorothy        

 Dorothy,  You are so right.  Thank you for your posting.

I have gained 15 lbs, and have lost 2 lbs now in as many days.  I am looking to get back to 147 lbs.  Lost 60 lbs initially.  I am back on protein only and doing way good.....  Have a good day...........