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Its a tough ask to ask people who are very overweight to eat like a sparrow. We all feared this part. I thought it was bitterly cruel doing 3 weeks of milk and vegetables. I was so over this diet I ran into the operating theatre. The only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow was the fact that if my liver was still fatty, the surgery would stop and I would wake up with out the surgery. It has happened to a few people on here and they were heart broken. We are with you and if you want to vent, somewhere in the world, is a person on here ready to listen

6 week update: Down to 252. So officially 10 pounds down. I feel good. Clothing is fitting better. Snacking habit broken. More energy from eating better foods.

I have a tentative surgery date of June 17th so I'll be starting my 2 week liver shrink / pre-op diet the first week of June. My nutritionist said I will have to drink meal replacement shakes for breakfast, lunch, & supper. I have Premier Protein powder at home, but he said that is not a meal REPLACEMENT, it's just a high protein shake. What meal replacement shakes do you recommend? Which ones tastes the best? I don't think I can drink the ones that have a heavy vitamin taste.

Yes, eating and drinking gets much more comfortable. You're less than a week out now, so everything is still healing. That's why you have to progress through the food stages before you get back to regular food. I'm almost 5 years out now and I tolerate most things, at least in small quantities. Like most people, I struggled to sip enough fluids in the first few post-op weeks, but after a few months, I could drink at a completely normal pace. Everybody's a little different in terms of what they can eat and what causes discomfort (and what kind of discomfort), but you will learn what you can eat without issues, and that will just become your new "normal."

It's so annoying! I am definitely still losing (I hope) I'm about 7 months post bypass so I hopefully should keep losing slowly now. Im still not at my goal and I think I'm in a small stall! 😤 I think I'll probably sell it on vinted eventually and then get a smaller size! Thank you!

@Lily2024 Good luck on surgery!! I was not able to work out for 7 weeks it was so tough, but getting back into the swing of things!

Hi Ladies and Gents! I am scheduled for a bilateral tummy tuck, belly button reconstruction and breast implants on 3/17/25 I am kind of scared kind of excited!

Well, we are all different so take this with a grain of salt, but I was the same BMI prior to my preop diet as you are now so relatively close and I just looked back at my weight log and Iwas losing about 6 pounds per week on average in the beginning, but I also had the SADI which is quite a bit more aggressive than the sleeve or even the bypass so my loss statistically should’ve been more rapid than yours with a sleeve. Frankly, I think that you are doing very well with losing a pound a day and I wouldn’t be too shocked if it does slow down a bit. It definitely will not be a perfect line where you lose the exact same amount every day though. There may be times when you even gain a pound or three and hold it for a few days and then one day you will just drop those 3+ another pound. But if you only log your weight once a week, even if you must get on the scale every day, if you only look at the once a week or even once a month, your trend will be far more consistent. Some people only get on the scale once a week or once a month. I know I couldn’t do that but it really would be better for your mental health if you could hide your scale and just do what you’re supposed to do and trust the process.

Wendy, I just want to thank you for this. Seeing your experience and your positivity really helped. They did give me an abdominal binder and I also did the pillow method for coughing. 2 weeks out now and I’m feeling a million times better. I hope your journey is going amazingly!

I want to know what people's experiences are of their eating habits post surgery. For example, does everyone experience problems with finishing a plate of food or a takeaway meal? I've been experiencing problems with volume of food that I can eat post surgery. I also experience constipation, something I've never struggled with in the past. The thing I hate is that my food gets cold when I'm trying to make my way through it, even though I'm eating slowly and chewing well. It's so frustrating. I also fear having to eat in public or in front of those that do not know I have had surgery.

This is such a great perspective, I'm gonna try to reframe it as an opportunity during those long weeks. And to remember that I will feel very differently about food post-op than I am right now during liquid diet. Thanks for the advice & words of encouragement!

@AmberFL thanks for this it's very helpful! Girl I'm over her cussing saying 🤬to myself that I am not getting no other work done 🤣. I think I mean it to. He done a phenomenal job with the auxiliary fat removal and my breast, but I'm like over it! We shall see what goes on in the weeks to come.

