Search the Community

Hi All! Summary: I'm bored of my go to meals. What healthy options do you love? Detail: I am almost 3 years out and have put on a few pounds from my low - 155 to 170 at 5'10. I think I'm still in the normal "bounce back" gain range but I want to make sure I stop any further gain. I work out pretty heavy: 3 days of HiiT, 1 day hiking, 1 day yoga plus daily dog walks. I had stopped tracking all my food but started back up and I am around 2000 calories a day which with exercise seems to be right (when I am tracking and staying there my weight stopped moving). My challenge is I tend to eat 3 meals plus an afternoon snack and I am looking for lower calories, lean protein options. I tend to like one pot or casserole type meals v. a piece of meat and side dish but I am open to any thoughts! For those of you curious, a regular day for me may be: Breakfast: Coffee w/ half and half and Green smoothie (with protein, frozen fruit & frozen spinach) Lunch: Chicken salad Snack: Greek yogurt with keto granola Dinner: Ground chicken tacos with carb conscious tortilla's or Breakfast: Coffee w/ half and half and 2 eggs on an english muffin Lunch: Chef salad Snack: Premier protein shake Dinner: Au gratin vegetables casserole with chicken dinner sausage I may also have dessert which is usually sugar free jello/sugar free jello pudding made with Fairlife skim milk Thanks for sharing! Lori

Sooo! Surgery date 8/24/22 How is everyone doing? And how much have you lost?? Me! Start weight: 251.6 lbs Current weight: 200.8 lbs Goal weight: 165 lbs Sent from my SM-G996U1 using BariatricPal mobile app

Lost 47lbs from 2022 mid summer high point and 30lbs since 9/12/22 sleeve surgery. Had doubts on doing the surgery given my age (69) and 36.7 bmi but received a lot of encouragement from fellow travelers. The most difficult part for me is recognizing that eating will never be the same. I can’t physically eat a lot and now get satiated with very little. This is very different from how I lived. I would always eat a lot. Some foods taste differently and since my eyes are still larger than my stomach I tend to leave food on my plate. If I eat too much or too quickly, dumping is a real threat. The other challenge is staying hydrated. I don’t get enough water from food (fruits and salads) and need to constantly have a water bottle nearby and remember to use it. This has been a struggle. After 3 months these are my key issues. Overall the weight loss and general good feeling compensate any challenges. Would love to hear from + 6 or 12 months fellow travelers. Does taste improve? Can quantity increase to allow for salad and veggies? Does hydration improve? Thanks.

Hi, I’m Alicia. I just had the gastric sleeve done on 11/21 so I’m a lil over 2 weeks post-op and I know when I’m hungry, but I’m having trouble telling when I’m feeling full. Has this happened to anyone else in the beginning or in general after surgery? I try to really listen to my body when I’m eating, and eat slower, but I’m still unable to tell when I’m full. I normally just stop eating when I feel like its in my throat and it’s going down slowly. I’ve been avoiding throwing up and I don’t want that to happen, so that’s why I try to not finish everything I’m eating at the time. Any advice on how to tell when you’re full or feeling satisfied? Thanks in advance!

Hey Everyone! So, I am 7-weeks post op, robot-assisted RnY gastric bypass. I have recently had some increased diaphragm pressure and discomfort. No real pain, but pressure and it is quite uncomfortable. I'm able to eat and drink. I haven't had any nausea or vomiting. I'm going to reach out to my surgical team, but I wondered if anyone else might have had this, too. It's possible that this was caused by wearing elastic-waist pants that were too snug - I did that for a couple of days in a row. Thanks! Jeanne

Hey all I'm struggling to eat 3 meals a day most days I have 2 as I am simply not Hungary , I can eat 2 meals and don't get sick but I am still worried about turning to skinny , how does your weight pan out after GS and what happens if you turn skinny from GS Sent from my LE2123 using BariatricPal mobile app

