Hi everyone,

I haven't checked out the board in a while, I've been out living the life I was too fat to live before surgery. On 8/30 I had my 5 month anniversary. I started the pre op diet on 3/26 at 295 lbs and 5 months later I'm at 200 lbs. It's actually hard to believe that I weighed 95 lbs more just 5 months ago!

So until about a month ago I followed a very strict post op diet that was 600-800 calories, 60+ grams of Protein, and 30 carbs or less. I wasn't even exercising and I consistently lost around 3 to 3.5 pounds a week. Most days I only ate 650-700 calories because I just wasn't that hungry. The problem was that I started getting bored with the food choices I had available to keep under 30 carbs. So I paid a visit to my nutritionist about a month ago and she told me to forget about counting carbs altogether and just worry about getting 800 calories and 60g protein.

I got really excited about the carb liberation and went out and bought a bunch of low-cal, high-carb foods. Everything went great for the first couple of days, but then I noticed that I was hungry a lot. I was eating all of my 800 calories and still feeling hungry at the end of the day. This kind of freaked me out so I attempted to revert back to my carb controlled diet, but found that I wasn't as satiating as it was before my high carb experiment.

Now I don't know what to do. Even though I've lost 95 lbs I still have 65 to go, so I'm nowhere near done. The worst part is that I'm starting to get that panicky anxiety feeling like I'm out of control of my eating; something I never wanted to feel again. I'm so scared that I'm back in the world of dieting and struggling, and that my weight loss will stop at this 200 pound range, and that I'll never get to my goal weight. I just want to go back to the feeling that I had before I stopped counting carbs.

I'm sorry for this rant, I'm just scared that I jumped to a maintenance type diet too soon, and now I've ruined my tool.

Any advice or suggestions are very very appericated.

Thank you !!!

I went through a phase at maybe 3-4 months out where I was eating more carbs, and I also felt hungrier and wasn't losing as well. The best thing to do is just concentrate on the protein and avoid the "white carbs." It's not the veggies or brown rice that will cause you problems -- it's the bread and chips and sweets. If you continue to avoid those, you will do fine. I have learned I can't have white carbs in the house, and it's a small price to pay to have the scale moving again!

I don't think you've ruined your sleeve at all! I feel/know that I eat too much carbs, I try to stick to the good carbs but I find it difficult.I drink a lot of milk which contribute to my high carbs. I know that this is one of the reasons that I'm losing slower, I've lost about 22 pounds 5 weeks out, but as from today i am planning to get myself back on track, it's never too late, you're doing great!

First of all, 95 pounds in five months is truly awesome. It's a huge accomplishment.

You haven't ruined anything. It sounds like what you've done is reawaken the carb monster.

I'm not saying that we all need super low carb diets to lose weight. Everyone is different.

But I know that there's a common theme you'll find on ANY weight loss board for any diet or surgery: the carb monster, once awakened, rules your life.

If you're eating junk - and I group all white flour, white sugar, craptastic carbs into that category - then your body is going to want MORE JUNK. That's how the cycle works. When I ate crap all day long (white bread, white sugars, etc.) I was hungry all day long, no matter how many calories I consumed. I'd wake up starving and go to bed starving but I'd be eating thousands of calories a day.

Take back control. Rid your house of all tempting junk. Do the five day pouch test, or go back to shakes for a few days while you detox from the carbs. If you want more carbs in your diet, try doubling what you used to get and make them quality carbs - 100% whole grains, fresh fruit and fresh veggies. Then, after a month of that, if you are doing well and still want more variety, slowly add in more QUALITY carbs. That's the key - the quality. I also use a food tracker that calculates my net carbs, and I use that figure to see how many carbs I'm getting.

You don't have too far to go to reach your goals, I'm sure. You're more than halfway there. If you really want this, you have to take it.

Good luck to you! You haven't failed anything, you've just let the food start controlling you instead of the other way around.

~Cheri