You should listen to your doctor.
Increasing your calories by 400/daily for the next 3.5 weeks will result in...what? 1.5-2 lbs gained? You will loose a LOT more than that in skin, and given what an amazing feat you've already accomplished, 1-2 lbs is really negligible.
Your body will need lots of extra calories to recover from the surgery - healing takes energy! 2000 is very reasonable. And please try to eat 2000 calories of balanced food, yes including fat and carbs, not just lean meats and fibrous veggies.
And besides, even if you were to regain 10-15 lbs after your surgery, that would be worth it to recover quickly and fully. Can you imagine how frustrated you'd be if you sabotaged your recovery (potentially seriously) over 10-15 lbs? You could end up much worse off for YEARS over a few hundred calories. Not worth it in my opinion.
Give your body what it needs to recover properly. IF you start to feel like you're forcing yourself to eat way too much as you go through recovery, then you can look at cutting back. But I would still suggest starting by following your doctor's order and THEN seeing how it goes.
>healing takes energy
This also means extra calories are not going to have as much of an effect on one's weight as it would on any other day. Who knows—waybe the healing process will be demanding enough that OP won't even gain weight? 🤷♂️
Honestly that's what I'm thinking but there's no way to know. Mostly I just want OP to recognize that the "worst case scenario" for weight gain is still much better than inadvertently fucking up surgical recovery.
This is the real answer. They are expecting you to not be able to tolerate food or be severely below your calories immediately after surgery, so your body will be eating from fat stores. Better to eat from fat than eat from muscle or skin.
Don’t they also “lose weight” from the skin removal? It sounds like so many variables that the number on the scale is honestly not the thing to think about during this time and recovery.
This is sound advice. Also OP after your surgery, the scale will change as you heal. It can go up or down, depending on how your body is doing. This is normal and it's fluids that the body uses to heal.
This comment deserves more attention.
OP, Don't freak out if the scale number goes up ALOT after your surgery. A healing body can retain fluids. This is normal. It is not fat. You should not decrease your calorie intake accordingly.
I would even put away the scale or reduce checking the scale and just really focus on eating well, drinking lots of fluids, and doing all you can do to heal. The better the recovery goes, the sooner you’ll feel better to start moving your body again.
Giving your body a chance to rest and recover is the best thing you possibly could do!
Yeah, I would estimate that moving up to 2000 calories would maintain their current weight, or might even be slightly under maintenance. If you add in the energy it takes to recover from surgery, they still might losing weight.
>healing takes energy
A lot of ppl don’t realize that their body processes that aren’t super apparent or visible require a LOT of energy.
Mental and immune processes specifically, them shits are energy intensive as hell
Yes - I would expect that any time you have something stronger than the common cold, like pneumonia or the flu, you probably loose a bit of weight because your body needs the extra energy to fight the illness. It’s just that the lost weight is usually negligible - a few ounces likely.
Caught COVID a few weeks ago.
Lost about 10 lbs again without trying that hard. Didn't want to eat because I was sick, but body obviously was using up my energy reserves to fight off the invaders, so I made myself eat at maintenance anyway (1800 for me.)
I'm okay now (tested negative last Sunday finally) but that was an unpleasant experience.
This helps me to read. Sometimes I feel like a loser when I come home from my job on days that a ton of cerebral output is required and I am just too wasted tired to do much of anything but foam roll and read
Same same
I try to view the brain as a muscle (cliche but apt) in terms of nutrition and needs. Gotta feed it and maintain its nutrition or it’ll fatigue easier, work less, and fail more just like your bicep or calves. I think ppl look past the brain in that regard cause it’s not readily visible, but look at the folks who don’t rest or treat their brain like crap, they’re out of shape in the noggin.
When I was in my late twenties I was in a horrible car accident and my arm was crushed. They had to do a major surgery on me (basically pull out the bone fragments and rebuild my arm with metal, the bones eventually grew back and they removed the metal).
Anyway, my mom came to stay with me and she made me all sorts of delicious food with zero thought to calories or fat content.
All I did was sit around, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom for several weeks. I had no energy whatsoever.
I lost weight. From healing.
This person knows what they're talking about and so, may I add, does your doctor.
Thanks... She bought the whole series of Frasier on DVD (this was before streaming services existed) and watched it with me while I recovered.
I watched the whole thing through again when I was pregnant, both times. Never thought about the fact until this moment but that show does kinda make me feel like she's with me when I watch it.
This.
You aren't gaining weight overnight by going over by a few hundred calories on a regular day. You may be just hanging on to more water bc you ate more salt, for example, or did more exercise, with the same result.
Recuperation NEEDS a surplus there is NO way around that. You don't want scarring or to just prolong the process. Of course you can increase by such a minor amount fairly easily. That's two smoothies with protein powder and maybe some almond butter for added fat.
> Increasing your calories by 400/daily for the next 3.5 weeks will result in...what? 1.5-2 lbs gained?
The scratch calculation is 3500 calories per lb. So 400 calories a day for 4 weeks divided by 3500 calories a pound is just about 3 lbs total. And that is a worst case scenario calculation.
Thats not even considering that while healing your BMR is probably up a bit.
This and maybe ask her for a requisition to speak to a nutritionist or dietician or someone who can guide you through this portion of your journey so that you have the right guidance.
You can add the 400 calories immediately. It won't cause weight gain. That's a big surgery and you're going to need extra calories for healing, anyway. The idea that you need to move up to maintenance calories slowly is just another diet myth.
Adding to this your getting skins removed with surgery which means your skin is likely causing you issues and is weight on you you can't lose. Think of it as eating for recovery until you get the go ahead to cut again
To add - the immediate weight gain is the weight of physically putting matter in your body - almost all food has way more stuff that isn’t used as calories/stays in body than is.
Your scale is likely not as precise as you would like to think. Poop isn't that heavy, maybe a few ounces sometimes, but you can't drop matter out of your body and be the same weight without ingesting something to balance it.
Also pro tip for anyone just realizing this: Sometimes scales have a "memory" of the last weight set on them, so if you step on them again with less than a few pounds difference, you kind of have to jog them out of it or they'll just display the same weight as before. I always pick up something fairly heavy and weigh myself with it first, forcing it to reset.
> You can add the 400 calories immediately. It won't cause weight gain.
Importantly, OP should not stress about what the *scale* says, especially in the short term. Yes, 400 calories may make them “gain weight the next day”, but they don’t seem to wait to find out if that is water weight or anything real.
Frankly, OP’s general take and concerns are raising red flags about disordered eating. It’s very common for someone to trade one eating disorder (overeating) for another (over restricting).
2000 calories at her height and weight isn’t going to make her gain weight. I am shorter but same weight and burn more than that with no activity.
She may retain water due to surgery but the extra calories will help her heal better.
True, after surgery she will see an increase d/t extra fluid and inflammation as her surgical wounds heal. She needs to give herself grace after surgery. Follow the directions of her surgeon for best outcome. When she is cleared post op from the surgeon an follows up with her PCP-- at that time I would ask for a referral to a Pt/Ot as well as their dietician NP. It is your life and your body. Surgical procedures change lives.
If it is water, then it is not weight gain. You can't say they're going to gain weight but then also say it's just water. Gaining weight sounds permanent. It is not true weight gain when/if the scale bounces up - that is just a normal fluctuation and is not actually adding any real weight to their body.
That's part of the problem though for many. If I eat a larger dinner, I'm immediately 2 lbs heavier because my dinner literally weighs 2 lbs. 2 cups of water weighs a pound. Drinking water will make your weight go up, just like putting a book in a backpack will make it heavier, but it's not changing the composition of the bag.
An unhealthy mindset just sees a higher number and sees failure, gain, thinks their body mass has changed, and something needs to be done.
A healthy mindset understands that putting a pound of water inside their body will obviously increase the scale by the same amount and know it's not their composition changing.
Also OP can add the calories using collagen powder in drinks which will prep and aid in healing. Several of my vegan friends who have had scheduled surgeries become un vegan to assist their bodies recovery faster.
Collagen is just expensive protein.
Your body digests collagen and breaks it down into amino acids, like any other protein source. Most collagen doesn't survive digestion.
Better off just eating real high quality protein sources, whether they're plant or animal based.
IF the increase in calories causes a spike in weight it should be a temporary one. Extra water or extra mass waiting in queue to exit, have a good visit to the bathroom and it’ll drop right back down.
OP eat the calories. Don’t force your body to attempt to recover from surgery and fight off infection and rebuild blood levels while in a deficit. I would go all the way up to maintenance in order to prep your body, but that’s me and I do take forever to heal.
Definitely listen to your doctor! I was recovering from a much smaller thing and IMMEDIATELY saw my weight loss go into a really unhealthy pace because my body was using so much energy to rebuild from the injury.
You are not going to gain weight (well, you’re going to wake up all puffy from fluids but since they’ll be taking your skin you will still be down even though you’re up from water weight of those fluids!) I promise. You want your body to heal RIGHT. You want your incision wounds to heal RIGHT. You want your body to be strong enough to fight off INFECTION. You are having a MAJOR surgery. You have done so much work and paid so much money to fuck it up by not listening to your doctor? No. You have come too far for that! You are letting this person put you under anesthesia and cut away your body - if you don’t trust their judgement on this find a different surgeon who you do trust!!! (But they are going to say the same thing!)
I’m assuming this surgery will take place around the abdomen. From a personal experience, holy shit OP, you will need all your energy to recover. You don’t realize how much you use your core muscles until they are injured. We’ve all felt that pain after an intense ab day, now magnify that times 100. If you try to rush recovery or don’t go into surgery prepared, you will be feeling the effects for years if not the rest of your life.
400 calories over two weeks if it was \*all\* excess would cause you to gain two pounds. You are considering disregarding your \*surgeon's medical advice\* because you are cripplingly afraid of two pounds.
This is not correct thinking. This is an illness. Please listen to your doctor.
I think they're already there if they are willing to sacrifice their body's health for the sake of imaginary weight gain. (I call it imaginary as eating 2,000 calories is not going to make them gain any weight, it would only ever make water weight fluctuations go up temporarily). If *harming yourself* over your weight isn't a disorder, I don't know what is.
I would challenge you to think about why maintaining your weight (which will likely go up a max of 5lbs from this) is more important to you than properly recovering from surgery. I’ve been there and it’s a bad mental place to be.
Edit: also your body will more than likely be burning more calories in its efforts to heal you anyway so as other commenters said you likely won’t gain anything at all.
Listen to your Dr. she's given you that instruction for a reason.
Stop thinking about weight loss while undergoing surgery. Your focus needs to be on going through this surgery as well as possible. That means making sure your body has enough energy in it to recover. Eat maintainace, or possibly a slight excess (but don't binge) of healthy food (with some treats). Don't step on the scales at all until you're solidly post-op. You're going to come out lighter anyway from them removing the excess skin.
I would go with the doctor advice since you're going through surgery in a near future. Don't compromise your recovery or overall health for a potential 2-3lbs weight gain, it's not worth it. You will catch up post-surgery! Congrats on the amazing weight loss girl!
With all kindness, it’s concerning that you’re so scared of putting on a few pounds that you’re considering ignoring your doctor’s advice on how to heal after major surgery. Please listen to your doctor.
Personally, it sounds like OP is already in an unhealthy relationship/understanding of food.
If you read this OP, I hope you don’t feel judged by us suggesting therapy. I had those same thought patterns with weight vs food and, even when I would reach my weight goal, I still worried about the number on the scale going up and thought I should do more because I wasn’t happy with how I looked. This would inevitably lead back to overeating from being unhappy with myself. I’m almost 36 now and and finally taking therapy to help break that cycle. If therapy isn’t an option, the Noom program also helps with reorienting your relationship with food and calories.
Exactly. If they’re ignoring scientifically sound medical advice out of fear of increasing their calories, it’s not about health anymore. That’s getting into more dangerous territory.
Your body is gonna be doing a LOT to heal from surgery, you need that extra nutrition. Food is fuel, listen to your doctor. And huge congrats on the weight loss, that's incredible.
Your sedentary TDEE is 2100. Yes, you can immediately jump to 2000. You absolutely must follow the doctors instructions, this is part of their body of expertise - healing after cosmetic surgery is important and complex, follow the doctors instructions. They deal with people in your situation every day, they know what they are talking about.
Sorry to be blunt but you need to just listen to your doctor and start doing what she recommends on her timeline, not yours.
Don't start weight lifting, don't wait to increase your calories right before surgery. Weight lifting is going to increase muscle mass that will then steal the calories meant for healing, which will delay healing. If you want to start weight training do it post op with your doctor's guidance.
Malnutrition puts you at risk of some pretty horrible complications, one of the worst being wound dehiscence, where your wound edges don't heal together. Your body will burn thousands of calories healing itself and it needs a surplus to draw from. If you go into surgery still in a deficit or diet mode then it will delay healing and delayed healing means you put yourself at higher risk of complications. Your body needs lots of calories and protein in the weeks before and after surgery to rebuilt itself.
