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just a note on BMR - I've heard this from both a former dietitian of mine and from a nutrition class I took a couple of years ago at UW-Milwaukee on obesity and weight loss, so it's likely true (seems to be the case with me, anyway...). It's very common for formerly obese people to need to eat 300-400 calories less per day than a person of the same height/weight/activity level who's never been obese in order to maintain their weight. So in other words (and I'm just pulling this example out of the blue), if a calorie calculator tells you that it takes about 1800 cal/day to maintain your weight, if you were formerly obese, that could mean that for you, it's probably more like 1400-1500 calories to maintain. That being said, I do agree with some of the others that you may be underestimating your calorie intake since I would think you'd be losing weight at that intake level. It might be helpful to cut back by about 100 cal/day for a couple of weeks and see if the scale starts moving again. if not, cut another 100 calories for a couple of weeks. Rinse and repeat until the scale starts moving. I've had to do this a few times to get things moving..

I agree with @SpartanMaker eating more might sound crazy but it works! Resistance training has completely transformed my body. I started incorporating it around 4–5 months post-op, and the weight started dropping like crazy. My body looked significantly better compared to when I was just doing cardio. Around 6–7 months post-op, I added 30 minutes of running at least 5 days a week, and at that time, I was eating between 2,100–2,300 calories daily. Even with that intake, I was losing weight and had actually dropped below my goal weight. I had to take a break due to surgery, and during that time my weight fluctuated upward—which was really frustrating. Even though I cut my calories and kept my macros on point, the scale wasn’t moving the way I wanted it to. But now that I’m back to resistance training (I’m not cleared to run yet), my weight is slowly trending back down again. I say try it! If you would like some guidance I have a few circuits that I do and has worked really well! I am happy to share ❤️

Getting back to the OP's question about what do do: If they really feel they are accurately logging and are also having a hard time eating less, then the option would be to take steps to increase metabolism. Yes, GLP-1 drugs can do this, but there are other options. First, would be adding muscle mass from strength training. Estimates are that each pound of muscle increases calories burned per day by roughly 6 calories, Each pound of fat contributes ~2 calories burned per day. This latter fact surprises some people, but fat is metabolically active tissue. It's just that muscle is more metabolically active. If someone were to gain ten pounds of muscle and lose ten pounds of fat, that would lead to an increase in BMR of roughly 40 calories. That doesn't sound like much, but it adds up over time. If you also add in EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption), from the strength training needed to add muscle mass, then I'd estimate this would over time lead to ~400-450 extra calories burned in a week. That would lead to a loss of ~6 pounds in a year even while eating the exact same amount of food. If this is not a sufficient amount, then one can always reduce calories a bit as well. Alternately (I know this will sound counter-intuitive), but the OP might well want to consider UPPING their calories a bit for a while. Our bodies were designed to upregulate our metabolisms slightly when calories are available and downregulate it when calories are scarce. This means our bodies can maintain weight at a wide range of calorie intake. If we're constantly in a calorie restrictive diet, our bodies do downregulate metabolism to keep us from what it perceives as starving to death. What I'd recommend instead is going up 200-300 calories per day for about a month. After this "diet reset", drop down again to 1200-1400 for no longer than 2 months before cycling back up again. You can keep this cycle going on indefinitely. One of 2 things will happen here. Most likely the OP won't gain anything during the increased calorie intake diet reset because their metabolism will increase to compensate. However, when they start back at the ~1300 calorie range, their metabolism may not drop immediately, meaning they'll lose a little bit in the following 2 months. If they do find that they gained during the diet reset, but fail to lose when back in the diet phase, then worst case it shouldn't be more than about 2 pounds (less than 1% of body weight). This isn't likely, but even if this does happen, it will at least tell us that 1300 won't work for weight loss for them and they'll need to go lower. I'd also be remiss if I didn't come back to exercise here. I mentioned that low levels of exercise (30 minutes of cardio), really are not going to do anything toward weight loss. It's obviously going to be different for everybody, but current research seems to suggest that the tipping point is about 400 calories per day. What I mean by that is if you can burn OVER 400 calories in exercise in a day, the body can't suppress your metabolism enough in other ways to keep you from going net-negative for the day. Said differently, you'd need to do something that burns more than 400 calories before it "counts" for weight loss and the only part that counts is the part above 400 calories. Unfortunately, 400 calories is A LOT for most people. The good news is the heavier you are the more you burn, but even at 215 pounds, you'd probably have to run over 3 miles to hit 400 calories. Keep in mind, this would just be to break even, so if you're actually trying to burn more calories this way, it will take even more. I'll use myself as an example here. I'm not trying to lose weight right now, but I have found that if I run over roughly 28 miles in a week, I tend to lose weight. If I run less miles, I maintain. Do the math, and for me that's right at about the 400 calories a day mark. In my use case of one, I'm pretty close to the statistical average as shown in the research. Best of luck whatever you decide.

