Regain - Is it guaranteed?

Everywhere I read it says that it is more likely than not that once you hit your 2nd year out from surgery you will regain 10 lbs. What causes this and can it be prevented?

What causes it? More calories, less dedication, less positive feedback from the people in your life as you're no longer losing weight.

It's not guaranteed and you can prevent it by sticking to the way of eating you should use for the rest of your life and maintaining strong dedication to your continued health.

That's pretty straightforward and logical. Just seems like everyone says be prepared to gain 10 lbs. and it just mystically appears.

Just like any other eating plan. Eat more = gain.

If only we could blame weight gain on magic, eh? :D I totally get what you mean, though. I think it's more prevalent in the RNY community because the malabsorption does wear off after a while. So if you're only relying on malabsorption and don't actually change your way of eating, then, yeah, you'll regain.

But the mental stuff is powerful and something to be prepared for. It's so much easier to be motivated in the beginning when weight loss is "easy" and you're getting compliments from random people every day. It's harder to maintain that motivation when the loss slows and you're no longer getting all the positive feedback.

I was talking with a friend of mine some months ago, and she is working on losing weight and has been overweight all of her life. She's not interested in surgery, but when we had this talk she had recently decided to change her way of eating. And she told me something that I thought was really powerful. She said, "You know, Gwen, I had the realization that this is forever. It's not just a matter of eating a certain way until you reach your goal weight and then you can go back to whatever you want. You actually have to keep eating that way forever if you want to keep the weight off." It was a HUGE epiphany for her and I'm grateful she shared it with me because I had never thought of it in such clear terms. She's right, though, and I think that's what gets a lot of people in trouble, even in the WLS community. We (generic we - people in general) tend to be in the diet mentality of "I just need to eat this crazy unsustainable way until I reach my goal and then I'll magically stay there no matter how I eat." And, really, our bodies don't work that way. So I think that's the mentality that leads to the common weight gain. Once people reach their goal they haven't assimilated that "this is forever," let suboptimal food habits creep back in, and bam - regain.

1) My friend has been doing super well with her way of eating and I think she's making good, sustainable choices.

2) Wow, sorry for the novel. I'm procrastinating reading for school...

It's funny, Gwen, I just had this very conversation with someone the other day. I talked about how I can now see why WLS and especially RNY had such a bad rap for so long, and that I think it is from people with that very mentality..."I'm going to get this surgery and lose all this weight and I can eat what I want while I'm doing it." Then they gain it all back.

My journey to this point has taught me that this has to be a way of life forever. I know I'll falter now and then, because I'm human. But I also know that I have a better chance of long-term success as long as I maintain my dedication to my new WOE (way of eating). I, like so many others, never truly understood before that it has to be a permanent change.

When I see people talking here on the boards about how they are actually planning to reintroduce bad foods into their diets after they reach goal, it breaks my heart. That tells me they haven't and aren't really learning anything, just biding their time. I hope they don't become another regain statistic, but sadly I think they are doomed to that very thing.

I pray every day that I can continue to be strong, and to maintain my dedication to this new way of life and way of eating. I never want to go back to being that SMO woman I used to be.

Yup to all of this.

I finally accepted the fact that I am on a diet for life. If I don't diet I gain weight. The bounce back that you hear about was from the end of RNY absorption.

That really happened to me. I regained fourteen pounds in year three even though I had NOT eaten flour, sugar, rice, cereal, pasta or sweets.

I was told only to count protein and not to worry about calories. That worked for two years. Then it did not.

Now people are having VSG and counting calories from the beginning. It still seems like a good plan to lose an extra 10, 20 or even 30 people pounds to have a cushion for regain.

Thanks! I was prepared going into this, that it is for life - just like if you loose weight any other way - eat more, you gain. It doesn't help when EVERYONE in your life, no matter how many times you explain it, say, so when can you have margaritas (mexican food, etc.) again?!?!?! Makes me crazy. I repeatedly tell them, I can have anything I want, I am choosing not to have them.

Oh my gosh, I have said this SO MANY TIMES. "I CAN eat anything I want, I prefer to eat protein." Thankfully there are some people who have finally gotten this, so at least I don't have to say it as often. :P