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What are you all eating one plus year out and how many calories are you consuming.

i had my year evaluation (I went from 330 pounds to 180 pounds) and she was pleased with my progress (apparently I surpassed the others in my group with excess weight lost which is a great feeling!) however she seemed a bit upset over the quantities of food I am eating.

she said I should be getting 1,700 calories a day. I just don’t see how that’s possible! My restriction is still very much a thing and I just can’t eat that much.
I compromised by telling her I would eat Breakfast (I usually just have a nonfat coffee and that fills me up), she told me to introduce that back in and track my calories.
So… I did.

you guys I am only getting 1,000 calories in a day! And that was WITH breakfast. I have found that I am finally getting hungry on occasion (I haven’t felt hunger for a year now ) and my volume has increased slightly, but nowhere near enough to fit in 1700 calories!

My Protein count is fine. I got 80 grams of protein today (I have some lingering medical issues so my protein count has to be lower than the norm). I don’t eat junk.

This is kind of an average day:

scrambled egg, coffee, P3 pack, yogurt (no sugar Greek yogurt), chicken/fish with some veggies (but I usually can’t eat more than a bite or two of veggies) and I might have a few nuts or half a cheese stick for Snacks.

It will only become more difficult because I am getting Invisalign and my desire to snack is going to be zero because I don’t want to brush my teeth a zillion times a day.

i need good ideas on getting my calories up!

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Guest

2700 calories on average/day, give or take, 120g Protein. That's the only rules I have.

A normal day now is oatmeal - meat and veggies and dressing - snack x 2 - substantial dinner, which can be whatever normal foods - evening snack x 2.

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I looked it up on MFP, and the week of my 1 year anniversary, I averaged 2200 calories a day.

Mind you, at the time, I was running min 5k almost every day, and some strength training, and a host of other activities keeping me active. I was 115 lbs at 1 yr (I’m 5’2” female).

Today, Im 3.5 years out and i average about 1800-ish cals a day…adjusted because i am no where near as active as I used to be. This morning I weighed 118.8 (I’m still a 5’2” female, lol)

Regarding calories, it’s actually quite easy to rack those up in a day. If you eat low-volume, high-calorie foods, you can reach 1700 cals in no time (nuts, oils, cheese, avocados, etc). Heck, I ate about a cup of chicharron/pork rinds the other day that totalled 600 calories…and it had 67g of Protein and zero carbs, if that interests you.

It will take time and getting used to, but you’ll get there eventually. So long as your labs come back fine and your doctor is not concerned for your health, i figure you should be ok taking your own time to reach calorie goals.

Good Luck! ❤️

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Just curious-are you maintaining or continuing to lose? Do you know your BMR? Resting Basal Metabolic Rate? I just had Body Spec body scan which provided this and other data to discuss with my doc. I’m 6 years out getting about 1800 calories, but will need to reduce to lose about 20 lbs regain.

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I average 1100 calories.day

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13 hours ago, Orinskye said:

she said I should be getting 1,700 calories a day. I just don’t see how that’s possible!

Also, really? :)

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I stalled for a long time (several months) and I am within healthy weight range so I figured I was now at maintenance. I stopped weighing myself so often because I’m not obsessed about it…. BUT…. I guess I started losing again because I am at 173 this morning.

If I reach 155 that is an unhealthy range for my height. So I am still twenty pounds from an unhealthy range and I have to pick up the calories before I get there and drop below that threshold.
(family wise: my moms side of the family tends to be very thin and they usually fall below the norm BMI weight ratio)

as far as activity: I don’t go out of my way to exercise but I am very active during the day. I am on my feet all day as a teacher, I go out and play handball/basketball with my students during recess and lunch, constantly walking across our large campus, and rotating the classroom all day as well. I swim and go to the beach with my own kids or hike with them on weekends. I’m definitely not sedentary but I’m not running any 5ks either. My joints are still damaged and I have to be careful.
the nurse recommended strength training with resistance bands to help maintain muscle mass.

she didn’t tell me NOT to loose more weight, she just told me that I should be looking towards improving my calorie count so my body doesn’t go into starvation mode and messing with my metabolism.

i guess I will just have to throw in some Snacks and get used to brushing my teeth a zillion times a day. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve been looking up higher calorie healthy foods and I’ll try some out next week

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I mean, yes, this is getting to the core of it. I didn't mean to doubt your experience, but as you probably know, this forum always has a seesaw motion between two groups:

  1. The happy losers who couldn't possibly eat more than a lentil a day, omg (never realizing the irony of this coming out of someone needing bariatric surgery in the first place - trust me, nobody here is a stranger to calories!)
  2. The strugglers whose defeat somehow feeds the first group, and then gets inspired to eat even less. ... for a while. Because we know what hunger does eventually.

Both groups seem to be careening towards the abyss instead of just working with the anatomy we have now. And that's what I mean; your dietician gets that you can't live on 1000 cals a day forever, and she knows the metabolism is flexible (see Harvard Health's Biggest Loser study).

Edit: this is 2600 calories. Surely, you all get my point here.

image.png.e0f98dae45569cc54d5ffa641abca91e.png

Edited by Guest

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Well of course if I wanted to go in the direction of junk food I could make up those calories easily. Lol

it’s so ingrained now that I just don’t even think about those foods as an option anymore. I am accustomed to eating low/nonfat, simple, and fresh. The P3 pack is pretty much as processed as I get. I am also typically pretty boring and don’t like to think about food period so I just eat the same things every day because it’s easy. Unfortunately now that my calorie needs have changed I need to alter my routine. I guess that is my struggle: this is my routine and changing routines for me are hard.

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OK, then it's about 1700 calories within the restrictions you've set for yourself. :) (And no, I'm not recommending Oreo shakes).

Forgive me for being European and obsessed with cheese, but how about looking to some higher-quality, higher-calorie food stuffs if you're trying to get to 1700? Full-fat cheese, higher-fats meats, good oils is a quick and natural way to get calories up?

Some rye crackers with stilton, roquefort, etc. All the yums. :)

Edited by Guest

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1 hour ago, MiniGastricBypassDude said:

image.png.e0f98dae45569cc54d5ffa641abca91e.png

Two thousand six hundred calories via 36 oz (American sized) slurpable empty calories. Another shameless American invention. 😂

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My favorite smoothie is banana and nut butter but it’s too many calories to fit in my weight loss phase. That’s healthy calories if you use nut butter with no sugar or salt added.

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Yeah I was thinking a smoothie would be a good option. Adding avocado to a smoothie is a healthy, higher calorie option that would work, just like the nut butter recommendation.

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For me, patés and foie gras is a higher calorie way to keep Iron up, and to enjoy some minerals and Vitamins in general.

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. LeighaTR

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

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        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

    • CaseyP1011

      Officially here for a long time, not just a good time💪
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