Search the Community

Guys I'm not liking myself. I feel "fat" it's so weird how I feel .. I look myself in the mirror and I c that I've gained weight but on the scale I was losing weight and just stalled for 2 weeks (well gained 200g) so I'm just feeling shitty. I feel like I'm able to eat more (not as much as pre surgery ) but more... my husband almost smacked me to snap out of it lool and he said I was delulu n I'm not seeing myself .... I'm trying to watch my food and I'm between 1000 to 1300ish cals and maintaining 70 to 90g of protein. Sometimes my carbs are over but I won't say too bad. I'm almost 6 months post op

That's tbd at this point. My current plan is week to week keep a low dose in my system that quiets food noise and gives some suppression that makes it easier to IF, but not so much I'll continue to lose weight.

Start full liquids today. I read one person say restrictions don't really show up until your on regular food again.

I have this craving for salty, so it's not terrible. I do drink my broths and whatnot, I can eat scrambled eggs, so I'm not entirely liquid. I've been referring to this stage in my diet as the baby led weaning stage, because I'm able to eat soft foods but most of my intake is still liquid. The only thing I have found that my body didn't like was pasta.. I deconstructed my dad's Christmas lasagna, ate a very small piece of pasta, and regretted it. Next day, I was fine with pasta. It was weird.

Thanks for the input! I dry heave just thinking about pureeing solid foods. I'll make note to ask the NUT if I can skip the pureed stage.

I ate a lot of minced meat dishes (meat balls with gravy, bolognese sauce, savoury mince), slow cooked stews and soups so the meat and vegetables were very soft and tender. Omelettes, rolled oats, scrambled eggs, sausages (from butcher not mass produced), soft white flesh fish, yoghurt. A lot of it comes down to the flavours and textures your tummy will tolerate & it can be a bit fussy. You may go slowly at first and stick to just a couple of foods to begin gradually adding more as you test out your tummy.

A few of us have only told our most supportive friends and family before we had the surgery. I personally didn't need any of the negativity that comes from worried others, people who think they know about the surgery or the one person that I know who failed with a sleeve. I find that people will post things on facebook that they might not say to your face. If they did, you would get a chance to ask why they felt you may be the same as them. It is a brutal test to see if you can loose this big amount of weight pre surgery but plenty people have managed it. I had a 3 week liver shrink diet. I cursed that surgeon every day of it. AND I was paying for the privilege. I very badly wanted the surgery, my life depended on it. Thats what got me through. You will have to find the disipline from somewhere and start as soon as you can. Start moving more, walking was my go to. Started small and ended up finding the world. Find a tracker you can use every day. Set yourself a reasonable calorie limit. Log everything you eat and drink. Good or bad. I still do it, I use Fat Secret. There are lots of other free sites. Eat fresh food, home cooked. You know the calories then. Plan your food and buy it in. That way you will never be tempted to get a take out Its a test but you can get there. Keep on this site, keep talking to us.

Your food looks balanced and healthy. I would ask you if you track your food using any tools? (MyFitnessPal, etc.)? My first guess is that this might be more than 1000-1200 calories? I could be wrong of course. Do you do track everything down to the grams? I am not a fan of obsessive tracking nor do I practice it to be very honest, but when you are struggling to lose weight and you're doing everything right, then these tools come in handy and really give you an idea of what your intake is vs your output. I would say - if you already don't - do invest in a food scale and all the measuring cups, spoons and apps. Another thing to note which has been said time and again, is that not everybody reaches their goal weight, as long as you're happy, fit and healthy, it is kind of the whole point, plus muscle mass that will affect the scale and the whole shebang. As for stabilization, I stabilized at 9.5 months which is considered very early out, reached goal at 3 months and continued losing until 9.5 months and my weight has been stable for the past two months. That doesn't worry me nor does it affect the fact that this journey has been a success to me, success is very subjective and it comes down to being able to (mostly) maintain whatever weight you have lost + building good habits. If this means that you have lost 78 pounds + started serious exercise + dropped multiple sizes then it's a win in my opinion. Use every tool out there for your benefit, but also remember that you define what success is to you.

