Surgery was in June, will I regain this weight I'm losing?

Has anyone found a magic system for not regaining the weight they lost during the initial time after surgery? I am feeling successful right now, but I see people posting that they are experiencing Regain! This is such a great feeling but reading the word Regain makes me weak in the knees! Is there an actual time frame that it can happen in?

Statistically, yes you will regain.

It will start around year 3 and how much will totally depend on you.

Of course, you don't have to, it's totally dependent on you and your choices.

This board is not typical as there are many of us who are long term veterans without total or significant long term regain. It takes work and discipline to remain successful.

Citizen Kim, thank you for such a quick and solid response. I see that veterans on here jump in to provide real information, that's fantastic and very appreciated. I've had a solid plan during pre-surgery to lose weight and it worked, so I just need to make some adjustments now since some of my favorite foods then are NOT some of my favorites now. Keeping my goals in place!

Thanks again for being honest!

Your intestines are lined with hairlike structures called cilla. They grab food as it goes through and hold it against the walls of the intestine so that the calories can be absorbed. After surgery, most of those cilla are gone. So food passes right through without being absorbed.

The body is smart and knows that it is getting food but not getting the calories. So it grows new cilla. The new cilla are stronger than the old. So then food get absorbed even better than before surgery.

The process normally is complete sometime around 30 months after surgery and regain happens then. Once the malabsorption is gone and the body is absorbing calories, you will only retain the weight loss if you eat less calories than you burn.

Such detail, thank you very much. That is one thing my medical team stressed for sure, that you must burn more calories than you are taking in and stick to the plan and exercise has to be a part of that, no options to sit around and lose weight long term.

OR you can choose to exercise!

This is health-promoting as well as metabolism-speeding ( permanently). Muscle tissue burns three times as many calories ounce for ounce as fat tissue - as you exercise you increase the size and number of your muscle cells and empty out your fat cells ( which can be very efficiently and relatively cheaply permanently removed with excess skin removal surgery/and or liposuction)

I find that beginning my day with exercise ( no matter what ! even if I only have time for a short walk ) means my lungs open up, I get to enjoy gorgeous nature and all her moods - the birds singing , the weather getting or cooler, and best of all my mood lightens, I feel true appreciation for this wonderful new life opportunity God has given me and the endorphins released ( they call it a runners high) really help me not desire to overeat the rest of the day.

Veggiewoman, that inspires me to move my exercise outside for the early part of the day, thanks. You make it sound so inviting, especially the birds! I'll concentrate on nature and the time should fly getting outside these walls. I appreciate your outlook!

most of us gain 10-20 lbs after hitting our lowest weight, but that's not inevitable. To stay at your lowest weight, you'll have to be really committed. I purposely went under my goal by bit since I knew about the 10-20 lb bounce back. Beyond the common bounce back, yes - people can regain if they don't monitor themselves for the rest of their lives. I still count calories, weigh and measure certain things (like meat) if the volume isn't obvious and it's not an ultra low-calorie item (things like steamed broccoli I'm comfortable "guesstimating" on, since there are so few calories in it), and I weigh myself several times a week. I have an acceptable range of weight, and once I go over there, it's all hands on dec****il my weight falls back into range. Yes it's a pain, but this is what I have to do....

catwoman7, I'll take this small pain as opposed to the much bigger pain that I once had in my hips and knees! I am focusing on making my plate a more veggie plate than meat, and I'm still not up to eating too much anyway since I'm not too far out from surgery. Do you use protein shakes to make sure you get enough protein, or was that just in early stages?

Thanks!

I still use protein shakes (one per day) because it was discovered early on that I malabsorb protein. If I don't average at least 100 grams a day, my prealbumin level tanks. It could be that I malabsorbed protein even BEFORE surgery, but we didn't do a baseline for it, so we'll never know for sure.

Anyway, most people are able to give up protein shakes after the first few weeks or months post-surgery, so I'm an exception, not the rule. I actually COULD get my protein requirement through food, but I don't want to spend every day obsessing about how much protein I'm getting and worrying that I'm not going to make it to 100+. If I have a protein shake every morning for my morning snack, it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll be at over 100 grams by the end of the day. So...that's what I do! Plus I'm one of those who people who happen to like protein shakes, too!