Well...... I am back...

Hi Kids! I just got back home not too long ago. It was a fun trip and overall very good. Kinda left confused though on what I need to do now with calories etc.. not sure I am any clearer than before.. argh. My BMR is 1681! Much higher than I expected and higher than average for people of my age and weight. Most are under 1500.. so that was exciting, I attribute that to the exercise that I do. Because I know preop there is no way I was above average on metabolism. So this would be how many calories I specifically burn just sitting still do NOTHING else. Pretty amazing eh? If you include a "light activity" lifestyle and no exercise I supposedly could eat up to 2300 calories and maintain my weight. I know you guys are thinking "yeah right".. I am too. The training that did this test with me is also the director of the gym and very knowledgeable on these tests and says they are extremely accurate reguardless of your past medical history, surgery, medications you might be on ect. He realizes that I don't eat that much nor am I supposed to. He says most people do this test to figure out where the need to be tho calorie wise to lose weight. So he asks me what I am doing for calories.. I say 1200. His eyes get wide.. he says wow.. well no wonder u are losing, you are at a serious calorie deficit, even more so with your exercise added in there. He thinks I need to bring my calories up to 1600 minimally or I will end up making my metabolism slow over time b/c it will get used to 1200. Then if I ever eat more than that, I will gain. SO hes saying up the calories now to avoid weight gain in the future, why bring my BMR down now and suffer later.. makes sense to me but then... I take this info to the PA at my doc's office. The PA honestly doesn't know what to think, shes glad I am "higher than average" but not sure it can apply to us (I knew this would what she would say sigh). I told her that I have been eating 1200 calories a day on average the past 2 months and have lost over 10 lbs. So she understands this is still allowing me to lose weight but feels the weight loss will slow down. When I asked her about my BMR getting lower in time if I don't eat more now.. she says she can see that to some extent but she just isn't sure.. she was interested in this test though just couldn't give me clear cut answers even tho this is specific to ME. I also did one where I ran on a treadmill and found out that I am a very efficient fat metabolizer but a terrible carbohydrate metabolizer.. gee I knew that! But I guess they have never seen someone burn carbs so badly and fats so well... I burn 88% fat and 12% carbs on average.. nuts. They said I obviously know my body b/c I always tend to keep carbs down and fats a bit higher than I should as well as protein.. that is exactly what they would recommend for me. And only whole grain sources of carbs if I eat them. Whew. doing good there. Soooo you guys what are your thoughts???? I would love your feedback! As for my labs they are EXCELLENT! They were stellar other than my gall bladder (total bilirubin) is way high again and higher than at 6 months so I see my PCP tomorrow and we will discuss a possible ultrasound tomorrow to see if my gall bladder is bad. I have a feeling it will be Not worried about the surgery but I am worried about the fact that I am to go on a cruise with some other WLS pt's at the end of January and how I am gonna get it all figured out. I would hate to get it out before yet I would hate to put it off and have a problem at sea when insurance isn't really accepted and be on a boat far from land. So lets just see what the ultrasound says and go from there. Hope all is well.. I am busy making christmas cookies and wrapping up gifts we bought this week! Tomorrow night we judge the christmas lights in our town, should be fun. I missed you guys as always!!! Hugs!

Hi Melissa, Nice to have you back and glad you had a good trip. Wow...what a lot of confusing information they gave you! Sounds like a very thorough test and so much information that they gleaned from it though. I'd definitely give the higher calories a try for awhile as a test and see how it goes. What you were told about your metabolism getting used to the lower calories and then causing a future gain from eating more is pretty similar to what my doctor's bariatric coordinator has told us at past support group meetings. She says that after RNY our bodies get accustomed to the lowered calorie amount and become efficient at getting the energy we need from that amount. Then when we are further down the line post-op and eat more we gain much more weight than a non-op would with same type of calorie increase. Hence the reason so many people who fall away from their support groups have a regain problem...they lose focus and begin to eat more than they are supposed to. Hope the cooking and wrapping has gone well. I made 8 batches of fudge this week for a cookie exchange with ladies from work. We are going to Olive Garden for lunch tomorrow after work. I had fun making the fudge, the house smelled so good. But! Found out that I can't even eat less than 1/2 tsp. of it because it gave me dumping that I thought I'd want to die from. I wasn't 'testing'...I honestly thought that a teensy, teensy little amount like that wouldn't be a problem at all. Wrong! (Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE MY RNY???!!! LOL!) Time for me to make another batch of your protein fudge...it has been a saviour for me the last week. From here on out, this will be my December treat. Thank you so much for finding and sharing this recipe with all of us here! Hugs, hugs, hugs! Hope your gallbladder will behave until after the cruise, it would be awful to be healing when you are trying to be having fun. Have you had any 'attacks' from it? My mom and sister have sure suffered with theirs over the years. At least Mom was able to get hers out, my sister can't afford it and has to be so careful of her diet to avoid that awful pain. I sure haven't missed my gallbladder since '99. It was all full of crystals so it would only have been a matter of time before it started misbehaving. So how difficult was it to find someone who does this testing and how do you judge who is the best person to do it? Even though I don't exercise formally like you or Terry this sure sounds like an interesting way to figure out how to keep healthy and not put back the excess weight. Molly

