I am really jealous!!!! Throwing a hissy fit.

I keep reading about other people, OK, only a few, who are at goal and have kept their goal for many years without any difficulty.  They say that they can only eat what they could at six months, and have no major hunger or cravings or issues with regain.  I want that too.  Foot stump!!! 

The further out I get, the harder this process becomes for me.  I struggle to maintain, using all my strategies, will power, readings, etc.  I journal when my weight goes up, exercise (moderately, but more than I wish I had to do), weigh myself every day, practice mindful eating, and all the rest of it.  I work really hard at this and it's working but it is not easy. 

I am getting really ticked off when I read about others effortlessly maintaining their weight (not at them but at the injustice of it all).  I want what they got and while we are at it, I want to be taller too! 

Rant over.  I am taking a deep breath.  And just as an aside, my weight is up today and I am having a devil of a time getting it off again.  It would be no big deal to most people, but I mind the few extra pounds.  This is not the easy way out, (easier but not easy), not for me at least.

Well, Elina, I am stomping my foot with you!!! It isn't fair!!! I am also vertically challenged, so any bit of weight shows up on me. I also work at this everyday and I have been maintaining within a 2 lb window for almost a year. Wow, almost a year. Next month will be a year, when I hit my goal. I am in BMI mid-range for my height, which is okay with me. I'm not small boned, so anything much lower would mean a loss of lean muscle mass and I'm not willing to go there.

I track my food everyday, weigh myself daily, exercise 4-6 times/week most of the time (this past week was slow), attend support groups, etc. I could gain weight very easily, if I made different choices, so I try to stay to the straight and narrow most of the time ,but I certainly have my not so good moments and days. Grazing is my enemy.

To be honest, I read more about people having problems with regain, than those who are maintaining with minimal work. I think everyone has to work at this on some level, otherwise, we never would have needed WLS in the first place.

I also think that most successful people at weight loss do work at it. I think that is the norm. WLS leveled the playing field for us, but we still have to work at it, like most people. It is the rare person who does not have to work at maintaining.

Can you imagine where you would be, if you didn't have to work at it? I know where I would be, and it isn't a pretty place.

Gail

P.S. I want to be taller, too!!!

You are right, I am just having a small pity party today.  I am selectively reading the posts on the main page and the ones where no effort is needed are the ones that jump out at me.  They are not the norm, but they grab my attention.  In real life, everyone I know that is maintaining long term has to work at it too.  I just wi**** was easier, I wish I could eat everything I wanted to eat in any quantities any time.  No, I know it's not going to happen, sigh, but just for today I wish I could.  I have a big gala to go to on Sunday and I am up three pounds.  This means that I have to be really careful with my food and drink this weekend, and for now, I resent it.  I need a major attitude adjustment.  I am not entitled to anything here, I need to find my gratitude.  In truth, I just feel angry and about five years old right now.  I want what I want and I want it now!!!  Stump, stump, stump.  I know I am being immature, but it helps to put it out there and not eat the feelings. 

I have a Greek friend that invited me over to do some dish throwing at her house.  Whenever she gets really mad she has this set of cheap dishes that she throws into her fireplace to some really loud music.  She even dresses up really fancy for the occasion.  It seems to be more fun after a glass of wine.  It might be that kind of a night.  :)

here is another thing I want to say about the hard work, Elina.

Sometimes folks who NEVER had hunger, urges, issues for years, all of a sudden are back to the same feelings.  I do NOT envy them the loss of the dream that was - I honestly, anymore looking at folks who come back and need help, am not sorry at ALL anymore that I have had hunger from the get go - because I have practiced what to do with it.  Its not foreign anymore and since I had it SO CLOSE to the time when I DID have the panicked roaring preop hunger - I understand that even on the days when I want to jam all edible things in my piehole - that it is nowhere NEAR what presurgery hunger was like.  Not in my WILDEST dreams.

But I also know, if I continue to feed myself foods that magnify hunger in me, I *can* "make it so" (as JeanLuc Picard would say!).

So, yea I get what you are saying, and I sometimes feel like I am the wet blanket town crier because I cannot get behind folks only feeding newbies that its always the same as 2 months out for EVERYONE, that no one gets hungry, that its ONLY the food that is EVER the issue (and not our behavior sometimes), but - I am thankful to have met the me that can derail me so quick, and have known, from the beginning, that she was not ever going to be too far off.

I know everyone is not like me, and everyone does not have a Trixyshadow - but I really do think its a blessing that I never thought she was ever gone forever, because I know how to deal with her in a real and *healthy* way.

