Help! I gained a pound
I had GBS 07/11/06, have lost 65 lbs. until this week. For the past 3 weeks I have only lost 2 or 3 lbs a week, but this week I gained almost 1 pound. I am still going to Curves 3x a week, eating the same as before, and actually walking a little more because the elevator at work is out of order!! What is happening? Am I that one person that the surgery doesn't work for? Am I going to gain back all the weight I lost? Did I do this for nothing? Is this normal?????
Donna first of all do not panic..... You are going to see your weight go up and down stay still and do all crazy stuff. Women espically see more fluctuations due to our friendly time of month, hormones and water retention. Our weight also shifts as we build muscle. Just keep following the program. do what you are supposed to do as it seems you are and you will be fine. You are doing an awsome job.
LisaMarie
Donna Lee:
* recently sent a similar email to a member, I tweaked it to pertain to you!*
HI! 
I hope you will consider this reframe on what this journey is about!!!, Consider seeing it not as a diet/number goal solely but rather just a few steps in your million mile journey to health and long-term success; which WLS is one of the million as well *it is not the destination*! Those that have goals that are health focused and functionally focused do the best (vs. those that are scale or weight/number focused). I am such a firm believer in not allowing the scale (or hunkametal that it is) to rule or dictate ones life/thoughts/feelings any longer, I agree we want to lose wt but gaining our health and ability to function in life are far more important than any number the scale can read; otherwise if it never reads the number we think, others say, a chart suggests we fail and that is simply not true!!! Most of our lives we have set RIGID, UNREALISTIC WEIGHT LOSS GOALS for ourselves that are BOTH UNATTAINABLE and CHRONICALLY DISAPPOINTING and lead to DEVASTATION & the 'slippery slope' I mention frequently AKA self-sabotage 
So viewing wt loss as a natural result of LIVING life in healthier ways...it is the UNDERLYING lifestyle change such as exercise, food choices, self-awareness/monitoring, avoidance of emotional eating, adherence to living self responsibly in a CONSISTENT way that is the foundation to our long-term success.
These choices are what makes WLS work long-term and not be another 1 year failed diet attempt (and believe me it is for MANY!)...It is a wonderful tool to build the foundation and sadly one that has a short honeymoon period for working/helping build that foundation...a mere 6 months for many, up to a 24 mo or so for others..when 'if' the foundation wasn't build w/ all the needed 'supports' of diet/exercise/lifestyle changes, coping skills etc for non-emotional eating (i.e through individual therapy, support groups) it can collapse and the WLS tool if not used properly/consistently can be defeated w/o the extra supporting structures...Like having only one wall of your basement in place before putting the house on top.. what happens? it can crumble w/ the weight of the house (your life/the worlds challenges), but if you have the 4 walls in place (food choices/planning/healthy and consistent choices, exercise, self awareness/monitoring, support); then the WLS tool can just reinforce that foundation and make the house stand strong for a long long time! 
If you can focus on all u can do to build this foundation now and not the scale so much as the body is ultimately in control!What you are experiencing is TYPICAL 110% NORMAL and EXPECTED!!! *the fear this won't work for me is one we all think at one time or another!!!* Our wt can fluctuate 5# in any given moment, based on so many things we can NOT control! I truly feel throwing out the scale would help us more than getting on it! Focusing on the lifestyle will get us wher we want to go more than the focus of a number...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(*FROM: Plateau Panic - by Ken Miller, reprinted from Winter, 2004 issue of WLS Lifestyles Magazine.)
Remember, the most important thing you need to break through a plateau is patience. If you've adopted a good eating plan and are exercising, you will break through your plateau, if you just stick with your program and don't panic or allow yourself to slip into depression and start grazing or bingeing. Also, here's another point to remember: if you are like most people, as you get closer to your final weight-loss goal you'll encounter more plateaus, and they will take longer to break through because your body knows it could stop losing weight at any time, and you'd survive just fine at the plateau where it is suggesting you stop. The deceleration in your rate of weight loss is a very normal and natural occurrence. That's the way it is for everyone. It's no reason to panic. It's normal. And plateaus along the way are normal. You're normal. Now, if you didn't ever have a plateau . . . THEN you'd be a weird duck and you'd have something to worry about. But not you, you're normal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
....As long as you are following your recommendations for food, vits, fluid, and exercise everything seems to eventually take care of itself! Stay positive and don't get overly focused on the scale and numbers! Get the scale out of the house and weigh once a week somewhere or only when you go to the MD...Do not give the scale all that power! Listen to your body, how you feel, your energy level, how your breathe, how your clothes fit...Measure yourself, many times we lose inches and not pounds! Exercise also adds muscle and this weighs more than fat, so initially you may see no loss or a small gain, muscle in the long run will help you burn more energy and be healthier...So hang in and don't worry! The loss will come; it is just different for everyone!
Now longterm this scale mentality can really make havoc for us emotionally! I recently discussed this on my off track group: (someone who is still scale focused, diet focused and not happy w/ her goal, which is simply unrealistic)....maybe some points can help u now!....
