Yesterday I was on my first doctor’s visit after the surgery (5 weeks out).

I am living in Poland and had my surgery here. In Poland post op medical support is not very much advanced. On this forum I have noticed that most of you have set weight goals. So being very well educated by you I have asked my doctor: How much of my weight should I loose after my surgery?

He scrapped his head and said: It depends, its individual matter, usually people are losing 70% of their excess weight. What in my case give me the goal of about 27 BMI. But of course there are individuals who can reach completely proper BMI factor.

I just wonder how was it in your case? Did you Dr set the weight goal for you or you just set it by yourself? What about milestones. My surgeon didn’t set any for me as well.

Generally setting a weight goal is an arbitrary number. Generally morbidity studies show that individuals that are underweight or overweight have a higher mortality rate. Those people who are in the normal weight category with a BMI of between 18.5 to 24.9 live longer. But when you get a serious illness or accident, you may lose weight and this can lead to death. Therefore I have set my goal near the 24.9 BMI which gives me a little bit of energy reserve (in the form of fat) should I have a major illness or accident.

No goals were ever set by my surgeon. On my first visit he said I could afford to lose 200 lbs. he estimated that with following plans for diet and excercise and surgery alone I would lose 90% of that. The rest would take continual work and if I lost would be difficult to keep off. Today looking at losing 180 lbs from my sw of 324 still seems so high of a number. I just want to be in a healthy range of my bmi.