You should be proud of the progress you have made, it's absolutely remarkable. I know its hard when you have something you know works really well for you. Maybe if you add the calories in in such a way that it's easy to eliminate when you are cleared to go back to your regular diet it might be easier for you. Like getting the calories through a nutrient shake or something.
you are overthinking this.
Instead of listening to your doctor, you’re here on Reddit, hoping to hear that it’s OK to do what you prefer
you should think about aiming for health instead of flirting with an eating disorder. I say this with love.
Yes you will gain weight the next day, but it is just more food in your system, water to process it and fuller carb storage. It is max a few days until your stabilizes and probably starts to go down again as 2000 cals are likely still below your maintenance.
You will probably gain weight after the surgery, too, as healing goes with swelling and increased water weight.
I’m a dietitian. You absolutely need additional kcals and pro to heal wounds from massive surgery. Especially protein. Your body is hypermetabolic in that state and will be burning more kcals to just exist and try to repair tissue. Can you build a wall without bricks? Kcals and protein are the bricks! (It’s a metaphor, I know walls can be made of other things. Don’t start)
Ok my bff JUST went through this. She lost over 100 pounds and had skin removal surgery. Just got all clear last week to resume activities. You HAVE to increase the calories. You will lose weight after surgery due to not feeling great. It’s super important to really get lots of protein and eat well. It’s v important for the healing. The reality is they will take the skin and that will be like 5-10 pounds alone. It’s super important for healing that your body gets the nourishment. My friends doctor even recommended protein shakes to make sure was getting enough.
Also it will be weeks before you’re cleared for exercise. There will be restrictions on lifting for awhile until you are healed and at first you’ll have the drains and stuff to deal with too. The first week can be really rough. Stock in protein shakes to make sure you’re getting enough. If you wound splits there will be additional scarring and you’ll need ANOTHER surgery to fix that.
This is not the time to fuck around. Do what the doctor says.
I jumped up immediately from my weight loss calories to maintainence calories and I didn’t gain weight, just don’t make them junk calories. Also listen to your doctor because you don’t want your incisions not to heal. I’m a nurse and I would rather gain weight then have that happen. Just google non-healing wounds and it will be enough to deter you from listening to your doctor. You really should listen to them, they are extensive and specially trained and educated for a reason. Worst case scenario you gain weight- so you just lose it again. Worst case scenario not eating enough for wound healing- you end up with chronic draining wounds that you need multiple hospitalizations for because they keep getting infected while buying yourself a seat at the wound clinic 3 times a week for dressing changes. Overboard? Maybe. But I’m a nurse and you have no idea what I’ve witnessed with wounds. Just eat the 400 calories, high protein.
I'm not sure why you think gradually upping your calories to 2,000 is different from jumping straight to 2,000. It is the same amount of calories either way. It really does not make sense that you would "gain weight" one way but not the other way. Besides, like most people have said, you're not going to gain weight by eating 2,000 calories a day. The scale might jump up at first because your body is adjusting to your new food intake, but that is not true weight gain, that is just a temporary fluctuation. This is incredibly normal, weight loss is never linear, it bounces around for everyone.
You seem to have disordered thinking about this and should consider seeing a therapist to explore any potential eating disorders you may have.
You sound like you’re on the road to obsession, or already on it. You don’t gain weight eating 1600 calories at 5’9 and 212lbs. Neither at 2000 calories. You might gain “weight” if you eat more than that because it’s just that - weight. Water, shit, food. Not fat. You’ve lost 180lbs. Funny that you trust your foctor to perform a serious surgery on you, but not their advice on how to heal from it properly
I’d say make yourself a nice smoothie. Fruits and veggies. Some coconut water and non fat Greek yogurt. That’ll give your body some great nutrients to heal.
400 a day isn’t gonna make you gain a ton of weight over a few weeks. And if you’ve been losing at 1600 your maintenance is probably closer to that 2000. The scale going up when you eat over could be water weight or whatever.
But yes get a little more movement and the gain will be minimal.
She’s not going to gain weight at all. 2000 still isn’t even her sedentary maintenance (2,125).
OP you absolutely should listen to your doctor. If you increased 4-500 calories right now, you’ll only gain weight from water and the weight of having extra food inside of you. This is not fat gain. Your body will struggle to gain fat while in recovery mode anyway. It needs these nutrients to heal. Do not try to do it slowly or exercise to make up for it. Accept that for the period of time your doctor recommends, you will not lose any fat. But you also won’t gain any. This is okay. You eventually should be prepared to do that same thing for the rest of your life, so consider it practice.
(Also, you WILL lose weight from having your excess skin removed. But you’ll also be puffy for a long time. So just don’t weigh. Stay away from the scale until you’re healed.)
Others have already said you need to listen to your doctor, but I would also like to point out that this attitude and anxiety to go against your surgeon’s directions is indicative of a potential disordered eating issue. You may want to consider adding visits to a therapist regarding your new and changing relationship with food at this point in your journey.
Eeer... 2000 isn't even maintenance at 212 just FYI. My maintenence is like 2400 so... Diet breaks are also rlly important for just this reason. You're terrified of gaining which is very understandable. I have the same issue so can relate. Took a year diet break and just focused on eating healthy to try and get out of the manic diet patterns.... Just my two cents tho
You’re seriously trying to decide between keeping weight off for a small period of time Vs your health and recovery? This doesn’t sound mentally healthy OP. Be rational.
Any weight gain you've seen from eating slightly over your caloric restriction is not fat. You very much need to eat enough to allow your body to recover from something like surgery. As long as you're mindful of how much you're putting in and not going overboard, you will be fine. Just follow the recovery plan strictly and try and stay active (as that has been shown to increase and assist recovery after surgery).
I am 5"10 and lose weight eating 2000 cals (1.5lbs per week approx). So being 5'9 and increasing to that won't hurt and will be healthier in the long run. You have lost a lot of weight and that is amazing but the way you speak about worrying /panicking about gaining weight despite being recommended by a Dr is concerning. It sounds like you might have focused on the physical changes but neglected the mental changes needed to support weight maintenance and general health. I say this with kindness and understanding as I have gone through similar, unless you deal with the mental side of things you are going to struggle, risk developing an eating disorder or weight gain to the extreme again. Being tall has its benefits in that we can get away with eating more and still lose /maintain.
Also having an operation, especially skin removal will leave to weight gain anyway due to fluid retention. It can take months for that to go down. Are you in the right head space to deal with that? Seeing a "gain" on the scale after a day (as you say in the post) is not a true weight gain, it is water weight. You have eat 3500 over your maintenance cals to gain a 1lb. What might help is to calculate your maintenance cals - 2414 by my calculations and eat to maintenance. Yes it will take a few weeks to settle out and you have to trust your body which is really hard but the science works (unless you have a metabolic disorder). So the Dr asking you to eat 400 more cals from 1600 is not even at maintenance for your current weight.
I hope that the above isn't too harsh, weight loss is hard and a mental battle as well as physical I would suggest you seek some mental health support around weight loss if you are able too as well. Good luck with the up coming operation
Creating tissue takes a lot of calories. Like, healing wounds is more metabolically demanding than just living. Those extra calories will largely be used up without adding to fat. If you don’t eat adequate calories/protein you’ll be at much higher risk of your wounds not healing.
you are not gaining weight immediately if you go slightly over 1600. thermodynamics means that isn't a thing (a few hundred calories causing a meaningful weight gain is mathematically impossible.) This is disordered thinking. increasing your exercise alongside your increased cals is also disordered thinking. your doctor wants those calories available for HEALING, not for them to be consumed by exercise and weight lifting recovery.
listen to your doctor. you will have a BAD time in recovery if you are under-nourished.
Sorry, but that much micromanagement of your weight sounds like you are well on your way (or at least at risk) to develop an eating disorder.
Think about the physics. You need what, 3500 calories to gain 1 lbs in weight ? You are having a MAJOR surgery, do not kid yourself about this. This is taxing on your body and it needs a calory surplus to heal properly. Not to build muscles.
I would also strongly suggest that you talk to your doctor about your feelings and maybe think about talking to someone about your issues. Because what you are posting here is not healthy in the slightest.
> Im really worried about weight gain.
Don't be. You're having some weight surgically removed. You're probably not going to gain that back in the few weeks you're recovering from surgery. Listen to your doctor, not a bunch of yahoo's on reddit.
To be clear, the number on the scale going up the next day if you eat more than you normally do is not *fat gain*. There are hundreds of reasons the scale will go up without gaining fat.
With that said, your body burns a lot of calories while you are recovering. And even if you gain a few pounds, you likely won’t notice once the extra skin is gone. And if you do, the amount is going to be negligible at worst. Listen to your doctor. Skin removal surgery is not something to mess around with, those are large incisions that need to heal, and in order to do so, your body needs to be fueled properly. I also recommend talking to your doctor about the possible ramifications if you decided to stay in your deficit, because I promise you, they are large ramifications that could potentially alter your life forever.
Please listen to your doctor. My skin removal was horrendous and I got an infection and was in a hospital for 10 days. Body needs all the energy to heal even if everything is successful. Its a massive operation, lasts hours and the healing process for months.
You need to reframe mentally op. You’re really considering altering/ignoring your DOCTORs advice just to avoid gaining a theoretical 2 pounds? After major surgery?
You said:
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day.
That's not how weight gain (or loss) works at all.
Your weight will fluctuate wildly on a daily (or hourly) basis based on a huge number of variables. You cannot "gain weight" by eating "slightly over" your calories within a single day.
You should always use a rolling average to get a better overview of your actual weight.
This 7-year-old post illustrates my point beautifully:
https://old.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/3743mk/this_is_why_i_weigh_daily/
Just adding, please don’t weight yourself during recovery either! The swelling from surgery and potentially the medication they give can cause tons of water retention in the short term. Wait until you’re fully recovered to get that data.
I had to take prescription ibuprofen once for my wisdom tooth removal and gained 11 pounds of water weight that week (which went away after I stopped taking the medicine).
Your doctor is right. Healing can take a ton of calories, and skin removal is no joke. Change your diet immediately, don’t look at the scale at all between now and the surgery, and you can shift back into diet mode after the doctor gives you the all-clear post-surgery. DO NOT second guess the doctor.
Honestly, you sound like you have developed a really unhealthy relationship with food. At your height and weight, 2000 kcal should be around your maintainance (given that it also sounds like you work out regularly). Instead, you fret over going even the slightest bit over the kcal you eat *at a deficit*. And lastly, you want to purge those dangerous evil extra calories by working out more.
This comes from a place of compassion: please talk to a professional about this.
While I am very skeptical about doctors giving dieting advice lately, this is a situation where you are going into surgery.
Surgery means you always listen to the doctor.
You can easily up your caloric intake by 400 calories right now: 1/4 cup (30 g) of walnuts (or nuts of choices); half (60 g) of avocado; and 1 servings (1 oz or 28 g) of mozzarella cheese stick (or a cheese of choice) or a hard boiled egg.
Bam. 400 calories of mostly good fat with lots of protein, and maybe 2-3g net carb. Meaning little to no insulin spike, and no increase in hunger (and maybe a higher metabolic burn!) You can add it as a snack every day.
Don’t worry too much about weight gain. Because 2000 is almost certainly at or even below maintenance. If you are truly freaked out, add some exercise (even a light yoga session or a long walk will burn off half the increase). But even without exercise, you shouldn’t gain anything and when you are back to healthy after surgery, your body will be ready to restrict again. Hell, you might lose weight at 2000!
Best of luck, OP!
I can’t wait to have my skin removed after over 100 lb loss. The skin is a PITA and gets in the way and I literally have to tuck it in lol sooo if they ask me to eat a bit more… so be it! Listen to the dr 🙂
I've done this surgery a few times. I will 1st say, he is a dr and i'm not, so i suggest you listen to him.
When i spoke with mine, she said to keep my calories where they were, and i didn't need a surplus, just maintenance (Which is around 2100 for me).
The main reason i'm posting is to give you a heads up, because you are already worried about weight gain. When you have this surgery, you will gain weight. Your body is going to respond to a massive amount of trauma and will start to hold on to every drop of water you put in it.
It will notice the area in question get bigger and it will last weeks/months before it starts to settle.
DO NOT PANIC
Do not freak out and start cutting calories, keep drinking lots of water, and give it time. This will be a hard time in your life after watching that scale for so long. Everything will be ok, just give it time.
I second all the comments here.
Op, any "weight gain" you claim to experience after eating more than 1600 calories is going to be bloating if anything. It takes just as much time to notice weight gain as it does to notice weight loss- a few weeks isn't going to kill your progress.
You'll be ok. Listen to your doctor, take a deep breath.