Tomorrow is day 7 actually & I been doing 2 fairlife shakes a day & 2 water bottles jello & a sugar free popsicle broth wasn't cutting it for me especially in been doing it for weeks before surgery I cant even try anymore. Tomorrow I can incorporate oatmeal hot cereals, pudding & cream soups in which I am so looking forward to! Is this hunger feeling normal??? I really just want to chew some food & get full already! I heard this first month is the toughest but mannn I can't wait to get back to solid foods to atleast eat all these healthy recipes I been looking up. Advice please, suggestions for this 2nd week, did you stick to the plan or did you try soft foods early ? I'm just curious I'm trying to do everything by book. Sent from my SM-N970U using BariatricPal mobile app

Po

Hey yall, I had vsg on Halloween. Lost weight fairly easily the first 3 weeks. But that 3rd week and now the 4th week the scale has not moved. I know from what I read it is normal but it's been 2 weeks now and I am worried. I have tried different things to restart it like okay maybe I need to count every thing that I eat and did that then, okay maybe I need to eat more so my body will stop freaking out and tried that. However, nothing worked haha. I am getting all required protein and water and keep it low carb. I was eating like 250 calories and day then bumped it up to around 500 for a couple days. And when I added more carb still nothing happened. So, today I decided I'd try to walk for 30 mins which I did. Hoping the scale moves. Any suggestions?!!! I really want to succeed...

I’m feeling really well but I notice some what foul taste, and at nights cramping pain forcing me to the stool. Wondering is this lactose intolerance. Because if the shakes? I’m using premiere . I’m going to try only using the premiere in the mornings .

Sleeve on 11/22 and following post-op diet strictly and haven’t lost but maybe a pound. Is this normal?

Hello Everyone, I'm terrified that I have a stricture, as I've had a couple episodes of food coming up. But the last two days I have become more and more full as the days wears on and it feels like my stomach stays full. Tonight I could not get in enough food before my stomach started hurting. Does this sound like a stricture? If so, I've read an EGD and dilation is done. Does your bariatric surgeon do that? I ask because mine is on maternity leave so I'm scared of what will happen. How soon would this surgery take place? I'm hoping I can at least take protein shakes but I'm burping after every sip. Any advice or information from those who have gone through this would be great. Thanks. Laura

Hey folks I need advise please! They put me on the two week pre-op diet today and I'll post their guidelines below. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, can I get by with cheating just tmro if I stuck to just about meat and veggies? Will that impact me if I have Thanksgiving dinner? This is also odd, they told me I am to have NOTHING but what's on the list.. that includes meat and eggs... That's protein so I dont understand why I can't have that? Even if it's tuna or something. Can I get some advise please, I'm really frustrated. If need be I'll stay home and not go to Thanksgiving but I don't want to have to do that if I don't have to. Pre-op guidelines Diet guidelines: Low Calorie, 800 calories per day At least 60 grams of protein per day Protein meal replacement shakes Bariatric Advantage[emoji2400] Meal Replacement (available for purchase in office) Ensure Max Protein Shake Equate High Performance Protein Shake Equate Whey Protein Powder Fairlife Core Power or Nutrition Plan Protein Shakes GNC Total Lean Shake 25 Muscle Milk Pro Series Premier Protein Smoothie King Gladiator or Lean 1 Unjury Protein Powder What to include in your diet: Meal Replacements / Protein supplements: 3-5 meal replacement shakes per day Whey protein with at least 20 grams of protein per serving (soy or vegan options available if whey intolerant) Soups: Bouillon, broths, and low-fat cream soups Avoid soups containing noodles, rice, meat, and other food chunks Milk and Dairy: Skim or 1% milk, Almond, Soy, Lactaid, or Fairlife Light yogurt, Nonfat Greek yogurt No ice cream! J Other: Sugar free pudding, sugar free Jell-O, sugar free popsicles Vegetable juice Beverages: should be sugar free and calorie free Aim for at least 64 ounces of total fluids per day Water with Crystal Light, sugar free Kool-Aid, sugar free water flavorings Unsweet iced tea or coffee (decaffeinated preferred) No carbonated beverages, no alcohol, no fruit juices You may have 1-4 cups of non-starchy vegetables per day to satisfy hunger. Broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers (pickles are okay), green beans, lettuce, peppers, spinach, squash, tomatoes DO NOT EAT peas, corn, or potatoes (starchy vegetables) Sent from my SM-G781U using BariatricPal mobile app

