Post and Pre Surgery health focus

nickyjbr

Hi all! I'm Nic, 35, Greater London and wanting to lose as much as i can!

ive had my mfp account for several years, and am very good at yoyo'ing. it should be a skill i think. anyway, i am trying once again to lose 100lb+. i want to and need to. i managed to lose 40lb a few years ago for one surgery (endometriosis laparoscopy), but complications from that meant i put it back on plus a few more ( ended up with 3 slipped discs somehow)
i had a different, way more serious surgery (salivary gland tumour removed) 8 months ago and been left with bad complications with that...severe nerve damage in my neck and face. im expected to have another surgery at some point. either to fix the damage from the last one or to remove another tumour due to not having clear margins and regrowth likely. At the moment, i am not allowed to do much exercise/lifting etc due to the pain it causes. therefore i am having to lose weight via diet and walking for now.

week one went well! 6.5lb off which was a really good motivator. wasn't hungry at all. was doing well with calories etc.

week two.. i am struggling and the scales havent moved halfway through the week. im just hungry..all the time. but i think im making ok food choices and im drinking around 4 litres of water a day ( i really love drinking cold water!). breakfast is nearly always toast as i make my own bread and know exactly whats in it. its a guilty pleasure if you will. lunch is pasta salads, salad wraps, salads, noodle pots with meat/veggies added, or leftovers. by 3pm im hungry and wanting a snack. because all the calorie allowance calculators ive looked at say i can have over 2000kcal a day, ive been having something sweet like a homemade cookie, or homemade fruit bun. it gets me closer to my allowance rather than too far under it. dinner has been a variety of slimming world recipes, or salad, or meat/fish and veggies etc. i cook all our meals from scratch and i am making sure to weigh everything and portion it up properly. sometimes ill have a scoop of ice cream in the evening if ive got loads of calories left, or a gin or glass of wine. i go to bed feeling good...but started waking up between 4-5am with a loudly rumbling stomach! i drink a pint of water at this point and try go back to sleep... but end up out of bed before 6am on the hunt. with another pint of water, and a large black coffee, i can make it to 8am before i have to eat something.

i dont use my exercise calories at all, and im finding i have 200-400 of my calorie allowance left at the end of the day...so im always in a deficit. im wondering if i should be using these close to bed time to keep me fuller all night so i dont wake up hungry!

any suggestions are welcome, as are friend requests for support!

sijomial

Sorry to hear about your ill-health.

With a lot to lose you really do need to try to make a long hard job as easy and least unpleasant as possible to make the process sustainable.

The rate of weight lose you picked:
Assumes you will eat back exercise calories on top of your base calories, so you are choosing to make your food allowance smaller than calculated. Those "other calculators" also take your exercise into account, MFP just does it differently.
If you are doing a lot of walking you could reflect that by picking a higher activity level if you dislike a variable daily goal? Or simply just use one of those calculators (sailrabbit is a good one) to set your goal.
And then you are under-cutting your goal by 200-400, so you are choosing to make your food allowance smaller again. The idea of the goal (that you picked) is that you get close to it.

Excessive hunger when you are doubly under-cutting your food allowance isn't too surprising!

I would suggest you are falling into the trap of making a hard job even harder and therefore more likely to fail. If you are struggling in the second week that's not a great sign.
Discouraged after half a week of no change on the bathroom scales when you are 6.5lbs down in less than two weeks again isn't a sign of a long-term approach to a long-term task.

Please step back and have a rethink because you really don't want this diet to be the first yo in yo-yo again.

nickyjbr

So I'm ok to eat more! Ok! I shall play around with my daily meals and snacks to make sure I'm not undercutting too much! Thanks

sijomial

nickyjbr wrote: »

So I'm ok to eat more! Ok! I shall play around with my daily meals and snacks to make sure I'm not undercutting too much! Thanks

All you have to do to lose weight is to be under your maintenance calories - suffering is optional.