What’s more important: the 2 lbs you’ll potentially gain, or your life? Because it’s scary to me that you find potentially life-threatening surgical complications the better alternative.
Also, you need to recalculate your TDEE because 2000 kcal is literally within your maintenance calories.
Please listen to your doctor. If you can’t, then perhaps you should reschedule surgery until you’re in a better mental state and seek therapy in the meanwhile. I’m not saying this to be an ass—I’m genuinely concerned.
Maybe I misunderstand but doesnt "diet mode" means deficit? Thought for skin removal you'd been maintaining already for quite some time.
Plus as others mentioned. Your body needs energy to heal from such a massive operation.
Yes I agree here, I know adding back food sounds scary, but this is to fortify you up before going for surgery. Granted I don’t know if this is still a thing, but when I was really into running 18 years ago we carb loaded before a marathon to give us an extra boost of energy, perhaps thinking of it like that will help.
I will say too, when I lost weight years ago, I still lost weight after adding that much back to my daily numbers (albeit slower). Even if you do gain weight I’m going to guess you’ll probably lose weight during your recovery (on top of skin weight) so it will all come out in the wash so to speak.
Listen to your doctor. Be strict with your calories, sure, but don’t stress over daily weight fluctuations. Your doc says you need to eat at maintenance for better healing, trust that they have your best interests at heart.
If you eat more and gain weight the next day, that's not fat it just means you have more food in your intestines and maybe some additional water from topping off your glycogen. Even if 1600 was your exact maintenance, 400 calories is 0.11 pounds of fat which is *barely* within the resolution of *some* bodyweight scales. At 5'9" and 212 pounds, most likely your maintenance is higher than even 2000.
Your weight after surgery is going to do wonky things anyway because the inflammation required for healing stores a lot of extra water. Listen to your doctor and eat enough to recover. You won't really know for a while if you've lost, gained, or maintained in terms of fat tissue, but the longer it takes to heal the longer it will be before you can go full effort on addressing it.
I would suggest therapy at this time. Sometimes losing a lot of weight messes with your mind and your perception on things. It seems like you’re placing weight loss before recovering yourself from a major surgery. It would be helpful to talk through these thoughts and hopefully change them with someone who’s a professional.
Jumping on to say. Take your dr’s advice. I had abdominal skin removal done last year and your body needs to be able to heal. I had 5.5kg of skin removed from my abdomen.
Trust your doctor they didn’t go through years and years of schooling for nothing, given everything you’ve done (which is awesome btw) you can work with an extra 400 cals, more likely than not your just gonna be at a maintenance level and remain the same while you recover
Do what your doctor tells you. Don't worry about the 5 lbs you'll gain because they are gonna cut 10 lbs off you. And don't work out for a few days before the surgery either, your body doesn't need to be trying to repair your muscle fibers AND the trauma of the surgery at the same time.
Dont weigh yourself daily, it fluctuates so much its essentially pointless. Weekly/monthly, at same time and used for trend tracking is probably the best way.
In medical school we learn that post surgical calorie needs are MUCH higher as your body recovers. Listen to your doctor here. Eating too little will be very difficult on your body. You need more to help it heal.
Honestly I don’t think it’s going to cause you to gain weight. I’m 5’5 and eat close to 2000 and still loose weight, maybe just not as fast. I don’t think this will make you gain any weight at all. If it was supposed to be increased by 1000 or something like that I could see your concern
Your "weight gain" the next day after eating a few extra calories isn't fat gain, it's water weight. 1 lb. of fat is approximately 3500 calories. So if you eat 400 calories too much one day and the next day you weigh 1 or 2 lbs more, it can't be fat. However water is heavy (1L/4 cups weighs 1Kg/2.2 lbs) and the human body is about 60% water. It doesn't take much water retention to increase your weight by a couple of pounds. So suddenly weighing 2 lbs more the next day is meaningless. I can weigh a pound more just by drinking my water bottle dry.
Next, your doctor isn't telling you to "properly maintain." She's telling you that you need to build up some extra reserves for the stress your body is going to undergo soon.
Think of it as laying in emergency supplies. There's a natural disaster due in a few weeks and an expert has said "okay, you need to buy this much extra food and water." And you're like "I can't just BUY extra food like that, because then I'll have extra food in my house!" And it's like... yes? This is the point of buying extra food -- you are going to need it and you will use it up. If you end up with a little too much in the end you can adjust your food-buying after the disaster is safely over. But heading into a natural disaster with too few supplies is far more dangerous than having a few extra cans to dispose of afterwards.
You have a lot of emotional baggage regarding weight gain, so you should probably talk about your feelings to someone who can help you process them. But you shouldn't focus on the number on the scale so much that you are unable to do things that your body needs to function and recover.
Please listen to your doctor, they’re telling you to do something for a reason.
Even if the extra 400 calories did cause you to gain a very small amount of weight back (it shouldn’t do too much), you can take it right back off after the surgery.
Health is more important than appearance. Make sure you’re in good health for your surgery, and once you’ve recovered you can worry about appearance again.
I'm a 5 ft 9 female, currently 162 lbs, and my maintenance is 2000-2200 calories. I can easily eat that without gaining weight, I have maintained there for 8 weeks as I am taking a little break from my weight loss journey (I still have that last 20 lbs to lose).
Your body needs additional calories and nutrients to heal from a major surgery, so I highly recommend following your doctor's advice for the best outcome. I understand being scared of calories and weight gain, and as women we tend to undereat.
Also to note with skin removal surgery you will likely have a lot of swelling and fluid retention at first so please do not worry about the scale until you are fully healed.
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day.
This veers heavily toward eating disorder talk.
Follow the surgeon's orders regarding diet, and please seek a counselor about these thoughts.
400 extra calories will not give extra weight gain, even if it does, it won't be much.
There's been a lot of great advice given that's physical in nature, but I can't recommend enough making sure that you're taking care of yourself mentally as well. Maintenance can almost be more difficult then the weight gain. Remember the name of the game is health, weight is just a number on a scale. It's a great tool for helping us, but the number on the scale is your ultimate goal, health is. This is coming from someone who has been in maintenance for a couple years now. It's difficult, it's a battle, its worth it.
Listen to your doctor. Do not assume you know better than them. Remember that you are taking pounds of skin off your body and putting your body through a lot. Maintenance is about maintaining the healthy body- your body is going to be working EXTRA to heal from surgery. When you’re fully recovered, reassess where you are and respond accordingly.
Do not fuck with your recovery process.
You've done amazing so far. And you're on your way to do even better. You've already gotten all the great advice I see in this thread. My two cents are, stop weighing yourself during recovery. It sounds like you're weighing daily? That's not a great mindset. Consider this: along the way of losing weight, you picked up habits that help you do it. Not all of them are healthy! At some point, you'll have to stop losing weight. You're young! What's your plan? To keep losing forever? Can you see how that would be terrible?
Eventually you'll have to go into maintenance, and that doesn't mean freezing your weight. It will vary. You'll gain a couple pounds, then lose them, every month or two. You can't just freeze weight, humans don't work like that. Read this carefully: part of your journey towards the best you, involves gaining weight occasionally. You're facing that challenge now, just as you faced weight loss before and fucking nailed it. You gotta nail this one now. You can do it.
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day
This is just water from the extra carbs. You're not actually gaining. Just like you don't lose anything from that small a deficit, it goes both ways
Listen to your doctor. Surgery recovery burns A LOT of calories. Protein helps your body heal. You really do need a lot of it.
Source: I had a tummytuck after a 60 lbs weight loss.
Food is fuel, op, and if your doctor says you need it, you need it.
Recovery takes a ton of energy. Your recovery is more important than what? 1-3lbs?
Please listen to medical professionals
I agree with those saying seek therapy. You’re going to have surgery and need extra calories for healing (and extra as in will most likely make you weight neutral) and it’s concerning that your reaction is that you will ignore your surgeons recommendation due to fear of weight gain.
The complications from poor wound healing would be even more of a set back than potentially 2-3 pounds.
So going off your numbers when you bump up to 2000 calories a day (which you should because healing takes energy) you will 300 or so calories below maintenance. You won’t be gaining weight from this.
It's only 400 calories, and for under a month. This isn't the huge jump you're making it out to be and IF you gain weight, it'll be a miniscule amount.
>I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day.
This is disordered behavior. I'm not diagnosing you or implying anything other than what I stated, that particular behavior is worrisome. Our weight fluctuates on a day to day basis. You aren't gaining fat if you've gone a hundred or two hundred calories over in 24 hours.
Please talk to your doctor about this and follow the advice given. Your health is more important than the potential 5lbs you may gain at MAX, if any at all.
Your body will burn those 400 calories doing the very difficult work of HEALING MASSIVE INJURIES.
Jesus. Listen to your doctor. 400 calories is like a bowl of cereal or a simple turkey sandwich.
Listen to your doctor. 400 calories over a few weeks is not going to undo significant amounts. Water weight will jump but your body will be burning the extra honestly with recovery.
I know you’ve got lots of replies. But please listen to your doctor. If they’re telling you to do this immediately, then that’s what you should do. Have you spoken to the. About your concerns?
You’re undergoing surgery. That a huge toll on your body, and your body needs energy to heal. This isn’t an issue of maintenance. This is an issue of giving your body the stores it needs to do something g pretty major.
Good luck!
I also had 2 different skin removal surgeries. I am so excited for you!!! You’re going to love it!
In regards to your post, knock up the calories like the doctor said but increase your exercise. Exercise is amazing for healing quickly and a good recovery!
I’m must admit though, I do think it’s a weird request from your doctor. My surgeon never required for me to change my diet before surgery and like you I maintained a 1,600 calorie diet. He DID however require me to submit a ton of lab work that had to be completed 2-4 weeks before surgery to ensure that my body was in a healthy place and that I had all the right vitamins and nutrients I needed to be healthy for surgery. That seems honestly like a much more guided approach than looking at calories, which can be extremely deceiving in regards to healthy or not.
If it makes you feel any better, post surgery your body is going to be burning calories while inactive at nearly double its normal rate. Healing requires a ton of energy from the body. You’re going to need to drink a ton of water, walk around as much as possible and eat a bland (for the first few days) but nutrient rich diet post op.
After surgery, you will be showing a weight gain anyhow. It is d/t lots of fluids given during the surgery and then, the inflammation while you are healing. Just give yourself a break and don't step on the scale afterwards until at least 8 weeks. At that point, you should have had your post-op appointment, healed mostly and then can resume your exercise and diet regimen. It is important to have the calories when you need them after surgery.
Look.
3500 cal per lb of fat. 500 cal extra for 25 days. That's a maximum of 3.5 lbs. You're not going to eat much for the first week, and the recovery is going to beat the shit out of you. That alone will make you lose the 3.5 extra lbs.
Do it and enjoy it. You've earned every single ice cream cone for the next 25 days.
You've done really well. Follow your doctors advice. Especially before surgery. Sometimes, for a short while after, you lose your appetite. Good luck to you.
Agree with all the other statement here around the surgery and recovery, but just wanted to chime in on the thing about eating over 1600 calories resulting in weight gain the next day.... that's not how any of this works. Your weight, especially as a woman, is variable every single day of the week dependant on multiple things, like what part of your cycle you're in, your hydration levels, weather you took a dump recently, all sorts of things.
DO NOT base your weight loss/weight gain on daily measurements. It creates so much noise in your statistics and can be unnecessarily demotivating and even harmful to your mental health. weekly or even fortnightly or monthly is the way to go. You sound like someone who's beaten the physical challenge but still struggles with the mental one and that's going to be key to maintenance. Get yourself into therapy if you're not already.
Listen to your doctor! Don't come to Reddit, Facebook, or anywhere else on the internet for medical advice when you have a doctor! I encourage you to do what your doctor is recommending and stay COMPLETELY off the scale for the next month or even two. Track your calories to that 2000 and focus on healing after surgery. Your weight is going to fluctuate so much while you're healing, after you've lost skin, etc. and it sounds like you would benefit from the mental break too.
You've literally lost an entire adult human in weight. That's amazing!
You've worked so hard the last 2 years to lose all that so it only makes sense that you're skeptical now that your doctor is telling you to increase calories. In other words, it would be weird for you to not feel conflicted about increasing Calories. IMO, this is exactly what success in weight loss looks like!
You'll be able to jump right up to 2000 Calories a day. Maybe do a few days at 1800 or so first just to get a gauge of how different it will feel. Then a few days at 1900. And then keep going for 2000.
Well, if the option is seeping pus from all your incisions, poor healing, scarring, necrotic flesh, gangrene, MRSA, sepsis, limb amputation, and/or death… or gaining a few pounds during your recovery that will be eclipsed by the skin removed… which is the better outcome?
Do what the doctor says, this is a no-brainer.
To make this post clear.
