What now????

Hello all,   I am hoping all you graduates can help me.  I am 18 months out this month.  I have done reasonablely well.  I am down 100 lbs which I am very thankful for, but I have not reached my personal goal of 150 lbs.  I have been stuck now at 162 for months.  I just CAN NOT GET THIS last 12 pounds off.   I consulted my nut again and agian and she is unfortunately now not to helpful.  She just keeps telling me that my body is where it needs to be and maybe I am setting myself to low.  I don't belive I am.  I am only 5' 2" and ideally I should weigh in the 130-140 range at most for my age of 32.  Let me tell you my lifestyle.......   I average 1200- 1800 cal a day... I have on occasion gone over that but rarely.  I eat a very healthy I eat only healthy carbs. (oatmeal, kashi cereal, fruit, light bread, etc....)  I drink a minimum of 64oz of crystal light a day.... usually more.   I also make sure i follow pouch rules 90 % of the time, along with eating my protein.  I took a month off from exersize in september and now i am back at it 3-4 days a week.  from 30 min to 60 min.  I try to vary it so my routine doesn't get boring.  I also strength train 2 days a week...  I nurse at my dr office told me to "change things up so my motabolism stays up, and my body doen't get used to things."   I did the pouch test and did well for the first 2 days and then went back to regular eating when my pouch was reset because i felt a physical need for nourishment.  I did lose 2 lbs in those 2 days but they came back when i took solids again.   So I am asking you all.... do I look like I am doing anything wrong?  Should I add calories, lower calories, up exersize?  Any suggestions?  My pouch still works well,  I get full at about 1-1.5 cups food.  I don't dump, but i feel crappy if I eat too much sugar or fat...(over indulged on halloween candy.  I am back on the straight and narrow after that. )   Sorry so long, thank you for your help... you all are such support and inspiration. Jessica

I think if I followed your eating plan, I'd prolly weigh about what you weigh, at my 5'1". As it is, I do just about total opposite, so I'm weighing at 112.

I do not eat cereals or yogurts or milk or fruit on a regular basis. It's all sugar. I do eat cereal now and then, but use protein for the milk. I eat a bit of fruit, but not as much as i'd like to. I don't do milk at all, nor fruit juice.

I do water, not the crystal light I'd prefer, but jus****er, as in water.

I don't follow the pouch rules, actually, since some of them seem to make no sense to me. I'm not overly fond of meat or fish, so I'm moe likely to have a protein bar, but I don't count the protein in it.

I have 6 protein shakes/day (not everyone would want that much) of 30g only, made with just whey powder + water.

I'll have to skip over the exercise portion of the discussion. When I AM doing regular exercise, I'd have a sandwich made with healthy bread for the carb I need after, but I'd do an extra protein before AND after my workouts.

So, while I cannot say what you'r doing is WRONG (or right), know for sure I'd gain about 50# if I took in that much sugar. Heck, I gained on way less sugar than that! And it was fruit!

Oh... I am sorry... I wasn't too clear on my eating plan.... I eat maybe 2 servings of healthy carbs a day... everything else is protein first, vegetables and maybe one fruit per day.   I try to drink plain water but I can't for some reason... maybe it is in my head, so i drink watered down crystal light.   I have found if i don't eat any carbs i feel terrible.   I also need the fiber if you know what  I mean Idont drink any protien drinks because my nut told me she wants me to et all my nutrients from real food.  so i haven't used them since i have been able to get 60 grams of protein from food.  does this info change anything?  sorry i wasn't more clear about my eating... i usually get between 60-90 grams of protein a day.

Water is hard for me, too. I have to play games to get it in. Pop open a Diet Green Tea thingy and it's history in moments, bu****er? Takes much effort to do that.

Whether you get your protein via food or supplement is a matter of personal preference, once you have labs in hand. I'm a very distal RNY, so protein in supplement is not optional. I need to do 150-180g to NET 60g of useable protein.

