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I appreciate your input on this topic, @CarmenG. 1) Is there one or two main things you don't like about the bypass, or is it just more restrictive overall? And 2) Have you done much exercise in either case? Just wondering if that was a factor in your weight loss.

@ryan_86 Thanks so much for this. I was not going to do the revision from sleeve to bypass due to all the posts of people mentioning that there was no restriction with the bypass. I am terrified of regaining weight. I had my sleeve done in 2017 and had regained about 30 pounds back during the last 3 years due to a serious back injury in 2020 during COVID. I also have been having some water retention this past year. Even with this I am still down 103lbs from my original weight. My GERD is out of control...I had the Upper GI and the EGD with Bravo recently...my Bravo tested acid at 50 when per doc it should be below 15. When they told me to go back on my meds during the test the numbers dropped and they uped my meds from 20mg to now 40mg per day. I go back in to meet with the surgeon soon. Although I am now back in the gym and eat considerably well/healthy...my portion sizes are still small too I would love relief from GERD and the higher probability of health issues with my esophagus later. However with the scare folks are putting in the forums about no restriction I would rather live with GERD than to not have this tool to help me stay on track. Your post helped to relieve "some" of my concerns. Please let me know how you continue to do on your path. You can send a DM if you like to stay in touch. I woukld love to know your progress and how you're doing with the malabsorption.

I didn't have a specific pre-op diet though my Doc did want me losing weight. Really, the only direction given was don't eat after 6:00pm the night before surgery. I had planned a nice late lunch early dinner the day before that would be Prime Rib, loaded potato, and mushrooms with my spouse. When the day came I lost interest in the whole idea. For whatever reason it lost it's appeal. I ended up not eating anything at all and playing Everquest with my spouse and friends until far too late. Good luck, Tek

@Arabesque and @Jeanniebug made a lot of good points. I'm going to make one or twelve more: Since the statistics say the average weight loss is about 70% of one's overweight amount many patients choose a goal weight, or their surgeons choose a goal weight, that assumes the 70% excess weight loss. 70% being an average that means slightly more than half of people will lose more. Of course most people that go with the 70% excess weight loss often have another number for which they are hoping; As I said in another thread I had so much excess weight to lose that choosing a goal weight was ridiculous. I figured I could worry about a goal weight when I got into the nationhood. As I said in the other thread, I also didn't want to choose the wrong goal number that could make a 500+ pound loss a failure. Good luck, Tek

Hi just now seeing this. I went pack to basics and intermittent fasting. The two protein shakes and one meal is what you have to do to get weight moving. Also you can never eat regular again to maintain the weight loss. That’s what I found works for me. I keep my calories around 1000 or less per day and I’m fine. If I splurge one day I only eat a little of the bad item. Also no leftovers of not good food choice items.

I have 2 goal weights - my surgeon's and my own. My surgeon's goal for me was 163 lbs, by the 1-year mark. My own goal is 150 lbs. So far, I haven't hit 165. I've been bouncing between 166 and 170. I'm 9-months post op. It's worth noting that I haven't been able to exercise much, due to an issue with my diaphragm (surgeon thinks that perhaps my xiphoid process may have been injured during my bypass) and a rotator cuff injury. I'm currently taking a short course of Celebrex to see if that knocks out the pain. I know that once I can start lifting weights, my body will change. Walking doesn't seem to be enough. That said, I'm pretty happy where I am. I'm an easy keeper at this point. I'm not struggling with my diet. I'm maintaining well. I know that regain may happen and I'm hoping to prevent that with activity. I'm just super happy that I have other health wins. I'm no longer diabetic. My cholesterol is normal again. My blood pressure is back down to where it should be. I'm wearing a size XL - and while that's still fairly large, it's an off-the-rack size and I can shop in pretty much any store. So, goal weight... It's something to think about... But, I'm really more focused on my health and my size.

It’s very likely your goal weight will not be your final weight - where you settle & maintain. This is controlled by your new set point, any bounce back regain, a settling weight, any lifestyle choices you may make & the weight you feel happiest & most comfortable at. I picked a goal weight that had always been my low weight in the roller coaster that was my weight loss/gain history. My surgeon said it was a reasonable goal. It put me at a BMI (love it or hate it) of about 23. Though I felt I would be happy if I just got close to that weight & a long way away from what I did weigh. Yes, I did exceed my goal but that was totally unexpected. It’s my new set point weight where my body is happiest. And I can fairly easily maintain it without limiting or restricting my life. Goal weights have the potential to mess with your head if you don’t reach it or maintain at that weight. It’s just a number on a scale often selected for emotional reasons. The bigger wins are improvements to your health & well being. Be flexible. Allow for fluctuations & influences beyond your control. Some people set a couple of goal weights. Like a good, better, best but recognising any would be an achievement which would improve their life.

