Getting Back on Track

Haven't read all of the posts yet. Just popping in to mention the Back on Track Together Forum here. Not sure how active it is anymore but you may want to check it out. Back on Track Together Forum

Many of us have had regain. I've had significant ones of 40 plus and also 50 pounds. I've gotten it all back off and then some. But still, right now I'm dealing with about 12 pounds again.

OH has been integral to any successes I have had. I hope you can stick around because I honestly believe it really helps to be in the middle of a community like this.

Good luck on losing your regain, and welcome back.

Hiya - you are so not alone. This is something I posted a week ago to someone who felt their eating in maintenance was out of control. Maybe you can pull some of the relevant stuff out! (I'm on my phone so please excuse my brevity!)

I am almost 4 years out and maintenance is sooo much harder than the honeymoon period of losing that is the 12-18 months out of surgery.

You are not out of control. You can totally control your future. Here are a few suggestions. Maybe you can try to incorporate one of these things every few days so it doesn't feel as daunting.

First of all, STOP drinking with meals. Do not drink while you eat or for 30 minutes after. Drinking with food and right after flushes the food out of your pouch, thus meaning you are hungry again sooner. This is just pointless if you are trying to lose weight. And this is an easy win!

Get a digital food scale if you don't have one already and start weighing your food and logging them into something like MyFitnessPal. Sometimes I put a big pile of tuna salad/chicken salad/whatever on my plate because all these years later my eyes are STILL bigger than my head. By weighing it, I know I am putting 4 oz on my plate. And while it may look small, most of the time I am satiated from eating it.

Prioritize dense protein. It will suck the first few days because let's face it, Wheat Thins and Doritos taste better than grilled chicken. So jazz it up a bit. Make ground turkey or beef and season it with taco seasoning and then douse it with cheese. Saute up some shrimp and add a curry sauce. Weigh the meals out, put them in little containers, and put them in the fridge and freezer. I am way more likely to eat well when I have food prepared that I can grab. If I open the fridge and gaze in, wondering what I am going to have, I often make the wrong choices.

I actually plan my food the day BEFORE, and put it in MyFitnessPal. That way I can adjust. I may be planning 3 meals and a snack and then I realize I can afford some more calories so I can include popcorn. Or maybe I realize the carbs and calories are pretty high, so I exchange one snack for another.

Find substitutes for your snacks. Are you a sweet person? Buy ricotta cheese and add splenda and cinnamon. Or get sugar-free jello. You like crunch food? Keep dill pickles on hand. Buy turkey pepperoni and nuke it til it's crunchy.

Only you can lose this regain, and sadly it's harder than the first time around. But do a few of these things and you will feel the weight come off again. I am sure you want to be healthy for your little one, and hey it doesn't hurt to like what you see in the mirror and have your clothes fit again :) There are plenty of vets on this site who have battled regain multiple times and WIN.

I also recommend you join in on the daily What are you eating today thread on the RNY board. There are supportive people to help cheer you on. You may get some good meal ideas too.

Good luck!

I'm only 2.5 years out, so you can take it or leave it, but I found the RNY daily menu thread really helpful when I got to the point where I found myself getting off track too often. For some reason, posting my planned menu every morning and knowing everybody knew what I was supposed to be eating (mostly) keeps me on the straight & narrow for the day. Plus seeing everyone else's posts reinforces it.

20 lbs is do-able. Maybe not by the end of the year, but you should be able to take that off. It's not like it's 100 lbs!

Hi. Been there- done that. Regained while more of my clothes still "kind of" fit. Most of them anyway. Some 4, 6s got too small, but originally I considered getting to size 12 a success. So size 8 or even 10? Why not. I regained 30-35 lbs. I wanted to gain 10, because I got to low for me and my body frame. But the rest 25 - that was all the wrong food choices.

I was thinking I was ok size 8-10, until my back went out, and started hurting, and my doc called me on my weight gain. Told me to lose 15 lbs in 3 months. I lost 18. I stopped drinking alcohol. I stopped eating desserts and sweets. I limited carbs, even the ones from fruit and starchy veggies. I ate proteins, fat and no starchy veggies.

I had to de-carb. It took me 2 weeks to really do that. During that time I did not limit how much I was eating, but I limited w what I was eating. Proteins, some fat and non starchy veggies. When I'll was hungry - I ate chicken, or pork, or beef. Tuna or HB eggs. NSA (no sugar added) pickles, cucumbers, etc. Hot tea, coffee, water ...( Soft drinks made me hungry). I added some fat - bacon, butter, good quality mayo, olives, avocado, etc.

After one week I often did not eat as much as at the beginning. When I craved foods but did not want a piece of chicken, or cold cuts - I knew I was not hungry, but that I had head hunger or cravings. I learned how to identify that. After a second week, most of my cravings were gone. And the qty of food I needed to be full was much less than at the beginning of my back on track journey. It was much easier.

After a few weeks I lost 10 lbs. But I was missing so many different foods. I decided to have one "cheat meal" a week. One meal that I could eat anything I wanted. Surprisingly- what I wanted are fruits. Not sweets, or bread.

I lost 18 lbs in 3 months. My doc was happy, I was happy. But after that - I just maintained the loss. Size 6-8. I was still app 10 lbs from where I really wanted to be. But that was much harder. Because my motivation was not as strong as before. I looked good, and felt good. Not skinny- but not fat.

It took me another year to lose the last of regain and maintain with a few lbs fluctuations.

