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First what happened to you is normal. After weight loss surgery you put your body into a starvation mode. The weight comes off effortlessly, but your body feels like it is being starved and it fights back by learning how to hold on to more of the calories that you do feed it. Most people do great for two years but then gain back 20 or 30 pounds in year three after the surgery.
There is only one way to loss that weight again and it is by eating less calories than you burn. The formula is pretty easy. Decide what you want to weigh and then multiply it by ten. That is the number of calories to eat every day until you are at that weight. When you are back to your goal weight, you may need to add more calories to stop losing.
I have lost about 35 pounds that way but it took me two years. I went to daily online Weigh****cher meetings and got a lot of education and inspiration from that group. It was expensive and took time and work, but it accomplished what I needed to do. Exercise is great and following some diet plans can be healthy but only reducing calories will get that weight off again.
Real life begins where your comfort zone ends
Hi there. I hope you all are well.
I'm here because I've been struggling. I've gained almost 40lbs and I have tried everything to get it back off and I just keep gaining. I've tried restricting calories, diet meds, you name it.
Do any of you have any advice on how I can get back on track? Id really hate for this surgery to have been a waste. I'm sad and struggling right now.
on 6/2/23 3:23 am
Good morning,
Congrats on making it through surgery. I hope your recovery has gone well.
A few things. You threw your body for a loop when you had surgery, and you're still healing. You've probably seen this advice but don't compare your journey to anyone else's. Your journey will be unique to you. A lot of people say to put the scale away for the first month.
All of that to say, none of your processes are the same, now. I literally asked my clinic the same question because I was losing faster pre-op than I did post-surgery. I lost 12 pounds the first month afterward, which I was happy with but doesn't track against all the 30 pound loss stories you see posted on socials. My clinic told me at that follow up that I was a slow loser...though it didn't end up that way in the long run.
You also have to factor in your starting weight, how much you lost during pre-op, etc. If you lost a significant amount leading in, there might be a slow start. Or you might just be a slow loser. And post surgery, we all lose differently. In previous cycles where I lost 100+ pounds, it was a steady loss. After the initial few months for surgery, it was stop and start until I got sick...few pounds of loss and three week stalls.
If you stay the course and keep on plan, you'll see the results. As you said, going from 4k calories to where you are now...it can't be anything otherwise. It's definitely a marathon rather than a sprint, though. You might have lost the weight without surgery but keeping it off is the difference!
Best wishes.
HW 282, LW 123.4 (8/29/23), CW 144.4
Pre-op-33, M1-12, M2-17, M3-14, M4-11, M5-14, M6-5, M7-6, M8-5, M9-22, M10-6, M11-5, M12-2, M13-2, M14-5
Hi, I'm from the Dominican Republic. I had a similar operation and I understand how important it is to be ready to go back to school. I was able to more or less return to my studies after 3 weeks. I recommend that you seek help right away. I asked the teachers to provide me with lecture notes, and I had a friend who helped me with my homework. He showed me a website that was created to help for students, and that eased my problems a little. In addition, there I found an article about immigration
Good morning,
Don't forget to check out the last episode of our Q&A Section.
You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/UytUPCKG_Do
Regards.
Dr. Alvarez
Greetings,
So I finally had my sleeve surgery 3 weeks ago and while there has been weight loss, it hasn't really been what I expected.
I don't have unrealistic expectations, but I expected to lose more weight than if I just did it on my own without the surgery with little calorie intake and some activity like with doing Optifast prior. Or just eating healthy (which I wasn't doing) and going for a walk everyday.
Perhaps it takes a month to really get things going, but I am hardly really eating anything when compared to the 4,000 calories+ a day I was eating that got me this way. I do eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I am not starving myself - but I am not yet in the solid food phase yet.
I have sort of reprogrammed my brain and I am not really craving the things now that made me obese. Now granted I know I JUST had the surgery and don't know how things will be 4 months from now, but I am just sort of wondering in the back of my mind if the surgery was really necessary in the sense that I maybe could have lost the same amount of weight if I finally just stuck to living a better life when it comes to food and my health.
I would appreciate any feedback from anyone else where weight loss started a bit slow even with having a smaller stomach now or feedback in general.
Thanks!
FW
Good morning,
Don't forget to check out the new episode of the #AskDrA Show.
You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/cKV2n4BGhOc
Regards
Dr. Alvarez
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Good morning,
Don't forget to check out the new testimonial video on our Youtube channel out now.
You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/Zzf_rRSiPLw
Regards.
Dr. Alvarez
