PLEASE HELP the skeptic in me. Doesn't starving = eventual weight gain??

[MaybeMeow 129]

I'm really struggling with the decision to move ahead with surgery or not. Here's what I don't understand. How are you not destroying your metabolism by only eating 750 calories a day? Will you never be able to eat regularly again for risk of packing on the pounds? I did the HCG diet years ago (it's terrible. Never ever do it) In a nutshell... you gave yourself a shot every day that kept your body from realizing that it was being starved and then ate about 750 calories a day while your body worked hard to function as usual. The weight dropped off. I lost quickly over about 3 months and then stopped the injections and slowly eased back into a regular diet of about 1500-1800 calories a day. AND THE WEIGHT JUMPED BACK ON so fast I was floored. I was eating a healthy, well balanced diet on the low end of daily intake for my height and weight and activity. But I gained a pound a day until I was 20 pounds heavier than I was before the diet. Explain to me how this forced starvation doesn't do the same thing? My stomach will stretch. We know it does because we are told we can slowly eat more over time. Won't my metabolism think I've starving and halt? Am I really expected to only eat 800 calories a day for the rest of my life or expect to gain?? Thank you for sharing facts and experience.

[VIN_IN_AL 55]

The restricted calorie intake is only for the first couple of months until your stomach has healed, and you are eventually able to eat a normal diet, just in smaller amounts of food “per sitting”. However just because your stomach is much smaller, you can still pack a hefty number of calories by the end of the day and eventually GAIN weight post-op. You must think of the surgery as a tool and not a “cure all” answer to lifelong weight management. Please review the information in the link below, I am sure the info will help answer many of the “what do I / can I eat” questions, it did for me.

https://www.obesityaction.org/community/article-library/the-post-surgery-diet-for-bariatric-patients-what-to-expect/

[MaybeMeow 129]

I appreciate your response and the link. It says right in this document... “ most post-op bariatric patients need to consume less than 1000 calories a day in order to maintain weight loss.”

1000 calories a day is a starvation diet Not a maintenance diet. This troubles me greatly. How can this be healthy long term? Meaning live to be 90 long term? Thank you for going to bat with me on this. I’m really having trouble with seeing how this is a forever option.

[Healthy_life2 8,324]

40 minutes ago, MaybeMeow said:

I appreciate your response and the link. It says right in this document... “ most post-op bariatric patients need to consume less than 1000 calories a day in order to maintain weight loss.”

1000 calories a day is a starvation diet Not a maintenance diet. This troubles me greatly. How can this be healthy long term? Meaning live to be 90 long term? Thank you for going to bat with me on this. I’m really having trouble with seeing how this is a forever option.

Call your bariratric office. They are better qualified to answer your questions about metabolism Ask if they have an information seminar. It will help you decide on surgery.

All I can offer is my experience five years out from sleeve surgery. (maintaining my weight in the 130's)

Surgery is nothing like my other diet attempts. (I've done every diet and pill) I needed a long term solution. My weight loss/maintenance diet is very livable. I'm not deprived, My hunger is manageable.

It's normal for your surgery restriction to relax after a year. My stomach is NOT back to full size. I still eat within my calorie range,

Maintenance diet and calories are different for each of us. It depends on your surgeons/dietitians plan, activity level, metabolism, healthy issues, medications......The list goes on. I maintain my weight between 1200 and 1300. I do have days that are higher. I take vacations and indulge within reason. If I have a slight gain I eat weight loss calories (My weight loss calories are 1100)

Take your time and research all of this. Do whats best for you and your health.

Jenn

[AZhiker 2,252]

I eat 1500-1800 calories a day to maintain. WLS resets your metabolism and disrupts the hunger hormones and the stomach-brain communication that tells you when you are full. WLS is a total reset. Your baseline metabolism does not bottom out like in other weight loss programs. For example, nearly every person on the Biggest Loser has gained all their weight back. Even with exercise, they found that after weight loss they still had to eat at least 500 less a day than a normal person of their weight. The diet was unsustainable. Yo-yo dieting really messes up all the mechanisms for permanent weight loss. WLS gives you a new start that is nothing short of miraculous. It is a powerful tool, but there is still a lot of hard work to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The calories I eat are 99% healthy, nutritionally dense ones. There is no junk or processed food.

[AJ Tylo 1,399]

7 hours ago, MaybeMeow said:

How are you not destroying your metabolism by only eating 750 calories a day? Will you never be able to eat regularly again for risk of packing on the pounds? I did the HCG diet years ago (it's terrible. Never ever do it) In a nutshell... you gave yourself a shot every day that kept your body from realizing that it was being starved and then ate about 750 calories a day while your body worked hard to function as usual.

