10 years Later and I feel like a failure

Lisapell, I'm also a huge fan of aquarobics. You go, girl!

I also think you can lose your regain. After all, either way time will pass -- whether you're living healthy or not. And as you know, it's a lot more fun living healthy, having goals, and achieving your goals.

Let us hear how you're doing. :)

I love this answer...thank you

Hi Lisa and Welcome

You have already taken the hardest step by saying enough is enough and now I want to get back on track. I maintained 118-125 for over 10 years after losing 200 pounds. When I lost my husband of 39 years I gained and hit the 190 mark. After several starts it finally clicked and I am back to goal losing 70 pounds of regain. Here are some steps that helped me and I hope they will help you too! You may have several starts and stops but don't give up, don't beat yourself up. IT WILL CLICK!!! Our tool works if we work the tool and get back to the basics.

Planning/Preparing

Remember when we were preparing for surgery? How many meetings, classes and such did we attend? We were told the more prepared we were the better our chances were for success. And they were right. Go through the house, car and work place and get rid of trigger foods. Stock up on foods that will keep you on track. I removed every bad carb/sugar temptation and replaced it with lots of protein, veggies, grains and fruits.

Journaling

Get back to journaling. This will help you identify when you feel like eating, stress factors and any triggers in your life. Once you identify these factors, this will help you put tools in place to keep you from eating. It became clear I was not taking time for me anymore. I worked my day job and then spent the rest of my time caring for my husband. It was easy to reach for fast, prepackaged food. Since I purged my home I have to eat clean as there are no other options LOL

Use a tool to track you're eating and exercise like Getting Started with Health Tracker. Once I started to track ever bite and drink it became clear why I had gained.

Goals/Rewards

Make a list of goals for yourself. Make them realistic and small. Some of mine were move more, purge all junk from my home, eat more protein. If you didn't make a Weight Loss Surgery bucket list when you first had surgery do it now. GREAT reminder of all the things you can enjoy in life after losing weight.

Food

In general, a long term post-weight loss surgery eating plan includes foods that are high in protein, and low in fat?, calories, and sugar. Important, vitamins and minerals are provided as supplements. (if you had a different surgery adjust this to your food plan).

Water

Water is our Best Friend. I have to say I never went back to pop or any bad drinks, however I was drinking tea like crazy. What is wrong with drinking tea? I was either using sugar or 3 equals and 3 sweet n lows per 32 ounce glass. I found once I started carrying one of the metal bottles of water to keep it cold I drank water all day.

MOVE!

I can't say enough about how key this was for me. The reason I kept my weight off for almost 10 years was no matter what, I kept moving. If I could not go to the gym I would walk. Grab a cart and walk all the isles at your local box store. I loved Zumba, bootcamp workouts, lifting weights. When I stopped, the weight started coming back. So for me I am starting slow to avoid injury by walking and using some of the workouts on my Demand TV. Find something you love to do and it won't feel like a pain in the *** to do daily.

Support

If it's an option "run" don't walk to a support group. Come here on OH daily for support and participate in one of the food threads. It helps you be accountable and also great ideas for food prep.

Keep me posted on how you are doing.

Thanks so much Kathy...these are wonderful tips. How long did it take you to lose the 70 pounds of regained weight? That is pretty much where I am right now

Close to a year.... I got back to moving again too. Mostly walking and biking. Take it one day at a time and you may have to pick yourself up a few times but it will click. This may sound funny but it worked for me. You know how they say it can take 30 days to change a behavior? I am visual so I would take a post it and when I had a clean day I wrote a 1 on it and put the post it on the wall so I would see it. Then 2, 3 and so on. The 30 days were hard but after that all the garbage was out of my system. I was feeling better, more energy and not as depressed and motivated to keep going.

Don't beat yourself up

you realized u need to get back on track which is good

I do agree with what ppl have said In this post

getting back on track is hard I did it at the beginning of the yr after a large regain this year

if u can access ur nutritionist again who helped u prepared for wls that may help

Very excellent advice!!!

Here are some to dos:

Don't walk fast, just walk and gradually increase your speed. Don't start on the top of the mountain, start in the valley and climb the mountain.

Track everything you eat. You don't need to necessarily change what you eat at first, just get in the habit of tracking. Then figure out changes, i.e. don't eat processed food (that's a biggie) or cut the amount of soda you are drinking (if you are) or decrease the portion on one meal and then two meals and eventually all meals.

Shop the perimeter of the store rather than the aisles first. Stock up with veggies mostly, some fruit and lean meats. Get an air fryer or an instant pot (had to edit cuz all I had was instant) or both and use them. They are great ways too cook flavorful foods without a lot of calories.

Meal plan and prep: Know what you are going to eat, prepare it ahead of time and eat what you plan. If you have a family, they don't need to be eating junk either so don't feel guilty when you ask them not to bring junk in the house or eat it in front of you.

Talk to a counselor, get help for the emotional aspects of eating. Journal when you want to cave into a food you don't need to eat. Ask yourself, am I really hungry or am I just wanting to eat? If you are truly hungry, any food will do. If you are just wanting to eat, you will probably just want one specific food and only that food will do.

Consider a revision. You may just need more help surgically with food but I'd say it's more of the other things if you kept the weight off for so long.

Most of all, know that if you've done it once, you can do it again. There is no evidence that a pouch reset is worth the time and trouble and it's just another "diet". Your objective shouldn't be to "diet", it should be to change your eating habits and how you react to food for a lifetime and whatever you choose to do should be sustainable. If you can eat intuitively, that would be great but if you are like me, I can't. I will either not eat enough (mostly) or I will overeat (less frequent). Tiny P is very effective most of the time. Yay!!!

Know that doing all of this, all at once won't be effective. Do it in steps until it's a lifestyle change and a different way of thinking.

Be honest though, you really know what to do and what to eat or you wouldn't have kept the weight off for 8 years. It really sounds like you need a mind reset as much as anything but that's just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

Hope this helped in someway. Be blessed.

thank you. I don't think I need a revision, I actually have pretty good restriction. I have done the pouch reset before and it's seemed to help me shrink my stomach down to tighten my restriction and just kind of get me on a good path to clear out the junk and start over. After that my plan is to use my WW app as a tracker and just go from there with healthier eating and exercise ( which I haven't done in a very embarassingly long time).

A revision is not necessary to tackle regain and is actually counter productive because if you dont tackle your overeating first, you'll fail the revision too. So good for you for recognizing that!!!!!!

Dont make your goals too lofty. Last year I lost 58lbs of regain, but it took me about 10 months. Losing after 15 years is NOT the same as post surgery. Taking that amount of time has really reset my lifestyle and I am maintaining that loss relatively easily because I have changed all my habits.

Good luck, you can do this!!!