Make a list of all those things you want to change. Pick just one to focus on THIS week. Make sure though, that it's something small that you can measure in some way. For example, you can't say "I'm going to eat better", because that's too big and too vague. Instead, pick something even smaller and definitive like "instead of eating ice cream after dinner every day this week, I'm only going to eat ice cream 4 days this week". That's probably small enough that your brain won't make a huge fuss over it, and is also easily measurable. If you successfully make that change and can keep doing it for two or preferably three weeks, then you can more on. For example, maybe after three weeks, you decide to move to only eating ice cream once a week. Again, you need to be able to successfully do that before moving on again. If you fail, no worries, just try again. If you keep struggling, you may have picked something too big and you need to scale it back. I would also recommend alternating diet and exercise goals. Thus if you successfully made a diet change that you're able to stick with, next time maybe it's "I'm going to walk after dinner 3 days this week". By alternating in this way, you'll find the diet changes are easier to adjust to and at the same time, you'll be improving your health. Just make sure to go slow with these as well. I often see people in the gym (especially this time of year), that tried to go from basically doing nothing, to working out 5+ days a week. Sadly, the failure rate for such people is well north of 90%. Here's the thing. This will take a LONG time, but if you try to go faster because you're feeling impatient, the likelihood is that you won't be able to maintain the loss, you'll fall off the diet, and before you even realize it, you'll be right back where you were before. I also want to be clear, I do still recommend seeking out counseling for a possible eating disorder, as well as help from an RD. Dieting is HARD. if it was easy, we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic. The smart play here is to stack the cards in your favor by getting help from experts.

Already on Day 6 tomorrow. I’m on medimeal shakes for almost 3 weeks my date is Jan 23rd. 10am Breakfast shake 2pm Lunch shake 4pm 2 cups of shredded green pepper/ cabbage/ cucumber/ spinach/ cauliflower and broccoli with 1 tbsp of low calorie salad dressing. 6pm Dinner Shake 10pm snack shake During this time I realized how much food runs my life. Making food for the family I’m literally drooling (tear). Not about to cheat tho!!! I didn’t come this far to stay stuck 🙏❤️

Thanks a million. I think I get a two week sick cert and was then going to do two weeks homeworking and possibly add in some annual leave (seeing as the surgery is instead of a vacation) to not put too much pressure on myself or risk doing too much too soon. I also think I will hire a nurse/aid for an hour or so each day for the first few days, figure it might help ease my family concerns.

I had my gastric sleeve surgery 10/31/2024, turned 57 2 weeks later. Had hysterectomy 1/20/2024….so slapped into menopause then g. sleeve…..my hair is 1/3rd the thickness it was 18 months ago…had started thinning in late Jan 2024….but handfuls are coming out now. 😭

Hi. I’m 6 months post op and have started to have pain in the upper stomach area. I’ve had the upper gi and barium swallow test, everything is normal. I space between eating and drinking. No matter what I eat after 3/4 bites I immediately get full. That’s for another day now my main concern is the pain I feel. It’s uncomfortable in any position except lying down on my side. My question is it ok to do a detox to cleanse my stomach or what should I do to remove this bloated painful feeling in my stomach?

4 weeks in going to update the stats: SW: 262 CW: 254 GW: 200 Down 8 pounds in a month which I’m happy with. Hoping for similar results for the next month!

11th Jan, Last day of eating meat on Pre Op. Salad with Grilled chicken breast, Avo and a few olives. Next 3 days are 3 shakes/veggie soup and free grazing on low carb veggies only. Day before surgery I will do just the shakes.