You are way off on the Calories - First of all not sure where that number came from, but 750 HEALTHY CALORIES plus supplements and Vitamins is fine. That is a number only a number, your body will determine what it needs based on usage and demand. I was a huge dude taking in 6000 calories a day most likely, I ran on 600 calories a day for the long time and shred the weight. Now I am trying to hold and get tight so up to 1000 and vits and supps.

I feel so much better now then when i was running on Junk - Its a plan you adjust to your own body, No you are not starving yourself you are becoming healthy. Next time you out at a grocery store look for someone that is tight and fit, Now look in there cart. Knuff said -

Its not the quantity its the quality

[New&Improved 1,780]

I'm 4 months post op and only just getting to 1000+ cal a day.. was between 500-750 for months because you're just not that hungry or interested in food and your main goal for the first months is Protein and Water :)

[FluffyChix 17,415]

WLS allows for a metabolic reset of your fat storage/energy system. It allows your body chemistry (super complicated) to defend a lower set-point, but google Dr. Matthew Weiner on The YouTube and watch all of his videos and you will learn about it.

Unlike what @VIN_IN_AL says, my program (major university) told me no caloric threshold for calories. My real advice (RNY) was to get 60-80g of lean, dense, low fat Protein in daily from as many sources as possible for diversification, to eat 1-2 bites of low glycemic veggies, and don't eat much fat--but if I did, to use tiny bits of healthy fat. And to get in 64oz Water + daily Vitamins. Beyond that, they were fully aware that during WLM (weight loss mode) I averaged between 650-850 calories per day and my sweet spot seemed to be something like 750cals. The doctor and my RD never said a word about it, nor did either encourage me to artificially inflate my calories because of some mythical theoretical mumbo jumbo just to hit some "magic threshold" to prevent "starvation mode" (a myth).

I hit first goal at around 8-9months despite having a crapton of metabolic issues and shortcomings including being on a cancer drug that shuts down my hormones and causes weight gain in most people. (See the rest in my signature). I'm now maintaining at 131lbs this morning at 1100 cals average. That means preferentially some days I eat 700-800 cals per day (3 days per week) and some days I eat as much as 1400-1500 cals per day depending on appetite or what I'm doing. Over the week it averages to about 1100 cals.

I'm not in starvation. My Vitamin status at two years is fabulous and there ya have it.

Edited March 2, 2020 by FluffyChix

[catwoman7 11,215]

10 hours ago, MaybeMeow said:

I appreciate your response and the link. It says right in this document... “ most post-op bariatric patients need to consume less than 1000 calories a day in order to maintain weight loss.”

1000 calories a day is a starvation diet Not a maintenance diet. This troubles me greatly. How can this be healthy long term? Meaning live to be 90 long term? Thank you for going to bat with me on this. I’m really having trouble with seeing how this is a forever option.

I've been on bariatric internet forums for around 5+ years. SOME bariatric patients consume less than 1000 calories a day to maintain, but (and this is just based on postings I've read), this is the exception. I can maintain on 1700 calories a day. I've read of people maintaining on 2000 (I, unfortunately, would gain on that). I would say - and again just based on my own observation), that most women maintain on somewhere between 1200-1600 a day. A lot of that will depend on age, activity level, etc.

and no, oddly, metabolism doesn't seem to be ruined (unlike that of people on the Biggest Loser). I do know that bariatric surgery "resets" metabolism, so that may have something to do with it (?)

Edited March 2, 2020 by catwoman7

[Jazzy1125 1,010]

16 months out and i still cannot eat a lot. for me i needed the restriction because your right.. the minute we start eating bad or over eat we will put the weight back on. the surgery is a tool not a magic resolution. We still have to do all the hard work, eat right and exercise or we will be back to where we started. Its a lifestyle change as is diets, however diet only doesnt keep us or at least me on plan, you always fall off. This is a way to keep myself on track and i do not regret it one bit.

[VIN_IN_AL 55]

22 minutes ago, catwoman7 said:

most post-op bariatric patients need to consume less than 1000 calories a day in order to maintain weight loss

The key word is "MOST" .. not everyone... each person's situation will be different and as others have already mentioned the best source of information will likely be your surgeons office. My surgeons office told to use the info in the link as a source of guidance for starters knowing that adjustments to calorie intake may be needed as time progresses after the procedure.

