robisfubar

A little background. I had my surgery toward the end of May of this year. After some minor complications, things seemed to go well. Felt great, and started losing weight quickly. I started at 325 and got down to 275. There were some plateaus in there, but Doc said that would happen and weight loss eventually resumed. Struggled and got down to 265. Then things changed. This was about 6 weeks ago. I noticed that I was hungry more often. For example, I would eat Breakfast (typically a hormel package of eggs, bacon and potatoes), and that kept me full. At lunch I'd eat something, maybe a package of beef stew. Then I'd be hungry again an hour later. I'd snack. I'd eat dinner, and be hungry an hour later. I was told that some people forgot about eating. I was told that by having 85% of my stomach removed, I'd typically lose 85% of my appetite because the hormone that signaled the brain to get some food would mostly be gone. NOT TRUE. I really was counting on this. I'm pretty much hungry all the time, except for right after I eat. I fill up pretty quickly, that's for sure. But I feel like I'm hungry again 30-60 minutes later. Bizarre. So now I'm wondering if there are rare times when that enzyme or hormone kicks into overdrive instead of going away. Anyone experience this or hear of this? I'm happy I lost 60, but I've actually put 5-10 back on, now I'm in a bit of a panic because I still have about 60 or so to go. It was going so well for a while.

What do you folks think about the mixing of food and drink? I was told not to drink 30 minutes before food and wait until at least 30 minutes after food. The reason was so I would not fill up my lil stomach with drink when food (protein) was needed. So now I'm thinking that maybe I should mix drink and food so that I eat less food. Thoughts on that?

Not on an acid blocker. I can look into that. As to fluids, hmmm, might be valid. I did drink a lot more in the summer, not so much lately. Honestly, I got tired of drinking. I did just get a new type of thermal mug that's pretty amazing, keeps ice in the cup even when it has been sitting out for 12+ hours, so it'll keep the water really cold. Started drinking some milk (2%) over the past couple of months, mainly because it gives me some extra Protein vs. water. Tried the 5 cal lemonade mix from Wal-Mart. That's okay...gets old too. Tried finding a decent fake apple juice but all of the squirt or powder stuff is awful. :-) I'll give more water a shot. That's an easy test. Thank you for replying.

I have not been counting calories. Calories are obviously the problem. I really wonder about whether you get 300 calories from protein vs. 300 calories from carbs...if there's a big difference. If there is, it almost seems that this surgery is an adjunct of the Atkins diet. I mean, 3500 calories = 1 pound. It almost brings up the argument, which weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of lead. Exercise was 3x a week, about an hour per day, lifting weights mostly with a trainer. He got a new job, so we had some time off, but now we're back to 2x a week. Perhaps that contributed, not sure. I was concerned that getting back into lifting might be a problem for weight loss because it builds muscle which is heavier than fat, etc. But I'm still going forward with it. My real issue is this continued hunger. It wasn't like that in the past. Maybe I was eating more protein then. I know I was being pretty strict about not drinking before or after eating but that got old after a number of months, so I'd have a little sip of something right after eating to kinda' quench my thirst. I just really thought the hunger desire would vanish or at least be a minor deal. It's almost like if I eat something and it totally doesn't stuff me, then I'm going to want more, so I'm thinking I need to go back to the starvation diet, where I try and skip as many meals and eat as little food as possible. I know that's not the norm, but if I spread meals out and eat too many and too much, which is worse? At least with saving for one meal I know that I cannot eat all that much because of the small stomach. Just a bit frustrating. My brother paid $15k+ for this operation for me, and aside from me feeling let down a bit overall, I feel bad for that too.