Search the Community

I worked with a dietitian for six months. She had me gradually make changes so my eating looked more and more like how I would be eating post-surgery (not like you're eating the first couple of months post-surgery, but after that, when you can eat more types of food). We started off with having me stick to 2300 calories a day (that in itself was kind of a challenge since I'd probably been eating 3000 or more to maintain my weight). I gradually moved to eating more protein and fewer carbs. Three meals a day, plus two snacks. More fruits and vegetables. Less processed stuff and low-nutrient stuff. More fluids. Getting some exercise most days of the week - even walking was fine - but I also did water aerobics a couple of times a week. I lost about 40 lbs in that six months (knowing I'd have to meet with her once a month and get weighed (by her) helped, too - accountability!). Then I lost another 17 lbs in my two-week pre-surgery liquid diet (although that would have been mostly water, of course) . So down 57 lbs by the time they rolled me into surgery. the point of this is that they want to see if you can stick to a diet long-term, not so much how much weight you can lose (although they may be giving you the 10% goal since that's the only way they can objectively tell if you've been sticking to a diet or not). And unfortunately you WILL have to monitor your eating after surgery, too - as people say, it's just a tool. You do your part, the surgery does its part, and you'll succeed. It's not much different than being on a diet (although having a smaller stomach and losing your hunger (as most of us do) for a few months definitely helps!). The difference is, this time your effort will pay off. I could never lose more than 50 or 60 lbs on my own. This time I lost over 200, and have managed to keep most of it off for eight years. Never would have happened without surgery. P.S. and you will have to monitor your eating for the rest of your life. If I slack off for more than a handful of days, it shows up on the scale. But honestly, this is no different than a lot of my never-been-obese women friends. A lot of them have to watch what they eat, too, unfortunately. There aren't many people who can eat what they want and as much as they want and never gain weight.

TL;DR - more cardio, no snacking, eat on schedule 3 times a day. I had to do this, I have not had my surgery, I am just waiting to be scheduled. The surgeon has gone over all my labs and tests and approved me for surgery. I had to lose 5% of my body weight and keep it off while I wait for everything. I struggled like no other to do this, which was wild because in the past, and as recently as the last fall I had dropped at least 30lbs super quick. Basically, I changed my eating, but this time I wanted to learn how to eat food without being on some kind of restriction, like no carbs, or low fat, no sweets ever, cabbage only, two shakes a day, and a sandwich for dinner, type thing. I knew I did not want to live the rest of my life after surgery struggling with continued "diets". I started seeing a nutritionist, who was not much help, but she did get me on scheduled eating, having a meal within one hour of waking and then eating every 4 hours for a total of 3 times a day. I was already drinking 96 oz of water a day, but I bumped it up to 150oz a day. I lost 10lbs in 2 weeks doing that. Then it stopped losing and I still had not met the 5% goal. So I added exercise, I started weightlifting and swimming, 1 hour of weights, 1-hour swim and my weight did not change. However, my clothes started getting loose, but I needed to meet that weight goal. So I stopped swimming and just focused on weights for 45 min and 20 minutes of walking. still my weight stalled, but my clothes got looser. I had a week before my final weigh-in and I stopped exercising, drank less water, took laxatives and water pills, and basically ate air. I made the weight goal. After that I was like okay what is going on? I started back with weights and eating my weight went up 5 lbs. Finally, I learned that I was more than likely gaining muscle ( I was getting stronger) The muscle gain weight-wise was canceling out the fat loss, so my weight remained the same but my clothing was loose. This is great, but not so much when you need to be at a certain number in a certain time frame. I switched things up to 30 minutes of elliptical x mode and 30 minutes of stationary bike, put 30 min. dumbells for arms and my weight started dropping again. I am currently 10lbs below the approval goal I needed to be at and I have kept it off during the 2 months the incompetent office lady lost my paperwork, I would have already had surgery two months ago if it wasn't for her. So I have lost 9% of my starting weight. After surgery, I plan on resuming weightlifting since muscle creates a metabolism change.

Mine certainly changed but for the better. We are now able to do many things that we couldn't do before. Finding and trying new fun activities, being able to join our kids while they play outdoors etc. has certainly brought us closer than ever. My wife was inspired to make some changes as well and she is now more active, eating healthier and going to the gym a few times a week.