With the mindset of counting calories, carbs, fat and focusing solely on the scale weight to define your happiness/self worth/self esteem I just know that road all to well as a dangerous and unhealthy/unfulfilling one a path to self destruction/hate. We need to stop hating our bodies and love them as they are today and know we are loveable at this moment....Happiness and success will NEVER EVER come from an external source (person, object, number on the scale). It can and will ONLY come from internal self discovery and love. Listening to your BODY is key, your natural physical hunger, the body knows and will not let us down....When we take on the helpless victim personality and have overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, helpless and out of control we have learned to try and control an external thing (i.e. food) as a means to control our inner turmoil..these feelings spill over into an addiction (food, alcohol, drugs, sex etc). Either in a way that is restricting or permitting (like theovereating out of control binge eating many have).
DIETS NEVER WORK, they always lead to a binge....Over/under/controlled eating is a symptom of the internal out of control feelings we have...We want to be happy and healthy yet we can not if we continue to punish ourselves w/ food (by restricting or permitting)..We can move out of the victim role, and heal and thrive! It takes work to look within, feel our feelings, se how we are involved in areas of our lives that reinforce our victim personality, healing the inner child, seeing how that hurt has permeated our current lives/personality and relationships w/ food and others. having the healthy adult in us allow balance and growth and protection for the hurt child, so we can be safe and not need to control our food or have those emotions spill over into an external control that will never fix the internal out of control feeling. Only working on the internal self talk, emotions can do that.
NOW I am not perfect, for me to see things in others is far easier for me than seeing it in myself. I am on a personal journey for wellness and I am only offering what is working for me, diets never worked because they were an external control that could never heal my internal self...I hope this makes sense and it not taken negatively. It is my way of letting u know what is working for ME and maybe it can reframe your thoughts and work for you!
Sometimes we consume our lives with food, thinking about what we can and can not have, when we can eat or should eat, how much, how often, how it should be cooked, when to buy it, how much, etc that we occupy so much time and do not even realize that we have no time left to feel (the point) in an addiction, it takes over us so we can forget us and what we are scared/fearful of feeling/being.
Take Care, 
Jamie
Lap RNY 10/9/02 Dr. Singh
320/163 5'9'' (lost 45# before surgery)
Plastics 6/9/04 & 11/11/2005 Dr. King
http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/members/profile.php?N=c1132518510
"Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect, it just means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections!"
I hope you will consider this reframe on what this journey is about!!!, Consider seeing it not as a diet/number goal solely but rather just a few steps in your million mile journey to health and long-term success; which WLS is one of the million as well *it is not the destination*! Those that have goals that are health focused and functionally focused do the best (vs. those that are scale or weight/number focused). I am such a firm believer in not allowing the scale (or hunkametal that it is) to rule or dictate ones life/thoughts/feelings any longer, I agree we want to lose wt but gaining our health and ability to function in life are far more important than any number the scale can read; otherwise if it never reads the number we think, others say, a chart suggests we fail and that is simply not true!!! Most of our lives we have set RIGID, UNREALISTIC WEIGHT LOSS GOALS for ourselves that are BOTH UNATTAINABLE and CHRONICALLY DISAPPOINTING and lead to DEVASTATION & the 'slippery slope' I mention frequently AKA self-sabotage
So viewing wt loss as a natural result of LIVING life in healthier ways...it is the UNDERLYING lifestyle change such as exercise, food choices, self-awareness/monitoring, avoidance of emotional eating, adherence to living self responsibly in a CONSISTENT way that is the foundation to our long-term success.
These choices are what makes WLS work long-term and not be another 1 year failed diet attempt (and believe me it is for MANY!)...It is a wonderful tool to build the foundation and sadly one that has a short honeymoon period for working/helping build that foundation...a mere 6 months for many, up to a 24 mo or so for others..when 'if' the foundation wasn't build w/ all the needed 'supports' of diet/exercise/lifestyle changes, coping skills etc for non-emotional eating (i.e through individual therapy, support groups) it can collapse and the WLS tool if not used properly/consistently can be defeated w/o the extra supporting structures...Like having only one wall of your basement in place before putting the house on top.. what happens? it can crumble w/ the weight of the house (your life/the worlds challenges), but if you have the 4 walls in place (food choices/planning/healthy and consistent choices, exercise, self awareness/monitoring, support); then the WLS tool can just reinforce that foundation and make the house stand strong for a long long time!
If you can focus on all u can do to build this foundation now and not the scale so much as the body is ultimately in control!What you are experiencing is TYPICAL 110% NORMAL and EXPECTED!!! *the fear this won't work for me is one we all think at one time or another!!!* Our wt can fluctuate 5# in any given moment, based on so many things we can NOT control! I truly feel throwing out the scale would help us more than getting on it! Focusing on the lifestyle will get us wher we want to go more than the focus of a number...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(*FROM: Plateau Panic - by Ken Miller, reprinted from Winter, 2004 issue of WLS Lifestyles Magazine.)
