Starvation Mode After Surgery?

[Thinner Peace 24]

I gained my weight by destroying my metabolism with extremely low calories. How do you keep from regaining weight when you are on regular foods (i.e. a year out)? Doesnt surgery ruin your metabolism?

[mesaucedo 207]

My surgeon suggested eating 5 small meals, more like Snacks, a day to keep it up. I am not an expert on metabolism. PDX Man and BlackBerryJuice now a lot about the diet/anatomical aspects of the surgery.

[thebionicbroad 127]

Interesting question. The metabolic needs of the body are so much higher than what we can eat post-op that the body has no choice but to burn body fat. My surgeon told me that the body is indiscriminate about what it burns after surgery. I lost a lot of muscle along with that fat, but things settled down, as my surgeon told me, and if I keep up my Protein and weight-lifting, what I'm losing is fat. I'm 5 months post-op and I haven't stalled. I have "bounced," as my body is trying to maintain weight, but if I keep on doing what I'm supposed to, I keep losing, even if it's only a 1/10 of a pound a day.

[Wheetsin 714]

Have you had your metabolism tested, or are you guessing it's destroyed? Because the good news is, it isn't destroyted, it's completely dynamic. (I can also guarantee you it's not destroyed, because you're alive. If you're alive, you're metabolizing.)

Surgery itself does nothing to your metabolism. Your metabolism is going to slow because yes, at first we are essentially starving ourselves. Nurtuting your lean muscle mass (eating adequate amounts of good Protein, exercising, etc.) will help keep your metabolism up. More lean muscle mass = higher metabolism. Healthy fats will help as well, not skipping Breakfast, multiple small meals vs. 2 or 3 large ones, etc.

How to keep from regaining - as with any other type of lifetime comittment, you just have to keep it up. Intake will still be recuded. Your exercise should be continued. A lot of people focus on low-carb for losing, and during maintenance up their carb intake. There's really no difference between freshly post-op and a year out, in terms of the potential of the metabolism. You're just able to eat a larger variety of foods, and a slightly (comparatively) larger amount of them.

[beautifulnewme2012 164]

Here's a question...I started the pre op liquid diet yesterday...I gained a half of a pound?? And I don't seem to have to pee as much as I thought I would?? What gives?

[neeve 12]

Don't focus too much on your weight day to day liquid diets show their true amount after a few days

[Wheetsin 714]

Here's a question back - why are you weighing 1 day into your pre-op diet? Don't do that!

Liquid diets (assuming it's a low-carb or sugar free diet) purge extra sugars from your body. Your liver stores a lot of sugar, in the form of glycogen. 2 - 3 days into a sugar free diet there's usually a rush of weightloss as these sugar stores begin to deplete. Then there may be nothing for several days, even weeks. Your body is purging other fluids as well. About half of what you lose in the first week or two, possible more than half, is Fluid.

This is why so may diets are quit before they can really do anything. People start a low carb diet, lost 8 or 10 pounds in a week and think "Wow I'll be at goal in no time" (not realizing only a small portion of that (if any, at that point) is fat loss. Their body depletes its stores, puts on the brakes, and focuses on trying to rebuild the stores so there's minute or no weightloss in the next week or two, so they say "Forget it, this diet isn't working, I'm not going to give up my <favorite food> and net even be losing weight..." <- and unfortuantely when the scale doesn't change, the most frequent reaction is "I am doing something wrong" so there's a really strong emotional component as well.

Gaining a half of a pound is nothing. Sounds like you could very well be retaining Water. Keep in mind that 1 cup of Water (8oz) weighs a little over half a pound. Most "inexplicable" weight gains are rooted in Fluid.< /p>

Here's a question...I started the pre op liquid diet yesterday...I gained a half of a pound?? And I don't seem to have to pee as much as I thought I would?? What gives?

[beautifulnewme2012 164]

I was weighed at check in with the surgeon this morning!! Don't scold me!! LOL @ Wheetsin!! I am actually a big advocate of not "scale watching"...but the nurse weighed me and saw I gained a lb...and was grilling me about whether or not I was following protocol...which I am!! I actually just looked at the back of my Protein Shake bottle and it has too many grams of carbs...mine has 16 and the NUT said to keep it under 10...so I am going to the Vitamin Shoppe here shortly...I have to get my weight re checked thurs or fri because of the gain so I hope the Water retention reverses itself by then!!

[Wheetsin 714]

Just teasing.

Tell the nurse to back off - they'd really like me, I gain about 13# with TOM. And somehow my surgeon's office misrecorded my weights, and had 286 as my sleeve weight (it was actually what I weighed when my band was taken out, over 6 months prior) and they couldn't figure out how I had gone from 286 to 302 in the 4 weeks since getting my sleeve. "You have a really good loss of... uh... (flipping pages)... this can't be right..."

In all fairness, it's nice (strange, but nice) that they're keeping close tabs on you. It's always nice to see a program that is that "into" its patients and so involved in the more everyday things. That's pretty rare, anymore.

[beautifulnewme2012 164]

Yes I didn't mind at all...I also want to make sure I am doing things right and if she hadn't said something I would've kept drinking the wrong stuff!