What's it like when the honeymoon is over?

Just curious to hear from some of the veterans out there - what was your experience when your "honeymoon" phase ended?  What was different, harder, surprising, etc.?

It's fine when the honeymoon is over. If you learned your eating lessons during the honeymoon - eat well and exercise, everything's fine. Great in fact. I'm in shape. I'm 155 pounds less than I used to be. I haven't eaten fast food in 3.5 years. I haven't had a diet coke in 3.5 years. My life is better. I'm happier and I look much better.

It's not as fun as the losing, losing stage, but this is when you get to stabilize and figure out how your life will be for the rest of your life.

All is well after the honeymoon.

Thanks for asking this, maintenance scares the crap out of me!

 

No surprises if you learn during the honeymoon to follow the rules and change your eating habits.  It may take some tweaking to find the right calorie range to stay within a certain weight range.

Don't be afraid of maintenance everyone reaches it at some point.  Does it mean one will reach their specific goal, no not all do reach where they want to be but everyone should have lost a significant amount of weight and be healthier which should be what we had WLS for anyway.

For me, when the honeymoon period ended, I gained 10 pounds practically overnight. At the 2 year mark I was eating around 2700 calories a day to stop from losing any more weight. When I gained, I had to cut back to 1800-2000, which is what I still eat now at 5 years out.

For me, it was awful.  I gained about a pound a week for twelve weeks.  Some diet and same exercise.  Not able to eat a lot, but the weight just came back.  I joined Weigh****chers, went to the gym everyday, avoided carbs and stressed high protein.  The gain stopped, but the regained weight would not go away. 

After about a year, I went to 800 calories a day and about two hours of exercise six days a week.  It took about three months to get to my goal weight again.  One thing my center suggested was no longer drinking protein shakes.  I no longer needed drink my protein.  I got my protein mostly from Greek Yogurt.  I tracked exercise and calories with dailyplate.com and weighed myself everyday.

I had learned well during the honeymoon period.  I did not push calories, but the honeymoon did end and I now have to eat a lot less and work out a lot harder than I did before surgery to keep from gaining.

it stinks. you have to be more careful and more diligent. as everyone said, you HAVE TO follow the rules. or else you'll gain and gain.

Well my honeymoon was over at 9 months and Im still not at goal...it just means making sure that ive made the lifestyle changes needed and continue to work my ass off to get to my goal. Its not easy but what in life is?

It really scares me that you have to work harder to keep it off... and the earlier poster said harder than before surgery! Yikes! I hope I will be able to do this....

Preop here but take this for what it is worth ! Take the " I Hope I cans " write them down, look at them and throw them in the garbage. Replace your thinking with I can and I will. I'm going into this with every fiber of my being. This is it. I'm not gonna doubt myself anymore!