Actually it’s not that common. It could just be others have not remained active on the forum or as you wondered they haven’t updated their stats. Their profile weight might be their lowest weight & not the weight at which they settled & maintain - there is a difference. The average weight loss is about 65% of the weight you have to lose to put you in a healthy weight range for either bypass & sleeve surgeries which is usually informed by BMI (love it or hate it) at the three year point. But with all stats there there are those who exceed that stat & those who don’t for many reasons. Some we have control over (dietary & activity choices) & many we don’t (medication, gender, age, genetics, health issues, mobility, set point, etc.) But statistically the number who reach their goal will be less & the number who exceed it even lower than those who lose the 65% average. Your goal weight is a weight you picked. It may be based upon BMI. It may be based on a weight you’d been before. Or a weight that seems okay to you. Some even adjust their goal weight as they progress. I call it my head weight or emotional weight. It often is not the weight you end up at. Some find they prefer to be at a higher weight - easier to maintain without limiting or restricting their lifestyle or they feel they look better or are more comfortable at a higher weight. There is also a bounce back regain weight many experience. You can’t really tell what your finally weight will be before your surgery. Some surgeons say they can predict approximately how much weight you may lose at specific points in your weight loss post surgery. I think it may be double the weight you’ve lost at 3 months but I’m sure some one will confirm the actual formula. Though again this is based upon stats & some exceed this & some don’t. And I don’t know if it takes into consideration bounce back regain or settling weight or is just the lowest weight you reach. Would be worth asking your surgeon about it though. The trick is not to get tied to your goal weight. It’s not your body’s new set point weight (the weight your body is happiest at). It can really mess with your head if you don’t reach it or you don’t maintain it. Even when maintaining, allow yourself some realistic fluctuation & wriggle room with your weight. Try & remember it’s just a number on a scale & there are many more important wins to celebrate like your health & well being. I am someone who exceeded my goal (based on the lowest weight I always cycled around in the past) & exceeded the stats (132% lost). Not by anything I did. It’s my body’s new set point & where it happily stabilised. My lowest weight was 48.2kg & then I settled at 48.5-49.5. I gained a couple of kilos because of a medication issue but resettled & stabilised at 49.5-50kg after sorting the issue. I find it pretty easy to maintain & not limiting or restrictive.

I think it just means they surpassed their initial goal weight. They didn't just reach their goal loss, they lost even more!

I sure hope so. I know I need to get back my positive attitude (like during my pre-op dieting, when I lost about 30 lbs in as many days). It's just hard with all the other things happening to me right now with the weight loss stall, insomnia, night cramps, skin issues, and lack of energy. I really just want everything to balance out already. Thank you for the encouragement, though.

Having only found this site yesterday, I've spent a couple of hours over the past two days wandering around and have noticed that there are many folks here who have a listed Current Weight that's anywhere from 10 to 30 lbs or more below their Goal Weight. Is overshooting your GW something that typically happens, or are some of those folks just not updating their listed numbers or am I completely missing the boat on this? I'm scheduled for my surgery on Aug 28 and know where I'd like to end up on the scale and am more curious than I am concerned about going below that.

If you're only 4.5 months post-op, you still have a LOT of weight loss left in you. You will likely continue to lose until at least 9 months post-op. It will slow down, but you are likely nowhere close to being done.

Thank you all so much for your replies, gives me quite a bit to think about- wrestling with the issue. I love that NSV are very life changing, and I dont think im wrong picking a number either- just trying to wrap my mind around the difference between advisors and what is sustainable. i too am very short- and have lived most of my life overweight. Im motivated by the numbers, but just as an indicator on how im doing - and i do feel really good. Still no labs pulled, but have plans for them to be pulled in August, prior to the Bariatric nutritionist. At 4.5 months post op, i know i still have a bit to go, but am trying to shift my thinking towards the maintenance phases. Not there yet, but i could accept it if I my body decided this is my stable weight.

1. Basics: GENDER, AGE, HEIGHT Female, 50, 5 feet 0 inches 2. Total Weight lost in the 6 months BEFORE surgery (if any) 6.4 kilos or 14 pounds 3. Weight on DAY OF SURGERY. 148.6 kilos or 327 pounds 4. Weight at 1 MONTH POST surgery 137.6 kilos or 302 pounds 5. Weight at 3 MONTHs POST surgery ----- 6. Weight at 6 MONTHs POST surgery ----- 7. Weight at 12 MONTHs POST surgery -----

In 2009, I chose the sleeve because it's less invasive and there's less maintenance involved. Some say you lose more with the bypass, but I lost 149 lbs. in the first 18 months with a sleeve. Now, due to my life taking the turns it did, 14 years later I regained all my weight. But that wasn't the surgery, it was all me. One month ago, I had a revision from sleeve to bypass. And I can tell you this... if I could go back in time and take care of my sleeve like I should have, I would absolutely, positively do it. I'm not liking this bypass one bit, and I would never recommend it over a sleeve. Just my 2 cents.

