Calories do count

When we are newbies, we can learn the new way to eat without all of the junk and volume we ate pre-op.  It's hard at that time to just build up our protein and get our water.  If you have an RNY, your early pouch will be about the size of your thumb.  But, it eventually grows to about the size of a fist after about 6 months and that's where you want to keep it.  Remember that pre-op we may have had stomachs the size of a softball, grapefruit, melon, or even larger.

We learn to plan our meals and to weigh and measure what we are eating.  But, therein is the problem.  We (meaning me) have a tendency to eyeball our portions the further we get from our surgery date.  If we are eyeballing our protein, portions that are supposed to be 4 oz ( or larger depending on your nutritionist)  soon grow to 6 oz or more.  But, we deceive ourselves and think we are only getting 4 oz.  The same holds true with the other portions of our diet or food plan.

If you find that you are at a plateau or even gaining weight, you may want to go back to the basics of planning your meals and then weighing and measuring your food.

That is a great point sjbob.  I do find myself at that point where I do eyeball my amounts rather than actually weigh them, like in the beginning stages as a fresh postop.  I am now 11 months out from having had RNY surgery and I do find it much easier now to pick and chose my foods, as well as the amounts I eat.  I am constantly on the defensive though in my mind because I feel like I have to remind myself of what I can and cannot have - in terms of quantity - I really feel like I have a great handle on sizes and amounts, but it is a constant variable (choir) that I must factor into my daily life each and everyday.  Part of me wonders if this is how I will be for the rest of my life????????  It really is a scary time now because I feel great with my weight and more importantly, I love how I look and feel physically/mentally.  Being this way really makes it easy to get complacent and take things for granted.  I know my pouch will only let me hold so much, but like you stated, it is no where near as tight as it was the first few weeks postop.  I do weigh myself regularly and that helps me to know I am on the right track and doing things like I should.  Every morning I wake up and realize how great life is and that I never want to go back to the old me.  It really is a checks and balances system that I guess we will have to deal with forever.  I am guessing that when we allow ourselves to get complacent as I stated, that is when we will see regain and old habits start to resurface = those are the things that got many of us into trouble in the first place.   

It never ceases to amaze me how someone will post an intuitive thought and it really makes one question/think about where they stand in their weightloss journey.  That is why I love this site.  It is one of the tools I use almost daily to help me not get complacent. 

sjbob, thanks for this post and helping me to take a moment to stop and look at where I am on my journey.

Taz