/ramble rant :}

I hear you Brandilynn, the hard work does teach us how to handle this in a "healthy" way, and most of the time I take pride in my hard work and even find enjoyment in the part I have played in shaping my health and my body to be what I want it to be.  Today is just not one of those days, today, I feel worn out by the constant management, refinement and attention necessary to keep things going.  I will still "do the work" and continue to do the right thing regardless of my feelings, but I can't seem to locate the joy in it, the pride, the sense of accomplishment. 

Remember reading Tom Sawyer when you were a kid, and how Tom is just full of fun and adventure and sass in the beginning of the book, and by the end of the book, he matures and starts to see the "bigger picture" and understand how his actions influence others? Today, I wish I was like Tom was in the beginning of the book.  I want to feel free and have no care about how my food will effect me and my health.  I want to take a walk on the wild side and not be worried about being burned.  I miss it.  Today, I resent being an adult and I want to play without consequences.  I know I am being emotional and unreasonable.  The child in me is just so tired of being good.  I want to be very, very bad today.  I am not going to, but I want to and I am admitting it.

I want to go my favorite wine bar and have a drink with my friends and share a few blue cheese stuffed dates, I want to go to the Gala on Sunday and not be looking at my food and my wine.  I want to have a mixed drink and enjoy it.  But I don't choose to do any of these things because my scale tells me I am at 108 today and I find this unacceptable.  I want to be 105.  My id and my superego are having a real beat up on ego day.  I want to go a little crazy tonight, I am just going to have to find a way to do this without going off of my program.  Writing this down helps.  Thanks for listening, you are awesome and you have no way to really know how often your words have helped me.   

Aaahhh, your wanter is pegged.  I GET that.  :>}  Maybe you can ask your handsomeman to take you out and twirl you about tonight!? 

I think its the spring fever. I have it too.  Luckily neighbors down the street are having fun at their tiki bar and so I can go have some fun too, or else I might just have to find a funny movie and laugh and laugh and laugh.  That might fix an itch. 

Elina---what I suspect might be happening to you is this (only because I am almost at goal and I am anticipating the pitfalls up ahead myself)---I think you might be in a place where you have lost the vision of how good things can be when you are thinner. ie--the motivation you once had, the passion to get thin, these things are waning. Dare I say, we might even be bored with our thin existences? The compliments are over, we have bought all the new clothes we can muster, we have met all the challenges of staying on plan, weighing, logging food. etc etc etc. Now we are just 2 restless, thin women. Well, here is what I am doing about it--I am going to a Latin Dance/Salsa workshop next month--200 miles away too. I love my Zumba/Salsa classes and fiddlestix, I may be kinda old and still flabby, but I want to learn Latin dances and put my new body to some good use. Yeah, my husband's jaw dropped to the floor when I announced I was doing this, but it makes me feel crazy, alive again, and wanting all the more to keep the weight off and even lose the last 10 pounds. Find something that makes you passionate about life again. With that passion will come the realization that it will also necessitate being thin. Do a marathon. Get, heaven forbid, into a swim suit and join a swim team. Join dance groups. Join a choir. Whatever makes you breathe heavy (LOL) and some wonderful fantasy you have nurtured your whole life. Well, that is how I plan to stay motivated and forget that I cannot have those canapes at the next ****tail party. You seem like such a passionate person, I know you can step outside of yourself and skate on the edge. Good luck. It is all in our heads, but then, you already know that. I have gotten so many tips and inspiration from you on my own trip down weight-loss lane, so I thank you and I so want to see you continue to succeed and continue to love your new life.

You are right of course, staying motivated at almost three years out is harder and I am now used to being skinny.  I do need to find a new hobby that involves movement.  I like your idea of Latin dancing.  I would look into belly dancing too, but I no longer have a belly.  :)

I hear you!!  I was just saying today that the further out I am ...the harder it is.  A friend of mine just got sleeved about 2 months ago and she isn't hungry at all...like I was at that stage.  I wish that was still the case but sadly it is not!  I have to work at this everyday!    But it is worth it...it feels good to be healthy and I don't ever want to go back to the way it was before.  I guess good things are worth working hard at and this is one of those good things!
You by the way...always look fabulous!

hugs
Patty

Thank you, you look fabulous too.  I am bringing a new person who is considering VSG to group on Wednesday.  I can get motivated through seeing this through their eyes.  Sometimes I just get tired of being good and doing the right thing, sometimes, I just want to be BAD.  I say this as I am drinking my skinny chai latte and plan on snacking on carrot sticks later.  So much for my rebellion.