My surgeon set my goal weight at 80kg. My personal goal weight was 75kg, because my aim was to be the same size I was when at my smallest back in 1997, which I vaguely recalled being around 75-78kg. When I hit that goal I then had a new goal of 65kg, so I have a buffer in case of the common regain a couple of years post-surgery. I like having a weight goal, it's motivating and I find it useful. I also take what size I am and how my clothes fit into account.

Hi - I had a bypass on June 1st. I have had a pretty good recovery and healing so far and was given the all clear to swim at 2 and a half weeks post op. I have been swimming mostly daily since. I was given the all clear to start some high intensity this week (with some precaution) - I've had one class so far and really enjoyed it. My starting weight was 215lbs and I'm now 179lbs. I'd like to lose another 79lbs.

I think the time for the last hurrah is before your pre-op diet OP. Eating off plan so close to your surgery might actually jeopardise the procedure because the whole point is to shrink your liver so they can get in to perform it. I totally understand the cravings - we all do. But you will have this lots in the next few months and if you can get past them then you will see amazing weight loss. I wish you the best of luck.

My trigger (on top of years of unhappiness with my weight, as for all of us) was not being able to fit into a booth in a restaurant to eat with my family. Having to ask to be moved was humiliating. Probably for the umpteenth time but that was the (last) last straw. Never looked back.

You have a plan and it sounds really good OP. I wish you the best of luck with your weight loss and your knee replacements. Hope you're back to being as fit and active as nature intended really soon.

My goal weight shifted a few times. I want to preface all of this by stating I am very short statured, so these numbers are going to sound extremely low. I had a BMI of 46 when I started the process and weighed 245 pounds. I chose 120 at first, then found out I would still be considered overweight, so I lowered it to 110, which is dead-center of a healthy weight range according to the BMI scale. Ironically my posture has improved since my surgery and I am an inch taller now, and 120 would have been fine all along (for a woman my size it's between 94 and 124 pounds).

I disagree with the idea that goal weights aren't important. If having a goal weight motivates you, go for it. I had three goal weights. My first was to get to "overweight" BMI. My second was to get to "healthy" BMI. My final was to get to Ideal Body Weight. I ultimately achieved all three and got down to 146.5. Now, in maintenance, my goal is to stay under 150. So far so good. Having an ambitious goal weight really pushed me during the final months when the weight loss slowed and it would have been easy to back off.

You don't need to fixate on a specific number. Look at where you are now and figure out if this is the right weight or if you want to weigh less or more than your current weight. There are a lot of things to consider, but to generalize, how do you feel and look at your current weight, and how sustainable is it? If everything is good now, congratulations! This is your goal weight. It's probably not that simple because it can be a bit of a balancing act, but figure out, overall, if you'd be better off losing more weight or staying where you are. Are you physically comfortable, able to be as active as you'd like to be, and have good mobility? (Of course, there are factors other than your weight that affect these things, but consider whether losing more weight would improve these things.) Are you satisfied with how you look, what size clothes you wear, how people perceive you? Do you look healthy or do people often ask you if you're sick (which may indicate that further weight loss would be a negative for your appearance)? How easy or difficult is it for you to stick with your current calorie level for the long term? If you're hungry all the time and struggle to stick to your plan, you may be setting yourself up to fall off the wagon and regain. If you're satisfied with what and how much you're eating and exercising to maintain your weight, it's sustainable for the long term. How are your health metrics? How's your blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, etc., and would losing more weight be likely to improve anything? Do you have any vitamin deficiencies that indicate that you're not eating enough (or not taking the right supplements)? I would take the numbers from your dietitian and GP with a grain of salt because bariatric surgery patients are different from their average patients, and without specialized training, they may not understand the nuances and may be basing their advice off the good old BMI chart. In my opinion, if they are giving you a specific number as a goal weight, or telling you that your weight is "too high" or "too low" based solely on your height and weight rather than your actual health metrics, they probably don't have great knowledge in this area. The bariatric dietitian will probably be more helpful. I know you have to wait a couple of months, but you seem to be doing fine for now, so unless you have major problems, you can probably just keep on doing what you're doing until then.

When I got sleeved in 2009, I didn't have a goal weight, I had a goal size. I wanted to be a size 12 (I was a size 6X/32, 340 lbs at the time). I ended up losing 149 lbs and got down to a size 14 (at 195 lbs). Now, I'm a revision from sleeve to bypass. My weight, when I first went back to the doc for the revision, was 333, I was a size 4X/26. I thought it was weird that I was only 7 lbs less than my sleeve weight, but still 3 sizes smaller. Doc said it was probably because I had put on some muscle weight. So this time, I decided my goal weight would be 200lbs because I know that since it's a revision, I'm not going to lose like I did with the sleeve. I didn't want to be unrealistic. Also, me at 200 lb is pretty close to a size 14. If I can get back to that, I will be more than thrilled!

My goal weight isn't a number - it's a feeling. When I can walk alot, bend over, exercise without dying and my lab numbers come back as normal ,,,, that'll be my goal weight !