Was my goal too ambitious?

Best thing is to get a dexascan for bodyfat testing. They are very helpful, especially as you get closer to goal. When you have been obese, sometimes it is hard to know. Laura is right, skin doesn't weigh a lot but could still be 5lbs of the 10 you think you need to lose. If you look at my page, you can see where I wrote about my first experience with one. I have had several, as well as metabolism testing. All valuable.

While no coffee or tea is great if that is your desire, not necessarily making any difference in weight loss.

I do understand the need for carbs with hard workouts, but you didn't mention your protein numbers. That is important for muscle and weight loss. You are really just trying to maintain muscle during weight loss. Lean Body Mass doesn't go up during a calorie deficit. Your Body fat% goes down because there is less of it hanging on that lean body mass...but it is not from actually increasing muscle for the most part.

The closer you get to 'goal' the less quick movement you will see. I always suggest just changing it up in our choices and making sure we are getting enough fat. We need them too. I might lay off the nuts, they are too easy to overeat on. I didn't add them until maintenance.

I would agree with the DEXA scan idea. I went in a year ago, at 146.6 lbs, because I was trying to determine a good maintenance weight for myself. I was thinking I had another 10-15 lbs to go. The tech said no - I was already there. My body fat was 22%, putting me in the lean category for women. I'm pretty muscular (and also have a large frame). That extra "fat" was just skin. I suspect since you work out a lot, your muscle percentage is pretty high as well, so you may very well be at a good maintenance weight. A DEXA - or one of the other fairly reliable tests they do - would tell you a lot.

Presumably your protein is in a reasonable range for your lean mass and activity - probably in the low 100-ish range (my target is a nominal 105 to support a lean mass of around 150lb.) You may well be close to your maintenance level; did you do any intake tracking before surgery and have any idea what your overall metabolism was at that time? That can give you a good clue as to what your maintenance caloric level should be. Just based uppn your average loss since surgery,

I think that you should have some more to go but are stuck for some reason as you seem to have a decent metabolism to lose at that rate. I started at a similar SW and height to yours and was at the same place as you at six months, but was starting to ramp up the intake to slow things down as I was within 10lb of goal with a month to go at an avg loss of 10lb per month, so I was slowing things down, and took another two months to drop that last 10. I lost fine in the 1100 calorie range (that guy metabolism thing) and maintain at around 2100, depending upon avg activity levels; pre-op I was stable at around 2600.

Getting a Dexascan, if it is reasonably available where you are, is a good idea to see where you are at this point; my goals were more based upon body composition than scale weight - targeting a mid teens BF%. If you have a body comp scale at home, it can work okay if you account for the body comp figures being hydration sensitive - weigh the same time of day, preferably late afternoon before dinner when hydration is usually best, and average over several days. See how that compares to a Dexascan (or a water dunking or BodPod if that isn't available) and you can use the scale for a quickie indication of progress in between more accurate readings on more expensive machines.

The standard "cut the carbs" advice that we get here is worth a try, as the normal loss in water weight from glycogen loss may trigger some additional real loss (though count on gaining back tha****er weight when you normalize your diet.) You may or may not notice any objectionable changes to your energy levels, and if you are particularly active that can have a negative impact on your loss efforts - it's all a big YMMV thing, so try different things and see what works for you (I couldn't afford the potential side effects of those diets so never went that way.)

I was able to keep carbs down to 28 total, 17 net. My calories were high due to my meat choices. 4oz of ribeye for lunch and smoked wings for dinner. I'll probably do it in two stages.

Lowering carbs stage one. And then cut 100 calories out every couple of days until I'm back down to 800.

Thanks for all the input y'all!

Oh, and I lost 3 pounds since Monday!