My partner had anxiety about my face pre-op. They were afraid that I would look like someone that they didn't know once I lost a lot of weight, and they even shed tears. Was this a subtle way to try to talk me out of surgery? I'm not sure; they really weren't behind my decision at first, but they at least saw that I was not going to be deterred by their nor anyone else's opinion. This is about ME. We haven't spent a lot of time together since one week post-op, because of travel commitments that they had. I do wonder if the relationship will change once we spend more time together.

Congrats that's a solid loss in 4 weeks. Too bad about the nausea, but that should continue to dissipate with time. What stage are you currently on? I am still losing, though the numbers fluctuate from week to week, it's still in a downward trend. The restriction also varies on what I can eat or not eat. Today so far all I've managed are liquids and I'm feeling full. I'll try for something solid for dinner when I'm home if I'm up for it. All we can do is take it day by day, sometimes just meal by meal.

Hi All, I new to the forum and this is my first message of any sorts on this site. I am getting ready to have Gastric Bypass procedure on Oct 2 and I am currently on 4 week liquid diet. I have completed 1 week and 3 days of the 4 week diet so far. My questions for you all :- 1. Is eating pickle slices or cucumber slices considered cheating? I am asking this as the protein shakes I am taking are super sweet because of the artificial sweeteners. 2. Can I have tomato soup or tomato based broth ? In my pre-op instruction it doesn't mention anything related to it. 3. Will my doctor know that If I cheated with a pickle slices or 4-5 mini pretzels ? I need all the advice and help... I am crossed over that stage of not having food is fine... but I just want to chew on something that is not sweet and not protein until I am in the mush stage. Thank you all in Advance.

I think this is me too. About twice a week I am waking with that dreadful scary dry mouth. I

Update 4 weeks post op: I am not eating much just drinking my protein and hitting fluid goals. Weight lose down 34 pounds. Pain none. Still get nauseous when drinking but it not to bad. How everyone else doing? Still losing or stalled?

This started happening to my knees last week! I've been using a pillow to help cushion them at night. Nothing in all of my pre-op education classes prepared me for this.

I've had a few days of 4-5 BMs a day but on the average 2-3. Thankfully I've never had problems with constipation post-op except during week one. That usually comes with weight stalls. I was told pale stools was caused from the fat loss especially if it floats so.... I'm happy to go often. I figure I'm flushing fat and pounds down the toilet. 😌 Downside, I sometimes worry about being out somewhere and too far away from a bathroom. So I plan carefully. But I know at some point it will slow down. GL

This is so true about starvation mode. I too was afraid to up my calories and in effect put myself into starvation mode and my weight loss stalled. As soon as i upped the calories, the weight started coming off again!!!

That is excellent, Summerseeker! I honestly think we're just so hard-wired from years of obesity to expect the worst when it comes to scales, even when there's no need. And I agree with Catwoman, I think on holiday the activity portion is way higher than our day-to-day activity, and because it's on holiday, you don't notice because you're so distracted by fun stuff. I know I came back from a week at an interstate festival that felt like I'd eaten loads and was prepared for the scales to show it... and yeah, rather than gaining I'd lost a little more. It's wild!

@BigBlueStarted mine today as well, only one week though. I had two shakes already, they were OK. I can handle one week of this.

Started the 2 week pre-op diet today. My plan is basically liquids for the two weeks. I can have occasional cheese stick or egg. Like others here, I had a goodbye (for now) food tour over the last two weeks. On the way home from my “last” meal of a vegan burger and tater tots, I really started to feel panic for the first time in this whole process. I’m an anxious person, but this felt way more than my usual anxiety. Glad to have this community of others going through the same stuff.

I’m 10 weeks post op and after a very normal start to recovery other than very pale stools- I seemed to have developed very active bowel movements. im eating normally, small meals but nothing excluded and I am waking in the night to use the loo. just want to check if this is normal - I’m going at least 5-6 times a day where as before I was lucky if it was once a day. I have converted from baby to bypass so I’m used to the process - just can’t get my head around this side of it as never experienced this before - except when I was on orlistat years ago

Revision weight loss is definitely slower than the original weight loss. I'm almost 11 weeks out from my revision and I've only lost 23 pounds. But at this time when I had my original surgery, I had lost 70 pounds. It's just the nature of things. I had my revision because of complications, not for additional weight loss.

