Bufflehead

Every program will vary a little bit -- or a lot. You may want to clarify with your own program. The rules of my program were: Pureed stage (weeks 4 - 8): 3 meals per day, 1.5 ounces of food per meal max Soft foods stage (week 8 - month 6): 3 meals per day, 3 oz of food per meal max.

I would do it again several times a year (not kidding) if that was what was required to maintain my weight loss. Thankfully, it isn't, but yeah I would do it again and again and again if needed. I am a peaceful person but if a medical team showed up and said they planned to do a takeback on my surgery (not medically possible ofc) I would beat them to death with my clawhammer and not regret it.

@@ncqt1973 we call it Isopuke for a reason! I did find I could choke that stuff down if I mixed it 50/50 with a complementary flavor of G2 or Lifewater Zero, something like that -- but on its own, it was one of the few things I just couldn't force myself to drink post-op. Blech!

No idea, my bariatric team ordered me to stay off the scales for the first four weeks ("weighing will just give you stress and anxiety") and I complied.

I eat carbs every day. I just finished a delicious bowl of hot oat bran cereal with toasted walnuts for breakfast. But I didn't start eating high carb foods until after I was successfully in maintenance, and I limit what I eat now. Oat bran cereal or groatmeal is delicious and packed with nutrition, and they don't cause cravings for me. Bread (just for example) on the other hand has virtually no nutrition and makes me extremely physically uncomfortable after eating just a couple of bites. Carbs do come up in life but acting like your only choices are to eat noodles and stay slim or refuse to eat noodles, have a breakdown and gain back 200 lbs is kind of drastic. Eating pasta and rice and bread is not going to help me stay slim -- it may very well work that way for other people, and I completely respect that, but the OP asked for personal experiences and I shared mine.

In very small amounts it should be okay for most people when on soft foods. Dried fruit is very high in calories, carbs, and sugar so you definitely want it to be an occasional thing in small servings (1 prune or 2 apricots = a small serving). But if things are giving you heartburn, definitely step away from them for several weeks and check back later to see if you are tolerating them. 4 weeks out is still very early in the grand scheme of things.

Torani Sugarfree syrups, Sweetleaf Sweet drops, sugar free/fat free pudding mix (small quantities only -- still has a fair amount of calories and carbs). You may want to check with your team about adding fruit such as strawberries to protein shakes. Absolutely not allowed under my plan, but it might be under yours.

@@mallnut not for me. Some people do well with moderation, others need to abstain in order to have success. I am one of those who needs to abstain. Since I've lost over 200 lbs and am maintaining at a healthy weight, I'd say I've made the right decisions for myself. I consider all the food I eat now to be good food. Noodles, rice, pasta, bread, and white potatoes are all bad foods* to me, not good foods. If I'm going to have a treat at Christmas or for my birthday, I'm going for the gusto -- a slice of my mother's famous pecan pie or a piece of my father's legendary Yorkshire pudding with prime rib drippings. Not a (to me) boring bland bowl of noodles that are neither fun nor nutritious. *shorthand for foods that do nothing for me nutritionally, cause me to have cravings for more high carb foods, and/or are not particularly appealing anyway.

When I wanted to start gaining back some of the 200+ lbs I lost after weight loss surgery. Which is a long way of saying never.

It depends on what is allowed by your plan. When I was on soft foods, I had good luck with seafood, including grilled salmon, scallops, and those little packets of flavored tuna and salmon. Sliced deli roast beef was also good. All that said, at 22 days out I was still on full liquids as per my plan and soft foods wasn't for several more weeks. Did your team not give you an eating plan with suggestions? If they did, take a look at it, they may have more tailored ideas than random internet strangers. Good luck!

Carbmaster is only at Kroger supermarkets. I think Fair Life is in lots of different supermarkets these days, I know I see it wherever I go -- Kroger, Food City, Publix, etc. There are other brands -- inspect your dairy aisle closely and I'll bet you find something.

--eat before you go --don't have even one glass of bubbles -- not necessary to celebrate, and the first glass is enough to lower your judgment and inhibitions about what else to drink or eat --practice what you will say to people who are pressing you to eat or drink so that you say it fluidly and without having to think about it beforehand. Examples: no thank you no thank you, I'm good, sorry, I can't drink, doctor's orders sorry, I'm driving tonight, no alcohol for me no thank you, I don't eat that* You might be surprised how much fun you can have at these celebrations with family and friends when you *aren't* obsessing about food or alcohol or sweets. It's very freeing, and it's great to have the focus be on the people around you rather than whatever you are shoveling in your mouth. I eat before social events, and tell myself that if I see plain meat or green veggies offered, I can eat that, but everything else is simply a non-starter for me. That makes it easier -- no worrying, no stress. I remind myself that I am not going to starve to death if I don't eat for a couple of hours. And I have a great time! *note -- I have found that food pushers respond much better to "I don't eat that" than to "I can't eat that" or "I shouldn't eat that." You say either of those last two things and people will start arguing with you. "Why can't you eat that? You can eat just a little bit." "Yes you should! Just take a little bit, it's the holidays." But when I've said "I don't eat that" or "I don't eat that way" or "I don't eat that way anymore" people take me seriously and stop trying to push food on me. Good luck!

under 24 hours after it was submitted for approval. It took me over a year to get everything together to submit though!