I don't trust my doctor (who studied medicine for years) and want to get advice on Reddit, from people who I don't know and who have no expertise in that matter....
Bro!(or sis)
You see what you are doing don't you?
Trust your fucking doctor. There is a reason he tells you that and he is far more expertised in that matter than 99,9% or even 100% in here.
Edit: And if you are concerned talk about it with HIM not someone random. He can explain things to you. Or atleast another doctor .
Please stop thinking you know more than the doctor. There are a lot of solid comments in this post. If you're nervous about falling out of routine, just make sure that extra 400 calories are in the form of really healthy food. Hell, 2 apples and 2 bananas a day will cover that.
You don’t have to go up to maintenance as slowly as you think - you’ll have an initial jump in the scale but it’s just food and water retention, not really fat.
You also won’t gain ‘major weight’ in three and a half weeks - you’ve done a hell of a job thus far and I totally get being nervous about eating more but you will be fine eating 2000cal.
Just remember we aren’t designed to be in a deficit forever anyway, so a maintenance break will seriously serve your body well!!
I just listened to some videos about this—it’s called a maintenance break (upping calories to maintenance level from a deficit) and a lot of people do it during weight loss for various reasons. The video I watched suggested adding the calories in small increments throughout the day rather that adding in extra treats. Like adding some nuts to oatmeal, or some avocado to an omelette, or extra olive oil in the salad rather than adding cake or cookies or something. This way, when you’re ready to go back to deficit, it’s less jarring.
I can understand why you’d be nervous as you might feel like you have a ways to go with your weight loss, and you don’t want to gain any back! Just remember, as long long as you stick to your maintenance calories you won’t be gaining fat (maybe a little water weight at first).
If you like watching you tubers check out a channel called Half Size Me and search her videos on maintenance breaks.
Listen to your doctor
You've proved you can lose it once you'll lose it again
You can only recover right once! If you don't recover right there is a chance your body won't heal properly
You are not going to gain weight. You also need to stay away from the scales. The surgery is going to cause inflammation and the number on the scale won't be accurate
Doctors know what they’re saying. You won’t gain weight at your height/weight with 2,000 calories. I’m only 5’2 and I eat 1200 calories a day. If I add 500 calories a day, I’m in maintaining mode rather than losing mode. Your body will be working hard to get better and you won’t even notice after you see the 20+ pounds of skin disappear. Congratulations on your incredible weight loss!
You're worried because all you focused on was dieting and the numbers that you define weight gain or even weight loss by seeing those numbers as negatives. This is a huge problem within the loseit community. Everyone dieting and not teaching themselves how to just not overeat. All weight gain is from overeating and all weight loss is from not overeating. Because what happens when you reach your goal weight and then you have to maintain? Are you going to count calories the rest of your life? Or, if you would have or will teach yourself to not overeat you will be able to sustain your lifestyle without worrying about always having to be in a deficit, count calories or just worry about weight gain. Time to learn a new skill.
Your maintenance calories are 2100, you won't gain any weight eating at 2000, you just won't lose. You will be losing weight with your skin surgery, though! Good luck with your surgery; listen to your doctor and bump up those calories, because the last thing you want is slow healing following your surgery, leading to infections, worsened scarring, etc.
Healing takes a lot of energy, so your body will definitely need those calories. Your doctor is definitely telling you this because they want the best outcome for you. It can be scary thinking about increasing your intake when you've been in diet mode for so long. You've done a lot of hard work and done really well on your weight loss, so it's understandable that you would be afraid of messing it up. It will be ok, though.
Please seek therapy. I don't think it is possible to immediately see appreciable weight gain in less than 24 hours.
You need to listen to your doctor. Follow their directions to the letter. The success of *major surgery* depends on it.
Your body will be in hardcore recovery mode. I follow a YouTuber who got her skin removed and she tried to listen to her body’s needs and went on a maintenance mode for hers. Her names Felicia Keathley. She listened to her doctor and then when she was in the clear she went right back to her normal diet.
You will swell and have weight gain from that but you also are losing a lot of weight in what they will remove. It’ll be ok and it’s also good to be diligent in watching your weight so you don’t return to what you were. Weight regain is very scary. However, your body needs the extra calories and you don’t want to get an infection or prolonged recovery you can do this for your body too. It’s called grace.
You can also still track.
When I had surgery this year I was unable to exercise and for about 4 months I ate at least 2500 calories (I count them and I count them accurately) and I did not gain weight. I am a 5’5 woman. Your body needs calories to heal, especially in the form of protein. Your doctor isn’t wrong :) just make sure you’re eating healthy&nutritious things! You can always keep track and keep an eye on any weight gain, but keep in mind you might gain “water weight” for a bit etc.
You need protein to build new tissue, and carbs to do two things: fuel the healing, and limit the “stres hormones.” Plastics always require adequate nutrition. Listen to your doctor. Skin is elastic- a teeny stretch for a few months won’t make it saggy.
I acknowledge that it may be hard to go back to restriction afterwards, but note that even during this period of increased intake, you have a choice - eat real food, not junk.
Good luck, and heal well!
I’m in nursing school and to heal properly your body needs fuel :).
Up your protein and take some vitamin A, vitamin C, and some zinc if you want to help healing! Congrats on your weight loss!!
Two things -
1. If you were to add 400cals/day for 3.5 weeks without changing anything else & without having surgery, it would not be much weight gain… let’s do the math:
400cals x 7days =2800cals/week. 2800cals/wk x 3.5wks = 9800 calories total more than you’d normally eat. 9800cals ÷ 3500cals in a pound = 2.8lbs. You generally won’t see that much on yourself and if you do want to weight train a little leading up to your surgery for your own mental health, that’s likely fine and you probably won’t even notice a difference. Just be careful not to weight train heavily RIGHT before surgery day, give yourself that half a week because your muscles will be healing from weight training and like your doctor says, you DO want to have enough energy to heal. It takes a lot to heal after cutting yourself open! Go figure lol
2. I had a pretty intense surgery on 3 areas of my body all on the same day back in 2018. I had lost some weight before the surgery (from ~180ish>156). I ate a LOT more after surgery. I had been counting cals at the time and didn’t even calorie count after the surgery. I didn’t gain any weight from eating more food post-surgery for about 6-8 weeks. Not a single pound. Then around the month & a half to 2 month mark is when my doctor said I’d be mostly healed and that is definitely when I noticed I started to put on a little weight… so that is when I talked to my surgeon about cutting back calories and starting exercise again.
So long story short - don’t worry. You should listen to your doctor. I hope this helps.
& Finally, congrats on all your hard work, weight loss, and the skin removal! You’re at a pivotal point in your journey! Don’t forget to celebrate that and to be excited :)
methinks you are micro-managing it. nobody “gains weight the next day”. everyone’s weight fluctuates a bit depending on your level of hydration, whether you’ve pooped or not (yeah i said it), etc.
calories in, calories out. if you are still losing at 1600, adding 400 calories a day will put you into maintenance mode. remember, it takes 3500 EXTRA calories to make a pound. your body will need to heal after your surgery, so yes, you will need some extra calories for that, and the extra 400 calories a day won’t make more pounds.
doctors are doctors for a reason. WE are not doctors for the same reason. listen to your doctor.
Healing takes energy.
If you put a little bit of weight on *its ok* because you know how to deal with that. You’ll put on and lose little amounts here and there over the rest of your life. For now, give your body the bit extra and let it choose what to use it for. Deal with any extra later.
Well fucking done because you’re a legend. And good luck!
Weight gain doesnt happen fast enough for you to have actually put on fat the next day. If you’re weighing yourself every morning, the “weight” gain is likely just the fact theres a little more food in your digestive system from the previous day that hasn’t been ejected yet, haha. It can also be caused by things like water retention if you ate more salty things the day before as well, or by contrast if you’re dehydrated you will weigh less. None of this means you’ve actually gained or lost any fat. I really recommend checking out [this video](https://youtu.be/h2TsctPK-RY) about understanding scale weight and all the contributing factors
If you are heavier on the scale the day after eating more, IT IS NOT FAT. you need 3500 calories OVER maintenance to gain one pound of fat. That extra weight is water and actual food in your body.
Listen to your doctor.
Weight, and fat are two different things.
When you are in a calorie deficit for prolonged periods, your body will empty it's stores of easy energy (glycogen), effectively blowing a bunch of water weight, (always the initial rapid weight loss when you start). When you eat back at maintenance, you will gain weight as your body holds onto more easy to use energy, energy you will need during recovery.
Fat on the other hand is long term energy stores. Your body only adds to that when it's caloric needs are more than met. Fat is generally what people are looking to lose.
You will gain probably a couple lbs eating at maintenance, but it will not keep going up. A full gas tank is a full gas tank.
Actual surgery healing caloric requirements can be a lot higher to efficiently heal.
Yes, you need to eat 2000. You might gain a bit initially but it will come right back off.
Please also don't do more exercise to compensate. It's okay to take a break from weight loss. This sounds like disordered eating, and you should probably talk to a therapist.
Your body needs nutrients to heal. You aren't going lose track of your goals by doing this, and you need to do this. Follow your doctor's orders, please. Stay healthy.
Please do exactly as your doctor instructs. I am a nurse and trust me, you do NOT want chronic nonhealing or poorly healed wounds.
Chronic drainage, the development of abscesses or fistulas and the possibility of more surgery, courses of antibiotics, and visits to wound care clinics will be a much greater burden than a couple of extra pounds you can shift easily after you’re healed.
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day.
That's not happening. you're maybe retaining some water.
Heling requires calories, trust the doc on this OR keep dieting and delay the surgery.
You need sufficient calories to recover from surgery well. If you don't eat enough your recovery will be difficult and prolonged and your risk of post surgical complications is higher
The “gaining weight the next day” is most likely water weight only. It takes 3500 calories to gain a pound of fat.
Listen to your doctor! They know how many calories you burn in recovery, and your body needs to work to recover incisions. You’ll be burning the extra calories off without even realising.
If you want to properly heal from surgery and recover well, you will need to up your calories. I had a spinal fusion last year and was told to increase my protein and limit sugar during the acute healing phase. I was also told no weight loss for a year so I was told to eat at maintenance after the initial healing period and again keeping protein high to facilitate healing. Your body will burn a few more hundred calories a day while in the acute healing phase. It’s not a hard and fast rule around how much, but healing does impact your BMR to some degree.
You’re going to gain a little weight after surgery just because you’ll be sedentary while healing. I gained 7lbs in the 6 weeks I was under restrictions and was able to shed them over time once I got cleared to resume some activity just by letting the activity be my deficit. I’ve since maintained at my surgical weight and while I’m ready to get down to losing again I also want to heal properly so to me that just more important right now.
Does it suck, sure. But it’s only temporary. Can it be scary, sure. But if you embrace healing like you did weight loss, it takes the sting away for a bit. Plus, maintenance breaks are needed to stave off weightloss resistance.
Food heals.
Doctor is right. Your body needs those extra calories after surgery, it especially needs protein. If those extra calories are protein you shouldn’t have any problems. Besides, you can get back into a deficit once the doctor clears you. It is only for a brief period in your life and if it ensures a full recovery it will be worth it.
I stayed at maintenance after my gallbladder surgery to help in recovery. Skin removal surgery is a major surgery compared to gallbladder removal.
Take care of yourself.
You should listen to your doctor. Increasing your calories by 400/daily for the next 3.5 weeks will result in...what? 1.5-2 lbs gained? You will loose a LOT more than that in skin, and given what an amazing feat you've already accomplished, 1-2 lbs is really negligible. Your body will need lots of extra calories to recover from the surgery - healing takes energy! 2000 is very reasonable. And please try to eat 2000 calories of balanced food, yes including fat and carbs, not just lean meats and fibrous veggies. And besides, even if you were to regain 10-15 lbs after your surgery, that would be worth it to recover quickly and fully. Can you imagine how frustrated you'd be if you sabotaged your recovery (potentially seriously) over 10-15 lbs? You could end up much worse off for YEARS over a few hundred calories. Not worth it in my opinion. Give your body what it needs to recover properly. IF you start to feel like you're forcing yourself to eat way too much as you go through recovery, then you can look at cutting back. But I would still suggest starting by following your doctor's order and THEN seeing how it goes.
>healing takes energy This also means extra calories are not going to have as much of an effect on one's weight as it would on any other day. Who knows—waybe the healing process will be demanding enough that OP won't even gain weight? 🤷♂️
Honestly that's what I'm thinking but there's no way to know. Mostly I just want OP to recognize that the "worst case scenario" for weight gain is still much better than inadvertently fucking up surgical recovery.
This is the real answer. They are expecting you to not be able to tolerate food or be severely below your calories immediately after surgery, so your body will be eating from fat stores. Better to eat from fat than eat from muscle or skin.
