Day 8 (LAST DAY) - Calling all Vets - questions for you all

Hi everyone. I decided to ask people on the RNY menu thread last Monday if they had a question for an OH Vet (Veteran) here what would they ask? I got great feedback and have 16 great questions that some of our regular posters wanted to ask the Vets here.

Here on OH if you are 5 yrs post op you are considered a "Vet." So everyone who is 5 yrs post op or more are welcome to chime in (RNYers, VSGers, DSers etc). I will ask two questions per day per post, today is Day 8 - LAST DAY. I hope that all the Vets out there will help us by giving us your experience, insight, knowledge & expertise to all of the pre ops, newbies, anyone post op who is struggling, anyone who is a lurker but does not post and for any Vet out there who may have had regain and is fuzzy about the "rules" and needs help.

Thanks in advance to all the awesome Vets who took the time out of their lives to share with us all of their amazing experiences & advice, I personally owe you all a lifetime of gratitude as you are the reason I at still at goal and still here giving back to OH. Thank you

When you reply please just say "Response to Q1" & how many years post you are

Question #1 (Q1) - only one question today as its a long one

Vets give us your thoughts on Newbies who feel they are losing "too much weight" and "look anorexic" and start adding calories back in to stop the weight loss (before they hit true maintenance).

I remember reading from one of the Vets who stated that once you start adding calories back in, going up to 1400/1600/1800/2000 (before you are out of the malabsorption stage) and start to gain some weight & stop the loss and then you hit true maintenance (some people its year 2 and some its year 3 and beyond) and you may start to have some regain because of your higher calories and you get lax about your portions etc it is so incredibly hard to go back down to 1200/1000/800 to start the weight loss again. What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree?

Lets talk!

Daisy and Vets - thank you all so much for doing this; I know it's been interesting and eye opening for me. Your thoughtful responses, sharing the good and bad, continues to be an inspiration to me!

You beat me to it

Thank you Daisy for putting all those questions together and starting this thread.

Thank you vets for taking the time to answer. It's eye opening and reassuring to see real people who are on this journey for the long run. Your answers, advice and warnings were much appreciated.

Daisy, such a great series of questions! I am with you - it's thanks to the long-timers here who gave me advice and tough love along the way that helped me to initially believe I could be successful and to reach my goal weight. And you same folks are here to support me as I figure out a way to lose 25 lbs of regain!

Well, each person's experience is unique, but I have yet to see someone who is 3 or 4 years out from surgery and "too thin". It seems rather rare. The truth is, as the years go by, your pouch has more capacity and your willpower can be lower. Your new size is no longer new - it's your "new normal" and as life continues on, many people realize that losing weight solves a lot of physical problems, but not the mental problems that made us obese in the first place. If I could go back to when I hit my goal weight (an arbitrary number I chose), I would have kept going. Having experienced regain in year 4, it's tough as hell to even lose 5 lbs this far out. I think many people are used to seeing us large, so when we weigh a very normal amount, we are told we look sick or anorexic, but if you are getting your labs drawn and your doctor isn't concerned, ignore the people who act like you're "wasting away". You're just smaller than they have ever seen you, and having less fat in our faces can make us look older.

Lowering my calories is SO hard. As much as I weigh and measure, I cannot seem to lower it enough to impact my weight these days. I am obviously eating maintenance calories and losing lbs is a *****!

Have you tried IF? (intermittent fasting) That worked for me even though I started doing that because of my IBS-C and low motility on my small intestine. And that really helped my IBS symptoms. And without changing my diet too much, I started losing weight. my typical eating window is no more than 8 hours. I make sure i have at least 15-16 hours between my last meal one day and the first meal the following day. That seams to work best for me.

To avoid possible morning hypoglycemia, I progressed slowly to move my first meal from 7-8 am to 1-2 pm. I I had to eat very close to my bed time to prevent middle of the night hypoglycemia.

In the morning till lunch time I drink coffee, lots of tea and water or some bone broth. Losing weight was a bonus.

Hmm I've never tried it but I suppose I could try 1-9 pm as an eating window! That's not a bad idea. I have some work travel coming up over the next month which is really going to mess with my normal routine. But I'm going to look into it and consider it. I know someone who lost a lot of weight through IF.

Em you are so open to suggestions and you know I just love you so hopefully this will be taken in the way it's intended.

Have you considered that your "normal routine" may actually BE lots of travel? It might help to design a whole semi-standard way of eating while you're on the go when you can't necessarily find what you eat at home. Because you are gone from home a lot. (I'd love your job if I were healthy enough).

just a thought from a tired mind. please ignore it if it doesn't apply.

I love you too any and this is a thought provoking idea! Maybe I need to figure out a new normal so I'm not saying "eff it, I'm traveling" and eating off plan! Very awesome insight! Xoxoxo

Question #1 (Q1) - only one question today as its a long one

Vets give us your thoughts on Newbies who feel they are losing "too much weight" and "look anorexic" and start adding calories back in to stop the weight loss (before they hit true maintenance). I remember reading from one of the Vets who stated that once you start adding calories back in, going up to 1400/1600/1800/2000 (before you are out of the malabsorption stage) and start to gain some weight & stop the loss and then you hit true maintenance (some people its year 2 and some its year 3 and beyond) and you may start to have some regain because of your higher calories and you get lax about your portions etc it is so incredibly hard to go back down to 1200/1000/800 to start the weight loss again. What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree?

This is a complex question but I think I can tease out the "core" of it this way: Newbies, do you want to continue to make up your own rules, or are you ready to follow the rules set forth by a surgeon?

Because really - making your own rules got you to the place of walking into a surgeon's office. Period. Brutal, blunt truth. Truth all the same.

You will look and feel different after weight loss and others may say "Oh you're too thin" because they are not accustomed to the difference. Your food intake is limited but that is very different from anorexia. If someone wants to bear witness to an eating disorder, let's talk frankly about how we ate PRE surgery....those habits that got us up into the morbid obesity range. (Secret eating, stashing food, drive throughs, sugar highs, continuous eating, eating to cope, and more.)

Personally post op I was so busy counting oz of water and gm of protein, I didn't have time to count calories and have only rarely done so in the almost 10 years since my surgery. My recommendation would be to (1) keep it simple and (2) adhere to those very basic guidelines for post op eating as a start point.

As stated in an earlier question almost unanimously, "Be a Machine" in that first year.

This idea of adding calories gradually seems counterproductive, as well, based on the physiology of malabsorption. It will stop of its own accord without us messing around with it!