This isn't surprising. In addition to their appetite suppression benefits, GLP-1s also can increase metabolism, meaning you'll burn more calories per day without a change in activity levels.

I guess I shouldn't respond late at night like I did above because I left out some common mistakes people make when logging calories: Mindless eating: either failing to log those little nibbles here and there (including when tasting food during prep), or trying to log it, but guessing after the fact as to how much they actually ate. Not understanding that raw vs cooked food can have vastly different calories. A classic example: The USDA says 100 grams of raw chicken has ~106 to 120 calories per 100 grams. The problem is that when cooked, 100 grams of this same chicken is ~165 calories. The primary reason is due to water lost during the cooking process. This is not an issue if you properly portion out how much of the chicken breast you ate, but if you are using the raw calories and weighing it when cooked, you'd actually be eating a lot more calories than you think. This is a big one: not counting liquid calories. for reasons I don't fully understand, a lot of people just either ignore or don't log liquid calories. That juice they drank for breakfast? Didn't log it. The milk in their coffee? Nope, not logged. That energy drink they had in the afternoon? Not logged either. I think you get the idea. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not a huge fan of logging calories since it's really hard to do correctly and even when done to the best of our ability, it's still often wrong. I think, as it may be in your case, it also can become a crutch. There is no cheating physics here. If you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you'll gain weight and if you eat less, you'll lose. As I hope you'll see from what I've posted, in all likelihood, you're eating more than you think. Let's just for the sake of argument say you're really great at logging and you really are just eating 1200-1400 kcal a day. The only other explanation would be an exceptionally low BMR. This would really suck if it's true, but if we assume it is true, then that would still mean you're eating too much. Either way, you have to eat less than you're eating now if you want to lose.

Good morning. I'm not discounting anything SpartanMaker posted above. However, I was in the exact same boat as you. I was eating 1200-1400 calories, religiously measured/counted everything, plenty of water, I played with my macros till I was blue in the face and for 10 months I did not lose and I did not gain. I'm a nurse so I probably have more background in nutrition than most, so I'm confident in how I was eating was appropriate and what most providers would "recommend". In February I went to my two year follow up. My labs were perfect, my vitals on point and I had not lost one ounce since the last visit nearly a year prior. After having a long conversation with my bariatric provider, the only change since the losing stopped was I was pretty much into full menopause. We discussed options and ideas on how to "overcome" the hormone influencing my insulin processes that was affecting my metabalism hurdle I may possibly be facing. She said based on her research zepbound might be a great option as it also can help in reducing "hot flashes" which I was having twice a day, everyday. Long story short, even with my insurance, zepbound would have been around $700 a month, so I choose to do the my budget friendly compound tirzepatide route (the compound equivalent to zepbound) with my provider's blessing. I have been on the weekly injections for 6 weeks and have already been able to shed 19#. I have not ate any differently, no change in my physical activity AND the hot flashes are gone. I'm not suggesting this would be the answer you need, but it's been a game changer for my journey. Good luck ❤️

So if I'm understanding your post correctly, you've been eating 1200-1400 kcal per day yet your weight has been stable at ~215 pounds. This either means: Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is also around 1200-1400 calories per day, OR You're eating a lot more calories than you think. Let's explore each of these in more detail. Based on your height and weight, your TDEE should probably be 1800 to 2200 calories per day. Just your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate (the number of calories your body burns per day just to keep you alive), should be ~1500-1800 calories per day. There are lots of reasons this could be lower, but for your TDEE to be 1300, you'd have to have a BMR in the neighborhood of ~900 calories per day or as much as HALF of what we'd expect. This would be exceptionally low considering your size. BMRs that low tend to only be seen in elderly frail women. To be clear, without having a metabolic test, we can't know for sure, but this does seem unlikely. A more logical reason for this discrepancy is that you're actually eating a lot more than you think. Calorie overestimation is extremely common (unlike extremely low BMRs), thus I lean toward this as an explanation. I have seen some suggestions stating that the magnitude of this may be as high as 40-50% underestimated. In other words, someone could think they're eating 1500 calories, but they are actually eating 2200+. So where do people go wrong? Misreading/misunderstanding nutrition labels. It's not uncommon for people to confuse a serving with a container of food. Sometimes, manufacturers will list a serving of something, but what you're actually eating may be 2 or more servings. Accepting as fact the calorie counts on nutrition labels. In the US, calorie counts on nutrition labels can be off by as much as 10% before manufacturers would be expected to adjust the calorie count. Keep in mind, though that manufacturers are self policing here and really don't have a lot on incentive to make sure these are correct. Many people simply guess at serving sizes, especially if it's a meal they made themselves. This can lead to wildly inaccurate calorie counts Also very common when they are making meals themselves is to just look up a calorie count for a similar food, but this also can be really inaccurate. Lots of people guess at amounts, thus you may think you're getting say 1 cup of a food, when it's actually 1.5 cups. Speaking of measuring by cups, this also is wildly inaccurate. To properly measure calories, you really need to weigh EVERYTHING you eat IN GRAMS. Any other method just isn't very accurate. I also wanted to touch briefly on your comment on exercise. While I think it's great that you're exercising, this really has nothing to do with weight loss. Lot;s of studies show that increasing energy expenditure through lower levels of exercise like you're getting typically leads to lowering your energy expenditure elsewhere throughout the day. This means you really have no increased calories burned and shouldn't think this means it's okay to eat more as a result.

