Four years out, following the rules, and gaining weight I can't get rid of

My RNY was four years ago this month. I lost from 250 lbs to 132 lbs, then kind of settled in at around 140.I'm 5' 8" tall.

Lately, I've been seeing my weight creep up over the past several weeks and nothing I do seems to stop it. I'm at 145 now. I'm tracking my food, getting in all my protein, eating the recommended amount of fat, and less than the recommended amount of carbs. And the carbs I do eat are usually whole grains. I try to avoid all white sugar.

I am very active and get in more than the recommended amounts of physical activity. I'm at a loss as to what to do to stop this. I'm not overweight again - in fact, I'm at the ideal body weight for my height, but I feel helpless to stop the upward trend. Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions?

Your weight may have been too low and your body is adjusting for it.  If the weight continues to go up, you can either cut back on calories or up your exercise to burn it off. 

Several factors can contribute to weight gain:  medications, age, menopause.....do any of these apply?

Continued gain is generally a sign of too much taken in and not enough burned off.  As long as you are within a healthy weight for your age/body type/height I wouldn't worry....unless it continues.

I, too, was going to ask about menopause or peri-menopause.  At 4.5 years out, I had an additional (significant) hair loss that popped up out of nowhere and was seeing my weight creep up to my 5-pound self-imposed limit more frequently (a couple of times in 4 months instead of the once a year during the previous three years!).  Peri-menopause, followed by the real McCoy with hot flashes and night sweats about 8 months later.

Even if it is not truly menopause related, it still might be hormonal.

Lora

At 5' 8" and 140 lbs you are at a low BMI (not underweight but 21.3) and it may just be that your body will be comfortable a little bit higher. I would say just keep an eye on it and if it starts to creep up higher then you will have to eat less or exercise more to maintain. You have done brilliantly but I totally get the concern with an upward trend

I think you've gotten really good suggestions and I'm not quite a year out, so I don't have any long term advice, but I wonder if you considered that maybe now that you don't malabsorb fats at all if you might have to cut back a bit more on fat and/or calories to be equivalent to what used to be maintenance intake???   

Congrats on your great success and good for you being on top of it!!

I just turned 57, but went through menopause about 10 years ago when I had my ovaries removed. I've never been extremely hormonal like a lot of my friends were. In fact, I used a hormone patch for about 6 months after the surgery. Toward the end of that time, I was cutting a twice-weekly patch in half and wearing it for a whole week and still did just fine, so I quit using it altogether and have had no hormonal issues since then.

I average around 1,400 calories a day and get about 8 hours of pretty rigorous exercise each week. So even if I was absorbing 100%, I'd still be doing good. I cant' really imagine eating less and moving more. In fact, I've wondered if maybe I need to actually up my calorie intake, but I'm afraid to try it for fear of gaining even more. Has anyone had success by actually eating more?

Everyone has different metabolisms, of course, but I eat 1200-1400 calories a day and get very little exercise, so if you are exercising that much, you may NOT be getting enough calories in and your body may have dropped your metabolism because of that.  Try adding just an extra 250 calories a day for a week or two and see what happens.  That may be enough to boost your metabolism but wouldn't be enough to make you gain (since it would be just 3500 calories -- the amount for one pound of fat -- for the entire two weeks).

Lora

With 8 hours of vigorous exercise per week you may well be building muscle mass.  How many daily grams of protein are you getting?  Rule of thumb is 0.8 to 1.5 gm of protein for each kg of muscle mass. The range is dependent on how active you are.  With your activity you would be at the 1.5 end of the range.

Do you know how much muscle mass you have?  If you don't have a BIA scale to measure %body fat & muscle mass you might want to get one.  BIA is Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis and is used to measure you body’s electrical impedance to estimate your body fat, muscle mass, body water, and bone mass based on formulas from empirical data.  BIA measured body fat & muscle mass is accurate within +/-3%.  However, if you are consistent in how you measure, you can accurately track your progress & trends.  Be sure to weigh at the same time of day; to empty your bladder; and drink 8 oz of water before measuring to get the most accurate readings.  Being dehydrated can throw off your readings.

Just another thing to consider.

How much protein and how many carbs do you aim for?

I thought about gaining muscle, and that might be part of it. But my belly is getting poochy again. The number on the scale doesn't bother me nearly as much as the belly. It blows my mind that after my surgery, I had lost probably 30 pounds before I could even tell a difference in my body size. Now, just that little 5-pound gain is enough to make my belly blow up and make me resort to wearing loose-fitting tops again.

I'm going by the Spark People recommendations for calories, fat, carbs and protein. 

They recommend 60-168 g protein and  always at least hit the lower end of that, but rarely go much higher than about 70.
They recommend 216-312 g carbs and I usually get around 80-140.
They recommend 43-75 g  fats and I normally get about 50.

I do not know my muscle mass.