My husband and I are going to see a show tonight and it’s my first time going out since the surgery. I’m fine sticking with water for a drink, but I think we will probably do at least a little food. They have a limited menu but they do have a charcuterie board. Im a month out and have my dietitian appt on Tuesday where they should give me the okay to start soft food… but I actually already started with a few like eggs and tuna. Do you think I will be safe picking at the board some? Is there something I should stay away from?

In the two weeks before you’ll likely be put on a pre surgical diet. It may be all shakes, or a combination of shakes and a high protein diet or another plan so you can’t really prepare for that. However, nothing stopping you starting to introduce some new habits now. Start tracking your food or begin introducing appropriate portions for meals. Make sure you’re getting in 2L/64ozs of water a day. Reduce your intake of carbonated drinks. Maybe drop a snack or two. Or whatever you could start to do to modify your current eating style and food choices. If you’re not very active, try adding some additional moment or try some classes to see what you may enjoy. Post surgery, you’ll again be on a restricted eating plan which your surgeon will give you. There will be similarities with this but also some differences with what others are given. Be warned though, your taste buds and sometimes sense of smell can go haywire and there may be foods you used to enjoy (flavour or texture) that taste disgusting or smell awful. This does pass in a couple of months but don’t buy certain flavours or foods you like that are allowed on your plan in bulk - you may end up being unable to eat them. Get some small cutlery like baby spoons and forks or some cocktail/buffet forks, small plates & bowls. Your portions will be tiny & you’ll only be allowed small bites so the smaller bowls and cutlery make it easier to adjust. Buy some small containers for freezing leftovers or the small snack size zip lock bags; left overs will be common and freezing appropriate sized portions will come a new habit. If you don’t have any: a set of scales that goes down to small increments (ounces or grams), a blender, stick processor, or similar, measuring spoons and cups. Get some over the counter stool softeners, anti nausea meds & pain meds (can’t take NSAIDs), and a heat pad/wheat pack. I’m sure others will add lots of others. Congratulations on having your surgical date. All the best.

