not eating enough to lose??
rebeccagenovese2
Posts: 1 Member
Hey everyone my loss has been slow I'm almost 11 months post op RNY and have lost 104lbs GO ME 
. I feel it should be a lot faster for what I eat. I get anywhere from 550-900 calories a day. I exercise anywhere from 45-70 min on the elliptical. So my NET calories averge about 300 or way less. Today someone told me that is too little net calories after exercise and to increase those so that after i burn it off i'm at a net calorie of around 1200. that scares me and is a lot of calories, but they mentioned my body holding onto the food b/c of the starvation mode.
. I feel it should be a lot faster for what I eat. I get anywhere from 550-900 calories a day. I exercise anywhere from 45-70 min on the elliptical. So my NET calories averge about 300 or way less. Today someone told me that is too little net calories after exercise and to increase those so that after i burn it off i'm at a net calorie of around 1200. that scares me and is a lot of calories, but they mentioned my body holding onto the food b/c of the starvation mode. 0
Replies
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It is true and can happen, however us RNY'ers are a bit different. Don't forget that you also have had a mal-absorptive surgery. So you don't get all the calories processed that you put in your body. There have not been any studies done to prove how much we lose, but it is something to keep in mind. If you are tracking honestly and weighting/measuring all of your food then you are probably actually getting less than what you think.
I've seen a few strategies offered here. First and one that I employ is that of a cheat meal. Tonight, I ate 4 slices of thin crust pizza for a cool 1080 calories. I'll still have a snack later on and I'll be a few hundred calories above where I normally am on a day. And yes, I'm 20 months post RNY and can take down half of a large pizza! LOL. Anyway, the idea is that your body sees all this food and calories, kind of freaks out and boosts your metabolism temporarily.
Since you are about a year post-op, you should be eating fairly normally now compared to most others. Maybe just with smaller portions. This means that you should be more concerned with calories and macros more than overall size of meals. I prescribe to the IIFYM "diet". It's really more of a lifestyle. IF IT FITS YOUR MACROS. It has me calculated above what MFP says my calorie limit should be. It takes into account your exercise. So, I'm a 5'9 male, who weighs 193. I eat about 1900 to 2000 calories a day, and average about 2600 calories in exercise each week. MFP said I should only be getting 1750. I still lose weight. If you are interested check out iifym.com to calculate your BMR as well as your macros.
You might also try eating a second snack, or what I like to call fourth meal. I typically get hungry later at night, about 9 PM so I reserve some calories for that and have something in the range of a 400 calories snack.
Lastly, congrats on 104 lbs in 11 months! High five!0 -
Csmccord couldn't have said it better. Read that above post over and over :laugh:
It's truly amazing what we RNY'ers have to do to figure out what's going on with our metabolism.
Thanks Csmccord for the informational post. I am sure it will help all of us understand 'it' a little bit better. :drinker:
Christine0 -
I agree as well. I keep my calories around 800 -1000 for now (6 months out), and once in awhile I eat a bit over. The last two days I actually averaged around 1350. Got on the scale today and moved 3 lbs down! This has happened a couple times. I don't have the experience and practice yet to explain it scientifically, but I think there's definitely something to the occasional "cheat meal". As an overeater in recovery though, my challenge will be to make sure those meals are truly "on occasion" and don't become a regular habit. I also have to remind myself that there was a time when 1350 would have been one meal for me. Over 100lbs in 11 months is amazing, but eventually you do transition to eating "normally". It scares me a bit as well, but I'm sure it's just a normal part of adjusting to this lifelong change.0
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Also I forgot to mention that the elliptical is notoriously inaccurate as far as inflating calorie burn. If you're doing that all the time, your body might have adjusted to it and become more efficient. Maybe try a different exercise to jump start your loss for a bit? Are you doing strength training (weights)? I haven't really incorporated that yet (I hate that type of exercise, but I can walk all day). My surgeon keeps stressing the need to add resistance training to build more muscle for better weight loss results.0
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Also I forgot to mention that the elliptical is notoriously inaccurate as far as inflating calorie burn. If you're doing that all the time, your body might have adjusted to it and become more efficient. Maybe try a different exercise to jump start your loss for a bit? Are you doing strength training (weights)? I haven't really incorporated that yet (I hate that type of exercise, but I can walk all day). My surgeon keeps stressing the need to add resistance training to build more muscle for better weight loss results.
