When to call the cavalry?

Hi Lizanne,

I have to laugh about the I 'deserve' and the 'it's not fair', I am right there with you, I WANT my treats!...  But something has to give, like you said, at least for awhile...

I just today got the 10 Thin Comandments for my Kindle and I am in the thick of it and lovin' it!

Big hugs, we can and will do this,

Cindy

You may well not be amnestic at all about food!  I just have perfected it so *ha*  :} 

You might know this already, but I *really* like that book!  :}  YOu know.. in case I was being subtle about my feelings.

I remind me that relationships change.  With people, at work, and with my body - but the way they stay good is when I remember WE ARE A TEAM, and remind myself that doing what is GOOD for the team, is also good for me.

Taking medications that can lead to gain (that really are not "optional" meds) are a serious wrench in the wheels! 

I think it will last, not because you might not ever come to *this place* again, because relationships change, but maybe it will have a different tone next time because you will know differently then. 

Who can know, either way.. ROCK IT LILLA MAMA!  :} 

Wow Elina, this is scary.  I too am very scared of gaining.  For me the scale fluctuates about 1 to 1.5 pounds.  I guess time will tell.  I'm now 5 months out from my plastics so that  bit of metabolic 'speed up' is long gone and for me didn't really last all that long...maybe 2 months or so.  But, I do work out a lot, so we will see if it truly makes a difference. 

Also, I still have a good amount of swelling in the LBL area so I don't know what impact this has on the scale.

Laura

Dr. Cirangle and others believe that working out is very important during maintenance.  I do think it is still a good idea to keep an eye on the scale, and I know you do that.  I think those of us that work this out together and help each other have a better chance to keeping our success than those that just go about their life as if they were never MO. 

I would blame the alcohol before I'd blame the carbs. Our bodies don't regulate liquid calories as well as solid ones and then when we drink we often eat more and maybe don't even realize it.

What I have noticed is not that the weight doesn't fall off if I cut back but that, the farther out I am, the harder it is to really cut back. I'm just not willing to eat, say, 1200 calories a day for a few days any more. My "cutting back" now is not having as much junk as the day before and brining one less cheese stick to work in my lunch pail. Um, it' maybe 100 calories a day less for 3 days instead of 200-500 calories a day less for a week.

Then, too, my situation is complicated by the weight lifting I do. Not every gain on the scale is a bad for me. Sometimes I've gained muscles and that's good because getting stronger is my goal.

Do you think two drinks a week could make that much of a difference?  Maybe long term it could.  I usually have vodka and cranberry or Rum and Diet Coke.  Two drinks a week is my maximum, there are plenty of weeks when I don't drink at all.  I agree with you that the further out I get the harder it is to cut back to three meals a day with mostly protein.  It is still doable, but much harder.  I think that you truly have nothing to worry about because you are an athlete now and that works to your benefit on so many levels. 

It depends on how big they are.

But you could be scarfing down 500-1000 calories right there with two drinks and, if it causes you to eat more, then that could be another 500 calories or so for the day.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't cut back on the carbs, but having frozen yogurt one time isn't in the same ballpark at all. Also, farther out, portion size can be a concern, if you don't still weigh and measure periodically.

As always, a very interesting post, Elina. You are farther out than I am so I may have no business making any comments but of course that has never stopped me from giving an opinion. So for what is worth here are a couple of thoughts:

Definitely start food journaling again. You might even just do this for a week without making any other eating changes at all. Just gather this information and see what you learn. Then you can decide what things should be adjusted. You might even find some trends you weren't aware of such as a time of day you tend to eat some things or that amounts are different than you thought. At 15+ months I still journal every day. I am on volume 4 of "Fat Be Gone". I may do this for life.

Sometimes a few pounds creep up with no explaination. A month or so ago I had a week where for 3 or 4 days I gained a half pound each day. And I was food journaling and eating something like 1100 calories a day or less  and thinking WTF, how could I possible gain weight. Then it sort of dropped off as mysteriously as it appeared.  So its easy to get very alarmed about a variation of a few pounds. I am not saying you shouldn't be concerned; only that there might not be a huge change underway.

