The nurse for my doctor always helped to clarify questions I had like this. I would just shoot her an email about it and she would get back to me. My doctors was a fan of being really ambiguous in our meetings and wouldn't tell me a calorie goal, but would discuss my daily goals for protein and such. The nurse is the one who would clarify things for me. At four months, I was definitely in the 800-1000 calorie range. I probably stayed in that range for 2-3 more months and then moved up to 1000-1200 calorie range. Since month 9, my daily goal has been 1200 calories.

I am 4 weeks out and eating 600-800 calories. I try to hit a min of 70g protein. My dietician said that when I get to "real food" I will be eating more than this. If your body is truly hungry, it is telling you something.

So what I'm going to say, many of you may disagree with and maybe this doesn't apply to everyone, but I thought I should mention... I'm 9 months out at my goal weight which puts me in the normal range for my height (153), but I want to lose another 15/20 lbs so I've been trying to keep around 1200 calories. Also, I speed walk about 60 minutes a day as part of my commute.This definitely has me losing about 2lbs a week and I do not see a reason to go lower. In fact, once I start running/ lifting I will most likely have to up my calories.

Since I started my journey, I was following a low carb diet but included full fat cheese, milk, etc. which makes it difficult to keep calories low. I think that this might have helped me to not mess up my metabolism during the weight loss process. I only ate under 1000 calories for the first 2-3 months and I started as a "light weight" and I have a very small frame. Maybe I just have a great metabolism, but I think not sticking to the super low calorie amounts for months on end helped me. Mind you, this also includes heavy drinking this summer and times I'd let myself indulge.

Incase any of you watch fat kings phil on youtube, I think he did one video where he talked about metabolism post wsl. He says that he keeps his calories at around 1200 for maintenance- you'd think that as a male that works out several days a week, he'd be able to eat more to maintain. It's very bizarre how this varies from person to person, but I think a study should definitely be done! I can't imagine eating 1200 calories a day for the rest of my life for maintenance...

Joanna,

I am looking forward to getting back to a deficit that is more in line with MFP's sensible recommendations. For me, though, I am happy to have the larger deficits during the 'honeymoon period' when the hormonal benefits are at their highest. One of the driving factors in my pre-surgery work was to get my post-surgery weight loss needs to a more reasonable 80-100 pounds so that it could be accomplished in the 6-9 months post surgery.

I definitely want to get out of the massive deficit numbers as soon as I can. Aiming for maintenance in late spring/early summer.

Rob

I am in month 5. I was moved up to 1000 calories in month 3---and told by month 6 to go up to 1200. I am doing great at 1000 calories a day hitting my protein everyday and even higher a lot of days. I will move up when i feel that 1000 is not working for me.

I sent you a PM TLDR - lift weights. Keep upping them. Muscle is everything - keep what you have, work hard to get more. Enjoy the results - both aesthetically and physically. Protein requirements for WLS patients are woefully low... Double whatever they tell you. Minimum 100g for anyone trying to keep/gain muscle.