What to expect with maintenance

At the pre-surgery seminar the surgeon stated that everyone will re-gain weight. It's basically guaranteed and then find the maintenance weight. Does this seem to be true or is it possible to maintain weight loss after hitting the goal weight? It seems like it would be A lot of work but certainly possible.

It's certainly possible. There is no medical reason why we must regain weight. But there are eleventy-billion mental reasons why it's highly likely.

Every one of us going through surgery had food issues of some sort. Those don't disappear when we hit maintenance. We carry that baggage with us.

For the first year or so post surgery, we are hyper focused on losing weight. But after a while we get diet fatigue. We get lax on what we eat, and portion sizes. Some trick themselves thinking that, since the first year was pretty easy, we are somehow cured. Maybe someone close to us gets ill, or dies. Perhaps a divorce or breakup. A child with severe problems. Life.

There are a million reasons for gaining weight. The best plan is to lose past your goal weight by 10 20 pounds. Save your next to last suze clothes. Then when the (nearly) inevitable regain creeps in, you have a buffer.

Thanks so much! It's good to know that re-gain doesn't have to happen beyond that buffer point. Even though it is very hard work!

In my first year post op RNY I lost all my excessive weight and 10 lbs. As I was long the last 10-15 lbs - I was worried I get too thin, losing my muscles. My doc told me that most people regain in year 2-3 or 3-4 and that I just need to just follow the program. Since I was 10 lbs below what I wanted to be and what was healthy for me, in my second and third year I stopped worrying about weight loss.

Big mistake. I gained not 10 lbs I wanted but 25 lbs. oops. Mistake and bad idea.

Now I am trying to maintain within 5 lbs. Sometimes that works, sometimes it does not.

For the first few years you have malabsorption. So you eat and your body does not absorb all of the calories. Weight comes off effortlessly and stays off effortlessly.

But your body is smart and it learns how to absorb calories again. It has been starved and it will fight to get that weight back.

To keep the weight off you have to eat fewer calories every year. Ten years ago, I could easily maintain 135 pounds on about 1800 calories a day. Now it about 900 calories a day to stay there. You track your food, you weigh daily and you cut back when the scale goes up.

It never gets easier. You can do it, but it is work.

Thank you all for the information! I will keep on with my journey.

My Bariatric center doesn't consider it regain unless you gain more than 10% if your original weight loss.

There is a range to maintenance. Very few people stay the exact same weight every day. Even normal people have a range.

We are in this for the long haul. We don't get to not be vigilant.

I have gained and lost a gazillion times in the last 14 years. What I haven't done is give up. Last year was my worst regain, but here I am, 8 months later having lost it all again.

The people you see here are the successful ones.

Lots of us know people who had surgery when we did, went on to "live life" and are now back where they were, weightwise, when they started. I've found staying here, even though I've been called "sad" more than once, has helped keep me plugged in with what I need to do. I can count on one hand the peers who are still here with me, and I have watched thousands of people here who had their obesity "cured", or so they thought.

You have very well expressed my definition of courage....being down is not what any of us plan for, but, yep, it can and does sometimes happen. The victory is in stepping up to the plate again. Congratulations on your latest Home Run!

You are and have always been my role model