Just reached maintenance in under 4 months.. Have some questions!

Sooo, many of you already know me from the main VSG forum or MFP however I never expected to get into maintenance so quickly having needed to lose 160lb's.

For those of you that have not seen my "goal" thread here it is "Click Here"

Today I am 4 months post op and feeling great. I have had such a rapid weight loss these past 4 months that I never thought about how to make that transition. For me the losing was the easy part. I am a week into maintenance and already 3lb's under my goal. I'm okay getting 10lb's below my goal weight but not anymore than that. At this rate I'll be there in 2-3 weeks unless I can find a good maintenance diet. I also work out 6-7 days a week doing various things like weight training, hiking, running, etc...

Note that I have a very tight sleeve being only 4 months out and ZERO hunger. Even remembering to eat is a challenge.

So my question to all of you VET's are....

1) What is a typical diet like for you "types of foods, meal plans, etc"

2) In my weight loss faze I did 600-800 calories a day, under 40 carbs, 80-100oz of water. What are the typical #'s you all shoot for?

3) What experiences and/or challenges have you guys had while in maintenance?

I look forward to this new chapter in my journey. I know it will turn out to be a success because I won't except anything less... :)


Here is a before and after of me as well :)

congrats on your success and welcome to the wonderful world of maintenance.  read through various posts on this group for all kinds of good info.

regarding your questions:

daily typical eating is  gy and a couple of prunes for breakfast preceeded by coffee with half and half; lunch is beef jerky or tuna and grapes.  glass of wine when i get home and maybe some almonds. dinner is 3 oz of protein and veggies. late evening i have a blob of peanut butter (or two) and sometimes a glass of skim milk.  I stay around 1200 calories but I bet you will be able to eat more.

rearob posted a maintenance plan a couple of days ago here that looked great. you might check it out. 

be sure to keep food journaling and keep your protein levels up during maintenance.

as you get further out food will be more and more attractive and you will be able to eat more. thats why staying with your eating habits and journaling is important so it becomes second nature long term.

the challenges are that in year two or so it seems like one can eat quite a bit more and being able to practice self restraint and make proper choices becomes more important.

Enjoy your new slim life!!

Diane

Ryan--welcome to maintenance! Good Gravy Train--you have lost so much so fast, I bet people are afraid to tell you what to eat in maintenance. You are a true winner and you will figure out the calories you need and how to get them in with good choices. If you figured out weight loss I bet maintenance will be relatively easy for you. You are a young guy and you must have a super duper metabolism. The only way you can figure it out is to journal and keep track of all your carbs/protein/calories. I bet you do that already. Your BMR is probably way way higher than some of us, ah hem, older ladies on here. LOL. Congrats again, and once you have your calories figured out for maintenance, you can report back to all of us, and make us all jealous!

Oh my goodness!  You are amazing.  Since you are still so fresh from surgery and still healing, I'm sure, I don't think your maintenance will look very much like mine.  I eat 4-5 times per day at about a 1/2 cup or 4-6oz per meal.  You may have to eat many times since I'm sure your portions are still really small.  Cruise around this forum for specifics but every persons body is different in it's caloric needs.  Just make sure you keep that protein up and your water where you've got it.  Outside that, add some calories in (usually for us it's fat calories, not carbs as that's a slippery slope for some) and keep tweaking it until you are maintaining.  It took me months to get it right but maybe I'm a slow learner...LOL  Congrats & welcome to maintenance!!!

Deb

Thanks for the advice Deb! I'll be browsing through the maintenance forum today getting some ideas. I have also scheduled an appointment with my dietitian to get her opinion and see if we can work together to find a smart healthy plan moving forward :)

Ryan

 congrats!  and you look wonderful.

that is a really short time - please realize there may be some challenges while you mind catches up with your body.

Great job!  You really rocked your sleeve!

You will need A LOT more calories than the rest of us.  My honest guess is that you will keep losing and losing big until you up your calories to at least 2000.  I am not kidding.  You are young, you are male, you have a great metabolism, and you are working out.  I would not be at all surprised if your calorie needs are even higher.  What this means, you will almost certainly have to eat more than three times a day, more fat, more carbs, more everything.  This is a scary time because you might to start feeling out of control.  You have to keep journaling everything and keeping a very close eye on weight and calories in order to keep this from spiraling in the other direction.  Take the next six months very seriously.  How you are going to manage your maintenance is just as important as the weight loss part of this, maybe even more important.  View yourself as an ongoing science experiment.  Journal everything, the food intake, the exercise, everything.  Can you work closely with your doctor or dietitian?  It would be a great idea in your case.  My guess is that at least early on, you are going to need to drink some of your calories, as in protein shakes with peanut butter.  It is going to be easy to think of this as anything goes, avoid that, and stay focused.  You can do this, but it is going to be harder on you psychologically than the weight loss phase.  Good luck.  If you need anything, let me know.

Thanks Elina! I appreciate your advice... It is VERY scary to think I may have to do 2000 calories to maintain. At this point I cant even think of how to get in that many calories without sitting in front of a plate of food all day. I like the idea of drinkning some of the calories at least in the beginning. That may help up my calorie intake more. I took your advice and just scheduled an appointment with my dietitian to work on a new diet plan for my maintenance faze... :)