[MaybeMeow 129]

Thank you for these responses. Truly. I’m asking myself (and others like you who have been through this) these tough questions because like most, I assume, I have doubts about maintaining. I’m not sure I have the will to eat so little... forever. I absolutely admire those who do. But I find myself wondering if they are simply more disciplined than I am. I’m going to do some more reading about how the surgery “resets” metabolism. Easy to say but what does it really mean and how does this happen? While I understand the removal of the part of the stomach that creates a hunger hormone I’m not sure how it’s all reset for the better since you immediately move forward by eating so little and it seems hunger does eventually return. Yes, I will be talking to my surgeon and dietician. As a matter of fact my husband is an excellent internal medicine doc so I have the “ medical” resources handy. I also know their insight can’t compare to those who have lived it. So thank you so much.

incidentally, on the HCG diet forum 10 years ago everyone thought it all worked so well and was a huge gift, reset etc too. Now it’s been recognized as a significant detriment to long term heath. So I’m determined to make sure long term living in the real world is possible.

Is anyone here 10 years out and successful? Again, thank you greatly!

[catwoman7 11,215]

8 minutes ago, MaybeMeow said:

But I find myself wondering if they are simply more disciplined than I am. I’m going to do some more reading about how the surgery “resets” metabolism. Easy to say but what does it really mean and how does this happen? While I understand the removal of the part of the stomach that creates a hunger hormone I’m not sure how it’s all reset for the better since you immediately move forward by eating so little and it seems hunger does eventually return.

you do have to be disciplined. The first few months weren't too, too hard because my hunger disappeared for about five months, but it does eventually come back for most of us, and things get more challenging after that.

I have to be very disciplined now in maintenance, too. I can maintain my weight by averaging about 1700 kcal/day. I can definitely go higher than that occasionally, but if I do it too often (like more than two or three times a month), it'll start showing up on the scale. I was in India for the month of October and although I wasn't making a pig of myself, I wasn't closely monitoring what I was eating. I was probably eating 2000 kcal a day. And then I came back a couple weeks before the holiday season started - more eating. I put on eight pounds from the beginning to October to New Year's. Still working on getting that off. So yea - it takes discipline for sure to keep the weight off.

I can't answer your question about resetting metabolism, other than you'll see that claim pretty much everywhere. Also, the association of bariatric surgeons is called the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, so there does seem to be some metabolic aspect to this.

[FluffyChix 17,415]

There is no magic bean solution to morbid obesity. Many docs, including Dr. Weiner and my doc believe that once you are MO, the underlying metabolic condition that we are left with predisposes us to recurrence. The reality is we have millions of hormone secreting/appetite stimulating, insulin promoting, empty fat cells sitting there waiting for us to revert to pre-surgery eating habits/food choices. The body is extremely smart and the malabsorption lessens over time as does restriction. I see that in only 2 years.

I look at the surgery as a brief, short term period to lose more weight than we would ordinarily be able to lose on our own, because of the metabolic reset that allows us to go below our set point, without triggering the starvation response. The studies show that the longer a person can maintain their weight loss, the greater the chance for long term success.

If I do not maintain my strict observance to my personal metabolic condition, I will rapidly regain and it does not go back down very easily. That's why I do set a 5lb window and hope and pray every day that by remaining engaged and focused it won't "magically" start climbing beyond that 5 pound window. At 2 years, there is still a lot that remains to be seen...

I believe it requires a total transformation and a willingness to learn new behaviors, set new rules for engaging with food, becoming active, having a good support system with great after care, having a means for managing stress, anxiety, and spirituality and also having regular exercise...

Edited March 2, 2020 by FluffyChix

[Mello1 227]

16 hours ago, MaybeMeow said:

I appreciate your response and the link. It says right in this document... “ most post-op bariatric patients need to consume less than 1000 calories a day in order to maintain weight loss.”

1000 calories a day is a starvation diet Not a maintenance diet. This troubles me greatly. How can this be healthy long term? Meaning live to be 90 long term? Thank you for going to bat with me on this. I’m really having trouble with seeing how this is a forever option.

Like most things, every person has to determine if this is an option for them. Here is that article that I referred to:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485884/ about set points.

Others are much more knowledgeable than I am, but I believe the smaller stomach makes it very difficult to take in more than 1000 calories in the beginning. Is that sustainable for life? I certainly can't answer that question, but there are 2 celebrities who I follow who I know have had RNY surgery and has maintained their low weight for up to 20 years. Some gain some back, but the real point here is that this surgery is a tool -- not the solution -- to weight loss. What I see is that the surgery gives you a sustained time period to adjust to a new eating lifestyle.

What I do know is no matter what one does to lose weight, one has to sustain it for life in order to keep that weight off.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Mello1