Hi Molly! Well I am still not sure what I am gonna do, its gonna take some thinking. Today/tonight was a bad eating day.. I will just leave it at that It wasn't good at all.. maybe 2k in calories.. not sure what gets into me.. I still have issues with food.. that is for sure. So back on track tomorrow.. gotta face my demons and be transparent and state it here for everyone to see. Nobody is perfect including me. I didn't eat any of the cookies but just being around them I think.. the smells actually did trigger me.. really bothers me too b/c I love to bake but tonight it lead me to eat a couple more muffins (pk), power crunch bar.. soy nuts.. sweet salty.. sweet salty.. so not good Why do I do that? argh... Glad my fudge i****ting the spot for you this year, it is pretty good stuff and as far as I am concerned a close second to the real thing. I honestly can't even make it, I want to eat too much of it if I do Issues? yes.. I got them. "tomorrow.... tomorrow.... I'll be better tomorrow.... its only a day away....." As for finding someone to do the test.. if you google new leaf or newleaf it will come up for you then you can do a zipcode search. This guy was recommended by a friend of mine, he is just the head trainer/gym director of a wellness center at a hospital in iowa. See if you can find one near you.. I think its well worth the money... usually between 60-70 dollars and then once u get the equipment its 20 to retest after that. Not bad at all. Hugs, Melissa

Hi girl and welcome home. When I saw a frowny face before i clicked on your post, i thought is was bad news for a second. in reality, though that is excellent news and i am not at all surprised. seriously, before i gained all this weight by eating probably more than 4000cal/day, i was easily eating 2000 cals a day (was not really counting), w/very light and not very regular exercise and still easily maintaining my 130-135lbs size 4 figure. i think following our doctors' instructions to eat 600-800cals/day, 1200 for life to maintain, etc. messed with our brains to a point that we are shocked when we discover that we sould be eating 2000 or more just to maintain but in fact it is perfectly normal for women our age (i'm 32, you are around 30, if i remember correctly) who are thin and are not trying to gain or loose any weight. the good news is you don't need to feel guilty about eating 2k cals a day. what you call a "bad" day is, in reality a perfectly healthy day for you. in fact, you could easily eat 200-300 cals more and still be absolutely fine. and look, you are not the only one, Terry R eats 2000 plus cals regularly and has no problem maintaining and, god knows, as soon as i loose those last 10lbs and also have my BMR tested, i'll happily up my cals to 2000 or whatever is optimal w/my BMR. the bad new is..easier said than done. it's very easy for me to tell you--girl, you made it!!! congrats--now sit back, relax, eat your 2000cals with moderate exercise and enjoy every bite and cincirely believe it,--after all, it's a scientific fact. However, i have issues too, as you know, and in reality freak out myself when my daily calories intake goes over 1200-1400, expect to step on a scale and see 20lbs gain and then am shocked whe nothing happens or, wonder of wonders, the scale actually drops. all i can say, again, congrats on you wonderful results--you worked hard and deserve to be a skinny beautiful girl with high metabolism that you now are--even if it takes a while for you to get used to the idea. i'm right behind you in this whole thinking process. i mean, i still see someone chubby when i look in the mirror and, in reality, my BMI is 121.5 and i'm size 2. i still want to loose 10lbs to allow room for a little re-gain but even if i never make it to personal goal and just maintain the weight i am now, 125lbs at 5'4 is not fat or chubby or even remotely overweight. i know that intellectually and hope my stupid brain catches up to reality eventually. i know i'll still be slightly OCD about food, counting calories, etc. for at least another year or so and very mindful about what i eat and exercise for life. but i'll be damned if i don't learn to enjoy myself. love, Nat

oh, i also want to add that the guy who performed that test on you was probably right when he said that if you keep eating 1200 cals a day, your metabilism will slow down. it makes perfect sense--so increase those cals, girl. just to be on the safe side, you may want to make most of those cals either protein of fat cals and, than, after a few weeks up the carbs. then, if you see the scale go down even more (which it will since you are still not consuming enough), up the carbs or whatever you are craving again. i'm going to try to do the same after i get rid of those last 10 lbs and have my BMR measured. let us know how it goes--we are all rooting for you. for me personally, you are a huge inspiration because you are already below goal and have lost so much more than i did. those last 10lbs off and, then, hopefully, it's on to the land of 115lbs skinny chick eating 2000 cals/a day