I have been super paranoid and careful with my food progression and choices. I am 3.5 weeks post op and my plan allows for soft or pureed foods starting at 2 weeks PO. Yesterday I had one hardboiled eggs (mashed up really well) with low fat mayo for lunch and within 45 minutes I was in the bathroom for the next two hours with things coming out at both ends. I had NEVER been this sick in my entire life. It was violent and non stop. I don't get it, I ate extremely slowly, took about 35 minutes to finish one egg, I've eaten eggs before (soft scrambled) and mayo (with tuna) before with no issues whatsoever. Now I am legit terrified to eat anything as I don't trust my body. Please tell me what your experience is with dumping after sleeve surgery and does the risk of it happening lessen as you heal more? Yes, I am eating very slowly, eating small amounts, not drinking during meals, etc. All the rules that I was taught to prevent the risk of dumping.

I'm now 3 months post op and had just my bloodwork done. Noticed that my leucocytes were elevated (upper normal limit here 8,2, which is what my results were the last time (pre op) as they have been usually along that area before as well Now the result was 10,1 so significantly higher, I don't have any acute illnesses at the moment, no cold, haven't had covid etc and would be interested to know if anyone else has had the their leucocytes levels increased after surgery (not directly after, rather months after)? I have been really tired for the past few weeks but there has been some stress in my life, and I have been thinking that that would be a contributor. Sent from my AC2003 using BariatricPal mobile app

Hello All, Looking forward to joining this very supportive group! I appreciate how everyone is so supportive and I hope to return the favor! I'm 2.5 weeks post op and feel very weak. It's not as bad when I'm sitting down but standing makes me feel dizzy at times and today felt like I was going to faint in the shower. Had to jump out and grab a towel to sit down. I'm hitting my water and protein (barely), and taking my supplements. Is this just my body adjusting? My surgeon said that last apporintment but I don't see a lot of improvement. I guess I'm just wondering what others encountered around this time. My main incision where they pulled my gallbladder is still pretty painful but I'm told that will get better too. Thanks for any advice you might have! Laura

