Strategies and calories- my experience

bethlaf
bethlaf Posts: 954 Member
Based soleley on my personal exp. and 2 girlfriends whom i correspond with , I thought i should share some of this, solely because - well it might help some of us

1. your pouch still works, it does.. you have learned to fool it
2. back to basics. focus on protein
3. the negative reinforcement is gone for most - most post ops long term no longer have dumping syndrome which means its back to willpower
4. you are not alone, almost 40% of gastric bypass patients regain at least a percentage of the lost weight with it seems like 30-50% being most common followed closely by 50-75%
5. if you feel completely out of control, do Kaye Bailey's 5 day pouch test . it does not so much "test" your pouch as reset your mind
6. MEAT FIRST!-
7.Dont Drink with meals!
8. Avoid mushy soft foods, unless they are protein- IE greek yogurt ,scrambled eggs, low fat cottage cheese
9. walk- exercise- bike
10. you have done it before with the "help" of your pouch you will do it again.

now on to calories

While some malabsorption will always remain needing b12 sublinguals and Iron supplementation, the biggest hurdle you will face is finding your actual caloric needs, because they may be wildly off from what a "normal" person should have,

Myself for example, I lose slow and steady at about 1200-1300 calories, BUT 1500, I maintain or lose like 1/4 lb a week.- I find as well that I CANNOT "eat back" exercise calories, I routinely burn 500 or so a day (restarted walking 4-5 miles daily), and if I ate them back I would regret it - as it would stall my loss


ex. 2 S.- her Maintenance is 1650-1800 - she loses steady at 1350-1500- back when we were surgery buddies, she started with a higher BF% than me , but now we are about the same. she works out with latin zumba style workouts 23 hours a week


Ex 3. her weight loss calories are about 1100-1200 a day she is solidly CHAINED to a desk 6 days a week- 8-9 hours a day- and manages about 2-3 3 mile walks a week she maintains at 1500-1600


so hope this helps, all the talk on the message boards about TDEE - and IIFYM , that might work well for some , but for post ops, not so much .. again , a couple weeks trial and error might be what will work best for you too - it took about 2 months to figure out what worked best for me
I have lost 45 lbs so far, and am still working on another 70