Hello everyone, and happy Sunday! I'm feeling quite a bit better now that my body finally evacuated what was bothering it. I'd kind of forgotten about the Milk of Magnesia I'd purchased, and yesterday it came to my rescue. Those protein shakes (30g) are no joke, especially if you're taking any medication that slows your digestion further. Yesterday afternoon, even after getting past the constipation, my body just wasn't feeling like much intake, either liquids or 'food'. I found myself getting full after only an ounce of the chicken noodle soup broth and a few teaspoons of yogurt. I struggled for the first time getting my fluids in; I think I had gotten lax about the sip-sip-sip method and maybe was trying to drink too much at once when I drank. It's definitely hard to resist the urge to go back to gulping, especially when the beverage it cold and satisfying, and I feel dry mouth creeping in. Tomorrow is technically my puree day but I skipped ahead just slightly to try to move away from those heavy protein shakes. I realized I'm very sensitive to the texture of my scrambled egg and had to recook it, pre-mixed with about a half tablespoon of skim milk, and instead of the butter he'd initially tried I just used a very light splash of olive oil. That gave me the light, moist scrambled egg I was looking for. I reread my book and while it suggested you might want to start with just egg whites I just couldn't make myself hold to that. I am trying to get better about spacing out the 'not drinking 30 mins before/after' now that I'm beginning to eat some actual food. That's a very hard thing to do, honestly, because I'm noticing that no matter how much I chew without a drink the food just feels kind of stuck in my throat for a bit. I can see now why my friend said she found drinking a broth type soup in the morning 'primed' her stomach for the day. @draikaina8503 & @Pepper_No_Salt - How are you two feeling? I hope that your surgeries went smoothly. @Pepper_No_Salt I'm glad you can mix in some variety with additives to your plant based shakes - I was close enough to losing my mind during the pre-op diet so I think that being limited further would have driven me over the edge! I'm going to look up that PB2 you mentioned because I'm curious about it! (Back to you, @draikaina8503 , just saw your post-op post!) Oh my gosh I hate that your body did that to you RIGHT before your surgery. Mine at least gave me two days I'm very glad they kept you at least another night! I hope they are helping you keep your pain managed. Yeah; it will definitely take some walking to get that gas pain to leave but in the mean time don't be shy in asking for those ice packs and your pain medication! Sometimes managing the pain, then walking with the ice pack is the only way to work it out - at least that was my experience, and I've heard the same from a few others. Thinking back, one thing I wish I'd done while in the hospital was be a BIT more squeaky - I remember now that when my Mom was in the hospital I had to shove a bunch of pillows behind her back when I put the hospital bed up at an incline so she could get a good enough angle in bed to safely sip liquids. I think that would have helped me tremendously, because I relegated myself to using their recliner a lot just so I could be upright, and it didn't work very well AT ALL. Hope you're starting to feel better! (Coming back to you @Pepper_No_Salt since I now see your post-op post!) : Oh my gosh I feel you on the cold drink thing! I was a bit grumpy when I asked the nurse at my 10 day post-op and she casually said, "Oh, room temperature is mainly just the first few days because foods of extreme temperatures CAN cause uncomfortable cramping'. My fella covered his mouth to hide his snort of understanding at the look I gave him, having had to hear me whine off and on for ten days about how I'd give anything for a COLD drink of something. Figuring out the sips is tricky. They gave me little medicine cups that hold about an ounce and for me, sipping one of those 2-3 times felt about right at first. I'm sure this is another one of those things that depends on the person. I also alternated one ounce of gatorade/proper (they had brought me a kiwi watermelon that elicited heartburn, the berry was ok if I went slow - Also weirdly orange gatorade zero goes down better than watermelon, guess its all based on the acid and flavoring? @draikaina8503 - I read where you discussed being pretty limited on the shakes due to dietary restrictions. That's rough It's very cool that you write the same genres as me - I, too, have given Nanowrimo a try but never seem to stick with it to the finish line. Maybe I'll try it again this year! I'm glad you mentioned it. Yes - I meant to follow up all week long on making sure I was on the waiting list, and lo and behold... it's Sunday, and I never did. I'm bad on a good day at executive function, so during stressful times like this recovery - whew. I need to add it as a task to my Finch app so my mind stops blanking on it. I hope they were able to do your full surgery with no