It's important to vary both food and exercise to keep your body guessing. You will have more plateaus if you don't because your body will definitely adjust if you do the same thing over and over. I live alone and find it is easy to slip into a routine of eating practically the same meals all the time, but if I focus on eating different things more frequently, I have better results. Same for working out.
If you add strength training, you might not see the scale move right away (muscle weighs more than fat), but you will definitely notice the inches drop off and the scale eventually catches up too. It's great for boosting metabolism and toning/body shape. Try doing it as part of a bootcamp class if the machines and weights aren't your thing.0 -
It's important to vary both food and exercise to keep your body guessing. You will have more plateaus if you don't because your body will definitely adjust if you do the same thing over and over. I live alone and find it is easy to slip into a routine of eating practically the same meals all the time, but if I focus on eating different things more frequently, I have better results. Same for working out.
If you add strength training, you might not see the scale move right away (muscle weighs more than fat), but you will definitely notice the inches drop off and the scale eventually catches up too. It's great for boosting metabolism and toning/body shape. Try doing it as part of a bootcamp class if the machines and weights aren't your thing.
Yes, eating a varied diet and varying your exercise are important. I forgot to mention that during my gym time, I participate in a group fitness session twice a week. We do something different for each workout session, then about every 4th week or so, it's cardio only. Over-training is a bad thing and can lead to repetitive motion injuries. So Tues/Thurs I do a 45 minute high intensity weight training session that works every single muscle in the body and keeps my heart rate averaging about 145 or so. It's a circuit that consists of about 12 stations and it's low weights high reps. Typically do the exercise for about 45 or 60 seconds each.
I've found that group fitness is a way to keep it the routine fresh, and find extra motivation. My wife and I take the same class and we tend to compete with each other. If you don't have a spouse interested you might want to try finding an exercise buddy. Sometimes the gyms themselves will have a community board, or something similar where you can find somebody looking for a buddy.0 -
Great info, love this site!
It is true and can happen, however us RNY'ers are a bit different. Don't forget that you also have had a mal-absorptive surgery. So you don't get all the calories processed that you put in your body. There have not been any studies done to prove how much we lose, but it is something to keep in mind. If you are tracking honestly and weighting/measuring all of your food then you are probably actually getting less than what you think.
I've seen a few strategies offered here. First and one that I employ is that of a cheat meal. Tonight, I ate 4 slices of thin crust pizza for a cool 1080 calories. I'll still have a snack later on and I'll be a few hundred calories above where I normally am on a day. And yes, I'm 20 months post RNY and can take down half of a large pizza! LOL. Anyway, the idea is that your body sees all this food and calories, kind of freaks out and boosts your metabolism temporarily.
Since you are about a year post-op, you should be eating fairly normally now compared to most others. Maybe just with smaller portions. This means that you should be more concerned with calories and macros more than overall size of meals. I prescribe to the IIFYM "diet". It's really more of a lifestyle. IF IT FITS YOUR MACROS. It has me calculated above what MFP says my calorie limit should be. It takes into account your exercise. So, I'm a 5'9 male, who weighs 193. I eat about 1900 to 2000 calories a day, and average about 2600 calories in exercise each week. MFP said I should only be getting 1750. I still lose weight. If you are interested check out iifym.com to calculate your BMR as well as your macros.
You might also try eating a second snack, or what I like to call fourth meal. I typically get hungry later at night, about 9 PM so I reserve some calories for that and have something in the range of a 400 calories snack.
Lastly, congrats on 104 lbs in 11 months! High five!
[/quote] Great info, so glad I found this site0 -
you are most likely eating too little, add some protein shakes back in made with milk , that will help a lot,
make sure you take the multiple vitamins /Iron/b12
DAILY !! do not miss it !!! its like putting on your health seatbelt- you can go without it , but do you want to face that chance??
Anemia is nothing to mess with !!!! 3 times since surgery i have been hospitalized, NO ONE shuld have to go through IV Iron - no one EVER!!
post op at this point should be 1200-1400 calories, you will still lose, as you are exercising,
varying exersize and calories, etc , is kind of been proven a fallacy, but the truth is in all things , play around get messy, figure out what works for you!!
no one is a cookie cutter - but up those calories!!!0
