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You can keep losing weight any time as long as you're in a calorie deficit. It's easiest to lose weight early on because (1) your restriction is strongest, so eating at a deficit is practically automatic, and (2) you have the most excess weight, and the more excess weight you have, the easier it is to lose. As you lose weight and become smaller, the calories you burn just by existing (breathing, circulating blood, digesting food, moving around) get lower. If you weigh 200 pounds and eat 1200 calories per day, you'll lose weight a lot faster than if you weigh 150 pounds and eat 1200 calories per day. You can still lose weight, but you may have to be a lot more conscientious about your food intake instead of just relying on your surgery to prevent you from overeating.

@Dub That was an incredibly moving story. One thing I have learned is that therapy is important and community is therapy. To deal with being mindful and keeping the focus, I attend groups several times a week through BariNation. It has my people, like this forum does but with medical/psychological experts and meet ups with others. Just being and sharing helps keep from the regain as well. I spend less on food now, so I use that for my membership. My health has improved, I feel better mentally and emotionally, and feel useful again as I get treatment, and am helpful with my fellow Bari Friends at BariNation. I have yet to get what I get from BariNation anywhere else, and believe me I have searched and today I am calm and happy because as I said, community is therapy, and once you find your people, you know you are where you belong. This forum is good, but it isn't live. There is so many life lessons we will deal with as we live our lives and we need the capacity to handle those that come our way. Have some love for yourself and just try it. Be mindful and help to minimize stress through compassion and fun through BariNation.MN.CO

In addition to @Hop_Scotch’s suggestion of stomach acid being the cause, you could also be experiencing head hunger. The surgery and all the changes are very stressful on you physically, mentally and emotionally. Many of us always turned to food in these stressful times but of course food can’t be the answer now. However your brain hasn’t got the message and is telling you you’re hungry so you’ll eat to comfort yourself. And the more you don’t eat to comfort yourself, the more your brain says hungry so eat. Ask your surgeon for some PPIs (Nexium, prilosec, etc.) to combat the excess stomach acid your body is still producing which is causing the burning & growling. PS - What are the three meals you are eating each day? Usually the first two weeks are liquids only so shakes, bone broths, strained cream soups, strained consommés are your ‘meals.’.

The food looks really good, but you look extra fine yourself! Love the pose and the dress!

A typical pre-op is dependent on your insurance and your surgeon, but most require things like: A series of monthly visits with a dietitian. 3 to 6 monthly visits are fairly common A visit with a psychiatrist or psychologist. Depending on the outcome, you may need to undergo treatment for an undiagnosed eating disorder One or more education sessions typically done over a series of weeks. This is to better prepare you for both the immediate post-op diet, as well as long term expectations. These are sometimes, but not always done together with the dietitian visits. Clearance from your primary care doctor and depending on your health history, clearances from other doctors such as a cardiologist or endocrinologist. Numerous blood tests, both to look for potential problems and to set a baseline. Again depending on your health history and your surgeons preferences, you might need to have things such as an endoscopy and/or a swallow study done. Some people may even need additional imaging done such as CT or MRI scans. As a diabetic, they may require your A1C to be below a prescribed value. This is for your safety. Honestly I'm probably forgetting some stuff. If so, I'm sure others here can chime in. In terms of lifetime changes to your eating patterns, you need to make sure you're prepared to make better food choices for life. It's a sad fact, but a pretty high number of people that have weight loss surgery eventually gain the weight back. This can be avoided by learning how to make better food choices now, so you don't fall back into old habits once the stomach restriction eases off. It's often misunderstood by those not familiar with bariatric surgery that weight loss post surgery is "easy". Yes, the initial loss can be easier that it would have been otherwise, but keeping the weight off is just as hard, if not harder that it would have been had you not had the surgery. This is why learning how to eat better is so important. People that lose weight naturally and keep it off do so through repeatedly making good food choices and strict discipline. That knowledge carries over really well to long term weight maintenance. The people that fail weight loss surgery often found initial weight loss easy, but sometimes really struggle once they get to maintenance since they don't know how to eat like a "normal" person. Add in the fact that a formerly obese person trying to maintain weight typically can't eat as much food as someone that was never overweight even if they are the exact same body size, and you can see why retraining yourself here is critical. Throw in the fact that (at least in my opinion), most obese people either have an eating disorder, or at least suffer from disordered eating, and it's obvious that the surgery is just a small component to overall success. TL;DR: IMO, It's better to take your time and do it right.

