How to stop losing weight!!!

I am 12 months and 3 weeks out. At my highest I was 311 and 5'11". I have lost 145 lbs and I am down to 168 which is far below my 180 goal. I don't know how to stop losing. I think I am eating "bad" and I turn around and lose a lb that week. I feel good at what I am at but don't know how to stop losing. HELP!!

I had a similar issue when it was time to stop losing weight.  I was so good at weight loss and so fearful of regain, that I kept a tight reign on what I ate, and continued to lose. 

Just adding calories wasn't doing it, because I was not adding healthy foods, so I finally decided to add an extra meal per day.  This way I was adding healthy food rather than just trying to add calories.  My meals consist of 4 ounces of a dense protein and low carb veggies, and run between 250 and 400 calories per meal.  So adding another meal worked out well for me.  Plus, when I start to gain a little, I just cut back to three meals per day and the weight loss starts up again - very slowly, but it works.

This is good in theory, and I try to follow it, but I do get lured into eating off plan and then needing to cut back again.  I don't want to give anyone the impression that it is easy!  Maintenance takes the same effort and diligence as weight loss.

Lots of people said the transition to maintenance was easy, but it wasn't for me. 

Congratulations on your wonderful success and exceeding your goal weight. 

Carol

That looks like a great way to transition Carol. If you can't add another meal you can always add just a little more at each meal sticking to healthy foods. It is very easy to add a cookie here or a scoop of ice cream, just as a little treat, and before you know it fall off the good habits.

Actually, adding a little more healthy food per meal didn't work for me because I was already eating my fill of healthy foods at my meals.  I never considered adding cookies and ice cream - not with my carb addiction!  So the extra meal was a good solution for me. 

best wishes,

Carol

The reason Weigh****chers became a multi-million dollar idea was that they took a diet and then introduce a maintenance phase.  You lost your weight and then added back foods to be in maintenance.

After a few years I realized that the same people (and I was one of them) showed up every spring with the same 20 or 30 pounds to lose again.

If you continue on your food plan your body will stop losing weight on its own.  For about a year you might look too skinny.  Then you body will go into what we call Bounceback mode.  It will quickly start to regain weight because it has decided it needs to recover from the starvation of the surgery.  This happens between month 24 and month 36.  It is the reason why it is so common to see people being too skinny during their second year after surgery and so rare to see anyone too skinny after three years.

It is possible to avoid the Bounceback if you are diligent with your food tracking and with weighing yourself daily.  My surgeon recommends dropping an extra ten, twenty or even thirty pounds during the honeymoon phase.  Then you have a cushion for the Bounceback.

Your body will stop losing on its own and you will not disappear.  I enjoyed my year of wearing size zero jeans and tiny bikinis.  it was fun to be too skinny after years of being too fat.  By month 33 I was back at Weigh****chers desperately looking to stop the regain.

THIS!  If you never follow a single other piece of advice from this site, follow this one.  This is what worked for me as well.  My goal was 150, but I didn't change my eating when I got there, and continued to lose down to 132, which was pretty skinny for someone 5'7".  (Especially when you consider that about 10-12 lbs were loose skin.) As White Dove said, I loved being this skinny, although I knew it wouldn't last.  I drifted up to 135-137 and stayed there for probably 18-24 months, then drifted up again to around 143, which is where I am today at 5 years out.  The additional calories came from normal healthy meals and snacks, just larger portions due to increased capacity.  For me (and I suspect for most of us), adding carbs to halt weight loss would have awakened the Carb Monster, who is VERY difficult to corral once it starts raging.

You just have to grin-and-bear-it if others tell you you're too skinny. You probably will be (although I suspect that our faces become gaunt, then fill out again in the process, without much change in weight). That will pass.

You won't have this worry for long. If you continue eating "bad" trying to stop losing, you absolutely, positively will start to gain. Then you will not be able to stop gaining, and then you'll be posting about being depressed because you are at 200 pounds again.

Read White Dove's excellent advice again.

12 lbs doesn't seem "far below your goal" to me.  I think it's a good comfort zone area.  My goal at 5' 6" was 150.  I hover around 137 which doesn't feel too skinny at all.  I'm working to stay in this range at 16 months post op.  I have no plan of adding extra calories to get up to 150. 

First I want to say congratulations on getting that excess weight off!  You've done a great job so far!  Maintenance begins with a period of transition, which can go on for many months before you find your perfect weight. 

Unless there's some medical reason you've been given to keep your weight higher, you've likely still got lots of room to healthily continue to lose weight, so there's nothing to worry about in that regard. But with that said, an easy way to add some calories without adding much volume is to add fat. For example full fat cheeses, nuts and rich sauces are easy adds and easy to take out if you need to do that later on. 

The most important thing for you to be doing until you stabilize your weight is to carefully track your portions and calories so that you can fully understand how much you consistently need to eat to keep your weight stable.  And when I say stable, I really mean not gaining because your sleeve will relax a little more as you get further out, which means you will eat slightly larger portions and not know it if you don't track it later on. 

Regarding the concept of bounce back weight, I can see how it applies to RNY patients when their malabsorption fades, but I've never been convinced it applies to VSG patients. I'm open to changing my mind, but so far, every person I've seen here talk about bounce back weight seems to have started eating more and experienced good old garden variety 'regain' as opposed to 'bounce back' (which I understand happens with no caloric change).