The difference between newbies and vetarans

I personally think there should be 3 categorys, newbies, transitional and vets.   In the dark old days a vet was someone 5+ years out - now, it seems to be anyone on full foods!!!!!

Most people start to struggle with maintenance and regain around year 4 or so (3 for some poor souls) so until someone has reached the stage where they really have to THINK about everything that goes into their mouth and are STILL getting their ass off the sofa (going to the gym 4 hours per day, 7 days a week wanes for most after a little while )   I don't think they are really a vet.   I could have sat on the sofa eating candy non-stop until about year 4 ...   Now?  Not so much!

The other thing that I believe makes us vets is having gone through all the horrible things RNY has to offer - dumping (the real thing, not a tummy upset) RH, Vitamin and iron issues etc - not that you HAVE to go through them all but going through some of the longer term problems and learned how to not get them or deal with them, is the sort of experience that makes you a vet ...

 So true. I was mainly contrasting the stark differences between newbies and straight-up vets because that's where there seems to be the most disparity. Folks in the transitional period seem to have experienced enough not to have quite the same reactions as a new-newbie. At least from my experience.

So that was not to overlook them. I just feel like they get along with both groups better than we get along with one another. If that makes any sense at all.

 I personally would categorize a vet (for the purposes of the life cycle of THIS board) as someone 2+ years out. That's when folks tend to leave the board and not come back. One year up until the two year mark is that weird "middle generation" sort of deal. Anyone less than a year, in my opinion, is a newbie as you are experiencing the cycle of a year post-op for the first time. 

The mindsets tend to come with the "surgery age." If you let yourself embrace this process (or even if you don't) you come to certain realizations pretty quickly. At a certain point you'll be able to eat more, at another point your malabsorption lessens, at a certain point the scale stops. Those common milestones tend to bring about similar changes in all of us, but it really does depend on how we, individually, react to them.

From my experience, for example, bounceback is a milestone that tends to drive veterans who left this board back to it in search of advice/support/reassurance. But this thought process very much came out of me trying to be more empathetic. I get annoyed with myself for getting annoyed at newer post-ops posts. I was once there. And I would do well to remember that. So I tried to think of WHY certain things bug me and it's mostly because my perspective has changed so much. So just documenting that.

I consider a "newbie"  someone in that first year, or still in the losing phase (someone still learning how to master life after RNY)....and a vet someone in maintenance (someone that knows the ropes).

 

I would like to add that it seems newbies have an extra soupcon of fear that is largely absent from vets posts. Not to say that vets don't feel fear, but perhaps they have developed more of a tolerance to it--that and uncertainty, which seems also to cause panic amongst newbies.

I would like to see a third category of WLSer: journeyman or -woman. Not a newbie any longer, but not a vet either. At 13+months out, I no longer quite consider myself a newbie, but I'm not a vet by a long shot.

 So true!

But then again in so many ways you are. For example, you've not yet had a chance to experience "Seasonal Wardrobe Paranoia." (What the HELL is that, Nik?) It's basically when you've stabilized and you wear a certain clothing size. Ok so the next year you pull out your clothes from the last season and for a brief moment you are paralyzed with fear that they won't fit. But then they do. And you are relieved. Or they don't. And you freak out.

So those are fun experiences you have before you, but you are right in that you aren't a newbie-newbie anymore. Journey-man/woman...I like that!

Oh my gosh, I never even thought about the "Seasonal Wardrobe Paranoia!"

I still consider my self a newbie, because I'm learning all the time. I don't know that I'll ever feel like a vet. I wanna know so much still (like the wardrobe thing! aaahhh!) and to even start to think about maintanace is scary stuff. I think theres still a long road ahead of me before I reach the Vet stage of my journey.

OMG.  Just went through the seasonal wardrobe freak out last weekend when I put the summer stuff away and pulled out the winter stuff!

 "Seasonal Wardrobe Paranoia"

 OMG!! I spit Click on my monitor!! This stuff is too precious to waste Nik!!! 

I do wish that there was a way to know how a few people are doing today that had surgery around the same time that I did. Remember the one that wanted to know if the Kentucky Fried Chicken something-or-another greasy bowls were OK at 6 weeks out? Or the one who was adding ice cream to her protein shake because it was the only way she could get them to stay down (but was still losing weight so it was obviously OK!).

We all find our own way to succeed (or not). Some stay here to keep ourselves motivated and try to be helpful and others leave the forum behind to live their lives without it. Neither is right or wrong, just different. Just as some "vets" CAN manage moderation and succeed and others (like me) have decided that moderation in things like sweets isn't the way to go. Thought provoking posts, like so many of yours, are wonderful!!! Thank you, Nik 

 I remember both of them!!!!

Oh and Crystal. She had to eat like 150g of carbs a day to keep from losing weight. Where is she???

I am friends with many who left here on FB. I'm happy for that.