I'm 2 weeks out from my gastric sleeve, so am obviously going through all the cravings and panic moments of never being able to eat normally again. I've read a lot of similar posts on here, but everyone seems to interpret "eat normally again" to mean going back to eating the way I did before surgery. What I mean is that when I calculate what a normal, healthy, active person at my goal weight should be eating each day to maintain that weight, it's around 2,400 calories a day (I'm a 6' male with a bigger frame). The impression I've gotten from my surgeon and nutritionist is that I'll likely be averaging 1,000 - 1,200 calories a day for the rest of my life. The surgery doesn't change the way your body uses energy, so the only way I imagine that working is if your metabolism slowed waaaayyy down, and that doesn't seem healthy to me.

Does anyone have any experience, after a few years and achieving their goal weight, eating like a normal, healthy person again? Thanks!

On 10/20/2017 at 2:17 PM, Brandeis said:

I hear what you're saying, but here's something that might help wrap your mind around it.

Take two identical-appearing people -- both, say, 5'9 and 150 pounds. One of them has never been extremely overweight. The other once was 320 pounds, and lost a lot of weight to get down to 150. Feed them the exact same meal every single day, the same number of calories, the 2000 "suggested" by general nutritional info. The person who was once fat will in fact process those calories more and might in fact gain weight, while the person who never was obese might be perfectly fine.

If you have ever been fat, there are certain hormones your body creates more of, that changes the way your body works on a fundamental level. You will need fewer calories for the rest of your life -- even if you get down to weight -- than people who never had that excess weight.

Here's another fun fact. Related. The number of fat cells in your body never decreases, but it can increase. This means that when you put on a lot of weight, you increase the number of fat cells in your body -- and then when you lose weight they don't go away, they just shrink. This means that for the rest of your life, your body will more effectively store fat. You have more of a warehouse to fill, and so your body squirrels away more fat in it.

From what I understand this is true and it is theorized that reducing the stomach removes some of the offending hormones.

Also, plastic surgery after WLS (like a tummy tuck) can help by actually removing excess fat cells, not just shrinking them.