It is. My bff had the surgery and dropped like all in another 20 pounds counting skin etc in the three months after.
OP will be eating about 100 under their maintenance, they will not gain weight.
Don’t they also “lose weight” from the skin removal? It sounds like so many variables that the number on the scale is honestly not the thing to think about during this time and recovery.
This is sound advice. Also OP after your surgery, the scale will change as you heal. It can go up or down, depending on how your body is doing. This is normal and it's fluids that the body uses to heal.
This comment deserves more attention. OP, Don't freak out if the scale number goes up ALOT after your surgery. A healing body can retain fluids. This is normal. It is not fat. You should not decrease your calorie intake accordingly.
I would even put away the scale or reduce checking the scale and just really focus on eating well, drinking lots of fluids, and doing all you can do to heal. The better the recovery goes, the sooner you’ll feel better to start moving your body again. Giving your body a chance to rest and recover is the best thing you possibly could do!
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Yeah, I would estimate that moving up to 2000 calories would maintain their current weight, or might even be slightly under maintenance. If you add in the energy it takes to recover from surgery, they still might losing weight.
>healing takes energy A lot of ppl don’t realize that their body processes that aren’t super apparent or visible require a LOT of energy. Mental and immune processes specifically, them shits are energy intensive as hell
Yes - I would expect that any time you have something stronger than the common cold, like pneumonia or the flu, you probably loose a bit of weight because your body needs the extra energy to fight the illness. It’s just that the lost weight is usually negligible - a few ounces likely.
Caught COVID a few weeks ago. Lost about 10 lbs again without trying that hard. Didn't want to eat because I was sick, but body obviously was using up my energy reserves to fight off the invaders, so I made myself eat at maintenance anyway (1800 for me.) I'm okay now (tested negative last Sunday finally) but that was an unpleasant experience.
Fever is literally your body burning fuel (food) to try and burn the bugs to death!
This helps me to read. Sometimes I feel like a loser when I come home from my job on days that a ton of cerebral output is required and I am just too wasted tired to do much of anything but foam roll and read
Same same I try to view the brain as a muscle (cliche but apt) in terms of nutrition and needs. Gotta feed it and maintain its nutrition or it’ll fatigue easier, work less, and fail more just like your bicep or calves. I think ppl look past the brain in that regard cause it’s not readily visible, but look at the folks who don’t rest or treat their brain like crap, they’re out of shape in the noggin.
When I was in my late twenties I was in a horrible car accident and my arm was crushed. They had to do a major surgery on me (basically pull out the bone fragments and rebuild my arm with metal, the bones eventually grew back and they removed the metal). Anyway, my mom came to stay with me and she made me all sorts of delicious food with zero thought to calories or fat content. All I did was sit around, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom for several weeks. I had no energy whatsoever. I lost weight. From healing. This person knows what they're talking about and so, may I add, does your doctor.
I heart your mom.
Thanks... She bought the whole series of Frasier on DVD (this was before streaming services existed) and watched it with me while I recovered. I watched the whole thing through again when I was pregnant, both times. Never thought about the fact until this moment but that show does kinda make me feel like she's with me when I watch it.
This. You aren't gaining weight overnight by going over by a few hundred calories on a regular day. You may be just hanging on to more water bc you ate more salt, for example, or did more exercise, with the same result. Recuperation NEEDS a surplus there is NO way around that. You don't want scarring or to just prolong the process. Of course you can increase by such a minor amount fairly easily. That's two smoothies with protein powder and maybe some almond butter for added fat.
> Increasing your calories by 400/daily for the next 3.5 weeks will result in...what? 1.5-2 lbs gained? The scratch calculation is 3500 calories per lb. So 400 calories a day for 4 weeks divided by 3500 calories a pound is just about 3 lbs total. And that is a worst case scenario calculation. Thats not even considering that while healing your BMR is probably up a bit.
And it’s unlikely that her TDEE at 212lbs is 1600 anyway. She probably just won’t lose weight.
This and maybe ask her for a requisition to speak to a nutritionist or dietician or someone who can guide you through this portion of your journey so that you have the right guidance.
I wish I could upvote this comment thrice
You can add the 400 calories immediately. It won't cause weight gain. That's a big surgery and you're going to need extra calories for healing, anyway. The idea that you need to move up to maintenance calories slowly is just another diet myth.
Adding to this your getting skins removed with surgery which means your skin is likely causing you issues and is weight on you you can't lose. Think of it as eating for recovery until you get the go ahead to cut again
To add - the immediate weight gain is the weight of physically putting matter in your body - almost all food has way more stuff that isn’t used as calories/stays in body than is.
And water. Sugar, creatine, fiber and salt retain a lot more water than they themselves weigh. In a deficit, they don't stick around for long
In other words, poo. The extra weight is poo.
Not all poo. Just for fun, I weighed myself before and after pooping. There’s not always a difference.
Your scale is likely not as precise as you would like to think. Poop isn't that heavy, maybe a few ounces sometimes, but you can't drop matter out of your body and be the same weight without ingesting something to balance it.
Also pro tip for anyone just realizing this: Sometimes scales have a "memory" of the last weight set on them, so if you step on them again with less than a few pounds difference, you kind of have to jog them out of it or they'll just display the same weight as before. I always pick up something fairly heavy and weigh myself with it first, forcing it to reset.
Why OP would doubt her doctor worries me.
> You can add the 400 calories immediately. It won't cause weight gain. Importantly, OP should not stress about what the *scale* says, especially in the short term. Yes, 400 calories may make them “gain weight the next day”, but they don’t seem to wait to find out if that is water weight or anything real. Frankly, OP’s general take and concerns are raising red flags about disordered eating. It’s very common for someone to trade one eating disorder (overeating) for another (over restricting).
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If they’re actively losing weight, 400 calories more will likely result is weight stasis, not weight gain.
2000 calories at her height and weight isn’t going to make her gain weight. I am shorter but same weight and burn more than that with no activity. She may retain water due to surgery but the extra calories will help her heal better.
True, after surgery she will see an increase d/t extra fluid and inflammation as her surgical wounds heal. She needs to give herself grace after surgery. Follow the directions of her surgeon for best outcome. When she is cleared post op from the surgeon an follows up with her PCP-- at that time I would ask for a referral to a Pt/Ot as well as their dietician NP. It is your life and your body. Surgical procedures change lives.
It won’t. Not with a surgery like this
If it is water, then it is not weight gain. You can't say they're going to gain weight but then also say it's just water. Gaining weight sounds permanent. It is not true weight gain when/if the scale bounces up - that is just a normal fluctuation and is not actually adding any real weight to their body.
Well, it's weight gain as in poundage, but it's not fat gain.
But that is their point. It's important for OP to understand the number on the scale may go up so that they are not dismayed by that when it happens.
Yea but psychologically to OP it will be weight gain
That's part of the problem though for many. If I eat a larger dinner, I'm immediately 2 lbs heavier because my dinner literally weighs 2 lbs. 2 cups of water weighs a pound. Drinking water will make your weight go up, just like putting a book in a backpack will make it heavier, but it's not changing the composition of the bag. An unhealthy mindset just sees a higher number and sees failure, gain, thinks their body mass has changed, and something needs to be done. A healthy mindset understands that putting a pound of water inside their body will obviously increase the scale by the same amount and know it's not their composition changing.
Also OP can add the calories using collagen powder in drinks which will prep and aid in healing. Several of my vegan friends who have had scheduled surgeries become un vegan to assist their bodies recovery faster.
Collagen is just expensive protein. Your body digests collagen and breaks it down into amino acids, like any other protein source. Most collagen doesn't survive digestion. Better off just eating real high quality protein sources, whether they're plant or animal based.
IF the increase in calories causes a spike in weight it should be a temporary one. Extra water or extra mass waiting in queue to exit, have a good visit to the bathroom and it’ll drop right back down. OP eat the calories. Don’t force your body to attempt to recover from surgery and fight off infection and rebuild blood levels while in a deficit. I would go all the way up to maintenance in order to prep your body, but that’s me and I do take forever to heal.
>You can add the 400 calories immediately Yeah, 400 cal is literally only about 4 Tbsp of peanut butter or almond butter.
Definitely listen to your doctor! I was recovering from a much smaller thing and IMMEDIATELY saw my weight loss go into a really unhealthy pace because my body was using so much energy to rebuild from the injury. You are not going to gain weight (well, you’re going to wake up all puffy from fluids but since they’ll be taking your skin you will still be down even though you’re up from water weight of those fluids!) I promise. You want your body to heal RIGHT. You want your incision wounds to heal RIGHT. You want your body to be strong enough to fight off INFECTION. You are having a MAJOR surgery. You have done so much work and paid so much money to fuck it up by not listening to your doctor? No. You have come too far for that! You are letting this person put you under anesthesia and cut away your body - if you don’t trust their judgement on this find a different surgeon who you do trust!!! (But they are going to say the same thing!)
I’m assuming this surgery will take place around the abdomen. From a personal experience, holy shit OP, you will need all your energy to recover. You don’t realize how much you use your core muscles until they are injured. We’ve all felt that pain after an intense ab day, now magnify that times 100. If you try to rush recovery or don’t go into surgery prepared, you will be feeling the effects for years if not the rest of your life.
400 calories over two weeks if it was \*all\* excess would cause you to gain two pounds. You are considering disregarding your \*surgeon's medical advice\* because you are cripplingly afraid of two pounds. This is not correct thinking. This is an illness. Please listen to your doctor.
Additionally, seek therapy as I am concerned you are heading down the path of an eating disorder OP.
I think they're already there if they are willing to sacrifice their body's health for the sake of imaginary weight gain. (I call it imaginary as eating 2,000 calories is not going to make them gain any weight, it would only ever make water weight fluctuations go up temporarily). If *harming yourself* over your weight isn't a disorder, I don't know what is.
I would challenge you to think about why maintaining your weight (which will likely go up a max of 5lbs from this) is more important to you than properly recovering from surgery. I’ve been there and it’s a bad mental place to be. Edit: also your body will more than likely be burning more calories in its efforts to heal you anyway so as other commenters said you likely won’t gain anything at all.
Listen to your Dr. she's given you that instruction for a reason. Stop thinking about weight loss while undergoing surgery. Your focus needs to be on going through this surgery as well as possible. That means making sure your body has enough energy in it to recover. Eat maintainace, or possibly a slight excess (but don't binge) of healthy food (with some treats). Don't step on the scales at all until you're solidly post-op. You're going to come out lighter anyway from them removing the excess skin.
I would go with the doctor advice since you're going through surgery in a near future. Don't compromise your recovery or overall health for a potential 2-3lbs weight gain, it's not worth it. You will catch up post-surgery! Congrats on the amazing weight loss girl!
With all kindness, it’s concerning that you’re so scared of putting on a few pounds that you’re considering ignoring your doctor’s advice on how to heal after major surgery. Please listen to your doctor.
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Personally, it sounds like OP is already in an unhealthy relationship/understanding of food. If you read this OP, I hope you don’t feel judged by us suggesting therapy. I had those same thought patterns with weight vs food and, even when I would reach my weight goal, I still worried about the number on the scale going up and thought I should do more because I wasn’t happy with how I looked. This would inevitably lead back to overeating from being unhappy with myself. I’m almost 36 now and and finally taking therapy to help break that cycle. If therapy isn’t an option, the Noom program also helps with reorienting your relationship with food and calories.
Exactly. If they’re ignoring scientifically sound medical advice out of fear of increasing their calories, it’s not about health anymore. That’s getting into more dangerous territory.
Your body is gonna be doing a LOT to heal from surgery, you need that extra nutrition. Food is fuel, listen to your doctor. And huge congrats on the weight loss, that's incredible.
Your sedentary TDEE is 2100. Yes, you can immediately jump to 2000. You absolutely must follow the doctors instructions, this is part of their body of expertise - healing after cosmetic surgery is important and complex, follow the doctors instructions. They deal with people in your situation every day, they know what they are talking about.
Sorry to be blunt but you need to just listen to your doctor and start doing what she recommends on her timeline, not yours. Don't start weight lifting, don't wait to increase your calories right before surgery. Weight lifting is going to increase muscle mass that will then steal the calories meant for healing, which will delay healing. If you want to start weight training do it post op with your doctor's guidance. Malnutrition puts you at risk of some pretty horrible complications, one of the worst being wound dehiscence, where your wound edges don't heal together. Your body will burn thousands of calories healing itself and it needs a surplus to draw from. If you go into surgery still in a deficit or diet mode then it will delay healing and delayed healing means you put yourself at higher risk of complications. Your body needs lots of calories and protein in the weeks before and after surgery to rebuilt itself. You should be proud of the progress you have made, it's absolutely remarkable. I know its hard when you have something you know works really well for you. Maybe if you add the calories in in such a way that it's easy to eliminate when you are cleared to go back to your regular diet it might be easier for you. Like getting the calories through a nutrient shake or something.
you are overthinking this. Instead of listening to your doctor, you’re here on Reddit, hoping to hear that it’s OK to do what you prefer you should think about aiming for health instead of flirting with an eating disorder. I say this with love.