Vegetable proteins are not as well asborbed without proper digestion and them being routed past the duodenum, so meats (fish, etc) are better for that and some ppl do ok on them. I don't usually choose meat. Where some ppl are delighted with snacks of beef jerky and cheese, that leaves me cold. MUCH rather have fruit, which is not good for me if I eat as much as I want. I have gained wt from it, so I do eat some every day, but only a few apple slices.

I also use protein placement as another tool. So, Ioften drink one just before a meal to cut my volume or put one in place of something that should not be near me. It's not just about getting the protein numbers on the labs for me, but about using whatever tools I can to keep unplanned food out of my face.

I don't count any protein in food as protein. I have an RNY gastric bypass, so that means that foods are not digested (because they only go to the pouch, not the stomach) AND the main absorption stations are bypassed for : protein, iron, calcium, A D, E, zinc, B1, B12, soooooooooo those are what I supplement and track on my labs.

When doing all protein to lose wt, I was doing 180g in protein supps and between 70-80g in foods, but my lab levels didn't change AT ALL, furthering my thinking that protein food is fairly useless to me, EXCEPT as a tool for me not to eat a steady diet of carbs (which I would love to do!)

I can't add to what michelle said.  She is really right on. I don't think you can afford the extra white carbs if you want to get that weight down.  Also, do some research into rny....this is malabsorptive procedure we had.  There is not way we can eat the protein we need, so we will need protein supplements.  I just don't understand the nuts and why they don't  understand this! You can get fiber from complex carbs and supplemental fiber. Perhaps reducing your carbs by 300 or so cals may help. keep us posted. blessings, Tami

I know this sounds retarded but when I eat carbs seems like I loose weight. I am 2 years and 4 months out. If I get the bread sticks with cheese from pizza hut I can eat 1 whole stick and when I get up and weigh I have lost a lb. I think my body is starving for carbs. I didn't like breads before but now that is all I want is bread. I only do turkey and chicken so I have to take b-12 shots..........please take them vitamins peoples. I didn't until to late. My labs are scary bad.  amy

A word of gentle encouragement about "normal" weight ranges; they don't fit everybody.  And if you have been consistently working out and doing strength training, you may have denser muscle tissue.  So your weight would not necessarily belie your size.  Have you had your body fat and skeletal muscle measured?  You can get a pretty decent estimate of these numbers using a body composition monitor (mine is an Omron 500 something or other) (they aren't 100% accurate, but usually close enough for our purposes).   If you want to know whether you need to increase or decrease calories or exercise, you first need to know exactly what you are doing today.  Do you track your daily weight, food intake, and exercise at fitday.com or sparkpeople.com?  If you do that for a few weeks to give yourself a baseline, then you can adjust your calories up or down, and see what happens.  You have to be patient for this to work - I sometimes stay at the same weight and calorie range for 3-4 weeks before I can see what my body is going to do.  Then I make additional adjustments and wait to see what happens next.  Some people don't want to spend this much time analyzing what they are doing; for me, it's necessary to keep losing and I know it will be necessary when I'm ready to maintain.  It's just who I am.   Good luck on your continuing journey -  Kellie

I've read through all these posts, and it's amazing how people are so different. There's just no one solution to anybody's problem. Jessica, if you're eating healthy and exercising like you should, getting in your fluids, taking your vitamins, and you feel good, maybe you're just perfect and don't know it. I lost a little more weight than I thought I would, but I sure don't know why it happened to me and not to some other people. My nut says for me to consume 1200-1400 calories a day from now on, and I tend to stay in that range. I stay away from fruit and sugar for the most part, but I do eat some double-fiber wheat bread and wheat pasta. My sugar gets low since surgery, and I eat little bits all through the day, three hours apart, and that supposedly keeps my metabolism up as well. I feel like a newborn baby with a feeding schedule. I'm only 15 months post-op and not sure what the future will hold, but I'm ***trying*** not to obsess with the scale so much and concentrate on health and well-being. I know that's easier said than done.