It is always a challenge to know how many calories are really in restaurant food, but generally I think it's a fair bit more than the at home equivalent! 😆 There is an app now that guesstimates based on a picture or camera of the food, but I haven't tried it, no idea how accurate it would be, but may save you some time? :dunno: Considering your current underweight status, maybe focus on just trying to up the cals without worrying too much about tracking? Or does your Dietician/med team/ own Enquiring mind need to know the data?

p.s. tracking my calories is proving to be extra challenging with the amount of eating out im doing. i need to take the ridiculous amount of time to input all my food at these restaurants, or stop eating so much at said restaurants. neither if which i am willing to do. arg.

cookies. ate about ½ of each of the cookies in this Crumbl mini sampler pack (milk chocolate chip, lemon glaze and candy egg Brownie) 295 calories for what i ate (i.e., the peices on the plate)...at least thats what the Crumbl website says

It's been a while since I've been active on here, but I'm really struggling. Any advice or encouragement would be a huge help. 😥 Almost right at my year mark post-op, I stopped losing weight. My doctor said that I should still be losing 1-2 pounds a week. Around this time I was eating 1400-1500 calories, so they recommended I scale back to 1200. I try to eat whole, unprocessed foods about 80% of the time, I still track what I eat, count my calories, prioritize protein, and exercise 4-5 times a week for 30 minutes (usually cardio, but I do resistance train, just not faithfully). I am eating 1200-1400 calories a day, and I'm struggling so bad. My weight sits somewhere between 211 - 219, depending on water retention, my cycle, travel, stress, etc, and it really hasn't changed since I saw my doctor last. I would love to try the GLP-1 class drugs to see if that could help, but my insurance doesn't cover it, so that's not an option. I'm really depressed over this, which I know doesn't help things. I feel like I've worked so hard, and I've just barely gotten halfway there. Now I'm terrified I'll start gaining weight again, and I've caught myself obsessing over my eating to the point it's feeling disordered and mentally unhealthy. Has anyone else had this struggle? If so, what helped you - either with losing more weight, or just coping with being at a plateau? 😭

sushi lunch!. (check-marked the items i ate! lol) 423 calories. plus shared a 350ml bottle of sake beforehand (so another 210 cals on top of that for a total of 633 cals)

i haven't been logging my food regularly for quite a while now as i felt like i could manage on maintenance autopilot. anyway, looks like i need to tweek my diet as i've been unsuccessful in bringing my weight back up to an acceptable level for months now. its kinda challenging as i've been eating out 90% of our meals all these said months, and its hard to guess the calories content of restaurant meals. gotta try tho. so here we go! my first tracked meal in a reaaallly long time: cottage cheese, blueberries, black pepper and anchovies (dont judge me! lol) 193 calories (easy to log cuz i made it, ha!)