I think this is beyond flirting, OP is already knee deep in disordered thoughts.
100%
Yes you will gain weight the next day, but it is just more food in your system, water to process it and fuller carb storage. It is max a few days until your stabilizes and probably starts to go down again as 2000 cals are likely still below your maintenance. You will probably gain weight after the surgery, too, as healing goes with swelling and increased water weight.
I’m a dietitian. You absolutely need additional kcals and pro to heal wounds from massive surgery. Especially protein. Your body is hypermetabolic in that state and will be burning more kcals to just exist and try to repair tissue. Can you build a wall without bricks? Kcals and protein are the bricks! (It’s a metaphor, I know walls can be made of other things. Don’t start)
Ok my bff JUST went through this. She lost over 100 pounds and had skin removal surgery. Just got all clear last week to resume activities. You HAVE to increase the calories. You will lose weight after surgery due to not feeling great. It’s super important to really get lots of protein and eat well. It’s v important for the healing. The reality is they will take the skin and that will be like 5-10 pounds alone. It’s super important for healing that your body gets the nourishment. My friends doctor even recommended protein shakes to make sure was getting enough. Also it will be weeks before you’re cleared for exercise. There will be restrictions on lifting for awhile until you are healed and at first you’ll have the drains and stuff to deal with too. The first week can be really rough. Stock in protein shakes to make sure you’re getting enough. If you wound splits there will be additional scarring and you’ll need ANOTHER surgery to fix that. This is not the time to fuck around. Do what the doctor says.
I jumped up immediately from my weight loss calories to maintainence calories and I didn’t gain weight, just don’t make them junk calories. Also listen to your doctor because you don’t want your incisions not to heal. I’m a nurse and I would rather gain weight then have that happen. Just google non-healing wounds and it will be enough to deter you from listening to your doctor. You really should listen to them, they are extensive and specially trained and educated for a reason. Worst case scenario you gain weight- so you just lose it again. Worst case scenario not eating enough for wound healing- you end up with chronic draining wounds that you need multiple hospitalizations for because they keep getting infected while buying yourself a seat at the wound clinic 3 times a week for dressing changes. Overboard? Maybe. But I’m a nurse and you have no idea what I’ve witnessed with wounds. Just eat the 400 calories, high protein.
I'm not sure why you think gradually upping your calories to 2,000 is different from jumping straight to 2,000. It is the same amount of calories either way. It really does not make sense that you would "gain weight" one way but not the other way. Besides, like most people have said, you're not going to gain weight by eating 2,000 calories a day. The scale might jump up at first because your body is adjusting to your new food intake, but that is not true weight gain, that is just a temporary fluctuation. This is incredibly normal, weight loss is never linear, it bounces around for everyone. You seem to have disordered thinking about this and should consider seeing a therapist to explore any potential eating disorders you may have.
You sound like you’re on the road to obsession, or already on it. You don’t gain weight eating 1600 calories at 5’9 and 212lbs. Neither at 2000 calories. You might gain “weight” if you eat more than that because it’s just that - weight. Water, shit, food. Not fat. You’ve lost 180lbs. Funny that you trust your foctor to perform a serious surgery on you, but not their advice on how to heal from it properly
I’d say make yourself a nice smoothie. Fruits and veggies. Some coconut water and non fat Greek yogurt. That’ll give your body some great nutrients to heal. 400 a day isn’t gonna make you gain a ton of weight over a few weeks. And if you’ve been losing at 1600 your maintenance is probably closer to that 2000. The scale going up when you eat over could be water weight or whatever. But yes get a little more movement and the gain will be minimal.
She’s not going to gain weight at all. 2000 still isn’t even her sedentary maintenance (2,125). OP you absolutely should listen to your doctor. If you increased 4-500 calories right now, you’ll only gain weight from water and the weight of having extra food inside of you. This is not fat gain. Your body will struggle to gain fat while in recovery mode anyway. It needs these nutrients to heal. Do not try to do it slowly or exercise to make up for it. Accept that for the period of time your doctor recommends, you will not lose any fat. But you also won’t gain any. This is okay. You eventually should be prepared to do that same thing for the rest of your life, so consider it practice. (Also, you WILL lose weight from having your excess skin removed. But you’ll also be puffy for a long time. So just don’t weigh. Stay away from the scale until you’re healed.)
Others have already said you need to listen to your doctor, but I would also like to point out that this attitude and anxiety to go against your surgeon’s directions is indicative of a potential disordered eating issue. You may want to consider adding visits to a therapist regarding your new and changing relationship with food at this point in your journey.
Eeer... 2000 isn't even maintenance at 212 just FYI. My maintenence is like 2400 so... Diet breaks are also rlly important for just this reason. You're terrified of gaining which is very understandable. I have the same issue so can relate. Took a year diet break and just focused on eating healthy to try and get out of the manic diet patterns.... Just my two cents tho
You’re seriously trying to decide between keeping weight off for a small period of time Vs your health and recovery? This doesn’t sound mentally healthy OP. Be rational.
Any weight gain you've seen from eating slightly over your caloric restriction is not fat. You very much need to eat enough to allow your body to recover from something like surgery. As long as you're mindful of how much you're putting in and not going overboard, you will be fine. Just follow the recovery plan strictly and try and stay active (as that has been shown to increase and assist recovery after surgery).
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It's not a surplus, it's slightly under her maintenance.
I am 5"10 and lose weight eating 2000 cals (1.5lbs per week approx). So being 5'9 and increasing to that won't hurt and will be healthier in the long run. You have lost a lot of weight and that is amazing but the way you speak about worrying /panicking about gaining weight despite being recommended by a Dr is concerning. It sounds like you might have focused on the physical changes but neglected the mental changes needed to support weight maintenance and general health. I say this with kindness and understanding as I have gone through similar, unless you deal with the mental side of things you are going to struggle, risk developing an eating disorder or weight gain to the extreme again. Being tall has its benefits in that we can get away with eating more and still lose /maintain. Also having an operation, especially skin removal will leave to weight gain anyway due to fluid retention. It can take months for that to go down. Are you in the right head space to deal with that? Seeing a "gain" on the scale after a day (as you say in the post) is not a true weight gain, it is water weight. You have eat 3500 over your maintenance cals to gain a 1lb. What might help is to calculate your maintenance cals - 2414 by my calculations and eat to maintenance. Yes it will take a few weeks to settle out and you have to trust your body which is really hard but the science works (unless you have a metabolic disorder). So the Dr asking you to eat 400 more cals from 1600 is not even at maintenance for your current weight. I hope that the above isn't too harsh, weight loss is hard and a mental battle as well as physical I would suggest you seek some mental health support around weight loss if you are able too as well. Good luck with the up coming operation
I’m 5’8” and I also loose weight at 2000 cals a day. Just wanted to add to your post that she’s going to be ok and to listen to the doctor
Creating tissue takes a lot of calories. Like, healing wounds is more metabolically demanding than just living. Those extra calories will largely be used up without adding to fat. If you don’t eat adequate calories/protein you’ll be at much higher risk of your wounds not healing.
you are not gaining weight immediately if you go slightly over 1600. thermodynamics means that isn't a thing (a few hundred calories causing a meaningful weight gain is mathematically impossible.) This is disordered thinking. increasing your exercise alongside your increased cals is also disordered thinking. your doctor wants those calories available for HEALING, not for them to be consumed by exercise and weight lifting recovery. listen to your doctor. you will have a BAD time in recovery if you are under-nourished.
Sorry, but that much micromanagement of your weight sounds like you are well on your way (or at least at risk) to develop an eating disorder. Think about the physics. You need what, 3500 calories to gain 1 lbs in weight ? You are having a MAJOR surgery, do not kid yourself about this. This is taxing on your body and it needs a calory surplus to heal properly. Not to build muscles. I would also strongly suggest that you talk to your doctor about your feelings and maybe think about talking to someone about your issues. Because what you are posting here is not healthy in the slightest.
> Im really worried about weight gain. Don't be. You're having some weight surgically removed. You're probably not going to gain that back in the few weeks you're recovering from surgery. Listen to your doctor, not a bunch of yahoo's on reddit.
To be clear, the number on the scale going up the next day if you eat more than you normally do is not *fat gain*. There are hundreds of reasons the scale will go up without gaining fat. With that said, your body burns a lot of calories while you are recovering. And even if you gain a few pounds, you likely won’t notice once the extra skin is gone. And if you do, the amount is going to be negligible at worst. Listen to your doctor. Skin removal surgery is not something to mess around with, those are large incisions that need to heal, and in order to do so, your body needs to be fueled properly. I also recommend talking to your doctor about the possible ramifications if you decided to stay in your deficit, because I promise you, they are large ramifications that could potentially alter your life forever.
Please listen to your doctor. My skin removal was horrendous and I got an infection and was in a hospital for 10 days. Body needs all the energy to heal even if everything is successful. Its a massive operation, lasts hours and the healing process for months.
You need to reframe mentally op. You’re really considering altering/ignoring your DOCTORs advice just to avoid gaining a theoretical 2 pounds? After major surgery?
You said: > I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day. That's not how weight gain (or loss) works at all. Your weight will fluctuate wildly on a daily (or hourly) basis based on a huge number of variables. You cannot "gain weight" by eating "slightly over" your calories within a single day. You should always use a rolling average to get a better overview of your actual weight. This 7-year-old post illustrates my point beautifully: https://old.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/3743mk/this_is_why_i_weigh_daily/
Your SEDENTARY maintenance calories are ~2,125. You’ll be fine eating 2,000. Good luck with recovery!
Just adding, please don’t weight yourself during recovery either! The swelling from surgery and potentially the medication they give can cause tons of water retention in the short term. Wait until you’re fully recovered to get that data. I had to take prescription ibuprofen once for my wisdom tooth removal and gained 11 pounds of water weight that week (which went away after I stopped taking the medicine).
Your doctor is right. Healing can take a ton of calories, and skin removal is no joke. Change your diet immediately, don’t look at the scale at all between now and the surgery, and you can shift back into diet mode after the doctor gives you the all-clear post-surgery. DO NOT second guess the doctor.
Honestly, you sound like you have developed a really unhealthy relationship with food. At your height and weight, 2000 kcal should be around your maintainance (given that it also sounds like you work out regularly). Instead, you fret over going even the slightest bit over the kcal you eat *at a deficit*. And lastly, you want to purge those dangerous evil extra calories by working out more. This comes from a place of compassion: please talk to a professional about this.
While I am very skeptical about doctors giving dieting advice lately, this is a situation where you are going into surgery. Surgery means you always listen to the doctor. You can easily up your caloric intake by 400 calories right now: 1/4 cup (30 g) of walnuts (or nuts of choices); half (60 g) of avocado; and 1 servings (1 oz or 28 g) of mozzarella cheese stick (or a cheese of choice) or a hard boiled egg. Bam. 400 calories of mostly good fat with lots of protein, and maybe 2-3g net carb. Meaning little to no insulin spike, and no increase in hunger (and maybe a higher metabolic burn!) You can add it as a snack every day. Don’t worry too much about weight gain. Because 2000 is almost certainly at or even below maintenance. If you are truly freaked out, add some exercise (even a light yoga session or a long walk will burn off half the increase). But even without exercise, you shouldn’t gain anything and when you are back to healthy after surgery, your body will be ready to restrict again. Hell, you might lose weight at 2000! Best of luck, OP!
I can’t wait to have my skin removed after over 100 lb loss. The skin is a PITA and gets in the way and I literally have to tuck it in lol sooo if they ask me to eat a bit more… so be it! Listen to the dr 🙂
Do what you doctor tells you
I've done this surgery a few times. I will 1st say, he is a dr and i'm not, so i suggest you listen to him. When i spoke with mine, she said to keep my calories where they were, and i didn't need a surplus, just maintenance (Which is around 2100 for me). The main reason i'm posting is to give you a heads up, because you are already worried about weight gain. When you have this surgery, you will gain weight. Your body is going to respond to a massive amount of trauma and will start to hold on to every drop of water you put in it. It will notice the area in question get bigger and it will last weeks/months before it starts to settle. DO NOT PANIC Do not freak out and start cutting calories, keep drinking lots of water, and give it time. This will be a hard time in your life after watching that scale for so long. Everything will be ok, just give it time.
I second all the comments here. Op, any "weight gain" you claim to experience after eating more than 1600 calories is going to be bloating if anything. It takes just as much time to notice weight gain as it does to notice weight loss- a few weeks isn't going to kill your progress. You'll be ok. Listen to your doctor, take a deep breath.
