Today is a good day to begin again! -regain topic.

Fellow sojourners,

Everyone always says this ...."I will start my diet on Monday" - well Monday dear friends has come and gone.  Today is Tuesday!  Today is a good day to diet too!  Before anyone freaks about the word diet; I am only talking to those that need to hear those words.  If that is NOT you then you should just ignore the word.  But dieting is a reality.  The word means -"controlling nutritional intake" don't we all do that anyway?  Why are we afraid of that word?  Let's just embrace the word for what it is - a reality check for us all.

I am not in the business of telling you how to diet but I can say this...find a plan or make one that works for you.  I made up my own diet.  It is working for me.  I would be glad to share my plan with anyone who wishes.  I began on November 9th and have lost 30 lbs (through the Holidays!).

No matter what you plan you use - TODAY is always the best day to start it.  I am going on 10 years post op and my goal is to be down 100 lbs by November 9 2012.  That would be back at my lowest weight in my journey.

Celebrating my journey today - I plan to upload MYJOURNEY today...how about you?

Your fellow journeyman,

Bo

I agree with you on the word diet.  I do consider my eating habits a diet, not in a negative sense either.  The word diet for some go back to their days before WLS and all the diets that didn't work before, it's viewed as a fear even now of "not working".  I understand that too.

Every
single
day
 
I look at my diet; some days the nutrition I put in my mouth is much better than others.  It just means, to me, that I'm human and normal. 

Good luck, Bo!  May I make one suggestion?  Look at the small progress you make, set small goals that you can identify with and reward yourself somehow.  I hope you reach your goal of 100 lbs by November 9, just be sure to not become overwhelmed in your quest to get there.  Take it one.day.at.a.time.

It all sounds good and I hope you make all your goals. Just do yourself a favor and have full sets of labs done. It seems like so many of us wind up with vitamin and iron deficiencies and you don't want to feel run-down.

I agree, everyone needs to develop their own eating plan, I have been saying that forever.  What works for me will probably not interest 98% of the rest of the group because of my individual style of eating the same thing every single day, basically the same 3 protein bars everyday, 6 days a week and then dinner and dessert occasionally.  I stopped the daily dessert, the holidays are over and that doesn't work to eat bad stuff every day.  I am not really looking to lose anything, just keep my clothes feeling comfortable.

Good Luck!

I very much agree that a focus and a plan are essential, as well as eating right and exercise and vitamins and fluids.

Vigilance and diligence and working your plan- that's what it takes!

Wow, kudos to you for losing so much weight through the holidays - that's a tough time to just maintain, and you actually lost weight!  Congrats!

When I had my first surgery 9 years ago I was told I never had to diet again.  And I believed it.  Unfortunately, for someone like me there are only two modes, eat whatever I want, whenever I want, in whatever amount I want, or to "diet", which to me means not eating whatever I want, whenever I want in whatever amounts I want.
I tried it the first way and it didn't work out so well.  I finally realized that surgery or not I could not eat the way I wanted indiscriminately.  I had to plan out when I eat, what I eat and how much I eat.  You can call that a diet, you can say it's a disciplined way of eating, I don't really care what you call it.  I call it the way I eat in order to keep food in it's proper place in my life.  Like a child who doesn't do well without boundaries, I don't do well without some kind of structure in my life and that includes what I eat.
My sister had WLS a few months before I did in 2002 and did very well.  After my revision she gave me a call and said to me "I have to do something I thought I would never have to do again, something you don't have to worry about, at least for a while.  I have to go on a diet."
I asked her why she thought she would never have to diet again and that I didn't have to diet?  Somehow, at least in 2002, we got the impression that if we had WLS surgery again we never had to worry about dieting.  I think maybe I just heard what I wanted to hear or believed what I wanted to believe.  The reality for me is that I have to watch what I eat, just like I did before surgery, if I don't want to be obese anymore.  The surgery is just supposed to make it a little more reasonable to be able to eat smaller amounts then it was when I didn't have surgery.
I guess for me it's kind of like math.  I am terrible at math.  Sure, if you give me a math problem I could probably figure it out but I will do a lot better with a calculator.  That is kind of how I am looking at my surgery right now.

You're almost 1/3 of the way to your 100 pounds by November 9, 2012, and it is only mid-January.  Done deal!!

Any day is the perfect day to start over or re-start anything we want to accomplish.  Thanks for the motivation!

Cathy