Hello all!

I'm 4 years out of VSG surgery and have right side pain, not in my stomach but my actual side, it's like a dull ache that comes and goes. Does anyone have this going? The doctors can't find anything wrong. They try to tell me it's a pulled muscle, well it's not. I've had this for over a year now. I've had ultra sounds and x- rays, nothing. Please help..... thank you!

Hi there. I had to get real with myself and get back to measuring and making sure that I stayed honest with what I was entering into my fitness pal and not under estimating how much I was eating. I try to stay between 800 & 1000 calories a day. I don't do no carbs but I watch my total carbs and just work to keep those as low as possible. I make sure to log everything into my fitness pal to try to stay accountable, I have well over 2000 consecutive days logged at this point.

Your sense about the TDEE (and BMR, basal, or resting, metabolic rate) calculators is correct - you can't trust them. They are good at telling us what our metabolism should be but not what it actually is. Unfortunately our trip through obesity land means that ,our metabolism often isn't what it should be, which is why it is usually so difficult to lose weight. Our WLS should help to correct that to varying degrees, depending upon procedure, technique and individual quirks.

A professional will gauge your metabolism in a couple of different ways. Typically a nutritionist may use a body composition scale, or its analog, a pair of handles that you grip to determine your fat mass, lean mass, etc., from which can be derived a BMR figure, which can be only slightly better than the online calculators, as it still uses mathematical algorithms based upon averages of normal people. There is also a Vox test that can be done where you breath into a device and it determines your metabolic rate from your respiration, but it too, is algorithmically based upon normal people, but is it is more individualized.

The best method that I have come up with to get your individual needs is to track your intake for a couple of months, with MFP or one of the other tracking apps or programs, and take your average daily intake (which hopefully is relatively consistent.) Is your weight stable in that time; gaining, losing? If it's stable then you have a decent ballpark figure for your own total metabolism, and you can work from there. Classically, if you can cut 500 calories per day from that figure, that should lead you to an average loss of about a pound a week, or five pounds per month. If your metabolism is way off, then you may not lose quite that fast, but it gives you a reference point. My metabolism wasn't too bad when I was losing after my VSG, as I was losing around 10 lb per month at about 1100 calories per day as I was nearing goal weight, which works out to my total metabolism being somewhere around 2100. Sure enough, as I ramped things up to go into maintenance, I wound up right in the 2000-2200 calorie range. YMMV, but it does give you a ballpark reference point.

Good luck on bringing it back down,

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Going to the gym to lose weight, but the scale shows again? Don't panic! You're not alone - studies show that this happens to many people very often. It even occurred to me, but a couple of things helped me. Best nootropics redditt was the first thing that helped me. After exercise, there are biochemical reactions in the muscle cells that draw in extra water - hence the weight gain. Muscles regenerate in this way, and this is normal.