No idea what/how much to be eating at 4+ years out

Now I don't want to "toss the baby out with the bath water."  I've eaten pretty healthily but liberally since WLS.  That being said, I gave myself an inch and then took a mile.  This time of year is bad timing.  I've already been wanting to lose another 10-20lbs. to be at my best weight.  At 155 I'm doing great, but not my best.  But now that the holidays are here, you'd gasp at what I've been doing.

My class schedule recently makes eating kind of weird.  I've tried taking soup and sandwich, and that didn't sit well with my stomach-->therefore I've been hitting the vending machine hard.  And I mean like twice a day, all bad.  Plus Halloween candy.  Plus went out of town to New Orleans and indulged (this one I'm ok with rationalizing--laissez les bon temps roulez).  Plus I've been helping myself to seasonal lattes.  At least I'm doing ff and sf. 

It boils down to too much sugar/carbs, not enough protein, and way too much snacking.  The train is not off the rails yet.  I'm only up like 2lbs. and that could be fluctuation from my weekend in NOLA.  But I know it's starting to become a problem.

However--I don't know what or how much I should be eating.  There's no way 2 oz. of chicken would satisfy me now.  How do I gauge it?  I also find that when I'm too strict with myself, the more quickly I resort to "cheating" on my "diet" so that's part of why I never have really "dieted."  Please help!  I'm 4 1/2 year out and no idea what i should be doing.  I really want to maintain restriction.

I'm only 2 years out, but if I remember correctly I was told to try to eat as much as I could eat at 6 months out for the rest of my life. I probably eat a little more than that, but not by much. I eat between 2-3 ounces of protein, then some vegetables. I eat an egg and a piece of bacon for breakfast or just an egg with some cheese in it. On occasion I eat most of an egg with not quite a whole piece of toast. I eat (almost) a regular size taco or tostada. Most of the time I eat protein first, then some vegetables and after that a small amount of grains. (This is just to give you an idea of how much I can eat.) I think my capacity might be on the small size, but I'm fine with that. I've stayed within 6 pounds of where I am right now for over a year. I hope this helps. 

My forever diet is 4-8 ounces per meal, three meals a day, no snacks, no liquid calories.  Protein forward, of course, skip the refined/processed carbs.  I'd work on trying to get toward something like that and I'd also start tracking everything I put in my mouth with MyFitnessPal to see where I was.  

Your stomach is stretched from what it was years ago.  Don't panic, this is normal.  It's has capacity of a soda can now instead of the size of an egg that you had before (nowhere near the size of a 2 liter bottle you had pre-op).  I'm 9 yrs out of DS (with sleeve stomach, btw).  I can easily eat 5-6oz of dense protein, so yeah, more than 2oz of chicken is laughable for a meal.  If you concentrate on protein first and eat a reasonable amount of it, you'll feel better. 

Like you, I will become obsessed with anything I say I cannot have.  My way around this is I eat my meal in a certain order.  The protein is the one thing I finish on my plate and then I move to the veggies.  Once I'm just a couple of bites away from being full (and you know how that feels), I save room for whatever I want, be it bread, rice, or even chocolate cake.  It's only a couple of bites and I'll be full and unable to go butt-wild on the bad stuff. 

In the vending machine, I'm a sugar ****  I have found that Payday and Planters Nut bars give me the sweet I want, without as much sugar as the other candies and some protein to boot.  Read the labels on these things.  A colleague bought a KIND bar at the cafeteria, and I compared it to my Planters Nut bar (that tastes like peanut brittle).  The KIND bars are touted to be healthy and all that, blah blah blah, but my nut bar had more protein, less sugar and fewer carbs.  It also tasted better and cost half the price.  Learn the labels and you may survive the vending machines.

Great question .. I am 3 yrs out and was trying to "reset" myself. Re: I am back reading VSG posts as I wanted to try to get back to basics but like you knew 2-3 oz of meat wasn't going to cut it now.

I plan to return to something similar to Atkins ph 1 / logging food / exercising / drinking water / eating slower / not drinking water 30min-1 hr around each meal...

But most importantly "believing in myself"... I CAN DO THIS!!!

I slipped a little more than you as my wt crept up 15lbs.