I lost the last 10 lbs over a year ago. Now I am trying to maintain. Trying not to lose but not gain either. That I think is really challenging. I know what to do to lose, or to gain.

Maintenance- that is hard. I weigh myself almost every day. My weight can fluctuate up to 5 lbs in any 24-48 hours. I know most of it is water weight. If my body does not retain enough water, my BP gets too low, I get dizzy. Too much - and I know I deal with inflammation, or too much salt.

Maintenance is hard.

What a great post! Thank you for sharing your experience...it really rings true and I know that things could be worse. I've got 20 lbs, not 150 lbs like I did at the beginning of this journey. For so long I made the excuse "it's bounce back weight, everyone has that and it's just my body telling me where I SHOULD be." Ummm...no. It's a direct result of the crap I've been eating!!

Head hunger. You hit the nail on the head. I know 100% that most of the eating I've been doing over the course of the last 6 months to a year has been mindless or emotional eating. That was my first step in shifting my thinking. Be aware of what I'm putting in my mouth - track it in the morning for the entire day - and if it's not planned out, it doesn't go into my mouth.

Maintenance IS hard. But this journey was worth it!!

I almost wonder whether maintenance is a goal worth fighting for or if I should just always be in weightloss mode. I can't imagine ever getting too small and the thought of regain is terrifying.

we need minimum body fat %. Below that - unless someone is really young - it may not be very attractive or healthy. When the body fat % drops below essential fat - the body may try to cannibalize itself - using muscles and other tissues. A person can get weak, depressed, unable to fight any disease.

i know my Rh gets horrible plus i may even get hypoglycemia when my body fat$% droops too low. Fasting before blood work - forget it. passing out during blood work... etc.

yea, we can get too thin. Anorexic type thin.

Totally get it! You really hit home with the "thinking we're normal".

I had set a 3lb safety window after I hit my first goal. 3 lbs became 5, and 5 became 10 due to not tracking and acting "normal" with eating out, carbs, ****tails, etc. leaning on the restriction without minding what I was eating.

i for back in gear 3 month ago Adi and now I'm down 9 lbs. I've made a new goal, since I kind of went "party time" at my first one without thinking of where my body would feel best.

i track and weigh daily, pack lunches every day and eat at home during the week.

Eating out, I eat protein forward. And if I have a ****tail it's just one, and it's sensible (vodka press; vodka with half soda water/half 7up).

e can do it! :)

Exactly!

I ate like a "normal" person for way too long (the last few years, really). And am well aware that I should count myself lucky that I did not gain more than 20 lbs...I still relied on my restriction and didn't drink with meals, but my food choices were AWFUL!

Before surgery I gave up diet soda, but in the last few years of living "normal" I let it back in my routine. That's now gone again!

We went out over the weekend and instead of indulging in the fried appetizers my mates we're eating, I ordered a chicken sandwich with bacon and cheese with no bun...it was delicious! And, it filled me up :)

Now I know I've only been "back on track" for about a week now, but I've already noticed some huge differences.

One, I don't feel like crap after I eat. When I was eating "normal" I would constantly feel exhausted and would say, "ugh, food coma." Having been back to the basics this week. I've felt satiated after eating with NO food "coma."

Two, I have had more energy. Lately I had been feeling so tired, like no amount of sleep ever really felt like enough. I chalked it up to the change in the seasons (Midwest here), but really it was my diet.

Three, I'm getting fuller faster. By eating protein first (and sometimes, exclusively), I'm not eating slider foods that aren't sticking around for long.

So yeah, I'm happy to report that I've been on the straight and narrow for the past week and although my brain still dreams about those carbs and that sugar, my determination tells me that "this too shall pass." So instead of reaching for a bagel, a danish, candy, cookies or chips ( I LOOOOOVE chips!), I'm doing exactly what you're doing. Packing lunch everyday, planning/tracking out my day, weighing myself every morning, weighing all my food, drinking a ton of water and just generally getting back to the basics. I know people have done and been successful with the 5 day pouch test, but I really think it's just as easy as going back to the basics - protein first, lots of water, no drinking with meals and tracking.

So thank you everyone who has validated that we need to live a different "normal" (and that's okay...my coffee cup says it all..."normal is boring")

So I'd like to thank everyone for their words of encouragement...it really helped me flip my mindset to know that I wasn't the only person out there that tried to eat "normal", had some regain and got back on track.

So it was last Wednesday that I had posted that seeing the number 173.8 on my scale smacked be back to reality and I have literally gone back to the basics. No soda. No white sugar. No white flour. Lots of protein. Lots of water. Vitamins.

And even though my mind would occasionally wander toward the "mmm...bagels in the kitchen" or "nom nom...Halloween candy", I've stayed strong and said a firm NO!

I have to say that as of this morning, not only do I feel like the carb/sugar cravings no longer exist, I stepped on the scale and I'm down to 163.2!! That is 10.6 pounds in just over a week! Now I know this is more than likely water weight, but I feel better, have more energy and am obsessing over food less.

This is literally the first time since my surgery that I've tried to lose weight. I wasn't sure if it would be easy or hard. I wasn't sure if my pouch worked like it used to. I wasn't sure if I could do it.

Well like I said, I know much of this 10+ pounds is water and I also know the last 13 pounds will be MUCH harder...I'm just happy to know that at 5.5 years out, I still have a working tool and as long as I do the work and show up, it's going to help me shed the last of this regain.

So to all the other "re-gainers" out there...it can be done. Trust me, if I can do it...you can do it!!