complications. @Singingbarista - I hope your recovery is going well! I didn't feel too terribly at first but I am suspecting more and more based off of people's feedback that I almost certainly had a nerve block that took a good 4-5 days to completely wear off. The achiness has built over time, and I hope that is different for you! @AndreaJD - Yay! Another writer & Nanowrimo participant! I guess it isn't too surprising that several of us writing folks would find one another on a forum, but I still think it's really cool. Superhero fan fiction sounds fun; I'd say that some of the powers my characters have are very overlapping, like magic use. It would be awesome if you could get some productive writing done during recovery but I also wanted to encourage you not to be too hard on yourself if you can't. My mind feels muddy and I feel drowsy far more often than I would like. I know I'll probably feel SO much better in about a week, but it's sure hard not to be impatient. I also wanted to mention that I didn't have much trouble at all getting my fluids down at first, either, and that's definitely not a bad thing. My nurse told me there will be good days and harder days, and yesterday I definitely experienced that. It was the first day I didn't make my fluid goal, like I wrote above - and I tried to push it in the evening but that was a bad idea. The Berry Propel I drank a bit too quickly before laying down (should have waited longer, d'oh!) ended up giving me heartburn that woke me up around 3am. It's all trial and error, I guess. Dang - wish I'd thought of having tomato soup pre-op! No idea why I didn't - now it'll probably be a while before I dare due to potential acid reflux. Ahh well! I'm going to try some of that blended Progresso Chicken Noodle in my puree stage I think if it passes the 'book check' - it sounds amazing. @Averdra & @caseyash30 - Are you two still surgery twins on the 21st? I'm trying to backtrack and I know that you said there were possible concerns do to a potential Covid case, @Averdra. I hope that's smoothed out for you! I realized while I was doing my recap that I never mentioned - traveling to Lithuania sounds so exotic to me, as a resident of the Midwestern U!. The furthest I've ever been is Alberta, Canada! Not that you would get to go sightseeing or anything; I get it. I know a lot of folks from the US travel to Mexico for their surgeries. Very cool that you were another WoW OG! The game sure has changed a lot, hasn't it? @caseyash30 - How goes the pre-op diet? Are you getting nervous or eager as the date approaches? For me it all just felt really surreal. @Onemealplan & @Greekmom4 - Tomorrow is my 14 day post op! I was paying close attention to your discussions about puree - because to be honest, I'm kind of stumped on this particular stage. I just managed about half a scrambled egg and a couple of teaspoons of my sugar free Chobani and I just feel so full. The whole time I was eyeballing my sugar free gatorade, thinking how ready I was to just be through with food so I could set a timer to be able to start hydrating. As it is, I have hiccups from the two tiny sips of Gatorade I allowed myself just to make the egg not feel stuck in my throat. I know everyone's experiences are going to vary significantly; the friend I have who had surgery previously said she had a lot of luck sipping the French onion soup mixed, especially in the mornings. She's two years post op and doesn't seem to have trouble eating small servings of most anything she wants now, minus much fried foods or rich desserts. She had a full gastric bypass, for reference. She told me that ricotta was a big win for her because it could be blended and made either savory or sweet, depending on if you chose vegetables or fruit, and also said she really enjoyed refried beans through the puree with mild seasoning to make it more like a taco. I have a gastric sleeve cookbook that offers a lot of different smoothie varieties. Other than that - I'm just not sure what sounds appealing as a puree, despite the nurse saying 'you can puree almost anything but stringy / dense meat!' I can see how the chicken or tuna salad would work - tuna just scares me for some reason. I wonder if I'd be able to do a salmon salad instead of tuna salad. Also - @Onemealplan - Yeah, I tried having my fella puree me some canned kidney beans on Friday, just to test the waters, and they didn't settle well for me. I can't say they are what caused me to have trouble passing gas and extra trouble with my constipation - it seems unlikely since I skimmed away the 'shell' and only ate probably a teaspoon and a half worth, but I just don't know. It tasted great to me, but just made me nervous. This is probably in part because I've dealt with IBS and beans of that sort along with ground beef or tomato sauce with too much basil were trigger type foods for me. I concur on the puree'd meats sound distinctly unappetizing. I'm hoping I can get away with mashing cooked salmon or something like that. Wooo! I did it! I hope I didn't miss anyone - I feel caught up finally! Now, to go rest with my ice pack.

