Successful vets

Hi, Vegbeth. I think you know my general maintenance regimen, but I'll throw out the basics here anyway:

1. I weigh every morning.

2. I track all my food / drink daily on My Fitness Pal.

3. Based on 18 months of MFP records while maintaining at 135 pounds, I have averaged 1,725 calories/day and 90 grams of protein/day.

4. Approximately 75% of my calories come from nutritious foods -- protein (both animal and plant), vegetables, fruits, whole grains -- and the other 25% of my calories are foods with less or little nutritious value, e.g., wine, dark chocolate, biscotti, etc.

5. If that sounds undisciplined, it's not. I'm very controlling in how I shop, how I store and display food at home, what I eat, where I eat, when I eat, etc. I only rarely eat any fast foods.

6. I continue to follow assiduously the "eating rules" I learned as a new WLS patient, e.g., no drinking with meals, eating protein first, eating slowly, chewing well, eating small bites, etc.

7. I still work hard to get at least 64 ounces of water and other liquids every day.

8. I also take all my vitamins, minerals, a thyroid Rx, an antacid Rx (Ranitadine), and several other dietary supplements.

9. Yes, I do celebrate with food, on vacations and (less often) at holidays. Hubby and I just returned from a 13-day cruise. I enjoyed champagne and desserts, in addition to small servings of highly nutritious "slow food" that the cruise line we frequent specializes in.

10. I don't suffer from binge eating disorder. Nor do I think I have a "food addiction," although that could be a matter of semantics, since I realize that if I ate a greater proportion of non-nutritious foods I would surely crave sweet and savory "slider foods" I was warned against early on.

11. The most weight I've gained during a weeks-long vacation is 3 pounds. When we come home I immediately eliminate the 25% of my daily calories that are non-nutritious foods, and the extra weight is gone in a couple of weeks.

12. I exercise 5 days a week (yoga class, aquarobics, walking) and am extremely active three seasons a year working on our property. Today, for instance, I went to yoga class and came home to mow 5 acres. I'll sleep good tonight. ;)

13. I've been seeing a therapist for almost 3 years (beginning 3 months pre-op). He is experienced in working with bariatric patients and has been a great resource in helping me focus on my "next phases" of weight loss and weight maintenance. He has also helped me to navigate and manage some major life transitions and other stressful aspects of my life without using food to assuage my discomforts. I sincerely wish all bariatric patients had access to a great therapist.

That's how I'm handling maintenance thus far. If you have ANY questions or want to share anything about your own maintenance plans, please PM me here. I'd love to hear how you decide to tackle this. Best wishes to you!

Depends on your surgery. I have the DS, I allow myself daily treats. However, I have malabsorbtion. It is my guard against regain.

If you cannot stop with just 1 treat or feel that having a treat will cause you to overeat, I'd say do not have treats. I had the DS, because I know I tended to overeat before surgery and I didn't want to regain.

Scottie. Can you elaborate on something for me please? My understanding is that even the DS can be outeaten when too many refined carbs are consumed. What constitutes your "daily treats"? and am I incorrect? I know a handful of people who have not had success with the DS and the carb things seems to be a factor for every one of them.

Your thoughts? Also I can't remember your surgery date. How far out are you right now?

It is really hard to outeat the DS (at least the traditional DS). But this is a YMMV thing.

I can eat whatever I want. I initially lost 300 lbs....over 11 years out I had regained 20 lbs (less than the 10 to 15 percent bound back). I started low carbing again and it came off. I'm back to eating whatever I want again.

I have a short common channel (75cm). Although my labs are good, I know a lot of doctors do not like to do this short a common channel anymore.

HOWEVER (big however) I do not drink my calories. I usually eat between 4k to 5k calories a day (some days as high as 8k some days as low as 3k),

Scott

The calories you consume daily though - what % of that is protein? fat? complex carbs?

Can you share what you might eat on an average day to get to the 4,000 to 5,000 calories?

I'm kind of pushing I know but want to illustrate that although you can eat many, many more calories than those of us with other surgeries, (several of the long term vet non-DS vets limit daily calories to under 12000* or so and many even less than that) , the majority of your food isn't complex carbs. Or maybe it is and I need to be educated.

You mention the need to go lower carb to lose your regain. And now you are back to eating whatever you want. At 11 years out, what does that look like?

edit: that should be 1200 per day and not 12,000. Oh my.

Ok. This took some work! I'm not logging my food right now. I never count calories- it's only a "side effect" of logging in my carbs when I do. So I had to actually put things into my fitness pal and get the totals for you. I do eat out a lot, I work a on the road so sometimes I do not get a chance to cook:

Breakfast:
Taco/egg plate: 920 calories it had 70 carbs, 52 grams of fat, and 43 grams of protein

Lunch (sorry I ate a lot of little things and I don't want to type it all in here)

643 calories, 47 carbs, 34 grams of fat, 49 grams of protein

Dinner: Oliver garden chicken parm (before you ask, yes I ate 2 bowls of soup and at the whole thing)...we sat there for a while though. Plus 2 bread sticks with butter:

about: 1942 calories, 193 carbs, 88 fat, 106 protein.

Snacks throughout the day (same as lunch): 1105 calories 99 carbs, 76 fat, 47 protein

Totals: 4610 calories, 409 carbs, 250 fat, 245 protein (73 grams of sugar).

Scott

Wow! Thank you.

It amazes me that you can eat so many carbs. Fats and proteins I expected and I think you malabsorb all but a small percentage of those? But the carbs. I guess I was under the impression that carbs could be an issue if you ate too many. You're so far out that I know you know what you're talking about though and it looks like I need to adjust my understanding of long term DS dietary parameters.

Thanks for taking the time. I really do appreciate it.

You should follow the guidelines of your surgery, and your own body. I eat a lot, but I'm a guy, I am somewhat active, and I have a short common channel.

Some dsers can eat more, some less. It's a YMMV thing

Yes, this for sure.

I certainly could never do what you're doing and at this point wouldn't even want to. At 8+ years out, I still have horrible dumping episodes and severe reactive hyperglycemia.

Other OH'rs will have their own plans to follow and should consider that you are long term-post op DS. I would imagine even among DSr's you're not the norm? But I am learning that maybe I don't know the norm after all.

I can only speak about my experience.

Not every DSer can eat like me, but I know many that can. So that's why I say you have to know your surgery and know your body.

I had the DS specifically because I wanted to eat freely post op and maintain my weight loss.

Scott