General Calorie Intake Post Surgery Question

[BurBur 113]

I know this is entirely a very, very subjective question to ask, but I was hoping for a general idea. For those of you who have arrived at your goal weight and/or currently in maintenance (even if it isn't your goal weight), would you be willing to share a little info about what you believe your daily calorie intake is, and how many hours a week you spend doing exercise. Please include the weight you are maintaining if you don't mind and gender and age if that isn't too personal. Are you surprised by how few calories you can eat or is it better than you expected? I'd love to hear from anyone, even peeps who spent time in maintenance and regressed. I spoke with a girl in my support group who was in her mid twenties. She was frustrated that she was maintaining 180 lbs and only able to consume 800 calories per day. She admittedly did not make time for much exercise, but she felt angry that she was stuck in maintenance on such a low calorie restriction and felt tired all the time. I wanted to believe she wasn't entirely honest with herself on calorie intake, but I didn't press her as she was already fretting. It just doesn't seem possible that even a sedentary body could function on 800 calories, but I thought I might just ask here and see how people manage themselves at goal or in their personal maintenance. Thanks for your time and attention!

[GreenTealael 25,339]

I predict that this thread is going to be super subjective and then turn Sciencey, but in the end you'll have no answers that apply to you.

Good luck 🎈

Edited December 18, 2018 by GreenTealael

[future_dahl 3]

I know this is entirely a very, very subjective question to ask, but I was hoping for a general idea. For those of you who have arrived at your goal weight and/or currently in maintenance (even if it isn't your goal weight), would you be willing to share a little info about what you believe your daily calorie intake is, and how many hours a week you spend doing exercise. Please include the weight you are maintaining if you don't mind and gender and age if that isn't too personal. Are you surprised by how few calories you can eat or is it better than you expected? I'd love to hear from anyone, even peeps who spent time in maintenance and regressed. I spoke with a girl in my support group who was in her mid twenties. She was frustrated that she was maintaining 180 lbs and only able to consume 800 calories per day. She admittedly did not make time for much exercise, but she felt angry that she was stuck in maintenance on such a low calorie restriction and felt tired all the time. I wanted to believe she wasn't entirely honest with herself on calorie intake, but I didn't press her as she was already fretting. It just doesn't seem possible that even a sedentary body could function on 800 calories, but I thought I might just ask here and see how people manage themselves at goal or in their personal maintenance. Thanks for your time and attention!

The woman who only took in 800 calories may or may not be being honest. Theres a really well done old documentary about a man who was monitored in a hospital for about 4 months who wasnt allowed to eat anything, period, and even he went through unexpected periods of plateau. Im a pretty firm believer that people generally underestimate their calories though.

Sent from my SM-G955U using BariatricPal mobile app

[Jazzy1125 1,010]

For this reason alone I bought a new Calendar Journal for 2019. I am only 5 weeks post op, but i know tracking is my downfall. I am not always on my phone to be using the app to log food. I work all day, and have ballroom dance classes right after work and get home late. I need to be more stringent on tracking now.. or i am going to be that girl in support groups not understanding why i am not losing, but yet not having a clue as to how much i am eating.

[FluffyChix 17,415]

Ok, I'll play! I keep pretty detailed food logs/Excel worksheets. And this month I'm averaging the following and maintaining basically between 148 and 153lb range. I'm 56, 5'4" (barely), medium to small frame. I walk/jog 5-7 days per week/1hr to 90 minutes per day.

My current monthly average macros are:

939cals; 45g fat; 48g carbs; 8g fiber; 40g net carb; 71g Protein

I'm either in the devil's stall from hell, or in a helluva plateau. No change in measuring tape either. My waist is 29.5in. I am in ketosis, very carb sensitive, most carbs come from veggies/fruits/seeds/nuts/eggs/dairy in about that order. I've reached my "1st goal" of 150lbs, but I'm working on "2nd goal" which is 140lbs or anything below 144lbs (normal weight range for me). And my "final goal" is 130lbs.