I bet I have heard Guru Cirangle say at least a dozen times that its normal to reagain a little weight after reaching goal. One woman in our support group says she has regained 20 lbs. She had her sleeve well before me; maybe four years ago. Frankly, she looks perfectly normal to me and I don't see that she has 20 lbs to lose and Cirangle has told her the same thing repeatedly. She is perhaps in her early 60's and had a knee replacement and said thats when she gained.  So I am not sure that you will get the riot act read to you by our surgeon but who knows. You might try calling Amy first and see what suggestions she has. I bet you anything that Cirangle will tell you to up your protein.

I can tell that this is really disturbing you and understand completely since we all live in terror of regain. I find that if something is bothering me, the best thing to do is to take some kind of action and just doing something makes you feel better.  So by all means take some action. Journal the food, ditch the fozen yogurt, cut back 50 to 100 calories a day, add 5 or 10 g protein,  and I bet the situation resolves.

Like you, I hate exercise. I am making some efforts but they are pretty minimal. Guru said at our last support group that exercise is much more important in the maintenance phase than in the weight loss phase. Can't remember exactly why; (someone please  ask that at next support group). But I bet even though you don't go to the gym and such you are a more active person than before your weight loss with family and job and household  and that you get more exercise than you think. I know I am much more active just around the house and my husband says I am a "dervish"!  Well maybe compared to a sea slug but you get the point.

Anyway, I am totally confident that you will get this issue solved and maintain your weight where you want it because you have the sleeve and you have the attitude. You will get there.

Diane

Diane, I would be hurt if you didn't reply to my post.  :)  I love hearing your thoughts and suggestions. I agree that I need to start journaling again.  Tomorrow is going to be my first day measuring and journaling. Your point about pounds just appearing and then just as mysteriously disappearing is worth considering.  It is possible that some of this is just high sodium or some other strange thing.  I mean we are only talking about 2 lbs.or so.  The trend does concern me though.  If I averaged 102 a few months ego and now average 104, there does seem to be a small change.  I am sure that Cirangle will not really yell at me, I am just kidding with that, but he would tell me to check my diet and do what I already know to do, increase protein and decrease carbs.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to motivate myself to really exercise.  I try, really I do, but I just don't seem to prioritize it.  I have a million and one excuses, but the honest truth is that I hate it.  I hate beyond belief.  I might have to drag myself kicking and screaming to do it anyway.  Hey, the kicking and screaming has to burn some calories too.  :)

Elina, what is this thing about exercise anyway?  I mean I know its important and you do too and throughout my weightloss phase I really did follow the lapsf program pretty religiously and took all the suplements every single day and never ate one single potato chip and ate about two bites of desert at christmas and that was it and really did exactly what i was supposed to do. and it worked.

But after all that when i know exercise is important to this and my overall health I just can't seem to make myself do it. There have been phases of my life where i exercised regularly. many years ago i walked two or three miles a day and then joined a health club and swam a half mile  a day and then started in the weight room which is oddly where i met my husband. Started going to that health club because it was brand new, extremely fancy and very near my house.  Now I live in a small town with limited facilities and while I did go to Curves for awhile, its really too wimpy and boring. I am taking this martial arts class that I find very interesting and fun but don't practice very much. I also like to play the xbox kinect games that don't feel  like exercise, but can only do it when I can get the tv away from my husband.

There is no reason on earth why I couldn't take one of the dogs to the beach for a mile or two every day other than I'd rather spend my time in the art studio. Heck we have a health club quality treadmill in our living room with its own tv and dvd player. Gathering dust.

So Elina maybe we can figure something out about this mental block on this exercise thing. As spring approaches and the rain stops it will be great to be outside again and maybe I can get out with those dogs or ride the bike or something. Maybe we can make a pact to do just  15 minutes a day and go from there.

Diane