I just checked and at 2 months, I was down 20.6 lbs from the day of surgery. There's really not a hard and fast rule for how much you'll lose. Everyone is different and it depends on your starting point and how much you lost pre-op, too. I had some months when I lost a lot and other months where I hardly lost anything, but overall it moved steadily downward. My weight loss has stalled for the past month or so, now that I am more than a year out. The only guidelines I was given was 60g minimum of protein per day and 64oz water. I am now almost 14 months post-op and I've gone from 225 lbs on surgery day (251 was my highest, which was 6 months pre-op) to anywhere from 162-165lbs. My exercise consists of walking and that's it. I'd like to lose another 10 lbs but I'm also pretty fine with where I am as long as I don't gain (which is why I do hope to lose a bit more). I've gone from a size 22 to a size 12. I think I could still lose a bit more if I focused on cutting out some bad habits that have crept in with sweets/simple carbs, and if I increased my daily exercise to something a little more challenging than a walk. I don't count calories and I don't really track macros at this point, either. I just try to eat reasonable meals that focus on protein and veggies, and not snack too much or eat junk food too often. A typical day is either spinach frittata, Kodiak protein oatmeal, or a Greek yogurt for breakfast, plus a serving of mixed fruit (strawberries, cantaloupe, blueberries, grapes. Lunch is a good size spinach salad with 3oz chicken and some black beans. Dinner might be a bowl of homemade chicken, bean, and veggie soup, chili, or maybe some grilled meat and veggies. Sometimes I eat chickpea pasta with marinara and meatballs but other types of pasta and breads don't settle well. For snacks, I like string cheese and an apple, or some mixed nuts or roasted edamame. I have to be careful of overindulging in things like popcorn, candy, and cookies because they are too easy to eat without getting full (and sadly I don't get dumping from them). Red meat fills me up very quickly. The hardest thing for me now is dealing with the head hunger that makes me want to reach for food if I am bored or stressed. Getting the stuff out of the house completely is the only strategy that really works for me with that. My only real advice is don't drive yourself crazy. Just do your best each day and pay attention to your body. That's more important than counting calories. You're not on a diet! You need to figure out what you can sustain for the rest of your life, while paying attention now to the basics (protein and water, plus vitamins) to keep up your health.

Pre-op diets vary so much - unbelievably so, given they're pretty much all geared to the same goals of shrinking our livers by whatever means in order to permit access to our stomachs and intestines. Mine was 800 calories in meal replacement shakes only - for 10 days. If you get bored then there are loads of sodas you can add in if permitted. I drank lots of herbal teas. And lots of warm bouillon for a savoury hit - because I was permitted that. As long as you stick to your surgeon's/team's parameters then you should be good. Best of luck with your surgery and your recovery. We're all here to help you through your journey. It's such a knowledgeable and helpful forum here.

I never got information about that either. I was just told the portion size and to eat the protein first. I'm 6 months post op and to be honest, I don't even think about macros or calories except to make sure I get protein in first. That's probably not good for me in the long run, I know, but counting calories has been to much for my mental health at the moment so I've been focusing on portion size and protein.

I was never given macros or calories just portion size recommendations & it came from my surgeon not the hospital. I was told to begin with 1/4 - 1/3 cup from purée stage gradually increasing to a cup at 6 months. I was also told 60g protein & keep low fat & low carbs. And I clearly remember my surgeon drawing a picture of a plate and sectioning it off to show the portion of protein, vegetables and carbs on a plate I would be consuming at a meal when I was in maintenance. If you think you’ll feel more comfortable with having more guidance, keep pushing your dietician or surgical team. It comes down to what you feel you need to be most successful.

They probably didn't give you any calorie values because they don't want you worrying about that yet. As long as you're not eating more than the recommended amounts, you'll be fine. As to macros, the absolute minimum recommended protein amount would be 60 grams, but really, shooting for 100+ would be better. It can be hard for some folks to hit that higher value early on, so as long as you're getting a minimum of 60, you should be okay for now. Just try to work up to 100+ as time goes on. Eventually, ~1 gram per pound of bodyweight would be a better target for protein, but I'd be surprised if you're able to get there at 2 months post-op. I wouldn't worry too much about carbs and fats at this point other than to say you do need a bare minimum of fats to make sure you get your essential fatty acids. In short, eat the recommended portion sizes, aspirationally shoot for 100 grams of good quality protein per day, at least 30 grams of (good), fats per day, and the rest can be carbs. Your carbs should ideally be from whole food sources like veggies, grains and fruits.

Hi guys so I’m having a hard time trying to get answers on how much to be eating. I have portion sizes from my guide that the hospital gave me but there is no caloric values or macros listed in it. I used ChatGPT to see what it recommends and it says 800 calories a day for where I am post op. anyone have any input as to where I’m supposed to be at? I’m just now at 2 months post op and going nuts.

@@AmberFL I get between 1700 and 1900 calories per day right now, it's working well for me. I'm having a surgery tomorrow though and won't be able to work out for a least 3 -4 weeks and will likely try to cut my calories to 1400 per day to avoid weight gain in that time. We'll see how well that goes, lol.

You will always be fabulous, slim and trim. A few kilos up or down will not change that! With that being said, I completely understand your fear and I'm sorry you're going through this. While I wouldn't recommend cutting your calories any further, have you tried dedicated walks? (5-6k steps) as they really help with weight management. From experience, people who don't enjoy conventional exercise can just hit 8-10k steps a day to maintain or even lose weight.

