Not loosing weight fast enough...HELP!!!!
My name is Jackie. I will be 7 months post on Feb10,2007. I have only lost 77lb, everyone I have talked to has lost 100lb or more. I am quite discouraged. I do drink diet coke about 3 times a week and, have a cup of coffee every morning. I was told not to consume these things, but everyone has a weakness. I never eat sugar. I can eat almost anything else. Can someone please give me some sound advice or an encouraging word, cause I really need it.
God Bless,
Jackie
Hi, I have the same experience. I am almost 4 years post op. Everyone was loosing faster and more weight than I. My problem was 1) I did not have as much weight to loose as everyone else, plus I was much shorter than anyone else in the group. The only good thing in this situation is that even though it has taken me much longer to loose the weight as the others in the group; I am still steady losing. I did however, go about a year without losing a pound. During this time my body was adjusting. But, thank god, I am on a losing trend again. I am very happy. I did, however, accomplish my goal wieght plus a few pounds. I will NEVER get to my IDEAL weight. Which, for me, is 93 lbs. because I am only 4"7' tall. I am kind of happy where I am.. Always measure your waist instead of using the scale. My weight went down very slowly, but the size difference is incredible. I went from a 26-28 size in clothing to 6-8. This is a good thing. May god bless you in your journey and please have the patience with yourself to never quite your journey. It will take a long time but remember, you did not get into this condition over night, so therefore, you will not get out of it over night.
Hi, Jackie. This is going to be a very long post, since it's all the advice I have to give. First off, it sounds like your weight loss is probably right on track, though I totally understand your desire to move things along. I've been a little disappointed with my rate of weight loss, but I had been doing some things that I've since learned are wrong: not eating enough and not exercising enough. Not only did I go through a long stall, but I also became pretty weak because I had lost a lot of muscle. Now, though my weight loss is not what you'd call fast, it's moving along reasonably well, and I'm getting stronger.
The rate at which you lose weight is dictated by a lot of things, two of which are your metabolism and how much weight you have to lose, as Kathleen mentioned. A person who weighs 250 lbs. at surgery is going to lose weight much more slowly than someone who weighs 350. This is because at 350, you require many more calories to maintain your weight than at 250. So if the 250 and the 350 are consuming the same 500 calories, the 350 will have a larger caloric deficit (i.e., the difference between what they're consuming and what they need to consume in order to maintain) and will therefore lose weight more quickly.
But there's also the metabolism issue. Our bodies are remarkably efficient, but not remarkably smart. 
When our caloric intake is restricted, our bodies assume that it's because we're going through some sort of hardship and we're starving, so our bodies lower our metabolism so that we can survive this hardship. This is great from a survival perspective, but terrible for weight loss. One way to increase your metabolism is to exercise. When you do cardio exercise, you burn carbs, but if you haven't been eating carbs, you'll use stored fat.
Unfortunately, your body will also use up stored protein in the form of muscle tissue. This is not good for a couple reasons: (1) muscle tissue requires more fuel than other tissue, so if you lose muscle, your metabolism will decrease further, (2) your heart is one of those muscles -- you definitely don't want to burn off heart tissue! So, you also need to do whatever you can to protect and ideally build up your muscles to increase your metabolism and to keep yourself strong. Your heart will benefit from cardio work, and your other muscles will benefit from strength training.
However, exercise is not enough to protect, let alone build, muscle mass. Our muscles are, of course, pretty much made of pure protein. However, our bodies don't manufacture all the amino acids that are needed to form protein. In order to get those amino acids and keep our muscles going, we need to consume protein. And those proteins need to be "complete proteins." Protein from animal sources (meats, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, etc. -- anything except gelatin, which is lousy protein) are the only complete proteins that exist. Other sources, like vegetable proteins (beans, etc.) are incomplete, but can be combined to result in complete proteins (for us, the best way is to combine beans/legumes with seeds/nuts). Most surgical practices agree that bariatric patients should consume at least 60 grams of protein, the majority of which should be complete. In other words, if you're eating beans and veggie burgers all day, no matter how much you eat, you're not going to get the protein you need to benefit your body. (BTW, peanuts are actually beans, so they count in the legume family, and if you combine peanuts with sunflower seeds, you'll end up with a complete protein source.)
In addition, you should eat enough to keep your body going. When we eat, we stimulate our metabolism. Eat soon after you wake up to get your metabolism started, and eat enough to keep it going throughout the day. Make sure your calorie and protein counts are within the range that your surgeon or dietitian gave you. If they're too low, your weight loss won't progress like you want it to.
One last thing: make sure you take your vitamins and supplements like you're supposed to. We need those nutrients in order to promote fat burning, muscle building, and survival in general.
Best of luck -- hope your weight loss gets moving again soon.
Take care,
Nowal
When our caloric intake is restricted, our bodies assume that it's because we're going through some sort of hardship and we're starving, so our bodies lower our metabolism so that we can survive this hardship. This is great from a survival perspective, but terrible for weight loss. One way to increase your metabolism is to exercise. When you do cardio exercise, you burn carbs, but if you haven't been eating carbs, you'll use stored fat.
Unfortunately, your body will also use up stored protein in the form of muscle tissue. This is not good for a couple reasons: (1) muscle tissue requires more fuel than other tissue, so if you lose muscle, your metabolism will decrease further, (2) your heart is one of those muscles -- you definitely don't want to burn off heart tissue! So, you also need to do whatever you can to protect and ideally build up your muscles to increase your metabolism and to keep yourself strong. Your heart will benefit from cardio work, and your other muscles will benefit from strength training.
However, exercise is not enough to protect, let alone build, muscle mass. Our muscles are, of course, pretty much made of pure protein. However, our bodies don't manufacture all the amino acids that are needed to form protein. In order to get those amino acids and keep our muscles going, we need to consume protein. And those proteins need to be "complete proteins." Protein from animal sources (meats, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, etc. -- anything except gelatin, which is lousy protein) are the only complete proteins that exist. Other sources, like vegetable proteins (beans, etc.) are incomplete, but can be combined to result in complete proteins (for us, the best way is to combine beans/legumes with seeds/nuts). Most surgical practices agree that bariatric patients should consume at least 60 grams of protein, the majority of which should be complete. In other words, if you're eating beans and veggie burgers all day, no matter how much you eat, you're not going to get the protein you need to benefit your body. (BTW, peanuts are actually beans, so they count in the legume family, and if you combine peanuts with sunflower seeds, you'll end up with a complete protein source.)
In addition, you should eat enough to keep your body going. When we eat, we stimulate our metabolism. Eat soon after you wake up to get your metabolism started, and eat enough to keep it going throughout the day. Make sure your calorie and protein counts are within the range that your surgeon or dietitian gave you. If they're too low, your weight loss won't progress like you want it to.
One last thing: make sure you take your vitamins and supplements like you're supposed to. We need those nutrients in order to promote fat burning, muscle building, and survival in general.
Best of luck -- hope your weight loss gets moving again soon.
Take care,
Nowal 
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