The ONLY thing you have to do to lose weight is eat fewer calories than you burn. If you do that you will lose weight. There are lots of tools we can use to help us in this regard, like tracking, meal prep, tweaking macros, eating more high quality foods vs. junk food, and a lot more, but at the end of the day, it's calorie consumption that will make or break a diet. For some people tracking is critically important because if they don't track, they overeat badly. Everyone has a bad tendency to way underestimate the number of calories we eat in a day, so especially for people that tend to snack a lot, or eat a super varied diet (which is not a bad thing!), then tracking at least sometimes is pretty helpful to make sure they don't overeat. Like you, I just can't track reliably. It's not so much that I forget to do so, as much as I find it incredibly time consuming and boring, thus I just don't do it. Would I love to be able to track calories consistently? Sure. Really honing in on my daily calorie intake appeals to my analytical mind. I know I'll never be able to do it though. At this point, what I try to do is "spot check" my calorie consumption here and there. Sometimes I might make it a whole day and sometimes I just evaluate a single meal. This helps remind me to keep things in check.

Ahh today is our weekend and was at my in laws from lunch and I got comfortable with food.. had abit of rice for lunch and dinner i had lasagna and also i had a piece of cheese cake and well my stomach ain't happy. I'm chilling in the toilet!! Tbh, I like to be "punished" when I know i over did. It was a good reminder to yo eat food but don't over do it!!

im in the puree phase post op of gastric sleeve and the last two days ive been very concerned about what i eat and how i eat it. i eat every 1-2 hours or else i get SO HUNGRY. as well as i take big bites not small and i finish my meal in less than 30 minutes??? heres an example of what i had today breakfast: frozen mango blended with lactose free milk which turned into icecream! (after two hours) snack: apple juice (after 3 hours) lunch: tuna blended with 3 spoons of greek yogurt and a Tomato (after an hour) snack: Jello but a big amount (after 30 mins) dinner: left over tuna with a big plate of Beans. i wasnt even full after all that and i dont know what’s happening to me and caused me a mental breakdown, im afraid i ruined every pound ive lost the past 2 weeks and im panicking. thats just the beginning and im nearly starting a binging phase which terrifies me knowing it’ll get worse!!!!!!! i thought id be done with my eating disorder after i do the surgery but its still the same old depressing life....

When I think about asking the surgical team, specifically the surgeon, it doesn't seem likely that he will budge. As far as the dietician goes, same issue. They tend to see a one-size fits all approach, and example of which is that I do indeed have fatty liver, but it was never mentioned by the surgeon at our most recent appointment nor do I recall the dietician mentioning it. To be frank I don't think they'd give a crap about my issues with the food either. I did ask the surgeon if I could just avoid the vegetables altogether and he said "no" very brusquely and continued on to another point without giving me a chance to respond. Hence why I'm here asking. I think my hope was someone would have an idea about what to replace it with, perhaps something their dietician recommended or something, so I could just perform the switch and leave it at that without involving the surgeon. The dietician was nice enough but they tend to see any deviation from their recommendation as a sign of failure rather than a request for help.

My PA that I followed up with gave me a chart with a wide range of weights and said I’d be good if I stuck between the green weights and red weights😂. So far I’ve been lucky with all the foods I’ve tried. But some days my body only wants liquid. Like today!

I'd probably bake them into some homemade sourdough bread. Something akin to Whole Foods Seeduction Bread for those that are familiar with it?

Now I want to know what you’ll do about Halloween first! But at every food based event, I try to hydrate as much as possible then focus in only the foods I really want (even if it is dessert). In the early days I would bring protein shakes along because there’s almost no protein in pies. 🤣

I am so excited; I am having surgery in two days. Everyone is asking me am I ready? My answer is yes, I am too prepared and ready to go! I was supposed to have my surgery last Tuesday but had to get it rescheduled because the surgeon was out ill and therefore had to reschedule for this coming Tuesday. I have been looking at all my before pics and looking at myself now, I am so filled with joy how far I have come. This has and is an amazing journey and I can't wait to get back to my old self again. I am so happy that I made the decision to do the surgery. I have no regrets about my decision. I know am I doing the right thing by investing in myself and becoming more healthier and looking at food differently now. I now know what it means by "Mindful Eating."

