Eating 900 to 1100 calories a day and only losing 1lb a week?

[thepurgebegins]

Hi there. Would appreciate any advice. I am currently eating around 900 to 1100 calories a day. I had major surgery on my stomach a few weeks ago and I'm on a soft food diet for the next few months. I eat twice a day and my plate is mashed potato and cottage cheese. Sometimes a cup of full fat milk. I enjoy both things and have had that for the past 2 weeks and can happily live of it. I physically cant eat any more as it causes sharp pain inside my stomach. I'm curious as I thought I would be losing more weight than usual eating so less but its only a 1lb a week. I am 96kg/212lbs ( I am 9 weeks postpartum) so have weight to lose and although its not a main priority I am intrigued. I can see more change physically on my body than the scale. Ive tried eating fish and boiled veg but I feel very sick with it so doctor said stick to what im eating. Thank you. No negativity please 😊

Also i know 1 to 2lb loss is healthy before that gets said

Ignore the scale for a while, your body has had the stress of childbirth and a stomach op. Cortisol levels likely through the roof, ditto hormones. Let everything calm down, eat what you can that doesn't disagree with you, and weigh again in maybe 8 weeks?

If you’ve recently had an operation you likely have a lot of inflammation in your body which will make you weigh more, give it a few more weeks and you should see a big drop

How tall are you? How active ?
1 pound a week is 3000 calories under or 400 calories a day under

that would imply your base need is 1400

that would make you around 5 foot tall

@Mydahliasareshit thankyou I think I definitely need to forget the scale but it can be addictive weighing yourself. I sometimes forget Im only 9 weeks PP as I have been through so much since baby was born. Advice taken thankyou!

@Freshair87 thankyou! I never knew inflammation can have that effect. I definitely do not look what I weigh comparing from the time I previously lost weight. The operation was because of major infection and I had alot of inflammation!

@needtostopnamechanging I am not active at all apart from looking after 2 children. After surgery I had a complication of a collapsed lung which will take a long time to heal so I cant do much. Im 27, 5ft 6. Like mentioned i physically eat as much as I can until it gers uncomfortable and thats max 1100 a day I can get to. I do not snack or eat anything sweet.

Are you breastfeeding? If so, your body will need extra calories for that. Regardless, you're still in the postpartum period and you've just had surgery - step away from the scales and give your body time to recover and settle back down.

There's far too much going on with your body at the moment for a reading on the scale to be an indication of body fat changes. so it isn't really telling you anything at the moment! It will be when everything else settles down and you are recovered from surgery that you'll know what has actually happened weight wise. Be careful though. you'll need to refuel your body well so don't be afraid of gaining a little again initially!

@SirChenjins i am breastfeeding yes. Thankyou appreciate the advice like mentioned I keep forgetting how much my body has gone through.

Put the scales away until you feel human and functional again.

For simple food, the potato, cheese and milk will cover a lot of your nutritional needs, so just do what you have to do to heal and recover

DS's birth had me in HDU with complications that resulted in a EMCS.
Many of my stretch marks came from the swelling as my body dealt with that shocker of a 24 hours, not from the pregnancy.
The body does complex things when it's under extreme stress.

@BogRollBOGOF thankyou so much. I had pain 4 months into my pregnancy but got told I had deal with it as they couldnt do a CT. So when I went a&e after baby was here they found multiple infected cysts and fluid bubbles. Im lucky i didnt get sepsis. I also died and was brought back twice after the op because my lung collapsed. My body has definitely got alot of recovering to do from the months of the building infection itself .

If you're breastfeeding you need 100s of extra calories each day, so that's probably why you're losing 1lb a week - your body is using your low calorie intake for that and for recovering.

That's a huge amount of healing for you to go through.

I found it took me about 5 months to hit a normal functional level of energy rather than survival mode or basic function. Postnatal recovery depends so much on how kind (or not) baby is aside from additional complications.