I’m 25 days post gastric bypass and I’m still having abdominal pain every time I try to eat anything off the approved list. Every morning, like right now, I’m going to have 1/4-1/2 cup of scrambled eggs but like every other day I end up throwing it all up. I’m afraid to eat anything now because I throw up anything I try to ingest. Now that I’m reaching my one month mark I’m not going to try and eat what is suggested. I’m so weak and hungry but I hate that I know it Wil just all come up. Depression has set in along with detachment from things i loved before: taking my family to the lake, walking my dog, etc. i just lost any interest because mainly I’m so angry that I can’t eat even the simplest things. I’m asking if anyone here has gone through this or is this not supposed to happen and I should see my bariatric physician? The one food i can eat without retching is a small tub of ready made sugar free chocolate pudding cups from Jell-O. Looking to some help or answers to my problem. One more thing at times my chest feels so much pain it feels as if it wants to burst open so my doctor put me on hydrocodone for the pain but I rarely take them for fear of addiction and/or accidental overdose. I’m a mess and more than often I regret having this surgery even though I lost 54 lbs in 3 weeks and haven’t needed to take insulin for my diabetes-it’s been in very normal levels between 95-120 daily and my most painful neuropathy in hands and feel don’t hurt that much anymore. Thanks for reading my TedTALK and hopefully there’s a solution out there for me.

I have just arrived home from our 14 day holiday. We had it booked pre- covid and the company allowed us to continue postponing the booking until we could go. It was a All inclusive type holiday where you stay in a big resort and everything is at hand which suits us when travelling, my husband needs a wheelchair. We were a little nervous of the airports and flying as it is such a hassle with a wheelchair. It all went quite smoothly except for the times I was stranded with a hubby, wheelchair, two suitcases and two bags and a large handbag. At times it felt like I was the puzzle where you have a river to cross with a bag of grain, a hen and a fox. I wore the bags like a bandolero, pulled the suitcase and pushed the wheelchair with my stomach. Oh the joys of checking in at airports. I ate what I wanted, which being me, was always the best fish, seafood, cheeses and a vast amount of serrano/ parma ham. They made their own cookies and bread so these never got bypassed but in small amounts. I even had butter and ice cream. I drank strong coffee with liqueurs and some long cocktails. Usually one or two a day. A few times I felt really drunk when the bar tenders had made the cocktails stronger than the last. It was not a good feeling but I found something to eat and then the alcohol was absorbed quickly. I was a little worried to get on the scales this morning. Pre surgery, I could put almost a stone on in the two weeks [14lbs] a lot of it was water weight around my swollen ankles. I weighed in at exactly the same and TMI moment, had 8 days of poop inside me. So may even loose weight when the medicine kicks in [ or is it out ? ] So te he he another win win for my bariatric surgery

For both (vsg and revision), I was down for no more than a day or two. I slept the first day I got home, up on the 2nd day at the computer but took a nap, but by 3rd, I was good for desk work, general household chores.I can't do codeine but regular Tylenol handled any incision pain. There is a lot of general fatigue though in the first month or so. I was allowed coffee from the beginning and that helped my fatigue a lot. I don't think you will have any problem getting two weeks approved.

@ElleRodriStarting just a one week pre-op diet Monday. Tomorrow's my "last real meal." KFC Original recipe and I love their cole slaw!

I went for my EGD last week due to all the GERD I have been experiencing for over 5 months which has got worse and no OTC or RX medication is touching it. Results of EGD: - Localized mild inflammation characterized by erythema and linear erosions was found in the prepyloric region of the stomach. Moderate bile reflux into sleeve. Chronic Gastritis. Doctor has me on RX Pepcid and I see him in 6 weeks to discuss revision to Bypass. Personally I wish I would have went with the bypass instead of the sleeve when I had my WLS. How was everyone's experience who had the revision to bypass that experience GERD. Was it gone after?

I sit at a desk so I went back to work the following Monday (Surgery on Tuesday before). My daughter who is a nurse but doesn't lift patients etc, took the second week off as well and went back to work. She is on her feet all day and didn't have any issues.

With my sleeve, I took 2 weeks off and needed every bit of it. With my revision to bypass, I was up and doing things after 4 days. Only took a week off, but honestly didn't need it. Still took it, though lol