Introductions and confessions

Welcome my friend! So glad to see you on here posting.  You will fine everyone is going to be supportive and understanding on this board :)  Everyone has their struggles and this is a great place to get the support we all need when we are finding ourselves a little "lost" on our journies.  The memebers on this board are all in the same boat.. getting back on track and back to basics. :)   

You have done incredibly well losing some additional weight after the regain and I know you will continue to be successful.  You are a great mother, wife, sister, daughter and a great friend to me :)  I wish you nothing but the best and as always.. I am here for you.  Love you girl!

Thank you to everyone!!!!

Mel....why aren't you sleepin', Missy?????

Donna, thank you for sharing your story - and for being a bona fide pioneer in the WLS industry! You have so much to be proud of - and look at the beauty radiating from that photo of you holding your precious daughter. This is Life. My strategy for keeping my weight off is to commit to living my life with the utmost joy, spontaneity, honesty, and passion - every day. If I "use up" my energy in this manner, I will have much less energy to obssess about food. The days that I don't stay true to this commitment are the days that I am into the food - it's a struggle. Anyone 3-plus years out of surgery are struggling, I'm certain of it. Whether or not my strategy will ultimately keep me at a normal weight for the long haul remains to be seen - I won't deceive anyone in suggesting I'm maintaining without a hitch - I'm up 20 lbs. from my lowest weight post-surgery in 2004. But I remain steadfast in my believe that I can overcome the food demons - those constant companions since I was a very little girl trying to understand the pain of my life - food became my constant source of comfort...I know where you're coming from. But we are grown-up now; we are adults and have free will of choice.  We can and MUST choose health, every day. And every time we fall down, we MUST get back up - if not on our own accord, than with the help of others. Take my hand, Donna. I'll help you up. All the best - Maureen

Thank you so much, everyone, for your sweet posts and kind welcome!  I am daily, every meal, hourly, trying to learn to embrace that full pouch feeling.  I have thought through it a lot in recent days and that full nauseaous feeling has been driving me to purge.  Ugh, I hate it.  So, I am being VERY cautious of how much I am eating, of mainly pure protein right now and trying to keep it down.  If I have to eat 6 times a day to keep it down, I am.  My good friend MelissaF who has completely rocked her RNY has been talking me through it a lot lately and we think I have gotten so used to purging protein that made me uncomfortable and turning to slider carbs that my body really needs the protein right now.  (And I seriously need to have some labs drawn.)  I am actually down a couple of lbs (need to change my siggy) so I guess my body is liking some "building blocks" in it and burning some fat!  Thanks again everyone.