I completely understand what you mean about the surreal feeling and the challenges of adapting mentally to the changes in our bodies. It's so interesting (and inspiring) to hear about your experience of seeing food as fuel and learning to listen to your new stomach – that’s something I’m working on too. It’s definitely a process to shift those old habits and ways of thinking about food! I also resonate with the struggle of recognizing our new size. It’s such a strange feeling to realize that clothes we never thought would fit actually do now. It’s a learning curve both physically and mentally, but it sounds like you’re handling it with such grace and determination. Wishing you all the best with your gym journey – muscle gain definitely changes the scale numbers, but it’s amazing to see your strength and confidence grow! Thank you again for sharing your story – it’s so motivating for me. 💕

It is still super early on for you, but it seems like you are doing a great job; both with your protein intake and your weight loss. We all lose weight at different speeds, but it's about not adding foods in too fast to let your body heal and making sure you are getting all the protein and vitamins you need to keep your body healthy. Keep making good choices and enjoy the journey!

Just checking you had your surgery in May so you’re 8 months out? Mmmm 800 may be a little low for you given your height and gender though that is a conversation to be had with your dietician with consideration of your needs and activity. I’m a lot shorter than you, female, likely older & wasn’t very active when losing and I was eating about 900 at 6 months and at my goal & I kept losing. Even now I maintain at my weight eating about 1600 calories. Though if you’re not hungry do you need more calories at this time?? I do disagree with your dietician saying if you increase your intake you will gain as you will continue to lose weight eating more calories if you’re still in a deficit (i.e. eating fewer calories than your body needs to function). It may slow down your rate of loss though. Yes, this time of year can be difficult with so much food and so many treats. It really does come down to making the best choices you can when you have little or no control of the food available. Consider portion size. Can you swap out anything? Try to balance your intake across all your meals during the day. Keep focus on your protein first then vegetables. Avoid carbs and limit what sweet treats you may indulge in. And if you’re not hungry you don’t have to eat because everyone else is. If you’re contributing a dish, make something you can eat without compromising your plan. Remember this is not everyday but just this time of the year so don’t beat yourself up if you do go off plan though try to get back to your regular eating style/plan as soon as possible. I’m 5.6 yrs out and I still follow these guidelines in these types of situations. After four Christmas gatherings with full on meals over a couple of days, food to prepare & leftovers to eat, I am glad to be back in my own home, with my own food choices and my own eating routines. I weighed myself this morning and I only put on 300g (0.6lb) over Christmas & being away a week so the guidelines do help to keep things under control. PS What are the shots you mentioned?

As an British-American, I'm going back to the US for Thanksgiving in one month and I pretty much have the same concerns. Food, Food, Food is all it is. Come to find out my stepmother had the sleeve two years ago (she kept it real quiet but judged my mother for having a bypass 15 years ago, but I digress) so having one other bariatric patient at the table could be helpful for portion size recommendations. But Christmas, I'm with Italian friends. Italians (not to generalise, but something I've observed) love to feed people so I'm going to have to practice stern "no thank you".

Yrs, some people do. Sad to say but a lot of this is head hunger. Your brain is really powerful and can twist you up badly. You’re going through a stressful time (physically, emotionally & mentally). If you were someone who used to comfort or sooth yourself with food your head will be telling you to eat (hungry) because of the stress but of course you can’t which will make you want to eat more. Plus your head tries to convince you that you are not eating enough food to survive (you are) so it says you feel hungry. Hunger pangs can also be from excess stomach acid. At the moment your body is still producing enough acid for your old larger tummy and for the volume of food you used to eat so too much for what you need now. Have you been prescribed a PPI? They reduce the acid in your tummy which reduces/stops the hunger pangs.