Used to happen to me earlier on in what I’m guess was reactive or post prandial hypoglycemia. Now it only happens if it’s a sugar/carb item not properly paired with protein and fats, so essentially an unbalanced meal. It was like an extreme food coma. It can get better with time or figuring out the offending food.

Well the lunch stuff I have already had in purée stage so it’s just the dinners that are new foods for me. But the more I thought about it it will be alot of wasted food since I am eating just a tiny bit and my husband won’t eat half of it. I think I am going to spread it out and use have leftovers for lunch instead of the other stuff.

Okay so I was curious to know exactly how much more our bodies burn while we are healing so I asked Google and this is copied from AI response. Basically if we need more calories to maintain as your healing you really may be good by just cutting back a tad on the extra Carbs since your carbs were much higher due to a very high level of activity, which you’re not sustaining but honestly if I was you I would Just wait until your through this to worry about losing you could take even longer to get back on track if you try to lose now “Yes, your body burns more calories during the healing process after surgery. This is because your body's metabolism increases to help heal the incisions, fight pain, and prevent infection. Explanation Hyper-metabolic state After surgery, your body enters a hyper-metabolic state, which means your metabolism increases. This causes your body to break down muscle protein, fat tissue, and neurotransmitters to provide energy for healing. Calorie needs During the healing process, you should consume more calories than normal. A general rule of thumb is to consume 15–20 calories per pound of body weight. Protein needs In addition to calories, you also need more protein during the healing process. Protein is a key building block of the body and is necessary for tissue growth and repair. Hydration Drinking plenty of fluids, mostly water, helps deliver nutrients to the wound site. What to eat Eat a balanced diet with a wide variety of foods Eat nutrient-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, lean fish and chicken, grains, beans, and nuts Take a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement if you don't get enough nutrients” This is from HSS.com “How many calories should I be consuming since I will be inactive? Now is NOT the time for weight loss! When people are immobilized, they worry about gaining weight. However, you should NOT decrease your calorie intake because you will be inactive. In fact, your calorie needs are now greater than usual because your body requires energy from nutritious foods to fuel the healing process. You will need to consume about 15-20 calories per pound (using your current body weight). If your overall energy and protein needs are not met, body tissues such as muscles and ligaments will begin to break down. This will compromise healing and may prolong your recovery period”

Had my one month post op appointment today and I showed her my food tracking summary of all my macros and told her what I’ve been doing on my fitness and she was very please. Said my weight loss is excellent and my food choices are perfect. She wants me to increase a little bit to add a little more protein and carbs because I’m so active now but other than that everything is fine. I cannot believe how amazing I feel you guys. I have not had this level of energy since I was a teenager and I’m not just eating but ENJOYING foods that I never liked before!! The fresh ingredients is seriously the trick. It’s more work but it makes things taste so much better.

So I’m 3 weeks post-op with a gastric sleeve. My first disappointment was when the week before my surgery my doctor told me I wasn’t a strong enough candidate for bypass. Ok, fine. But then he wouldn’t tell me how much of my stomach was removed, he didn’t give me incremental goal weights or a final goal weight. 11 days post surgery I had already lost 14lbs, (beg wt on 1/24 was 270lbs, date of surgery 232lbs). I’m trying not to be obsessive about my weight so I’m weighing in every 10-14 days. That being said, I’m already feeling like I’m stalling in my weight loss and even worried about gaining already. Is this a normal feeling? I’m trying to get all my protein but usually fall short. I’m on “soft foods” but can barely get down a 1/4 of a cup of food. The rest of my intake is liquid. Has anyone else had these feelings? Should I bite the bullet and go weigh in? Thank you in advance for any tidbits and opinions.

Sorry for any mistakes I make in my entry, but english is not my first language :) I am in need for some advice since I'm getting frustrated. So it's only 2,5 weeks since I had my sleeve-surgery, and the doctors have told me to be patient, but I just want to check in to see if anyone else have experienced this (I'm sure there is!). I am now on regular food, which means I can eat anything, but as adviced I always try to up my protein. After I eat a meal I feel alot of discomfort in my chest, I feel so much air have to come out, I often get the hiccups and I burp alot, I also gulp in my mouth. I make sure I don't drink water 10 minutes before a meal and 20-30 minutes after. But I have been vomitting my food , especially my dinner, alot. That happend yessterday evening, I ate dinner, waited 30 minutes, drank a sip of water. Then felt so neouses I had to make myself throw it all up, and it was hardly any food since my pain in my chest (gas) keeps me from eating. I have not yet felt full from eating, but I always stop because of the pain in my chest. My quesstion is why am I throwing up and when will the pain in my chest go away. Thank you in advance :)

