Dr wants me to stay overweight...

[ILKrista 36]

Hmmm... So, I saw the surgeon for a follow up visit yesterday. During the visit he mentioned that my 'Ideal' weight would be 125, but they didn't want me to hit that. They want me at about 150, which would still leave me in the overweight bmi range. His reasoning for this is that it is very hard for people to reach their ideal weight and many end up with eating disorders trying to get there, or they do extreme dieting and then end up regaining some of what they lost. Instead, he wants me to stop losing weight when I'm still 25 lbs overweight.

Now, I weighed 150 in high school & I was pretty chunky looking. I feel like I didn't go through the pain of surgery & I'm not going to the gym 4 days a week so I can still end up being fat looking. I just don't think I'm going to be satisfied if I stop losing weight at the point he is telling me I should.

I'm curious what others would do... would you follow the dr.s advice? Or, ignore it & get to a healthy weight? If you made it to your ideal weight, do you feel like you got there in a healthy way and does maintaining that weight seem difficult?

[Tiffykins 673]

I was in your exact shoes with my surgeon and his reasoning for making my goal weight 150lbs was because I am considered large frame. I have huge ankle, knee joints, seriously, my husband can not wrap his hand around my ankles, and I am extremely barrel-chested (wide ribcage). So, after much consideration, and really thinking of what I would look like at 150 vs. 125, I was content with 150lbs as my goal weight.

I went below my goal weight and at my lowest, 119lb, I was too small. My bones were protruding, you could see the blue veins through the skin on my neck. I purposely gained weight to give me a maintenance weight average of 125-130lbs, and in that range I am perfectly content. Actually, I was perfectly content at 150lbs, I still had boobs, I still had some curviness to my figure. I was wearing a 7/9 and with the drop of 20-25lbs, I was wearing a size 2 jeans, and xtra small tops, so even though I didn't drop major pounds, I lost lots of inches, and sizes.

I got there in a healthy manner. I didn't starve myself, or not eat certain foods. Once I hit the 150 mark, I did start adding in more calories and carbs per his instructions, and it took another 4 months to lose those 20-25lbs so I was doing my damnedest to not lose anymore weight.

I also had zero issues maintaining between 125-130lbs. I personally didn't mind the bounce on the scale considering my choices in eating in moderation, and not restricting certain foods. It's just how I want to live my life post-VSG. So, I accept the bounce on the scale, if the scale bounces up to 131-132, I'm cutting the alcohol and white carbs for a few days, but I'm not really dieting, just being more mindful of what I'm eating and drinking.

[ILKrista 36]

Thanks for your response Tiffykins. I'm trying not to get too caught up in numbers because they don't really say much about how your body is looking, depending on muscle mass. I suppose I should try to hit the doctor's goal before I start worrying about if I should go lower or not.

I am curious, how tall are you? In my mind, 125-130 is about where I should be (I'm 5'2").

Thanks!

[RickM 1,747]

I can certainly understand his concern about getting into eating disorders in an attempt to hit an "ideal" number, and I can see that this may be a problem with some as it doesn't seem that overshooting the goal is as common with the VSG as it sometimes is with the DS, but I don't think that that is any reason to change your current weight loss behavior in order to avoid hitting that ideal. I would just continue doing what you are doing and let your body settle out where it does. Another consideration in this is how well your skin is adapting to the weight loss and whether reconstruction to remove excess skin is in the cards sometime in the future - that can easily result in another 10lb or more of loss.

My goal has been to be still in the overweight class at around 200lbs based on my body composition - in the ideal case of losing only fat mass that would put me at around 15% body fat, which is on the lean side of normal for men. As my composition shifts and inevitably some muscle mass is lost during the weight loss period, then my goal may change some as i get closer to it, though so far, at more than half way to goal range, I'm still pretty much on track to meeting that target point. The 200 range is where I was when I was a fat boy in college too many years ago, but I'm in better shape now (and in recent years) than I was then, despite the excess weight that I've been carrying. So, with the extra work you have been doing lately you may not be as chunky at 150 than you were then. Be flexible and see how things work out as you get closer to the goal range.

[emilygrace 5]

Set 2 goals - docs goal and your "ultimate" goal. Nothing stopping you from going past a little once you hit the docs goal.