Almost 2 months post sleeve...

[silverthreads 183]

@@Dchase521 I feel your pain...

I'm in a somewhat similar situation, and the advice I received on this board was to increase my calories and while it's early I think it's helping. I'll tell you my situation, but the first thing I'd recommend is if you aren't already start using My Fitness Pal or a similar app to track your food and exercise.

I had my VSG on 4/28 so I too am just under two months. I was really doing great and lost about 30 pounds post surgery in the first month or so. Then I hit the typical stall, and I'm not sure I'm out of it yet. About that time I started going to the gym and working up to about 45 minutes of cardio and some modest weight routines. That's also when I started tracking my food and exercise -- what I found was I was typically eating about 800 calories, but burning off 400-500 in the gym. I'm getting 80-100 grams of Protein daily. The "starvation mode" argument made sense to me (although I feel great) so I've been trying to push up my calories (not easy with our small capacity without resorting to junk).

I'm now eating closer to 1000-1100 calories and I've been losing a pound or two per week since then -- but it's choppy. I'll lose a pound then stall for 4-5 days just see-sawing half a pound or so every day. I just went on a very intense 2-day business trip where I mostly ate according to plan, but didn't exercise at all. I'll admit I had some definitely off-plan foods too (I was staying at a DoubleTree and yes, I ate the warm cookie!). I also had half a scoop of ice cream (worth every calorie on that 112 degree day) and resorted to a fried chicken finger at one point where I didn't have any decent options. Lo and behold I lost 2.5 pounds during that trip so maybe the change in routine helped.

My point is -- you really can go into starvation mode at this point which is bad for your basal metabolism in the long run. I know we newbies can't eat enough to match standard guidelines for a while but do what you can. I'm also trying to get back to real foods, since in my first effort to push up my calories I started eating Quest bars and other processed foods which I think isn't a good idea when other options are available.

In the long haul -- you'll get past this!

Edited June 23, 2016 by silverthreads