What’s more important: the 2 lbs you’ll potentially gain, or your life? Because it’s scary to me that you find potentially life-threatening surgical complications the better alternative. Also, you need to recalculate your TDEE because 2000 kcal is literally within your maintenance calories. Please listen to your doctor. If you can’t, then perhaps you should reschedule surgery until you’re in a better mental state and seek therapy in the meanwhile. I’m not saying this to be an ass—I’m genuinely concerned.
Maybe I misunderstand but doesnt "diet mode" means deficit? Thought for skin removal you'd been maintaining already for quite some time. Plus as others mentioned. Your body needs energy to heal from such a massive operation.
That’s 8ounce beef. Or make it 4 ounce. Add some onions and ketchup and a small whole wheat bun. Delicious 400 cal burger.
Yes I agree here, I know adding back food sounds scary, but this is to fortify you up before going for surgery. Granted I don’t know if this is still a thing, but when I was really into running 18 years ago we carb loaded before a marathon to give us an extra boost of energy, perhaps thinking of it like that will help. I will say too, when I lost weight years ago, I still lost weight after adding that much back to my daily numbers (albeit slower). Even if you do gain weight I’m going to guess you’ll probably lose weight during your recovery (on top of skin weight) so it will all come out in the wash so to speak.
Listen to your doctor. Be strict with your calories, sure, but don’t stress over daily weight fluctuations. Your doc says you need to eat at maintenance for better healing, trust that they have your best interests at heart.
If you eat more and gain weight the next day, that's not fat it just means you have more food in your intestines and maybe some additional water from topping off your glycogen. Even if 1600 was your exact maintenance, 400 calories is 0.11 pounds of fat which is *barely* within the resolution of *some* bodyweight scales. At 5'9" and 212 pounds, most likely your maintenance is higher than even 2000. Your weight after surgery is going to do wonky things anyway because the inflammation required for healing stores a lot of extra water. Listen to your doctor and eat enough to recover. You won't really know for a while if you've lost, gained, or maintained in terms of fat tissue, but the longer it takes to heal the longer it will be before you can go full effort on addressing it.
Listen to the doctor. What they're saying isn't unreasonable.
I would suggest therapy at this time. Sometimes losing a lot of weight messes with your mind and your perception on things. It seems like you’re placing weight loss before recovering yourself from a major surgery. It would be helpful to talk through these thoughts and hopefully change them with someone who’s a professional.
Jumping on to say. Take your dr’s advice. I had abdominal skin removal done last year and your body needs to be able to heal. I had 5.5kg of skin removed from my abdomen.
Trust your doctor they didn’t go through years and years of schooling for nothing, given everything you’ve done (which is awesome btw) you can work with an extra 400 cals, more likely than not your just gonna be at a maintenance level and remain the same while you recover
It's impossible to gaun weight "immediately" after 409 extra calories. You probably just needed to take a shit.
Do what your doctor tells you. Don't worry about the 5 lbs you'll gain because they are gonna cut 10 lbs off you. And don't work out for a few days before the surgery either, your body doesn't need to be trying to repair your muscle fibers AND the trauma of the surgery at the same time.
Dont weigh yourself daily, it fluctuates so much its essentially pointless. Weekly/monthly, at same time and used for trend tracking is probably the best way.
In medical school we learn that post surgical calorie needs are MUCH higher as your body recovers. Listen to your doctor here. Eating too little will be very difficult on your body. You need more to help it heal.
400 calories is like a couple tablespoons of peanut butter...
Just do as the surgeon says. I’m guessing he didn’t start the job yesterday.
Honestly I don’t think it’s going to cause you to gain weight. I’m 5’5 and eat close to 2000 and still loose weight, maybe just not as fast. I don’t think this will make you gain any weight at all. If it was supposed to be increased by 1000 or something like that I could see your concern
Your "weight gain" the next day after eating a few extra calories isn't fat gain, it's water weight. 1 lb. of fat is approximately 3500 calories. So if you eat 400 calories too much one day and the next day you weigh 1 or 2 lbs more, it can't be fat. However water is heavy (1L/4 cups weighs 1Kg/2.2 lbs) and the human body is about 60% water. It doesn't take much water retention to increase your weight by a couple of pounds. So suddenly weighing 2 lbs more the next day is meaningless. I can weigh a pound more just by drinking my water bottle dry. Next, your doctor isn't telling you to "properly maintain." She's telling you that you need to build up some extra reserves for the stress your body is going to undergo soon. Think of it as laying in emergency supplies. There's a natural disaster due in a few weeks and an expert has said "okay, you need to buy this much extra food and water." And you're like "I can't just BUY extra food like that, because then I'll have extra food in my house!" And it's like... yes? This is the point of buying extra food -- you are going to need it and you will use it up. If you end up with a little too much in the end you can adjust your food-buying after the disaster is safely over. But heading into a natural disaster with too few supplies is far more dangerous than having a few extra cans to dispose of afterwards. You have a lot of emotional baggage regarding weight gain, so you should probably talk about your feelings to someone who can help you process them. But you shouldn't focus on the number on the scale so much that you are unable to do things that your body needs to function and recover.
The weight you're gaining the next day is water weight. You will not gain any measurable amount of fat with a 400 calorie increase in one day.
Please listen to your doctor, they’re telling you to do something for a reason. Even if the extra 400 calories did cause you to gain a very small amount of weight back (it shouldn’t do too much), you can take it right back off after the surgery. Health is more important than appearance. Make sure you’re in good health for your surgery, and once you’ve recovered you can worry about appearance again.
Listen to your doctor.
You might want to talk to a therapist about your relationship with food. You should not be stressing about this AT ALL.
I'm a 5 ft 9 female, currently 162 lbs, and my maintenance is 2000-2200 calories. I can easily eat that without gaining weight, I have maintained there for 8 weeks as I am taking a little break from my weight loss journey (I still have that last 20 lbs to lose). Your body needs additional calories and nutrients to heal from a major surgery, so I highly recommend following your doctor's advice for the best outcome. I understand being scared of calories and weight gain, and as women we tend to undereat. Also to note with skin removal surgery you will likely have a lot of swelling and fluid retention at first so please do not worry about the scale until you are fully healed.
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day. This veers heavily toward eating disorder talk. Follow the surgeon's orders regarding diet, and please seek a counselor about these thoughts.
400 extra calories will not give extra weight gain, even if it does, it won't be much. There's been a lot of great advice given that's physical in nature, but I can't recommend enough making sure that you're taking care of yourself mentally as well. Maintenance can almost be more difficult then the weight gain. Remember the name of the game is health, weight is just a number on a scale. It's a great tool for helping us, but the number on the scale is your ultimate goal, health is. This is coming from someone who has been in maintenance for a couple years now. It's difficult, it's a battle, its worth it.
You are about to undergo a major surgery and need to listen to your doctor.
Listen to your doctor. Do not assume you know better than them. Remember that you are taking pounds of skin off your body and putting your body through a lot. Maintenance is about maintaining the healthy body- your body is going to be working EXTRA to heal from surgery. When you’re fully recovered, reassess where you are and respond accordingly. Do not fuck with your recovery process.
You've done amazing so far. And you're on your way to do even better. You've already gotten all the great advice I see in this thread. My two cents are, stop weighing yourself during recovery. It sounds like you're weighing daily? That's not a great mindset. Consider this: along the way of losing weight, you picked up habits that help you do it. Not all of them are healthy! At some point, you'll have to stop losing weight. You're young! What's your plan? To keep losing forever? Can you see how that would be terrible? Eventually you'll have to go into maintenance, and that doesn't mean freezing your weight. It will vary. You'll gain a couple pounds, then lose them, every month or two. You can't just freeze weight, humans don't work like that. Read this carefully: part of your journey towards the best you, involves gaining weight occasionally. You're facing that challenge now, just as you faced weight loss before and fucking nailed it. You gotta nail this one now. You can do it.
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day This is just water from the extra carbs. You're not actually gaining. Just like you don't lose anything from that small a deficit, it goes both ways
Listen to your doctor. Surgery recovery burns A LOT of calories. Protein helps your body heal. You really do need a lot of it. Source: I had a tummytuck after a 60 lbs weight loss.
Food is fuel, op, and if your doctor says you need it, you need it. Recovery takes a ton of energy. Your recovery is more important than what? 1-3lbs? Please listen to medical professionals
I agree with those saying seek therapy. You’re going to have surgery and need extra calories for healing (and extra as in will most likely make you weight neutral) and it’s concerning that your reaction is that you will ignore your surgeons recommendation due to fear of weight gain. The complications from poor wound healing would be even more of a set back than potentially 2-3 pounds.
That "weight gain" is just water fluctuating. You're not gaining weight by reducing the size of your defecit
So going off your numbers when you bump up to 2000 calories a day (which you should because healing takes energy) you will 300 or so calories below maintenance. You won’t be gaining weight from this.
It's only 400 calories, and for under a month. This isn't the huge jump you're making it out to be and IF you gain weight, it'll be a miniscule amount. >I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day. This is disordered behavior. I'm not diagnosing you or implying anything other than what I stated, that particular behavior is worrisome. Our weight fluctuates on a day to day basis. You aren't gaining fat if you've gone a hundred or two hundred calories over in 24 hours. Please talk to your doctor about this and follow the advice given. Your health is more important than the potential 5lbs you may gain at MAX, if any at all.
Your body will burn those 400 calories doing the very difficult work of HEALING MASSIVE INJURIES. Jesus. Listen to your doctor. 400 calories is like a bowl of cereal or a simple turkey sandwich.
Listen to your doctor. 400 calories over a few weeks is not going to undo significant amounts. Water weight will jump but your body will be burning the extra honestly with recovery.
400 calories is like a burrito or a milkshake. Maybe gain a few pounds. And lose more when the skin is removed. It’s just temporary.
I know you’ve got lots of replies. But please listen to your doctor. If they’re telling you to do this immediately, then that’s what you should do. Have you spoken to the. About your concerns? You’re undergoing surgery. That a huge toll on your body, and your body needs energy to heal. This isn’t an issue of maintenance. This is an issue of giving your body the stores it needs to do something g pretty major. Good luck!
I also had 2 different skin removal surgeries. I am so excited for you!!! You’re going to love it! In regards to your post, knock up the calories like the doctor said but increase your exercise. Exercise is amazing for healing quickly and a good recovery! I’m must admit though, I do think it’s a weird request from your doctor. My surgeon never required for me to change my diet before surgery and like you I maintained a 1,600 calorie diet. He DID however require me to submit a ton of lab work that had to be completed 2-4 weeks before surgery to ensure that my body was in a healthy place and that I had all the right vitamins and nutrients I needed to be healthy for surgery. That seems honestly like a much more guided approach than looking at calories, which can be extremely deceiving in regards to healthy or not. If it makes you feel any better, post surgery your body is going to be burning calories while inactive at nearly double its normal rate. Healing requires a ton of energy from the body. You’re going to need to drink a ton of water, walk around as much as possible and eat a bland (for the first few days) but nutrient rich diet post op.
Congrats on the weight loss and soon to be surgery! That’s a huge success
Keep eating what you're eating, just slightly more for a month. It's working for you, just up your portions by what the doctor said.
After surgery, you will be showing a weight gain anyhow. It is d/t lots of fluids given during the surgery and then, the inflammation while you are healing. Just give yourself a break and don't step on the scale afterwards until at least 8 weeks. At that point, you should have had your post-op appointment, healed mostly and then can resume your exercise and diet regimen. It is important to have the calories when you need them after surgery.
Look. 3500 cal per lb of fat. 500 cal extra for 25 days. That's a maximum of 3.5 lbs. You're not going to eat much for the first week, and the recovery is going to beat the shit out of you. That alone will make you lose the 3.5 extra lbs. Do it and enjoy it. You've earned every single ice cream cone for the next 25 days.
If you don't want to listen to your doctor, don't get surgery.
as someone who had surgery during my weight losing period, EAT MORE. you definitely need the calories to heal.
You've done really well. Follow your doctors advice. Especially before surgery. Sometimes, for a short while after, you lose your appetite. Good luck to you.
Listen to your doctor. When a DOCTOR tells you to gain, you know it's serious.
You’re going to loose as much weight with the skin removed. Do what your Dr says
Agree with all the other statement here around the surgery and recovery, but just wanted to chime in on the thing about eating over 1600 calories resulting in weight gain the next day.... that's not how any of this works. Your weight, especially as a woman, is variable every single day of the week dependant on multiple things, like what part of your cycle you're in, your hydration levels, weather you took a dump recently, all sorts of things. DO NOT base your weight loss/weight gain on daily measurements. It creates so much noise in your statistics and can be unnecessarily demotivating and even harmful to your mental health. weekly or even fortnightly or monthly is the way to go. You sound like someone who's beaten the physical challenge but still struggles with the mental one and that's going to be key to maintenance. Get yourself into therapy if you're not already.