It is extremely frustrating to think that I will have to eat less than 1000cals per day for the rest of my life, in order to hopefully maintain my weight loss...

This is my most recent progress pic. Haven't taken new ones since the weight hasn't really changed so much. You can see, I am not a skinny minny. There is still much more fat in my aspirin bottle and thighs/lower tum that needs to evacuate the hizzouse...

Edited December 18, 2018 by FluffyChix

[BurBur 113]

1 hour ago, FluffyChix said:

My current monthly average macros are:

939cals; 45g fat; 48g carbs; 8g fiber; 40g net carb; 71g Protein

This was exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to see! You're post was perfect! You see, I think I have a myth in my own head that I need to dispel and I'm trying to make a generalization. That myth is--that normal sized people live on the 2000 calorie day diet to stay fit and healthy paired with reasonable daily activity! But I think if more people step forward to say what they really get to eat to survive at goal, I would find they are eating less than 1000 calories per day! If you tell one of your normal, "skinny" friends that you only eat 1000 calories each day, they would probably be astonished, right? As a bariatric patient, I was expecting that I would be eating 800-1000 calories each day until my goal weight, then up the intake until I maintained. My brain believes that based on my current reasonable activity, my age, my height, and a poor set of metabolic genetics, that I should expect to live the rest of my life on a 1500ish calorie diet, but maybe this is a lofty expectation! Am I fooling myself?

The very reason I'm asking for this generalization is I KNOW there are many of us who need to dispel "the myth." It will be different for everyone, but NOT incredibly different.

YOU LOOK AMAZING BY THE WAY. There is a little piece of me that is sad that your diet is so restricted to keep a good handle on all your progress, but I appreciate your feed back so much. I need a good dose or realism.

[FluffyChix 17,415]

I don't have the answers to your questions/misapprehensions. I would think it depends on the degree of broken-ness of your metabolism, and so many other factors such as:

1. Sex

2. Age

3. Activity Level

4. RMR

5. Amount of LBM and whether you actively try to build muscle

6. How big was your surgery (if you have a malabsorptive element, how big is that)

7. What year are you post surgery

8. What you eat to make up those macros. A calorie is not a calorie.

9. How your hormones are

10. How much you sleep

11. How much stress you have

12. What kinds of medications you're on

I could go on and on and on...but probably won't.

[FluffyChix 17,415]

Just now, ms.sleeve said:

Wow. This is slightly discouraging news.

I also do about 1-1.5 hours of walk/jog a day...but I'm (almost) 5'2" and my goal weight is 130.

I'm guessing then that I my ultimate maintain cals will be much less than your 939! Need to wrap my head around that now.

P.S. you look great. and skinny minny is not that far off, if not already there.

Thank you but don't confuse my reality with your own. What you don't know about me is that:

My whole life I've had metabolic syndrome and then I'm also very old, and am in super menopause due to a hysterectomy but also a breast cancer drug that shuts down as much hormone conversion as it possibly can to keep me from having a BC recurrence. It's a brutal and life saving drug that turns you into a 90 year old woman. LOL.

[ummyasmin 1,603]

I need a good dose or realism.

Everyone eating same calorie load to have same results is an absolute myth. There is so much going on in our metabolisms and unfortunately for us, we won the genetic lottery of being REALLY REALLY good at extracting bang for our buck out of our calories.

So the reality is, we are probably going to need fewer calories because our metabolisms just work that way. Increasing exercise helps somewhat because there's a bunch of science about insulin uptake and exercise etc. I think there might be a Peter Attia TED talk about this somewhere.

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[Lolo 2020 236]

I have a friend who went though the surgery and started to experience weight gain on only 1400 calories a day . She started working with a very good Nutritiomist and physiologist and started dropping weight while eating 2000 calories a day . She works out differently , heavier weight workouts versus cardio and eats some really different Protein rich things