Question for the vets

Hey guys!

I'm a year and 4 months out and pretty much at goal. My SW was 266 and weighed in at 146 last week. For some reason this week I gained 7lbs. I realize this is almost impossible to gain in 7 days. Especially since my calories are always between 1000-1400 MAX. I'd say I stay around 1000-1200 from Monday to Friday.  

I watch everything I eat to the point where I'm neurotic about it. I also train 4 sometimes 5 times a week. I think this 7 lbs gain was from me eating a little more carbs and messing up my birth control pill by an entire week. 

Basically my trainer told me I should be eating about 1500 calories daily otherwise my body will go into starvation mode long term and I can't be so neurotic about everything because maiming 1000-1200 my whole life will be impossible. 

My question to the vets is how many calories do you eat daily (do you even still count) and should I focus on 1500?

It does not matter why you gained the seven pounds so much as how you are going to lose them.

Gaining seven pounds in a week tells me that you are not weighing daily.  Eating extra calories will not keep you out of starvation mode because starvation mode is a myth.

It will put you into gaining mode which is very real.

I eat 1400 calories a day to maintain 136.  If the scale goes up by more than one pound I drop to 900.  Our bodies become very efficient at holding onto weight after the initial surgery honeymoon ends.

A personal trainer will not understand at all.  Take it from

an old vet, we do not need the same amount of calories as a normal person who has not had their body surgically altered.

Be wary of nutrition advice from personal trainers.  What they say may be perfectly true but nutrition is not part of their formal education (if they have any at all) so they may be no more informed than a person off the street.  Or they may be completely misinformed.  Just by way of example, the neurotic fixation on protein in the fitness industry is entirely inappropriate.

As for your spike in weight, you're correct that you can't gain 7 pounds of fat in a week and you probably hit the cause right on the nose.

I'm 2+ years out and I don't track calories.  As I have from the beginning, per my surgeon's plan, I let good food choices and portions be my guide.

Good luck!  "Switching" to maintenance can be a new learning experience but it sounds like you're doing pretty well!

I don't count very often but I eat about 1500-1600 a day these days.

Calories can be such an individual thing based on your age, body type and medication. As someone older I can not eat more than 1200 calories unless I am exercising like made.

You will experiment with add new foods and seeing how you body takes the new calories

It is not the calories i worry about at 7 years post op but what food i eat.  And with my pouch, that dictates how much Dense proteins i can eat - so in a way i do control qty/calories even of the "good foods ".

I can and do eat more calories  when I avoid straches and carbs in general. And i don't gain.  But one carby day (hey, no one is perfect) can cost me 3-4 lbs on a scale the next day.  Sometimes i do that on purpose - like this week - i am in Colorado skiing, and i need reserves of carbs and water in my system. 

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Weight and  carbs.  

If you eat an Ultra low carb diet you deprive your body the ability to build glycogen stores.  This is the onboard energy that your body converts carbs to and is a very easy energy source for your body to utilize.  Each pound of glycogen requires approx 2 pounds of water and your body can hold 2-3 pounds of glycogen so 1 pound of glycogen actually results in 3 pounds total.

The water weight that almost everyone loses in the first 1-2 weeks of a diet that has been forever called "water weight"  is your body depleting your glycogen stores and then passing out the un-needed water. 

So if you had a few excess carbs then this may be what happened.  Also dehydration can lead to water retention and obviously additional weight.  I gained 10 pounds in 4 days after a race once.  Pissed like a race horse for the next week and it plus some extra went away.