You don't have to do fake sugar. Unjury chicken soup protein powder and Celebrate tomato soup protein powder are good savory options. You can get unflavored protein powder and add it to warm broth (bone broth, ginger miso broth, etc.). There are high protein soups you can buy -- they sell them under different brand names but I know they sell some at this site, in the Bariatric Pal store. You can find the same soups under a different brand name (I think Healthwise?) at nashua nutrition. You don't have to do popsicles or jello. Just stock up on different broths, tea, high protein skim milk (Carbmaster, Fair Life), tea and coffee if permitted, unsweetened vanilla almond milk or cashew milk. Good luck!

I was allowed fish on purees -- as long as I pureed the fish! That was weeks 4 - 8 for me. I could have fish without pureeing starting at the soft foods phase, which started after 8 weeks on my plan.

I used Wellesse liquid multi-vitamin, calcium, and iron for the first several weeks after surgery and they worked great for me. I got them from Amazon. Reasonably priced, too. I thought they all tasted fine if kept in the refrigerator, but you can dilute them with water, diet fruit juice, etc. if the taste bothers you. I had my labs drawn regularly and they were always great.

Trader Joe's sells frozen cauliflower rice for the lazy cooks amongst us (including me, so no judgment).

Skip the potatoes, that's just a boatload of carbs with no protein. Think scrambled eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese. Refried beans if you are eating at a Mexican place.* Try to make sure your hotel room has a mini fridge you can use to store your own food (including protein drinks). If the restaurants where you are going don't offer the foods you need, eat in your room beforehand and just go to restaurants to socialize. Good luck! *note - anything you are planning to order at a restaurant, make sure you try some at home before you head to Vegas. If your sleeve won't tolerate it, you get to have the slimies or the upchucks or the three hours of exhaustion and nausea in the privacy of your own home instead of having to do that in public with a bunch of people staring at you.

I use an immersion (stick) blender. I have one from Cuisinart that I got from Amazon. It comes with a beaker to use for mixing. It is super easy to use and maintain -- you snap the blade half of the stick on and off. When you are done using the blender, you snap the blade portion off, rinse it off, and toss it in the dishwasher. The handle portion of the stick does not need any maintenance. It has one button with two settings -- high and low. That's it. This blender doesn't add any foam to your protein shakes, which is a big bonus. Most standard type blenders add foam and that is almost impossible to deal with post-op. However, if you are planning on adding ice cubes to your protein shake, you'll need something with more oomph to completely destroy them.

Digital food scale, immersion blender, Bubba Keg and a heating pad for me.

I can't help with the hair loss or A1C, but I can tell you about the last 20 lbs, how that was for me. It was HARD. I had to commit to hand to hand combat with each of those pounds. Here's what I did: --very strict eating regimen. I stayed under 1100 calories per day, no exceptions. Three small meals and no snacks other than protein shakes. No grains, no starchy veggies, no sweets, no tropical fruits, and no liquid calories other than protein shakes. NO EXCEPTIONS to any of this, no "small quantity of good food and occasionally more carbs" -- that's how people in maintenance get to eat, not people trying to lose the last 20 lbs. --weigh or measure virtually all portions and track religiously -- fanatically even -- on MyFitnessPal. --vigorous exercise at least 5 days per week, 30 minutes per day, but do not count calories burned or give yourself permission to "eat back" calories burned. Exercise for me had to include a mix of different types: HIIT, running, circuit training, weights. --if my weight stayed the same for two weeks, I switched over to 5/2 eating for two weeks and that would get the scale moving again. Good luck!

It isn't a race to get back to solid foods. If you have trouble with a particular type of food, don't eat it again for a couple of weeks, then try a small amount (very small amount) again. Good luck!

No, you should not be doing that. For most people, sliming means they are eating too much, eating too fast, or not chewing enough, or some combination of those. Try cutting the amount of food you are eating in a meal by a third and see if that helps. If it does not, drastically slow down your eating and chew a lot more (but keep eating the same smaller amount of food). If both of these together don't fix it, get in touch with your surgeon to get checked to see what is going on. Good luck!

I wasn't given a weekly goal, but a daily limit of no more than 60 carbs per day. In addition to not eating anything from a list of high carb foods such as grains, starchy vegetables, sweets, and tropical fruits.

@@fumplins I wanted to say a couple more things. First, I'm really impressed with your intelligence, thoughtfulness, and ability to communicate clearly and effectively. I teach at the doctoral level and I would be delighted to have you in my classes and read your writing. You'll do well in college and "be someone" with or without surgery -- though I fully endorse living as a slim and healthy person as opposed to an obese and (eventually) unhealthy person. My life has improved dramatically since losing 200+ lbs. Second, I know you are getting a lot of support from your family, but start thinking (if you aren't already) about how they can support your future healthy eating habits. Chances are very very high that you did not get to over 400 lbs as a teenager without significant assistance from your family, in the foods they buy and prepare and serve to you, or give you money to purchase unhealthy foods, or just model unhealthy eating behaviors. How much will need to change in your household? If they aren't going to change their own eating and food habits, will you be able to get healthy foods on your own to eat? Similarly, if you are going to be living away from home at college, make a plan for how to eat healthy at college dining halls or while cooking your own food in an apartment, whichever will apply. I'm not saying any of this to discourage you at all! Just so that you can start assessing your current and future situations with a very critical eye and making plans to deal with them as you move forward.