this is part two… part one brought me to surgery with my weight loss adventure .. (quick warning, i tried not to be graphic but an infection is referenced) now I am someone who weighs almost every day for several months but i have trained my brain to be chill about the number… just watch for trends because bodies are sometimes heavier for non fat related reasons… i have seen my body go up, down and drop drastically and rise rapidly all while loosing weight as a trend… now i am in my early post op and start with my surgery weight of 351.4 on 11/3/22 sat, 11/5/2022 - day 2 post op after first night home - i dropped to 349.4 - considering swelling and fluids I was satisfied because I thought that I would have been up.. sun, 11/6 - 348.4 - spent lots of time walking in my yard gathering pecans with my picker upper stick for a few days - more than 5 gallons worth mon, 11/7 - 347.6 struggling with fluids, slight pull feeing while sitting and standing but otherwise good! tues, 11/8 - 349.2 - more sore but not really in pain.. i attributed this to walking a bit much the day before and trying to get more fluids… tried to power through and keep being as active as i could… (today i also had bathroom success lol) Wednesday, 11/9 - 349.2 - incision area hurting more and thought that I truly overdid it and took a lazy day… mild temp of barely 99 Thursday 11/10 - 347 - more pain in big incision area and it was warmer, mild fever 99.8 degrees- still blaming myself for pushing myself to be so active post op. took a super lazy day (even made someone get a birthday cake for my son who turned 19) friday 11/11 - 345.4 - something was wrong. pain was so much worse getting up and down and even sometimes moving. temp went to 100.8 in morning and i was feeing off. called dr and waited for call back. incision area looked ok but felt warm and kinda harder than it did.. not much redness… by 1 pm temp spiked to 101.7 even with tylenol. called again to dr and said something was wrong … they called in antibiotics and made appt for monday to see how i would respond. 11/11 - trip to town going to antibiotics- my husband drove .. we went into aldi to pick up a couple items before going to kroger to get meds and another grocery order ( we were feeding guests on saturday playing a game) and i actually have little memory or the store trip just bits and pieces … i told my husband i had a big problem and my pants were wet.... my infection, well, ruptured while in store.. we went to kroger to get antibiotics where i took one in the parking lot then i fell asleep immediately in the car for the ride home (unusual).. when finally hope after another stop i slept through, i groggily made my way in the house, cleaned myself up with hibclens and stumbled into bed without bandaging my still seeping wound and wrapped up shivering … and immediately went back to sleep… my mom called an hour or two later and i answers on my watch.. groggy and not very coherent.. hard to love, hard to talk, slurring words.. she called my husband who was doing another errand and he eventually came home and checked on me .. i was not medicated as he thought and still seeping a lot and he bundled me up and brought me to the er despite my slurring attempts to protest that i was perfectly fine and just wanted to sleep.. the er had a full waiting room, but when the staff talked to me and saw the state of the towel against my incision area - i was not only taken back but in a room immediately… my bad veins were acting up.. 7 different iv attempts and had to get an arterial pull for blood.. multiple bags of Fluid, potassium iv, multiple antibiotics, a ct with contrast, .. in other words a long long night.. 11/12 - 7 am my surgeon came to er and i was more coherent than most of the night… i had a large infection and was a little dehydrated … but with the treatment already received and the iv antibiotics combined with oral, he thought i would be ok and i could go home with a bandages wound and see him monday morning. i slept for a few hours when i got home, then woke up sore and still hurting some but better than i had felt in a few days. bandages changed every couple hours due to drainage. when i got home before 9 am i weighed myself out of curiosity and i was 352. it made me laugh because they really did pump me full of fluids!! every day after got better. less pain, discharge stopped monday and slowly the fluids started to come off. i am now 17 days post op and i am down to 335.6 for the second day in a row. might be that famous 3 week stall early. but i am fine with that because it usually means good healing is finally taking place and the scale with catch up eventually. i can move better than pre surgery and 100% better than six months or a year ago. my stamina still sucks but is improving even with the infection (two types of streptococcal bacteria) I am doing good and on my way to the life that i keep telling myself I deserve to live. i want to make plans and do things for the first time in a few years. i am no longer afraid to go to a store because it hurt my back so badly and turned my face from pale white to Tomato red due to the physical effort… i can actually go in without the immediate pain! so far even with the setback this is one of the best things i ever did for me

Hi all, I’m 3 weeks post op after gastric bypass surgery and the last week I haven’t been able to keep anything down. I’m constantly sipping on water but no matter what I do it comes back up again. Last weekend I made a stupid mistake of having a bite out of a toasted chicken wrap thinking if I chewed it well it wouldn’t do me any harm. I felt absolutely fine afterwards but the following day is when this stage I’m at started. Really worried I’ve done some damage now and don’t know what to do??

Hey- sensitive topic but just wanting advice. I’m 3 weeks post sleeve surgery- I hear it’s quite normal to experience constipation. I’m using Benefibre and magnesium every day, and duclolax on most days however, no natural movements. Beginning to use microlax enemas daily now to keep things going however, not super effective. Fleet enema works really well - I have used that twice in the past 2 weeks. I’m on the full purée diet still and moving onto soft food as of next week. I’m trying to do at least 30 mins of gentle walking a day and drinking a minimum of 1500-2000ml water daily. I just want to begin to have natural urges again. Worried this issue will continue! When should I be worried about that? After how long? Advice I have read suggests anything longer than 4 weeks… I kinda feel like I’m doing the most I can though. I’m definitely getting most of my fibre intake through the Benfibre but that will change once I go onto soft foods I’m sure. I’m wondering what more I can do if this was to go on beyond 4-6 weeks. Any insight is welcome! Thanks!