I wouldn't worry too much about if you have done any damage - I highly doubt you have! Especially if you have been following the recommendations of your surgical team. It is a little bit of hit and miss learning in the early stages - what feels good, what doesn't etc. If you think a puree is too thick, just thin it out a little bit and then gradually increase! For example, I'd have yogurts but just thin it out with milk. My surgeon literally recommended that I have a week on each stage, so that just goes to show you that the gap can be quite small! So long as you aren't in any severe or prolonged pain, I think you should be okay! Always reach out to your surgical team if you are worried though

Sounds delicious. Post the pxts on the food before & after thread. 😊

Guys I'm not liking myself. I feel "fat" it's so weird how I feel .. I look myself in the mirror and I c that I've gained weight but on the scale I was losing weight and just stalled for 2 weeks (well gained 200g) so I'm just feeling shitty. I feel like I'm able to eat more (not as much as pre surgery ) but more... my husband almost smacked me to snap out of it lool and he said I was delulu n I'm not seeing myself .... I'm trying to watch my food and I'm between 1000 to 1300ish cals and maintaining 70 to 90g of protein. Sometimes my carbs are over but I won't say too bad. I'm almost 6 months post op

Do people eventually incorporate some of their old favourites back into their eating? Yes, they do but how much & how often is always considered. Some work out, find recipes or find alternatives that are healthier, more nutrient dense versions of that food. There are some who can’t eat some of their favourites. For example they may dump on sugar which would rule out ice cream. Or certain foods sit more heavily in their tummy. Like I don’t eat breads, pasta, rice for that reason. And some choose simply not to because of changes they’ve made to eating style. Like I chose to rarely eat sugar & sweet foods. Some develop food sensitivities , lactose seems to be the most common one. For some it passes but for others they just avoid it by selecting lactose free or plant-based alternatives. Do I eat some of what I would consider less better/healthy favourites? Sure. I had Chinese takeaway last weekend just no rice and braised chicken not battered & deep fried. Earlier this year we had fish & chips so I ordered grilled fish & salad. So I try to make better choices in those situations. You know you best and if consuming those old favourites will lead you back down a path of excess & regain or not. Or if you can manage your consumption. Of course you may discover new favourite foods along the way & your old favourites may not have the same old pull they did. All the best. PS: You’re going through a very stressful time (emotionally & physically). If you were someone who ate to sooth & comfort yourself during times of turmoil, you may find your craving for those old favourites much stronger. Remind yourself why you're doing this. Do something to distract yourself. And remember it does get easier as you progress. PPS: Check out the food before & after thread to see some of the foods people eat. Note how far post surgery they are, their portion sizes & how often they eat certain foods.

Hi hi 👋 Today I decided to just log in my food to c where I am at calories and macros wise and I was abit surprised that I am eating close to 1100 and around 90g of protien which is great but I was just like hmm isn't that "alot" i am losing weight so I must be on a deficit for sure but I just assumed I'm eating way less. Also I was basically hungry all day. Because I worried I'd reach 1500 if I listened to my hunger.

Congrats, you've done an awesome job so far! I'm going to tell you now; transitioning to maintenance is HARD. It's scary to start eating more, it's hard to know how much to eat, and it can be challenging for some to eat all the food they actually should be eating. I would also STRONGLY, STRONGLY encourage to to work up to at least 1 hour of cardio 3 days a week and 1 hour of strength training 2 days a week if you are not already doing this level of exercise or more. The data is crystal clear here. Those individuals that get at least the amount of exercise I listed are significantly more likely to be able to maintain their weight loss. Scientists don't entirely know why this level of exercise is needed (it's almost double what someone that was never obese needs to maintain weight), but the most likely explanation at this point has to do with the fact that exercise affects your body in a couple of ways: Regular exercise changes the way the brain regulates hunger and metabolism. Simply put, most of us got as big as we did pre-surgery because our brains weren't good at telling us when to stop eating. Exercise seems to help change the way your brain understands and interprets these signals. Exercise also lowers stress and systemic inflammation, two huge triggers for overeating. Best of luck!

Just venting LOL I am realizing that I am a creature of habit. I had my breast augmentation 12/30 and it was an involved surgery which I need to rest and not exercise. It’s killing me. I feel lazy, I’m eating stuff I shouldn’t because I’m home all day, I’m out of my routine, I can’t cook for myself and much as my hubby tries it feels like I’m eating at restaurants where I can’t track my food. I feel so blah! I’m tired and lethargic. I’m committed to get back on track tomorrow and told my hubby that I need to get better and stricter since I can’t workout. I cannot wait to get back to the gym to do some cardio at the least. 😮‍💨