still losing

Surgery 6/4/14.  Height 5'3". Start weight 220.  Goal weight 130. Current weight 126. Size 6!!!!

I'm thrilled with my results, but would like to stop losing. I hit my goal weight in May but have continued to lose slowly. I'm not too thin yet but if this continues I will be. On the other hand I am terrified of gaining it back. I've been attempting to eat more high calorie healthy foods and increase my volume but am still losing. Last night I decided to have some ice cream to get in more calories. This is a scary place to be in! Anyone have advice/experience with my situation?

I had a similar experience where I reached my goal and continued to lose weight.  I was terrified of regain, so I was very careful on how to add the calories back into my diet.  My program wanted me eating only three meals a day, but when I tried adding calories to those meals, it was not the healthiest stuff.  So I decided to add a 4th meal of the same quality as my usual three.  (I eat 3 to 4 ounces of dense protein and a small serving of healthy low carb veggies per meal.)  This worked for me better than just adding calories to my meals. 

 Someone suggested adding 100 calories to your daily intake and maintaining it for a week.  And then repeating this until the weight loss stabilizes.   This seemed like a good strategy to me, and I did it for a while, before shifting to my 4-meal-a-day strategy.

Best of luck with maintenance, and congratulations on reaching and exceeding goal!  Great job working that sleeve.

Carol

 

Great advice about adding a high quality 4th meal. :)

Two pieces of advice.

1. Don't go the ice cream route. Very slippery slope. That is the route I took and it was opening Pandora's Box. End result 3 years later is a significant regain (30+ pounds) which I am now after a lot of help taking off. For me it has turned out with a positive, but it's not a road I'd recommend anyone follow me down!

2. Rather than increasing volume, which will happen naturally all by itself without conscious help from you, try adding another meal to your day. I have done that (even during my current weight loss phase). I went out with some VSG friends this week and it was commented on that I still had a nice small sleeve given what I ate. I think keeping restriction to its maximum is a really good idea.

Great suggestions by Carol and Kairk.....

I will add:

#1- Your "Golden", congrats on the great work !!!

You DO NOT have a problem, your exactly perfect !!!

There is three basic ways to increase.

- Quantity

- Content

- Frequency

My suggestion would be to NOT increase Quantity, keep your sleeve nice and tight for the long run, because it's all about the long haul !!!

Increase content by adding fats, like sauces, avocado, nuts, cheese, dairy.... a blob of mayo or salad dressing is 100cals.

And like suggested adding another meal.

Keep the meals small, play with Content or frequency and add fiber !!!

Again, your in the perfect position to go into controlled maintenance !!!

PM me if you have any questions.

frisco

i did this too, don't do the ice cream.  add higher fat items like nuts and cheese or 1 percent milk. . it will turn around. add about 100 calories per day each wee****il you find your maintenance level.   congrats on reaching goal.  diane

I agree with the others in that you're gonna have to play with the numbers till you find the right amount of calories without gaining/losing. I heard that maintenance is a real challenge. I'll be glad when I finally get there.

Definitely don't go the simple carb, ice cream route, I think you know where that leads. Adding a 4th meal sounds like a good idea, & cheese has plenty of calories in itself without all the carbs. Increasing veggies, protein & re introducing some fruit is the way I would go if I needed to increase my calories. I never seem to have a problem with that though.

Thanks for the suggestions. When I say that I am increasing the volume of food I eat, I didn't mean in one sitting.  I  am eating small amounts at a time,  but more often, kind of like a fourth meal or snack. I needed to hear that advice about staying away from ice cream, etc! I thought it might be a bad idea. I have already begun eating full fat dairy, nuts, avocados, etc. I guess I'll just keep trying to eat quality food a little more often and monitor my weight closely. It's really weird to be trying to eat more. Scary! 

Trying to manipulate some sort of maintenance is a slippery slope.  Just keep doing what you are doing, your body will stop losing when it's ready.  You are nowhere near the low end of normal, let alone near underweight.

Our body is cleverer than most people give it credit for ....   I have seen way more success with people who wait for their body to decide maintenance than those who try to stick to some arbitrary weight.  

If it helps, I can count on one hand the number of people who kept losing to underweight (without some underlying physical or mental health issue) and I have been here a long time!!!!  Regainers are more common than long term (5-10 year) maintainers in my anecdotal experience too.

Keep it simple!