Thanks Natalie.. glad it all makes sense to you also.. it does to me but again afraid just like you said. I'm so so scared of going back to obesity but I need to take a leap of faith and try just getting those cals up.. but guess what.. I weighed 140 clothed at the doctor. Not what I wanted honestly and the doc said 135 was his revised goal so I haven't met thier new goal yet on their scale clothed in the middle of the day haha... So I talked some more.. the determined my bone frame is on the smaller side and for me to actually shoot for 130-135 and stop there for sure. So I guess I am still in weight loss mode for a bit longer.. my scale says 133-136 depending on the day (I will go buy 130 on my own scale). and then I will work on full fledge maintenance. I just hope the math figures out with us the same as it does for non op people.. ya know? Guess toying with the cals is the only way to see.. I sure don't want to lower my metabolism this much I do know. That would be sooo detremental later and what a crazy stupid thing to do after all this hard work.. thanks again Natalie! Btw.. went to the doc today.. was told I have true OCD to a mild extnent (duh) and put on zoloft when I asked for something for my "anxiety".

Thank you! I found two of them in town less than 8 miles away from me. Too cool!! It feels like a good time for a short nap and then maybe some baking for me this time. I need another batch of PK's protein muffins and also some of that 'fudge'. After the cookie swap today the family is well covered for their Christmas treats. Now it is time for mom to get some! So sorry that being around the goodies bothered you. Those are demons we are going to have to face down the rest of our lives. It looks like DH got a job so I went to Williams-Sonoma today after our cookie exchange and spent a little bit too much money without much guilt. Got a nonstick aebelskiver pan, some Christmas pancake molds and some hand lotion. I will have fun making the cottage cheese pancakes into aebelskivers. Talk about a treat!!! I already had one of those pans but it isn't nonstick and there is NO WAY I'm gonna make up those cottage cheese pancakes with the massive amount of butter it takes to use a standard aebelskiver pan. Yikes, just thinking about it makes my gut cramp from the fat. BTW...did you know that Olive Garden has on their dessert menu a NO SUGAR ADDED molten choolate dessert with STRAWBERRIES!? Do you know how much willpower it took not to order it???? Yeah Molly, yeah Molly!!!!

Hey Molls, glad you were able to find a couple centers near you.. its so worth the money! I think anyways.. I need to make more PK muffins myself. This last batch didn't taste as sweet to me.. kinda concerned me that my sweet sensor is requiring more sweet taste.. then I realized I forgot to put any cinnamon in them this time I am hoping that is all it is! I am SOOO glad to hear your husband got a job! Is it one he wanted? Are you happy about that??? Sounds like.. mmmmm I love williams-sonoma and so glad you treated yourself, you deserve it!!! That olive garden dessert sounds devine but after having a piece of banana NAS cake at starbucks and looking up the info online afterwards to find out the thing had 45 grams of fat and like a million carbs.. I steer clear of all those desserts unless I make them myself now.. its always too good to be true I find. Good job resisting.. Your will power is contagious and I appreciate seeing you do well, it helps me so much when I have a bad day like yesterday.. today is sooooo much better.. whew. Hugs!

Hey Melissa, I just got my RMR done this morning. My RMR is 1303 Kcal/day with 8% carbs, 64% fat, 27% protein. I still need to sort through the info, but looks like I can up my caloric intake and still maintain once I hit goal...SOON. I had hoped it would be higher, but was happy that it wasn't 500 or something!!

Hi Kristi! Wow look at all of us getting this test done, shows we aren't just gonna sit back and be told "everyone will eat this calorie amount" and I think that is a *good* thing, we are each different.. different ages, sexes, races, metabolisms, jobs, activity levels, etc.. it needs to be tailored to each of us individually and this test helps us do just that. At least you know that you can safely eat to 1300 (supposedly) and even a bit beyond depending on your exercise level and activity levels. I am surprised to see you so low on carbs, mine did not break down protein amounts only fats and carbs. We both are bad carb metabolizers it looks like.. I wonder what it will be like in 6 months and if there is any keytones being blow off our breath as we might still have sort of ketosis going on. I would imagine we do and are still in the losing phase somewhat. Congrats on getting your test done, I think this info is good to have and knowledge is power and helps us to be successful for the long term! Hugs!