What's on the menu today, RNYers?

Hey Dodgergirl!  WOW, shakes for breakfast and lunch...I can do one, but I need food for the other.  Good for you.  I try for 20 carbs per day, but recently sometimes I will go to 30.  It's good that you notice things sneaking in and are nipping it in the bud!  I hope I can stick with this no-carb life forever.  But I do miss pizza.  That's probably the thing I miss the most.  Enjoy your day!

I just saw a recipe for cauliflower crust pizza, if I could do dairy I would be making it right this minute!   http://www.theluckypennyblog.com/2013/02/the-best-cauliflower-crust-pizza.html

haha...I miss pizza too!  Pizza and chips were my weakness pre-surgery.  Luckily (I think) I get pretty sick any time I've tried to even eat a bite of bread, so while I miss pizza it's been easy to avoid for fear of the pain that may follow.  It's chips that are doing me in right now.  It's summer and nice and every where I go there are chips and salsa (or guac which is my favorite) out.  I haven't been crazy bad, but I have a chip or two and I'm more casual about it now that I was a month ago.  A month ago I would have logged even the one chip, lately I've been more relaxed about it and I could easily see that leading to me sliding back to bad habits.  I think part of making surgery successful long term is to be able to recognize old/bad habits creeping in and nipping them in the butt right away.

Chips and salsa and chips and guac are probably my second favorite foods, after pizza :)  So I hear you!  I haven't let myself have a chip because for me it's a slippery slope :(  I can see myself eating a few chips, losing 3 lbs that week, and then my brain would say "see, you can have a few chips" which turns into 6 the next time lol.  I have no idea how long I can keep this level of rigidity but I am scared sh*tless of maintenance so I just look to successful people on here to see what they are doing to get ideas :)  It's amazing that some people can maintain at 1,300 calories and others at 2,000.  Here's praying I will be a 2,000 calorie a day maintainer (ha - not gonna happen but I can dream, right?).

I feel you on the calories front, I think about that all the time.  Right now I'm at about 600 cals a day, with a few days where I've been closer to 700.  Realistically I know I can't maintain that for the rest of my life, but I wonder where my sweet spot is going to be?  Like you said, I see really drastic swings on this site, from people who are at like 1000 cal/day for maintenance and then other who are closer to 2000.  I hope I"m closer to 2000, but I bet exercise and muscle mass have a decent amount to do with that as well.  What I tell myself is I didn't eat a single bite of food for 6 weeks (2 pre-op, 4 post op) and while I was sick of shakes by the end of that time, I kept burning into my brain that it was doable and I felt better with each passing day.  I wasn't miserable (well too miserable, the 2 weeks pre-op were a little tough) and by the end of it I felt amazing.  I promised myself if I ever felt even slightly off track, I would always go back to the all day shakes to "re-set" myself.  For me, that period just really proved that I didn't need food the way I thought I did before, and I think it's a safety thing knowing I can always go back to just shakes if necessary.  Plus, it sort of detox's my mindset, maybe that's weird....but it's my strategy for the time being :)

I am also 20 months ( today actually)  I maintain at 1300-1500, so I am on the lower end of the range. I would have trouble getting 2000 in with the way I eat now. 

I don't exercise anywhere near as much as most of you, so that is part of it.  Also I am only 5' 4" which requires less than those tall ladies :)

Height definitely has something to do with it.  I'm 5'4" too and I've been targeting 1400 calories a day.  Now I know my fat % is low (22% when I had it done in February--it may have dropped a tad since then), and I work out 4-6 times a week (with 3 of those being personal training sessions).  But even so, 1,400 has me sitting in one place.  I'm not losing...much.  I've dropped two pounds in maybe two months.  I might be able to eke out another pound or two (I'd like to see 120, which is 3 pounds away), but it will take work.  I've been contemplating cutting back to 1,200 calories a day, just to see what happens.  I'm 13 months out at this point, so I should have another 5-6 months of malabsorption.  I just think this is where my 53 year old body wants to be.  I guess we'll see!  :-)

Wow!  123 you are super tiny  :). I am at 129 now and my 4s fit great. I wouldn't cut calories  if I were you.  Your doing great, a pound a month will get u to goal soon 

You can make a pizza on a low carb tortilla (5-7 carbs)  with sauce, veggies, ham etc that fits into most plans. 

I think I'll definitely make the switch to MFP. I've actually already been putting recipes in it and then transferring that data back to FitBit, so I might as well make the leap for better functionality. Thanks for the tip on still using Fitbit for liquids, I find I definitely need to track those as I sometimes struggle to get enough in.