if you reached your goal early did you raise your calories?

 I reached my original goal around 6 months and have now lost 20lbs below it.  My BMI fluctuates in the 20.2 to 21 range.  My dietician told me to increase my calories, which I've done since the 6 month mark and I've still lost slowly.  I really like my weight right now..I'm 5'11 tall and weigh 150.4lbs.  I'm eating approximately 1500 cals a day...and its hard work to get myself there.  I do it primarily through the use of protein bars, nuts, nut butters and full fat cheese.  I'm also eating 5 times a day when when I was losing I only ate 4 times a day.

I'm scared that I'm adjusting my eating habits too much while I'm still in the honeymoon period and that my bounce back will be signficant and painful since I'll have to readjust my eating habits once the malabsorption stops.  But I also don't want to continue to lose and end up underweight.  I find the whole scenario very stressful since I've spent my whole life dieting and trying to eat less and now the dietician has been encouarging me to eat more!

I'm thinking that this situation must have happened to other lightweights since its easy to lose 100lbs very quickly with an RNY.  

How did you handle this situation?  Did you go into maintenance early and just keep eating more calories until your weight stablized or did you let your body take you where it wanted to go in terms of weight and just figure it was more bounce back room for later?

My surgeon and Vitalady told me to let my body stop when it was good and ready but I panicked and grazed on trail mix to slow myself down. I got to goal but it took 11 months. Now at 5 years out, I have to watch my intake like a hawk or I'll gain.

If I had to do it over again, I'd probably have let my body settle where it wanted to even though I would look really gaunt for awhile. I had about a 3 pound bounce back within the first year and 2 the second year. I played with 1 - 2 pounds the next 3 years and now am struggling to keep my total bounce back/regain within 10 pounds from goal.

Bounce back and regain does happen but you determine if it's going to get the best of you.

--gina

If malabsorption does not end w the DS how do you gain weight? I assumed you all ate a higher amount than the other surgeries.

We always are able absorb 100% of sugar and simple carbs, if we let the carbs get too high we will gain some. It's difficult to gain a lot back but a few have.  We can eat more fat than other surgeries because we malabsorb that at a higher rate but carbs are evil!

Gotcha!
Carbs are bad.

 I have had two regrets since having my surgery.

1.   Waiting until my 50's to have surgery 
2.   Starting on maintenance and not letting my weight stop on its own.

I was at the bottom of my BMI and everyone told me I was too thin and the low number on the scale started to scare me so I increased my calories. I stayed the same for awhile but than started bouncing back and forth.  I put on about 13 pounds and have maintained that a couple of years now.  

 If your labs are good, you feel healthy, getting in your protein, and taking all of  your supplements I would let my body tell me when to stop. Adding in calories to stop losing is a dangerous slope and leads to bad habits and weight gain. During the honeymoon period you will get a false feeling that you can eat a lot of calories and still lose weight. Once the honeymoon period is over it will be harder to maintain on the increased calories and that's when those extra pounds start creeping back. 

 Thanks for the feedback.  I'm still not sure what to do, but it helps to get advice from people who have actually been through it.  I've got an appointment booked in a couple of weeks with my dietician, so I'm going to address my concerns with her.

I don't think I will gain weight eating 1500 cals once the honeymood period is over...but maybe I will?  Who knows?  I have tried to be strategic about how I increased my calories so that I can reverse it if necessary...go back to low fat cheese, eliminate nuts and nut butters from my diet, eliminate my second snack and go back to only eating 4 times a day, cut back on some of my carbs.  The volume of food doesn't have to change much and I can easily decrease down to 1200, maybe even 1000 cals a day.  I don't think it would be easy to go back to anything under 1000 cals at this point.

thanks again for your feedback and words of caution!

My experience is that bounce back isn't worse if you up your calories when you get to what you think is a good weight than if you keep going on losing.

I do which I had let myself go down another 10 pounds or so. But I was really thin when I started adding calories. 

The thing is, I was eating about 1200 calories a day and exercising intensely 10-15 hours a week. I upped my calories to 1600 but even at that amount of calories was still losing 1-2 lb. a week! So I'm not really sure what I could have done.