Remember, the most important thing you need to break through a plateau is patience. If you've adopted a good eating plan and are exercising, you will break through your plateau, if you just stick with your program and don't panic or allow yourself to slip into depression and start grazing or bingeing. Also, here's another point to remember: if you are like most people, as you get closer to your final weight-loss goal you'll encounter more plateaus, and they will take longer to break through because your body knows it could stop losing weight at any time, and you'd survive just fine at the plateau where it is suggesting you stop. The deceleration in your rate of weight loss is a very normal and natural occurrence. That's the way it is for everyone. It's no reason to panic. It's normal. And plateaus along the way are normal. You're normal. Now, if you didn't ever have a plateau . . . THEN you'd be a weird duck and you'd have something to worry about. But not you, you're normal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
....As long as you are following your recommendations for food, vits, fluid, and exercise everything seems to eventually take care of itself! Stay positive and don't get overly focused on the scale and numbers! Get the scale out of the house and weigh once a week somewhere or only when you go to the MD...Do not give the scale all that power! Listen to your body, how you feel, your energy level, how your breathe, how your clothes fit...Measure yourself, many times we lose inches and not pounds! Exercise also adds muscle and this weighs more than fat, so initially you may see no loss or a small gain, muscle in the long run will help you burn more energy and be healthier...So hang in and don't worry! The loss will come; it is just different for everyone!
Now longterm this scale mentality can really make havoc for us emotionally! I recently discussed this on my off track group: (someone who is still scale focused, diet focused and not happy w/ her goal, which is simply unrealistic)....maybe some points can help u now!....
With the mindset of counting calories, carbs, fat and focusing solely on the scale weight to define your happiness/self worth/self esteem I just know that road all to well as a dangerous and unhealthy/unfulfilling one a path to self destruction/hate. We need to stop hating our bodies and love them as they are today and know we are loveable at this moment....Happiness and success will NEVER EVER come from an external source (person, object, number on the scale). It can and will ONLY come from internal self discovery and love. Listening to your BODY is key, your natural physical hunger, the body knows and will not let us down....When we take on the helpless victim personality and have overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, helpless and out of control we have learned to try and control an external thing (i.e. food) as a means to control our inner turmoil..these feelings spill over into an addiction (food, alcohol, drugs, sex etc). Either in a way that is restricting or permitting (like theovereating out of control binge eating many have).
DIETS NEVER WORK, they always lead to a binge....Over/under/controlled eating is a symptom of the internal out of control feelings we have...We want to be happy and healthy yet we can not if we continue to punish ourselves w/ food (by restricting or permitting)..We can move out of the victim role, and heal and thrive! It takes work to look within, feel our feelings, se how we are involved in areas of our lives that reinforce our victim personality, healing the inner child, seeing how that hurt has permeated our current lives/personality and relationships w/ food and others. having the healthy adult in us allow balance and growth and protection for the hurt child, so we can be safe and not need to control our food or have those emotions spill over into an external control that will never fix the internal out of control feeling. Only working on the internal self talk, emotions can do that.
NOW I am not perfect, for me to see things in others is far easier for me than seeing it in myself. I am on a personal journey for wellness and I am only offering what is working for me, diets never worked because they were an external control that could never heal my internal self...I hope this makes sense and it not taken negatively. It is my way of letting u know what is working for ME and maybe it can reframe your thoughts and work for you!
Sometimes we consume our lives with food, thinking about what we can and can not have, when we can eat or should eat, how much, how often, how it should be cooked, when to buy it, how much, etc that we occupy so much time and do not even realize that we have no time left to feel (the point) in an addiction, it takes over us so we can forget us and what we are scared/fearful of feeling/being.
Take Care,
Jamie
Lap RNY 10/9/02 Dr. Singh
320/163 5'9'' (lost 45# before surgery)
Plastics 6/9/04 & 11/11/2005 Dr. King
http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/members/profile.php?N=c1132518510
"Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect, it just means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections!" 
Hey Donna,
This is the way it was explained to me and it's so true. In general after WLS the scale will trend down. Meaning, that over time the scale will go down towards goal if you are doing what your suppose to be doing. But that doesn't mean every day, every few days you're going to see the scale move. Esp. as a woman, you'll tend to retain water and such, which will prevent the scale from moving even though you lost actual weight.
My best suggestion? Give the scale a break for a couple of weeks, and then go back on it. I've done that several times through my journey, because the scale can drive you crazy. Actually at about 6 months out, I stopped weighing myself regularly and only started to weigh myself once every 2 or 3 weeks. It saved my sanity at that time.
So don't panic....just relax, your going to lose more weight and soon.
Scott
Thia is very normal .. I had surgery 7-6-06 and lost 82 pounds but cant ger past the 200 mark for 3 weeks now. I have stayed at 203.5 to 204 for weeks now and talk about annoying. So be patient and take one day at a time. This to shall pass. You did a great thing changing your life for the better and 2 be healthy and your doing it and you will keep doing it. You go girl.. Veronica in lake worth florida
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