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chili bowl, no after pic.

Many of you know my story. Was two months shy of turning 54 in 2019 when I got my sleeve. Lost all my weight & more and was successfully maintaining that low weight. I began gaining weight from puberty: about a stone a year. Then I started my 60-75kg weight diet/regain swing from my early 20s until peri menopause & menopause hit and then seemingly overnight I was 91kg. Nothing I did moved that weight. Hence my decision to get a sleeve. I experienced some weight regain (good 2 almost 3 kgs) almost 4 yrs ago after I had my gall removed. We worked out I had an absorption issue and wasn’t absorbing protein well or it turned out my HRT tablet (hot flushes, etc. had returned). Switched to a patch and lost the weight without doing anything & no menopause symptoms. Had a hysterectomy in September 2024 & then couldn’t access the HRT patch I was using (damn supply chain issues) & this is when my body turned against me again. ALL my menopausal symptoms returned: hot flushes, night sweats, poor sleep, headaches, creaky joints, acne, etc. & weight gain. Only three kgs so far but that’s in the last three months. And so here we go again. My body working against me. Since this regain began in January (used my last HRT patch in December & was my usual weight at the end of Dec) I’ve made some modifications to my eating. Dropped a snack, reduced some portions (which were still only recommended portion size or a little less). I eat pretty carefully anyway & stick closely to my plan of eating. Was eating about 1600 calories a day and now am probably at about 1300/1400. So at the very least I should have slowed the regain but nope. It’s scary & upsetting. I recognise it as being how my body & my hormones work (or don’t work!) but that doesn’t help. My doctor is trying to help me sort out alternative HRT but nothing is working yet as it all involves at least taking one tablet. I wish I was completely past all this hormone crap & I wish supply chain issues for pharmaceuticals were a thing of the past for everyone affected. I so wanted to be my maintained slim self when I turned 60 in 4 months. I always have been overweight at significant birthdays. This one was going to be different. The way I’m going I’ll be a stone heavier. Not overweight but more than I want to be & have been happy at. Very sad face.

So sorry you're struggling @Arabesque! I know how frustrating it is when you go from thinking you're got weight maintenance down, to finding that no matter what you try, you can't get things under control. You may not be looking for advice here, but as a guy it's in my nature to try to "fix" the issue. Please forgive me if I'm off base. I may be misremembering, but I think at one point you mentioned you don't really workout. While I'd never recommend exercise as a way to lose weight, we know from a significant amount of data that it is really beneficial in helping those that have lost weight to maintain that weight loss. You may not be in love with the idea, but it might be time to consider a change? Aside from the benefits for maintaining weight loss, we also know that cardiovascular endurance is actually a better predictor of overall health and longevity than any other single factor including obesity and smoking! This means the single best thing any of us can do for long term health is improve our cardiovascular health. In addition, we also know that regular strength training is important for several reasons, but in your case I want to point out three of them: Regular strength training improves muscle mass, which is probably the single biggest way any of us can actually improve our long-term metabolism. Overall strength is highly predictive of minimizing fall risk as we age. Since falls in older people can be catastrophic, it's something all older people need to keep in mind. There is a significant link between strength training and bone health. As I'm assuming you already know, osteoporosis is a particular problem for post-menopausal women. I wasn't very familiar with the Australian recommendations for physical activity, but unsurprisingly it's almost identical to the US recommendations: https://www.health.gov.au/topics/physical-activity-and-exercise/physical-activity-and-exercise-guidelines-for-all-australians/for-adults-18-to-64-years Best of luck. I hope you get this figured out.

Not very exciting but sometimes plain comfort food is what I crave. beef sausage with mashed potato, gravy and veg.

Thank you SummerSeeker. I didn't notice the 'search bar' at the top. 🙂

Did your team give you portion size recommendations and guidance around number of meals & snacks if any a day? If not ask for some as you will find them helpful. The next advice is to stick to those recommendations. Are you eating slowly? It takes at least 20 minutes for the message to get through that you’ve had enough. If you eat too quickly you will get over full & be uncomfortable & you’ll really know it when your restriction kicks in! Take small bites, use small cutlery (teaspoons, cocktail forks, baby cutlery, etc.), put the cutlery down between bites, sit back from the table & wait a couple of minutes. Then ask yourself do you need the next bite or just want it. If you just want it put the cutlery down again. Personally I aimed not to feel full but to feel like I had enough & didn’t need more. As @SpartanMaker said it takes time to learn the difference between your real hunger and your full cues. Before eating take a moment to think about why you’re eating? Are you bored, emotional (sad, angry, frustrated, stressed, anxious, etc.)? Are you eating out of habit (like because you’re watching tv, a movie, it’s an old snack time,…)? Sneezing, hiccups, runny nose can be full cues for many. If you’re craving a specific food, flavour or texture that’s not real hunger. I get restless with real hunger as if something is wrong. It usually takes time to realise I’m actually hungry and then I can logically understand why I would really be hungry - missed a meal, didn’t eat much at a previous meal, etc. It takes time to understand all this, what your signals are, and what strategies to manage it all works for you. Give yourself grace while you’re working it out.

So this idea that you can stretch your pouch somehow and make it permanently bigger is mostly myth. First, right after surgery your stomach is swollen. Over time, the swelling goes down, thus you can accommodate more food. This is normal and to be expected. Second, your stomach is designed to stretch. This too is normal. Think of it like a balloon. With nothing in it, it's small. Fill it up and it gets bigger. Let out what you put in it and it goes back to its original shape. Third, while you can't really make your stomach any bigger, you can train it over time to handle more food. If anything, this is what's happening to people that think they "stretched out" their stomach after surgery. It's not really any bigger, but you have trained it to not "complain" as much when it is over full. There's certainly a limit here though to how much you can stuff in and I promise it's always going to be less than it was pre-surgery. I would caution you to be careful about frequent eating. If you're eating multiple times a day just to put something in your stomach, it is possible to outeat your smaller stomach. It's best at first to eat on a regular schedule because as you alluded to, it's hard to understand both hunger and fullness queues.