Below goal and now I'm scared...

First, thank you all for this great board and for all of the support on the main VSG board!  I had my surgery February 2010 and I am now below goal by 7 pounds.  I'm so grateful for this surgery. I'm 5'9 and set a realistic goal for myself of 180 figuring that I'd like to be that weight, up or down 5 pounds for the rest of my life.  Since reaching goal, I've been eating what I want to eat (with my daily protein shake) and am still continuing to lose.  And to be honest, anything I want to eat hasn't always been healthy **** cream, Christmas cookies, etc.!).  This scares me to no end because I don't want to undo all the good work I just finished AND because I don't want to lose any more weight.  From what I've read here, it seems like my weight will level off at some point, but do you know when that typically happens?    I have an appointment with my doctor and NUT in February to make sure I am doing maintenance the "right way" and not just eating crap to stop losing.  Any tips for maintaining the healthy way are appreciated! 
-Kay

Add fat calories in, and stop eating the junk. You can slide in a lot of healthy fat calories with olive oil, butter, et****il you stop losing. It will also not make you crave or cause insulin fluctuations.

If you want to stop losing you can in healthy fats like peanut butter, or advacado, full fat everything,
No i dont suggest you add in cakes or cookies, because it will lvl off but even if you drop to 170 that would give you wiggle room for the odd treat without going over your goal if that makes sense.

as alot of people say there is a 5-10 lb regain..

Thank you both so much!  I appreciate the help!

If it were me, I would keep doing more or less what you've been doing in the losing phase but  allowing yourself a few treats so that it's workable in the long term. If you're still losing on that plan, let yourself lose until your body wants to stop. I'm 5'8" and originally thought I'd stop at 158. I ended up drifting down to 138 for a little while and then came back up to 143-148, where I am now. Gaining a little bit back is VERY VERY common, so it's good to plan this in. Also, you're less than a year out, so you may find that you can eat a bit more or get hungrier in the coming months and will need to watch what you eat more than you do now, so you are SO right in not eating crap because you don't want to let those habits back in...

Lizanne

Hi, welcome to our group. I am having this same issue. Got to goal and kept losing. Just couldn't seem to eat enough calories without eating junk and I really don't want to do that as I worked too hard to break those bad habits. I will be seeing my surgeon in a few weeks and see what he says. I am 12 lbs below goal though still at a healthy bmi and right on the insurance chart ideal so not too worried. I hear its pretty normal to have a few pounds regain at some point a year or two out so I am sort of expecting this. I spoke to my dietician about this and she said definately don't eat junk. She said to try to increase calories by having an extra protein shake (yuck) and changing from skim milk to 1% and eating nuts and such. Have been doing those things. Had a cold and dropped a couple of pounds from that i think. Also lost some of the weight below goal when I was on trips. Thought I was eating pretty big but think the activity level was up. Can't believe I have this issue having beenfat since the age of 8. So if I were you I would eat nuts (macadamia nuts are hugely fattening and so good) and drink milk with more fat content than skim and eat cheese. But don't skimp on the protein. I forced myself to drink a shake last night at midnight as I still food journal and found myself way low for the day. it was doable. My maintenance instructions were to add another 100 calories a day until i got to the level i needed to be at. easier said than done. maybe a protein coco at the end of the day with some half and half added to it would do the trick. taste good too. But I am with you - dont want to lose more (my face is getting prune looking) but don't want to get back into the sugar habit. There are others on this group who have dealt with this and it seems to even out after awhile. I am sure you will get some more helpful responses. Let us know what your surgeon says and I will do the same.

diane

You might also want to check out getting a BodyBugg, so you can see how many calories you typically expend. You want to add fat/calories until you neither have a deficit nor a surplus, if that makes sense?

Kay

I haven't had that problem so the other replies are more useful maybe but please keep in mind that the further out you get, the more you can eat.

now, that may not be true for dense protein past a certain point but I'm not sure what that point is and for food that good down easy, I think it continues to be true maybe forever.  I was 2 years out last August and I can eat more now than then. I keep going like this and I could eat as much as a pre-o*****n-op, I guess.

my point is, you may have bounce back or whatever but I promise you that junk food is not your friend.

good luck!

Thank you all so much!  I am grateful for all the good advice!

You might want to go down a bit below goal anyway because a lot of people experience a bit of a regain at around 2-3 years out. I know I freaked out that I would never stop losing when I was in your position and I have to say, if I knew then, what I know now, I would not only have not freaked out but I wouldn't have tried so hard to stop losing when I was no where near being underweight!