195 lb FART

Hi guys,   My weight finally starts with a 1. I am very happy about it of course , but it was a bit anti-climatic. It ends up that it is just a number, a great number, but just a number.   With reaching it, it made me start to think about my goal and what if I am just as ambivalent when I reach it. Will I be satisfied with it or will I "need" to reach a lower number? When I do reach it, what will I focus on then? The quest for a "number" has been just that, for over a year, what happens when I/we reach that number? I have been so focused on that number, that I haven't really thought past it. I know I will or should I say, I need to set some new goals that have nothing to do with a number. I know that we need to be able to measure our progress, so we have to look at the numbers.   I would be very interested in knowing what the guys that have reached their goal weight have to  say about this, any of you have the same feelings? Don't get me wrong , this is the best thing I have ever done for my health. I am in better shape and eat a healther diet than I ever have and I would do it again in a heart beat. I am off all my medications and don't have to use a CPAP any more.  Just the ramblings of a middle aged man.   Oh, yeah.   Highest weight    375 First consult       364 Surgery              324 Sunday              195   pan head

Let me be sure to say CONGRADS!!! That is a huge accomplishment and my hat is off to you. My goal is 180 but 200 would still be a 208 total loss and I would be OK with that too but 1180 is my goal and I'd really like to see that 1 in front of my weight too. I haven't gotten there and its getting tougher to drop but I have had simialr thoughts about goal and where I am and what so important about getting there.  You know getting there is one thing and proving I can maintain staying there and that this process is no fluke and not like any previous diets.  This needs to be the results of the re-wired, new plumbng, and relearning process/journey I am enduring and not just the backing up of 30 years to restart the same bad-habits and journey of the past. It will also be the plan to stay active and not become complacent unless other health issues dictate such.  It would be very easy to stop exercising and be lazy and take for granted my new weight and never get to goal.  I cannot become OK with accepting such a mindset. I kinda feel like an unofficial posterboy for WLS by many quiet onlookers.  It is amazing to me how many will ask what I have done to lose weight and don't recognize me.  It has cnvinced me that there are many others that are aware of what I have done and are maybe considering the same based on my success or failure.  Self-inflicted undue pressure I know, but that is where I am i the grand-scheme of things right now. Good thoughts,...thanks for provoking the conversation.  I will watch for others comments as well. Joe

Congrats panhead, Sorry I'm not one of the guys whose reached his goal, so I can't give you that perspective, but your post has got me thinking. So I hope you don't mind my two-cents. I for one think you have every right to feel good. Sure, 195 is "just a number," but it is a number that signifies better health, stick-to-it-iveness, and more social acceptance (fairly or unfairly, such things matter). Although I am not yet at "the" goal, I am at one of my goals (lowish 200ss). Based on my own experience, I bet that many of us experience ambivalence based on our histories of "never feeling at ease" with our weight. We were always on diets and weight-loss regimens, falling off of them, and always, always (in my case at least) never feeling that the issue was settled. I never ever felt like, "Okay, this is just me." It didn't matter if I was fat, thin, or in between. I was always expecting the other shoe of weight change to drop. I think and hope that you (and all of us) will eventually do more than change numbers on the scale and adopt healthier lifestyles. I hope and believe that eventually we will, at last, lose some of the back-of-the-mind nagging and uncertainty. (I don't mean that we get complacent and lazy, just maybe a little less focused on "just a number" and a little more at peace with our good fortune and accomplishments. Also, I think Joe's reply is spot-on. Thanks for the post.  

pan head, congrats on the 1, that's a big deal from where you started, and a lot of people (men and women) who start at 375 never see it. I think Doug hit on an excellent point.  It will take time to "enjoy" hitting any goal because many of us have been there before, or at least, have had the feeling before that we've come along way, only to have it rebound away later.  I have tried to avoid a specific weight goal, instead setting my goal as below 19% body fat.  If I get there with a struggle, fine, if it's a breeze, then I've set 16% body fat as my dream goal, pleasant but not necessary.  I figure that comes closer to defining my goal by health while still giving me something tangible/objective to shoot for. Beyond that, I'm going to start setting some athletic objectives.  Bike 50 miles (on a real bike), run 10, win a local A level racquetball tournament, maybe even a marathon or sprint tri at some point.  These will be more spread out, in the 1-2 year range, so that my every day isn't so focussed on this (it's draining to have your life be so much about weight so much of the time). That said, strange thoughts have already started creeping into my head as well.  Could I get really skinny, if only for a year or so?  What would that look/feel like?  Part of this is just natural curiosity, and part of this is a fear based on what Doug is talking about: the idea/fear that this is all fleeting, all an experiment, and therefore I should have fun with that experiment even if it's not what I want long term, or also maybe that I should go below what I want long term, so that when I head back up part of the ride up is pretty good, too (sort of the same reason I always get my hair cut too short). So part of what we (or at least I, speaking for myself) will have to do as we get near my goal, is learn how to accept it as part of a new lifestyle rather than a transitional point.  This will partly just take time, but also some active effort.