Hello everyone. I’m new here and wanted to introduce myself. I found this forum a few days ago and have enjoyed reading the posts. I am a 40 year old female and had my surgery on 10/24. My starting weight when I first started the pre op liquid diet was 215. I was 204 the day of my surgery. I’m just a bit over the 3 week mark and I’m down to 191. The past week or so the scale hasn’t moved much. I was a bit confused at first since I know I’m not consuming more than 5-600 calories a day but then I started reading about the stalls in the week 2-3 range and realized it’s normal as my body needs time to heal and get my water level back up. So I’m trying not to stress over the scale. It’s crazy because in my diet days I would have been thrilled at a 13 pound loss in 3 weeks, but after surgery I’m like “is that all?!” But I’m trusting the process. I also know that I’m starting out at a lower BMI then most people that have this surgery so I’m probably not going to have these massive losses. The surgery itself was pretty smooth. I work nights so I got off work at 5am, took a quick shower and went to the hospital at 6:30am to start the procedure. Needless to say after surgery I slept for most the day lol. I was a bit sore and nauseous when I woke up but they were good about giving me meds. By the second day I didn’t have as much pain but the nausea was still there. The most annoying part was I had to pee every hour thanks to all the fluids they pumped through my IV. So I constantly had to call for a nurse to unhook me and help me up and into the bathroom. The only other hard part was my vision. No one warned me that a side effect of the nausea patch they put behind my ear effects your vision. It kind of freaked me out because I couldn’t read my cell phone screen at all. It was just a big blur. I finally asked the nurse and she explained the issue. Before I left the hospital I asked them to remove the patch. It took another 2 days before my vision was fully restored. So that was a challenge. Not only could I not read my phone but I couldn’t read the prescription bottles either. Had to rely on my family to tell me which pills were which and when to take them. Otherwise the experience wasn’t terrible. Otherwise I’m feeling pretty good. The weird gurgling every time I eat is a bit annoying. It doesn’t hurt exactly but it’s still not comfortable. At first I thought maybe I was eating too fast, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. I’ve learned through this forum that it’s pretty common. What else….. oh vitamins! The chewable ones were gross so I switched to the chewy ones. They’re not terrible but not great either. I’m looking forward to when I can just switch to capsule vitamins. I have officially dropped a pants size so that’s nice. I have a range of clothes from size 16-10 from all my yo yo dieting phases so I at least have options while I’m losing. Today I’m in the 14s and packed up my 16s to donate. If I get smaller than the 10s I’ll be planning a shopping trip. I really enjoy this forum. The only people that know I had the surgery was my wife and my best friend. I didn’t tell the rest of my family or coworkers. So having a safe place to talk about my experience and compare stories has been nice.

When were you guys allowed to start eating carbs? How did you feel? I follow a Youtuber that got the sleeve & she was allowed to eat anything including carbs after 6 weeks, while my Kaiser program wants me to wait 3 months so I was shocked to see her start eating rice, tacos & pancakes so soon. I had no clue the carb time-line varied so much

Hey guys, so last week doing the dishes I had pain going up both my arms and across my shoulder in the back and then I felt what I thought was like shortness of breathe, maybe a little heart flutter. It scared me so I went and sat down and it stopped. Now it happens sometimes when I am active. Long story short, I called my surgeon he said it was weird and to get it checked at ER. Six hours later, an EKG, CT scan and bloodwork showed no clot and nothing really abnormal. I went to the grocery store tonight and just walking around I started to feel the weirdness again. Has anyone experienced this? I just want to know what it is and when it will stop hahaha. It's unnerving.

Hey all I seem to be vomiting up food after I try and eat anything solid , for example I tried a cheeseburger , ate 3 bites and vomited up the 3 bites. Is my stomach still ajusting to my sleeve ? For some reason I can eat crisps no problem cause they disintegrate into a small size I'm my mouth I also can eat fruit bananas or grapes but anything solid I seem to be getting sick Sent from my LE2123 using BariatricPal mobile app