I need opinions please help me. I started with 186 at 5"2, currently I am at 160.8,, 7 weeks out. I am super happy with the loss although i only lost 4 lbs this month.. I only can eat very little, and I am super full, which I love it. I eat very little carbs and only cheated couple times...My cheat consists of 1 bite of Pasta, seriously 1 spoon...

I am a little upset, because I did this because I hate diets, and I failed at all of them. My goal with this surgery was to restrict food portion and lose weight but eating so little that I would lose regardless. I am learning that no matter how little you eat, you might not lose? Am I right, or I am stalling? If I used to eat 2.500 cal perday before surgery and now I eat 700 but I have carbs I still wont lose because if you eat carbs you wont lose? I am so confused... I thought calories were a number.. regardless of what you eat...if you eat 800 calories in a day and burn 3000 cal you lose even if you ate a burger...

I am just venting because I hate diets and i feel i am in a endless diet...Maybe i am stressed..I have to plan every meal i eat, plan the carbs, Protein....we ended fat for a reason, and the reason is that we are terrible at diets..Aren't we on a diet again...Ok you will tell me we are on a life change, I know..I am, I dont eat anymore...I eat protein now...but the measuring what, why and when...do you identify?

This isn't a diet to me because there's no 'end' to it. It's just my life now.

Yes, I measure. Yes, I track. Is it a pain in the ass? Yup. But so was being obese.

I have the disease of obesity, and the only treatment that works for me to continue to not be obese is measuring and tracking everything that goes into my mouth and eating nutritious, non processed foods and sugar.

No diet, just my lifestyle now. And I like the way I feel and look, so I will continue to do it.

I understand your feelings about this feeling like one endless diet. The thought of that would depress me so I did a few things to make sure I don't feel that way.

My kitchen only has clean foods, paleo, keto foods. Even if I decide I want to make a mug cake for a treat or something, all the ingredients here are things I can eat. Cleaning out your kitchen makes it a lifestyle not a diet.

Then you have to change how you think about food. If I am out and I haven't eaten recently, I know just about every place in a 30 mile radius where I can get a Quest bar. Almost all the gas stations have Protein shakes, they are not the highest quality but they meet my protein to calorie goals. I can eat anything, but I only have so many calories to spend each day and they need to be on protein. I want to keep my hair and my youthful good looks!

You kind of have to get cheating out of your mind. You can't cheat on a lifestyle. If you think about things as cheating then it is always going to be a diet.

Like @@Babbs I track and weigh my food. Which just keeps me on track.

It doesn't feel like a diet to me, I think mainly because on diets I feel constantly deprived. I have no appetite or hunger right now, so I don't feel deprived.

You just have to get your feelings about food worked out, and you won't feel so bad.

This isn't a diet per se, it's a lifestyle change. We have to change our relationship with food, how & what we eat. It's not a matter of tiny bits of anything, it *has* to be tiny bits of good, nutritious food. With care this new eating style can become second natural, but it does need to change from how we used to eat. A large part of it is mental. You have to stop thinking of it as a diet. A diet is temporary. How WLS pts need to eat is our new lifestyle.

Low carbs isn't for everyone and not eating carbs isn't a guarantee you will lose. There are simple carbs and complex carbs. Complex carbs are good for you and you should eat them.

Exercising the same amount of calories as you eat does not negate eating bad foods. Eating super low cal doesn't either.

The goal is to eat small, balanced meals. That means a bit of Protein, carbs , sugars, sodium as well Fiber and micro-nutrients.

At 7 weeks you still can't eat a lot, I am a little further than you at 13 weeks and I can have more balanced meals. When you have room for more than just Protein the world opens up a lot.

I still don't have a lot of extra room for veggies but being able to have them really makes a difference.

Give it a little more time. I feel like a normal eater now, just really small portions because my diet is more balanced.

This isn't a diet but you have to be focused on nutrition because you have so little room for food.

Instead of the focus on minimizing calories that we were taught by our many, many diets, we have to change our focus to maximizing nutrition, particularly Protein.

We have to get in all of your protein and fluids, every day.

We have to take our Vitamins as directed.

We have to exercise.

It's not because we are on a diet, it's because we need to be healthy.

This was on the bulletin board at my 6-month follow-up and I thought it was great advise.

@@Inner Surfer Girl - great reminder on that bulletin board....Nutrients not calories!

OK, this may sound rough, but it's not directed at you (the OP) per se, so I hope you'll read it all and at least understand where I'm coming from before you reject it.

Nobody ever told me that WLS was voodoo magic done to me in some mysterious ways that exempted me from planning what I ate thereafter. You want to call that "being on a diet." I call that taking responsibility for eating differently than the way I ate that made me fat.

I clearly understood (from reading online forums, from going to pre-op education classes, and from my considerable common sense) that the sleeve was only one of many tools I was going to have to use very well to lose all my weight and to then build a new lifestyle that would help me maintain my weight loss long-term.

I also clearly understood that "a new lifestyle" was mostly about changing what and how much I ate and exercised. I knew I'd have to eat differently not only in volume, but in the types of food I ate.

I never, ever, ever imagined that having WLS included putting some magical switch in my brain that automatically made me recognize when I'd eaten X calories or Y Protein grams or Z carbohydrate grams. I figured if I'd have to do the math myself until I learned more instinctively how much food and what kind of food helped me become satisfied and stay satisfied the longest so I wouldn't be tempted to overeat. I figured it would take a while to learn all that. And it has.

I clearly understood (from what I read and heard) that for several months post-op most people lose weight easily, even those who do little food planning, because their new innards just won't handle much food.

But at some point post-op (pick a month) I learned that if WLS patients aren't eating protein, eating it first, adding colored veggies as they're able, then adding whole grains as they're able, avoiding high-carb, high-sugar, highly processed "slider" foods, drinking all their Water, exercising as much as they can (without hurting themselves), eating slower, chewing their food well, not drinking with meals, not grazing throughout the day, the good times are going to end. They won't lose all their weight, they won't maintain their weight loss, they'll figure out ways to cheat the sleeve (or the pouch or the band), and pretty soon feel like a failure.

If you didn't understand all that pre-op, then that's really too bad. If you did understand all that and now you're realizing it's a lot of hard work to do it this way and you aren't great at figuring all this stuff out then that's too bad, too. But my advice to you is do it anyway. Do the best you can. You can't help but get better at it.

Planning my daily menus every day and tracking what I eat (on My Fitness Pal) has helped me so much and taught me so much. If you can find something else that works for you, then good for you. I hope you will share it with all of us.

I know there are plenty of people here who have figured out other ways to lose all their excess weight and maintain the loss. They mostly seem (to me) like they exercise a lot. I mean a LOT!

Very, very best to you. Don't get frustrated. You've got a lot longer to go on this journey.

BTW, a 26-pound weight loss in 7 weeks for a lightweight like you were is amazingly fast weight loss. Don't sweat the stall. Your body is just catching up right now.