Question:
Questions about calories, fiday and exercise....

Ok, I am a little over 2.5 years post op. I hit goal a little over one year out and maintained a weight of 135-140 for a year. I have managed to gain 10 lbs in the last few months. (I know why and how to fix it) Anyhow, I started tracking my foods and activities on fitday just to see where I was and what needed to be removed. Just for the record: I average about 1400 calories per day(mainly crap), I do 1.5 hours of yoga 3x per week and do 2x of some kind of cardio each week.<br><br>Here's where it gets weird. According to fitday, I should be losing. (I'm not) I have even played with the settings...according to them, I should still be losing if I was bedbound, 4'10" and 100lbs. haha. My conclusion: Fitday is jacked in the basal calorie department.<br><br>So, I start thinking....(danger!danger!) In order to lose 2lbs per week (normal, medically recomended amount) you need to consume 7200 calories fewer than what you have been eating. (assuming you are at a steady weight) Is this a correct assumption considering there are 3600 calories per pound? If that is the case then I need to be eating 2600 calories per week. Ummm, I don't think I can do that. I really don't think I even want to try. Where is the flaw in my thinking here? Where am I screwing it up?<br><br>Now, I know I need to quit eating the crap and get a bit more serious about my cardio exercises and I will be fine. But here is proof that if you think too much about something....nothing makes any sense. :)    — RebeccaP (posted on May 16, 2004)

May 16, 2004
Rebecca, fitday works for me before surgery and after until I developed a tumor (which is an entire new story). Even when I ate junk food and maintained a caloric intake of 1200 per day (I never did a weekly total) I lost weight. I guess you are sure of your caloric values and you do exercise so my advice is to visit a nutritionist who is experienced with WLS Post-Ops - I'm sure you'll get control because you've taken the steps to speak about it.
   — Anna M.

May 16, 2004
Hi! Okay, I have no idea what or how a fitday works but can tell you what my nutritionist says... we (weight loss surgery post ops) are no longer on the typical anything for the average joe and how many calories to take in a recommended amounts etc. so according to the nutritionist we need to take in 500 to 1000 calories per day to lose and making smart choices in our foods so that we can use and burn the most effieciently. I go to the YMCA and have an electronic work out key that calculates how many calories I have burned based on the information downloaded from the machine that I have just used or the previously programmed info in the data system and the thing that jump starts me everytime when my weight loss stalls is the water aerobics class with a moderate water aerobic class which burn 847 calories in one hour. If I do it 3 times a week (after not having gone and stalling on the scale) I will lose 3 to 7 lbs in the week. I hope this helps. Good luck!
   — Angie-H

May 17, 2004
I know what you mean about fitday. I should be losing too based on the info I put in. It should work that If you know how many calories you need to maintain your weight, then you could to subtract 3600 calories per pound that you want to lose. It is so confusing to me though. I am 2 years post op and at goal. I want to stay there! I had my resting metabolic rate done at a hospital by breathing into a machine for about 10 minutes. I learned that for my level of activity, I should eat no more than 1700 calories per day to maintain my current weight. I have been following that rule and have managed to maintain so far. I do wonder if there isn't more to this maintenance business than the number of calories though. I would think that the type of calories are as important as the number. If I consistantly ate those 1700 calories in a bad form such as sugar, wouldnt I gain weight, since the body process sugar, protein, and complex carbs differently? To be safe, I try to stick mostly to the South Beach/ Sugar Busters way of eating. I am not perfect by any stretch! I take it one day at a time. Good luck to you! Take Care.
   — maryburton

May 17, 2004
I know i can eat 1500+ a day of protein fruits and veggies and lose or 1200 cals a day of crap and maintain. Bad food and carbs just shots off my metabolism.
   — mrsmyranow

May 17, 2004
Like someone else said our bodies are not normal and will always deal with calories and various kinds of food differently. If they were normal then we would never have reached some of the sizes many of us did. Getting to 442 lbs is not just eating too much crap it takes a metabolic component to be involved also. That genetic or metabolic component is not likely to change just because we have WLS and lost tons of weight. About 5-6 months PO I found a website where you could calculate how many calories you needed to eat in order to maintain a certain weight based on height, age and how sedentary a person is. According to the website I would need almost 2100 calories just to maintain and that was basically if I was a couch potato. If I was moderate exercise then it was over 2500 calories a day. YIKES! The only way I could ever hit those numbers is with constant junk food that my body burns quickly and doesn't have much volume to it so I can keep shoveling in the food. On my worst day I've probably reached close to the 2000 calories but I was definitely not feeling well. On a good day it's between 1200-1500 calories and it can include some junk food but not tons. I'm basically trying to find the maintenance point for me and typically float up and down 6 lbs depending on what choices I make. To gain the 6 lbs I had to work at it quite hard for a good month or two. After I had my PS I went on a junk food overload and still kept losing, so I ate more crap. Once I finally did gain some weight I realized I needed to get refocused and back onto something more reasonable, which I am working on and therefore the 6 lbs is coming off slowly, which is fine.
   — zoedogcbr