Advice for gaining weight after gallbladder removal

mic__89 wrote: »

Hi everyone! I’m 32F / 5’8” / 112lbs. I eat healthy, but don’t have the most active lifestyle. My normal weight is 130lbs, but after getting sick last year, I lost 30lbs over the course of 6 months. I had my gallbladder removed October 2021 and was 100lbs on the day of surgery. I’ve always been on the smaller side, but never this small. I immediately gained 8lbs within the 2 weeks following surgery, but the weight gain has significantly slowed down. MyFitnessPal calculated that my daily caloric intake should be around 2,030 calories to gain 1lb per week. My daily average for the past month has been around 2,200 calories, but I’m only gaining .5lbs per week. Has anyone been successful with gaining weight after having their gallbladder removed? I’ve heard of weight loss being difficult, but not the inverse.

The calorie estimates are just that . . . estimates. If you're eating 2200, and only gaining half a pound a week, and that's been true for a month, I'd suggest you eat enough more calories to gain weight at the rate that would be healthiest for you.

Roughly 500 calories daily should amount to about a pound a week, so multiply that out to figure out how much more to eat to hit your gain-rate goals.

The numbers are somewhat dynamic, in the sense that if eating more gives you more energy, you might have to eat a little more than you initially estimate, in order to gain at your targeted rate . . . but you can figure that out based on experience (averaged over several weeks).

To maintain my weight, I need to eat around 500 calories more than MFP estimates I need. It's unusual for it to be that far off, but it can happen - it actually is more that that person (like me) is non-average, not that the calculator is inaccurate generally.

(I don't have my gallbladder any more, but I don't perceive that to have had any effect on my weight gain or loss. I'm not saying it can't, for others, though. I know it's involved in metabolizing fats, so that some people have to eat low fat after having it removed, for example.)

Certainly there are people who find it harder to gain weight. It wouldn't surprise me if some of those people are folks who burn a few more calories than average, i.e., more than a calculator estimates. Most people are close to the averages that the calculators spit out, but not absolutely everyone. 🤷‍♀️

If you're a data geek like I am, this may be interesting (helps if you understand statistics a little, but it's written for average readers):

https://examine.com/nutrition/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

Basic summary: Most people's resting metabolic rate (RMR**) is close to population averages. In statistical terms, there's a small standard deviation. In visual terms, the "bell curve" is steep and narrow.

A few people will be further off from average RMR, in either small tail of the bell curve, but there aren't very many of them. The further from average, the rarer those people are . . . but it's possible to be there. At the extreme, the difference could maybe be low hundreds of calories. (Most often, people who say they've dramatically "wrecked their metabolism" are wrong.)

(** Oversimplifying, RMR is the biggest chunk of Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), but when measured, the conditions are less strict.)

There are other factors that can add to or subtract from a particular person's non-average-ness, like being relatively more passive than average vs. relatively more placid. (Research suggests that at extremes, fidgeting could represent low hundreds of calories per day. This is not constant hyperactivity, necessarily, either, just cumulative effect of shifting weight in one's chair often, bouncing a foot when legs are crossed, etc.)

It may or may not be obvious why a particular person is observably non-average, in terms of calorie needs. Could be BMR/RMR, could be other factors, including possibly a combination of factors.