Do you think losing weight by eating very low calorie as opposed to moderatly low calorie does more to permanently lower RMR?

I think the biggest loser studies showed that for normal people, not WLS.

I don't think there was ever studies for wls causing that.

My metabolism was shot before RNY. Post op - it feels like my body got reset points. Metabolic hormonal changes due to RNY.

Mine too. I did one of those metabolic rate things (where they put an astronaut style helmet on her head and measure your metabolism via gases). Mine was 75-80% of a normal persons. Meaning, I had to eat 20-25% LESS AND figure out ways to constantly boost my metabolism throughout the day (like taking mutiple short walks, squats at desk, taking the stairs).

I am so glad I had WLS. Only "diet" that ever worked for me, and I can be satisified with the "significantly less" my body requires to maintain a "normal" weight.

Short answer: no.

I think this is a myth perpetrated to justify over-eating.

I can say that I had an RMR test today and my metabolic rate came up as 7% higher than "normal" for my age/weight. So I'd say, in my case...no.

That's awesome! Did it clarify for you how many calories to eat in maintenance? How did the DEXA go?!?

Yes! It came back that my RMR is roughly 1,550/day. So the suggested range for maintenance is 1,550 to 2000 calories per day without daily exercise. I will probably set MFP (eventually, when I can work myself up to that over the next few months) to around 1,700/day.

The DEXA scan was good too! I will update about that in more detail tomorrow during the menu post since I know there were a few folks who were interested.

Numerous studies have shown that being morbidly obese is what lowers our metabolic rate. And that's what prevents us from keeping weight off after losing it,

EXCEPT,

having WLS resets our metabolism so that it works like it should. WLS is technically referred to as "metabolic and bariatric" surgery. Perhaps some day they'll come up with a drug or gene therapy to raise our metabolism. Right now, surgery is the only thing that will.

Having RMR tested can be interesting, if you enjoy that kind of thing. But don't let it influence what you eat. I've seen a few people who were told by RMR testing they should be eating 2000 and 2100 calories a day -- so they did. Eagerly. And gained steadily. And wouldn't stop, because a scientific test told them they could.

Eat as little as you have to in order to lose quickly. Eat what you can to maintain and not gain.

I purposely waited until I wanted to maintain to have RMR testing for that reason. Why tempt yourself with more calories?

I saw an interesting "Adam Ruins Everything" last night that made me think about the whole "calorie tracking" thing. Companies are allowed to be off by 20% either direction in their labelling. And for generic foods, the calorie counts that are generally accepted are based on 100 year old data that may or may not be anywhere close to accurate with the changes that have happened in both our food sources and in the science to measure calories for a given food.

So while I don't think that calorie counting is worthless, I think that we have to keep in mind that what we think we are counting so accurately may not be so accurate, even if we're carefully weighing and measuring every bite.

People tend to have fairly repetitive diets. How repetitive varies from person to person, but in the grand scheme of things, you find the same foods repeating over and over in a diet log. So I figure if I count the calories, even if they're not "accurate", they are at least fairly consistent. So by figuring out where my caloric intake is and looking at whether I'm losing weight or not, I can adjust up or down. But that number is not really likely to be exactly comparable with the results from an RMR.