Thank you! I've read numerous posts about "set points" and always thought if it was actually a thing then why did I need surgery (my body would have stopped at its set point) or why even bother giving plans for exercise if my body has a "set" point!? I realize that most of it is to get our minds set to a healthier way of thinking with follow through, but its simple math: calories in vs. Calories out vs. Bodies requirement = weight/health. Nothing has really changed other than our awareness of this math and adherence to it. It all comes down to calories in calories out. If set points were actually a thing none of us would have needed surgery. Anyone can gain weight if we exceed calories beyond daily needs or lose if we exceed calorie burn. Even those ppl who are bone thin and complain no matter what they do they can't put weight on, if they exceed needs everyday they too would gain. Thank you for an excellent post!

I try to build in my habits with protein so I don’t have to think about it. I use the bariatric hot chocolate in my coffee every morning that’s 15 g of protein. I like 5% Faye yogurt. I do like protein shakes. Costco has chicken breast strips already prepared for you in 3 1/2 ounce servings for like 15 bucks, those are great go to snack where you don’t have to think much about it. It’s like 24 g of protein 140 cal. Premier protein makes a three pancake pack with 15 g of protein. That’s another easy breakfast grab with the hot chocolate in my coffee, which is delicious and pancakes. If I try to feed my kid that I’ll at least get one that’s 5 g of protein. Often times I end up eating all three. Also from Costco Amy Lou brand mix of chicken sausage for breakfast. I like to microwave that real quick six links I think 260 cal 24 g of protein. I will not get my protein if I have to rely on myself cooking it, I know that soI’m always on the lookout for a good clean quality of protein source with minimal calories and good taste.

I want to challenge your ideas a bit here. This concept that there is some underlying mechanism at work that controls our weight and that we don't have any say in the matter is based on something called set-point theory. In short, the theory is that some as yet undetermined mechanism (likely in our brain), wants us to be a certain weight and thus actively regulates both calories in and calories burned to keep us around the same weight. Anecdotally, most people can attest to the fact that there seems to be a specific weight where they naturally settle when they aren't actively trying to gain or lose weight, so the theory makes intuitive sense. That said, there are some big problems with this theory: Why have we not been able to find the actual mechanism for this set-point if it really does exist? How are some people able to change their set-point? How do we explain that overweight and obesity are significantly more prevalent in some parts of the world vs. others? In those parts of the world where overweight and obesity are more prevalent, how do we account for the fact that these issues were much less prevalent until very recently? (For example, the rate of overweight and obesity in the USA has tripled since about 1980.) To explain this, more modern interpretations have suggested a more nuanced approach. We know that historically, food scarcity was the norm. It's logical to assume our bodies are well adapted to dealing with this as a result. Unlike set-point theory, we do have a solid understanding of the physical processes involved in regulating metabolism during scarcity. This means our bodies know how to handle a lack of food pretty well by down-regulating metabolism. (There are several ways it does that, but I'm going so skip discussing those specific mechanisms for now) What our bodies are less good at is up-regulating metabolism in an environment of where there is an extreme availability of highly palatable foods like we have today. We often think of our bodies like a car that's always running. This is somewhat problematic, but let's go with the analogy for now. Just like a car idling will burn some fuel, our bodies burn some calories just keeping us alive. If there's a shortage of food/petrol, (either because I can't afford it, or because there's a true shortage), I can curtail my movment/driving to conserve how much I use. Likewise, if food/fuel is cheap and readily available, I can move/drive a lot and even fill my fuel tank (fat stores), whenever I want. Unlike a car that has a limited fuel tank that can only hold a specific amount of fuel, humans have a theoretically unlimited ability to store excess fuel in the form of fat. TL;DR: It's not so much that our bodies decide what weight to be. It's more that we were never designed to deal with cheap, easy access to super tasty food. At the end of the day, what determines whether or not you have more fat stores than you might want is whether or not you eat more calories than you burn in a day. The entire point of this overly long post is that there's no mechanism working against you that's keeping you from reaching your goal. Our bodies were designed to store excess calories to keep from starving to death when food was scarce. We rarely experience scarcity anymore, but our bodies don't know that. They still will do everything they can to hold onto those stored calories "just in case". There are ways to get beyond this, but that will have to wait for another post.

@Lily2024 We are surgery twins! How many calories do you eat a day? I was at 163-165 then had plastic surgery and I cannot get back down. so I am not teetering 170-175. Would like to see how our day looks like, were the same height and about the same activity level as well!