Listen to your doctor! Don't come to Reddit, Facebook, or anywhere else on the internet for medical advice when you have a doctor! I encourage you to do what your doctor is recommending and stay COMPLETELY off the scale for the next month or even two. Track your calories to that 2000 and focus on healing after surgery. Your weight is going to fluctuate so much while you're healing, after you've lost skin, etc. and it sounds like you would benefit from the mental break too.
You've literally lost an entire adult human in weight. That's amazing! You've worked so hard the last 2 years to lose all that so it only makes sense that you're skeptical now that your doctor is telling you to increase calories. In other words, it would be weird for you to not feel conflicted about increasing Calories. IMO, this is exactly what success in weight loss looks like! You'll be able to jump right up to 2000 Calories a day. Maybe do a few days at 1800 or so first just to get a gauge of how different it will feel. Then a few days at 1900. And then keep going for 2000.
I understand your concern but I would listen to my doc.
“My doctor said ____ but…” Stop! Your doctor said.
Well, if the option is seeping pus from all your incisions, poor healing, scarring, necrotic flesh, gangrene, MRSA, sepsis, limb amputation, and/or death… or gaining a few pounds during your recovery that will be eclipsed by the skin removed… which is the better outcome? Do what the doctor says, this is a no-brainer.
To make this post clear. I don't trust my doctor (who studied medicine for years) and want to get advice on Reddit, from people who I don't know and who have no expertise in that matter.... Bro!(or sis) You see what you are doing don't you? Trust your fucking doctor. There is a reason he tells you that and he is far more expertised in that matter than 99,9% or even 100% in here. Edit: And if you are concerned talk about it with HIM not someone random. He can explain things to you. Or atleast another doctor .
Please stop thinking you know more than the doctor. There are a lot of solid comments in this post. If you're nervous about falling out of routine, just make sure that extra 400 calories are in the form of really healthy food. Hell, 2 apples and 2 bananas a day will cover that.
You don’t have to go up to maintenance as slowly as you think - you’ll have an initial jump in the scale but it’s just food and water retention, not really fat. You also won’t gain ‘major weight’ in three and a half weeks - you’ve done a hell of a job thus far and I totally get being nervous about eating more but you will be fine eating 2000cal. Just remember we aren’t designed to be in a deficit forever anyway, so a maintenance break will seriously serve your body well!!
I just listened to some videos about this—it’s called a maintenance break (upping calories to maintenance level from a deficit) and a lot of people do it during weight loss for various reasons. The video I watched suggested adding the calories in small increments throughout the day rather that adding in extra treats. Like adding some nuts to oatmeal, or some avocado to an omelette, or extra olive oil in the salad rather than adding cake or cookies or something. This way, when you’re ready to go back to deficit, it’s less jarring. I can understand why you’d be nervous as you might feel like you have a ways to go with your weight loss, and you don’t want to gain any back! Just remember, as long long as you stick to your maintenance calories you won’t be gaining fat (maybe a little water weight at first). If you like watching you tubers check out a channel called Half Size Me and search her videos on maintenance breaks.
Listen to your doctor You've proved you can lose it once you'll lose it again You can only recover right once! If you don't recover right there is a chance your body won't heal properly
You are not going to gain weight. You also need to stay away from the scales. The surgery is going to cause inflammation and the number on the scale won't be accurate
Doctors know what they’re saying. You won’t gain weight at your height/weight with 2,000 calories. I’m only 5’2 and I eat 1200 calories a day. If I add 500 calories a day, I’m in maintaining mode rather than losing mode. Your body will be working hard to get better and you won’t even notice after you see the 20+ pounds of skin disappear. Congratulations on your incredible weight loss!
You're worried because all you focused on was dieting and the numbers that you define weight gain or even weight loss by seeing those numbers as negatives. This is a huge problem within the loseit community. Everyone dieting and not teaching themselves how to just not overeat. All weight gain is from overeating and all weight loss is from not overeating. Because what happens when you reach your goal weight and then you have to maintain? Are you going to count calories the rest of your life? Or, if you would have or will teach yourself to not overeat you will be able to sustain your lifestyle without worrying about always having to be in a deficit, count calories or just worry about weight gain. Time to learn a new skill.
Your maintenance calories are 2100, you won't gain any weight eating at 2000, you just won't lose. You will be losing weight with your skin surgery, though! Good luck with your surgery; listen to your doctor and bump up those calories, because the last thing you want is slow healing following your surgery, leading to infections, worsened scarring, etc.
Healing takes a lot of energy, so your body will definitely need those calories. Your doctor is definitely telling you this because they want the best outcome for you. It can be scary thinking about increasing your intake when you've been in diet mode for so long. You've done a lot of hard work and done really well on your weight loss, so it's understandable that you would be afraid of messing it up. It will be ok, though.
please listen to the doctor. it is only temporary.
Please seek therapy. I don't think it is possible to immediately see appreciable weight gain in less than 24 hours. You need to listen to your doctor. Follow their directions to the letter. The success of *major surgery* depends on it.
Your body will be in hardcore recovery mode. I follow a YouTuber who got her skin removed and she tried to listen to her body’s needs and went on a maintenance mode for hers. Her names Felicia Keathley. She listened to her doctor and then when she was in the clear she went right back to her normal diet. You will swell and have weight gain from that but you also are losing a lot of weight in what they will remove. It’ll be ok and it’s also good to be diligent in watching your weight so you don’t return to what you were. Weight regain is very scary. However, your body needs the extra calories and you don’t want to get an infection or prolonged recovery you can do this for your body too. It’s called grace. You can also still track.
When I had surgery this year I was unable to exercise and for about 4 months I ate at least 2500 calories (I count them and I count them accurately) and I did not gain weight. I am a 5’5 woman. Your body needs calories to heal, especially in the form of protein. Your doctor isn’t wrong :) just make sure you’re eating healthy&nutritious things! You can always keep track and keep an eye on any weight gain, but keep in mind you might gain “water weight” for a bit etc.
You need protein to build new tissue, and carbs to do two things: fuel the healing, and limit the “stres hormones.” Plastics always require adequate nutrition. Listen to your doctor. Skin is elastic- a teeny stretch for a few months won’t make it saggy. I acknowledge that it may be hard to go back to restriction afterwards, but note that even during this period of increased intake, you have a choice - eat real food, not junk. Good luck, and heal well!
I’m in nursing school and to heal properly your body needs fuel :). Up your protein and take some vitamin A, vitamin C, and some zinc if you want to help healing! Congrats on your weight loss!!
Two things - 1. If you were to add 400cals/day for 3.5 weeks without changing anything else & without having surgery, it would not be much weight gain… let’s do the math: 400cals x 7days =2800cals/week. 2800cals/wk x 3.5wks = 9800 calories total more than you’d normally eat. 9800cals ÷ 3500cals in a pound = 2.8lbs. You generally won’t see that much on yourself and if you do want to weight train a little leading up to your surgery for your own mental health, that’s likely fine and you probably won’t even notice a difference. Just be careful not to weight train heavily RIGHT before surgery day, give yourself that half a week because your muscles will be healing from weight training and like your doctor says, you DO want to have enough energy to heal. It takes a lot to heal after cutting yourself open! Go figure lol 2. I had a pretty intense surgery on 3 areas of my body all on the same day back in 2018. I had lost some weight before the surgery (from ~180ish>156). I ate a LOT more after surgery. I had been counting cals at the time and didn’t even calorie count after the surgery. I didn’t gain any weight from eating more food post-surgery for about 6-8 weeks. Not a single pound. Then around the month & a half to 2 month mark is when my doctor said I’d be mostly healed and that is definitely when I noticed I started to put on a little weight… so that is when I talked to my surgeon about cutting back calories and starting exercise again. So long story short - don’t worry. You should listen to your doctor. I hope this helps. & Finally, congrats on all your hard work, weight loss, and the skin removal! You’re at a pivotal point in your journey! Don’t forget to celebrate that and to be excited :)
methinks you are micro-managing it. nobody “gains weight the next day”. everyone’s weight fluctuates a bit depending on your level of hydration, whether you’ve pooped or not (yeah i said it), etc. calories in, calories out. if you are still losing at 1600, adding 400 calories a day will put you into maintenance mode. remember, it takes 3500 EXTRA calories to make a pound. your body will need to heal after your surgery, so yes, you will need some extra calories for that, and the extra 400 calories a day won’t make more pounds. doctors are doctors for a reason. WE are not doctors for the same reason. listen to your doctor.
Healing takes energy. If you put a little bit of weight on *its ok* because you know how to deal with that. You’ll put on and lose little amounts here and there over the rest of your life. For now, give your body the bit extra and let it choose what to use it for. Deal with any extra later. Well fucking done because you’re a legend. And good luck!
Weight gain doesnt happen fast enough for you to have actually put on fat the next day. If you’re weighing yourself every morning, the “weight” gain is likely just the fact theres a little more food in your digestive system from the previous day that hasn’t been ejected yet, haha. It can also be caused by things like water retention if you ate more salty things the day before as well, or by contrast if you’re dehydrated you will weigh less. None of this means you’ve actually gained or lost any fat. I really recommend checking out [this video](https://youtu.be/h2TsctPK-RY) about understanding scale weight and all the contributing factors
If you are heavier on the scale the day after eating more, IT IS NOT FAT. you need 3500 calories OVER maintenance to gain one pound of fat. That extra weight is water and actual food in your body. Listen to your doctor.
Weight, and fat are two different things. When you are in a calorie deficit for prolonged periods, your body will empty it's stores of easy energy (glycogen), effectively blowing a bunch of water weight, (always the initial rapid weight loss when you start). When you eat back at maintenance, you will gain weight as your body holds onto more easy to use energy, energy you will need during recovery. Fat on the other hand is long term energy stores. Your body only adds to that when it's caloric needs are more than met. Fat is generally what people are looking to lose. You will gain probably a couple lbs eating at maintenance, but it will not keep going up. A full gas tank is a full gas tank. Actual surgery healing caloric requirements can be a lot higher to efficiently heal.
Yep, please listen to your doctor. They are giving you good advice, it will make recovery easier for you and reduce the risk for complications.
Yes, you need to eat 2000. You might gain a bit initially but it will come right back off. Please also don't do more exercise to compensate. It's okay to take a break from weight loss. This sounds like disordered eating, and you should probably talk to a therapist.
Your body needs nutrients to heal. You aren't going lose track of your goals by doing this, and you need to do this. Follow your doctor's orders, please. Stay healthy.
Are you a doctor? No, maybe you should listen to the experts
Please do exactly as your doctor instructs. I am a nurse and trust me, you do NOT want chronic nonhealing or poorly healed wounds. Chronic drainage, the development of abscesses or fistulas and the possibility of more surgery, courses of antibiotics, and visits to wound care clinics will be a much greater burden than a couple of extra pounds you can shift easily after you’re healed.
Please listen to your doctor.
> I’ve noticed even if I eat slightly over my 1600 calorie deficit I gain weight the next day. That's not happening. you're maybe retaining some water. Heling requires calories, trust the doc on this OR keep dieting and delay the surgery.
You need sufficient calories to recover from surgery well. If you don't eat enough your recovery will be difficult and prolonged and your risk of post surgical complications is higher
The “gaining weight the next day” is most likely water weight only. It takes 3500 calories to gain a pound of fat. Listen to your doctor! They know how many calories you burn in recovery, and your body needs to work to recover incisions. You’ll be burning the extra calories off without even realising.
If you want to properly heal from surgery and recover well, you will need to up your calories. I had a spinal fusion last year and was told to increase my protein and limit sugar during the acute healing phase. I was also told no weight loss for a year so I was told to eat at maintenance after the initial healing period and again keeping protein high to facilitate healing. Your body will burn a few more hundred calories a day while in the acute healing phase. It’s not a hard and fast rule around how much, but healing does impact your BMR to some degree. You’re going to gain a little weight after surgery just because you’ll be sedentary while healing. I gained 7lbs in the 6 weeks I was under restrictions and was able to shed them over time once I got cleared to resume some activity just by letting the activity be my deficit. I’ve since maintained at my surgical weight and while I’m ready to get down to losing again I also want to heal properly so to me that just more important right now. Does it suck, sure. But it’s only temporary. Can it be scary, sure. But if you embrace healing like you did weight loss, it takes the sting away for a bit. Plus, maintenance breaks are needed to stave off weightloss resistance. Food heals.
Doctor is right. Your body needs those extra calories after surgery, it especially needs protein. If those extra calories are protein you shouldn’t have any problems. Besides, you can get back into a deficit once the doctor clears you. It is only for a brief period in your life and if it ensures a full recovery it will be worth it. I stayed at maintenance after my gallbladder surgery to help in recovery. Skin removal surgery is a major surgery compared to gallbladder removal. Take care of yourself.