Not trying to be argumentative here, but this seems like a bit of a strange comment considering that Google literally states that "AI Overviews use generative AI, which is a type of artificial intelligence that learns patterns and structures from the data it is trained on and uses that to create something new." Personally, I think it's important to treat anything AI Overview produces with a significant bit of skepticism. I don't doubt that this particular response was generated primarily from other sources since that's literally how AI works. That said, there's an old adage in computer science that goes "Garbage in, garbage out". This is just as true today with AI as it was in the dawn of the computer age. I absolutely agree, but there are 2 things we need to take into consideration. The first is to what extent we burn additional calories. There is data in the scientific literature showing that RMR (not total calories burned), increases anywhere from 15% to 50% during the acute recovery phase. Whether it's near 15% or 50% depends a lot on what one is recovering from. I'm sure you'd agree that having a grade 1 muscle strain is not nearly as taxing on the body as chemotherapy or, say recovering from extensive burns. Add in the fact that most people have no clue what their RMR is and it can be very difficult to estimate the exact amount of additional calories burned. (Plus, the farther along the recovery process you are, the lower the increase in RMR.) The second confounding factor here is whether one actually needs to eat back those calories or not. Just because one is burning more calories does not mean one also has to eat all those calories back. This unfortunately is not clear at all in the scientific literature so we're sort of on our own here. My personal belief is that if your calorie needs have gone up a lot because you're recovering from a significant injury/illness AND you are at or below maintenance, then it's probably more important to eat more because you have less stored fat to fall back on. On the other hand, If you still have excess fat stores and/or are recovering from a more minor injury/illness, then you probably don't need to consume as many calories as you might otherwise. I also tend to believe that eating good quality foods is probably more important here than just eating more calories. 1000 extra calories of junk food is not going to help nearly as much as 250 calories of whole foods. The problem is, most of us are just not going to be able to accurately calculate any of this. This is why I'm recommending caution and only jumping up a lot in calories if major fatigue is an issue.

Y’all over here posting lavish dishes and I’m excited my groceries cost $82US this week. 😂 oh and also the meal plan for this week which we’ve already veered from and made pudding pies and angel food cake. 🤷‍♀️

I need to get back on working out; I have been slacking. I'm doing okay food wise though so that's good. I just got my bloodwork done so I'm waiting to hear back on how all my levels are since surgery. I had my first cookie and first small glass of wine this week at a baby shower; it was nice to feel more normal again, but also not go crazy.

👆🏼Nailed it! esp the bolded part. in a way, its the never ending angst and shame spirals (and all the things they bring on) that are the death of us. not the food.

Many years back, I had a job that required me to go to a big food science convention. The vendor exhibition was this massive place where all the global food companies, big and small, would introduce new and upcoming products. The first day there, a coworker cautioned me to be very careful and selective about what and how much I sampled throughout the day. She recalled that a few years before, Olean had been all the rage and every food company seemed to have samples of fat free products made with the stuff. And of course, who can resist eating all that free food, right? You could go back as many times as you wanted to get samples, and people sure did. Well, a shockingly high number of conference attendees during the Olean year had ended up back in their hotel rooms that first night having very unpleasant bathroom experiences. In fact, that event in part led to them figuring out that too much of the stuff could be really bad. Luckily there was nothing quite so terrible the year I went, although I did get a glimpse of just how unnatural all that processed food can be.

I had to do the liver shrinking diet pre-op for 2 weeks. 2 shakes a day then I ate a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables with 3 ounces of lean chicken or beef season fried in soy sauce for my evening meal. It was delish. I lost weight. High volume, low calorie. I'd enjoy the food while you can. JS

That is scary ass hell!! I need that restriction forever (food addict). I guess that's when you have to use all your baratric tools. Movement, mindset, and portion control 😩😩😩😩😩

currently on a mini road trip/getaway... some food porn for y'all from the last few days... roasted cauliflower salad duck confit and foie gras with toast tofu and pea salad assorted sashimi avocado toast IMG_8253.mov scotch egg (turn sound on to hear my reaction to the egg's cook level , lol) escargot blue cheese wedge salad grilled octopus 28oz rib steak medium rare with twice baked potato and asparagus shakshouka with grilled flatbread and yes, these were all MY own orders...except the sashimi, that was shared with my pal... (i would take up pages and pages if i posted all the food my travel companions ordered as well!) needless to say i did not finish any of these dishes by a long shot. but i did taste them all!! (and drank lots too, ha!) mr. says i have a food ordering problem cuz despite the fact i eat a fraction of what everyone else eats, i still probably order twice as much as them all. sorry, not sorry. 😆