So glad to hear you are doing well. Yea when the cravings come back it sucks. I have been doing okay. Tomorrow is my last day of the infused chemo. Surgery on 3 weeks then radiation in five. I will be on the immunotherapy another year and maybe oral chemo depending on the pathology from surgery. 🤞 I don’t need the chemo because that may mean I’m immunocompromised still and I’m so sick of the isolation of trying not to get sick and miss treatment. I got a tiny little cold that made me septic and spent 10 days in hospital which made me miss two weeks of chemo so I’ve had to be super careful to not get sick again and all along they have told me once I get to radiation I won’t have to be so careful. I mean sick would mean I would miss treatment but only for a day or two while I had a fever or felt really crummy and it wouldn’t be life or death. Anyways, I only read about the oral chemo on the patient portal tonight so I will ask Dr more about it this Friday when we chat. Maybe it’s not a big deal. I have pretty much maintained my weight till recently. I’ve gained a few pounds. I’m still on the heavy steroids and the immunotherapy caused thyrotoxicosis I think it’s called. I was hyper thyroid to start but then like 3 weeks later it went back to normal and then to hypo thyroid and apparently it usually stays that way. I reached out to my bariatric team and asked him if I could start on with Govee to help get me off of some of these processed carbs and he acted like I was being crazy to be worried about my weight at a time like this. I said I’m not trying to lose weight. I know I’m not supposed to and I haven’t Since December when I started the Chemo, but I don’t think that if you’re so concerned about me, maintaining my weight to fuel my body and help myself recover that the foods I’m eating in order to sustain an overweight body weight are really helping me recover from anything. I said all I want to do is be able to stop eating the garbage and start eating healthy nutrition again and I would be willing to log all my food again and check in with you to make sure I’m not losing too fast or anything, but he says no way not until I get the all clear cancer free from my oncologist. But I’m helping my oncologist can reach out to him and tell him that I’m not gonna get that for another year and if I wait that long, I’ll probably be as big as a house again without any help. Or I may just have to go through an endocrinologist or my family doctor or something. Anyway, anyways, trying to not worry about it too much but I didn’t appreciate that. He acted like I have some kind of eating disorder or something and I have like a death wish. I mean, I wasn’t saying that I wanna take something that’s gonna make me starve myself to death. I was just saying that I want to change what I’m eating and eat healthy obviously if the medicine made it where I couldn’t eat anything. I would stop taking it. I’m not insane. 🤣 but it is very discouraging to see the numbers on the scale go up even if it’s only 5 pounds.

It's best to get clearance from your surgical team before starting any exercise routine. This honestly holds true after any surgery, not just bariatric surgery. Most will give you the okay between 2 and 6 weeks post-op, but it really is up to the surgeon.

For some… cami is hyperemisis syndrome can be problematic as well. Also during your first few weeks… there is a lot of mental health triggering with coming off your food addiction, from conversion to new addictions, hormonal changes, poorly studied effects on gastric motility and canibus mixed with a kinda ridiculously large surgery, and taking what is considered a depressant and appetite stimulant…cannibus is great for many folks and diseases I am sure, but… until we know more of what we are doing….it’s not a great idea. Sorry. For some it may be great, but it’s another bump in the road and we’re not sure about the car during the first few weeks.

Dropping into ketogenesis you will go through a “keto flu” which is different for everyone, but sweats, nausea, body aches/muscle aches, fatigue and headache are common for those. It often hits between day 3-7, but everyone is different. Salt here helps. Dig out your electrolyte drinks, your salty broth, etc. with the coffee drinking you’re just adding insult to injury, losing a lot of water that way. Though withdrawal is a jerk.

Dropping into ketogenesis you will go through a “keto flu” which is different for everyone, but sweats, nausea, body aches/muscle aches, fatigue and headache are common for those. It often hits between day 3-7, but everyone is different. Salt here helps. Dig out your electrolyte drinks, your salty broth, etc. with the coffee drinking you’re just adding insult to injury, losing a lot of water that way. Though withdrawal is a jerk.

I am the same. I did count a few times a week during weight loss phase, and for a whole month when I stabilized at 9.5 months out but then I ditched it. I know roughly how much I eat, and I do random checks too. When I was at my fittest I never tracked calories and that worked for me through adulthood and motherhood. I do however, weigh myself at least a couple of times a week, something I never did even while being in shape. What gets measures gets managed. Not gonna lie, the first few months are a mental challenge, while I rapidly lost weight, I was always anxious that I would stall/stop losing/gain weight. I was always worried and on edge. I know it's easier said than done, but your body will do its thing, stick to your plan and try to trust the process. I would also say that it will not always be like that. After I stabilized, I tested my body, I ate more/ate things I didn't for a while and saw if that changed anything. With time and through trial, I am much more relaxed now and my mind is at ease. That is not to say that I let go, not at all. I eat well, I workout daily but I am much more relaxed when it comes to the flexibility I allow myself. I understand my body much better and I trust myself to make the right choices with what I'm given. Another advise is, try to stick to your plan as much as possible until you've stabilized, maximize on the honeymoon phase where pounds melt off and it's easy. There will always be time to have a little bit of the things you can't now. If you haven't yet, try to find an activity you enjoy, walking, jogging, pilates, yoga, swimming, cycling ...etc. whatever it is that you can and enjoy doing, it makes all the difference. Also, freeing your mind of anxiety is the biggest gift you can give yourself. Good luck 💓