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Nah. I don’t think losing too much will be an issue. I mean we can always add more calorie dense foods. Malnourishment is a possibility if you don’t keep up with your vitamins and get your labs done regularly though. Just have to be diligent. I have alarms set for all those times I mentioned that I eat a small meal and take a vitamin. 8am to wake up the. 9, 12, 3, 6 and 9 I eat my meals and snacks and take my vitamins. It makes it so much easier to just stick to that schedule. I keep them drinkable yogurts and protein shakes in the fridge for if I’m way too busy to stop and eat and that seems to work just fine for me. Just watch the labels on the yogurts because they like to sneak added sugars in there. I actually made my own the other day and plan to continue when I’m home because they are kinda pricey for the healthy ones. I just blended a container of vanilla high protein non fat greek yogurt, 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk and 1/4 cup fruit. (I made it with fresh mango and it was really good but you can use any fruit of course). Ooh while I’m thinking of it, clear protein water and unflavored protein powder will come in handy during your first couple of stages to get to your protein goals. Not sure if you used them after your sleeve but they came in handy.

Ugh. Conflicting information is so frustrating. I have gotten a lot of that with the SADI being new too. I just started making more appointments with the NP and I’m going with her advise. I had my Baritastic app open so I could show her a couple of weeks of nutrition at a glance and I told her my average step count from my watch. She actually had me increase my carbs and protein a bit because of my activity level. But she started me at like 60 carbs so your plan is different. Now they are good carbs. All veggies, fruits and whole grains like real oats or brown rice. I am now supposed to be around 80 but I haven’t quite gotten there. It’s hard to do after reaching 90g protein. I’m up to like 70g carbs and still lost 4 pounds last week (I started at an average of 5). I’m sure not all of our bodies are alike though or they would be able to land on one ideal diet plan that works for everyone. I don’t eat a lot of rice or oats. Most of my carbs are from veggies, fruits and beans. Once a week I have a low carb wrap which makes the carbs go way up but it’s mostly fiber so I think that’s okay (that’s on my list of questions) For your exercise bike, start out whenever you can fit it in but once you get the boost or energy it gives you to keep going try doing it first thing in the morning I started walking at night but with the rain had to do it in the morning a couple of times and realized that it gave me a tremendous amount of energy for the day. I even work in more movement throughout the day now. It’s pretty great.

Have you tried smoothies? I find even with my restriction, I can down 500-600 calories in smoothie form, vs maybe 300-400 cals of most other things before I'm full. You can load it up with fruit, peanut butter, protein powder, etc. to suit your tastes.

Hello folks! It's been a while since I posted; been somewhat all over the map just trying to figure out what and when to eat and how to up my hydration. I finally settled on the fact that I'm just still not liking eggs, which is annoying, that tuna, salmon, and chicken are my go-to protein sources, and carbs?? UGH. I literally had two providers in my back to back nurse practitioner then nutritionist give me conflicting advice regarding carbs at my one month post op. Due to a rescheduled appointment I had that appointment on 9/11 as opposed to the week earlier - my surgery was on 8/5. The nurse told me that my energy level was probably flagging because of not hitting my hydration goals and that eating carbs after hitting my protein goals was fine, as long as I avoided sugar. Then the nutritionist came in and talked about how I should still be avoiding carbs in order to hit ketosis, and that supposedly once I hit ketosis I'll feel like a million bucks. Eesh. I've been tracking everything in my Baritastic app and I have only gone up to 31 carbs like, two days since my surgery, and it was because of applesauce and cream based soup. I'm wondering when I'm supposed to start feeling fantastic?! The third week plateau was REAL and incredibly obnoxious; I didn't see movement on my scale for almost a week despite hitting my protein goals and struggling to hit my hydration goals. I broke through it, though I'm still not losing as quickly as I'd like. I find that eating Greek yogurt in the morning serves me pretty well, and I've also noticed that sometimes I have to split my meals into 'part one' and 'part two' in order to hit my protein goal. Like; I'll have my yogurt, wait the thirty minutes, hydrate for a while, hit the timer, then 30 minutes later have another small protein snack. It's definitely been a struggle to keep my energy up and not get burned out on this whole thing. I felt like I was rocking along until after purees, then I just ended up baffled as to what I could or should eat. Honestly, the limits on vegetables don't seem to be holding particularly true for me; I've been fine with tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onion, mushrooms, carrots, and beans. I've not had much as far as fruits - one day I was out and didn't have any food with me so I got a kids meal from arby's with a bottled water, just the meat from a slider, and a packet of applesauce. I split that applesauce pouch into three portions, honestly, and only ate about half of the deli meat they gave me. Maybe I'll try to find more recipes using cream cheese - I'm annoyed that my grocery order didn't have the cabbage I ordered because I was looking forward to making some of the unstuffed cabbage rolls for this week. Guess I'll have to suck it up and go to the store for the missing items tomorrow. I bought an exercise bike I'm looking forward to using - It's a recumbent bike and I haven't figured out the right TIME to try to use it. It's been a bit of a struggle to find the timing between meals, hydrating, meds, vitamins, housework, etc but hopefully returning to this forum will help me get more on track. For anyone it might help - I've found that low fat cottage cheese and tuna melts made on a zero net carb small tortilla with 1/3 a can of tuna and two thin slices of colby/jack or a skim/reduced fat mozzarella string cheese are my main sources of protein. A couple of days ago I made a veggie mix of zucchini, broccoli, bell peppers, and a bit of diced onion. I've sliced up thin bits of both chicken and pork separately and use some of that zero sugar stir fry sauce to make meals of them. It works, even if not particularly exciting, and has a nice flavor at least.

Just a bit of an update; I'm currently sitting at 142-145lbs (at 6'1/male) and I was hoping to be around 150-160lbs. I'm fine with how I look and I'm pretty content with it so as long as I don't drop any further, but seems like it's been stable now I'm a full year (and a few months) post-op. I'm currently trying to get some weight back, hoping I can get it via muscles; just gonna have to figure out how to bulk with a smaller stomach, but I guess that's what the protein shake is for.

I'm almost a year and a half since my RNY (November). I've lost about 135 give or take (I bounce between 125-130lbs). I haven't lost any fat free body mass since month 3, and have actually gained 5lbs of fat free mass since May. At my 1 year, in May, my body composition said I was at 18.1% body fat which is on the low end of "lean" I did another one last week because I was feeling off (tired, muscle cramps, brittle nails, headaches) My body fat percentage was at 12.3% which translated into roughly 16 pounds of my overall weight (130 at the time of the test) being fat. Anything under 15% is "at risk". I eat, what seems like all day long, I get my calories, protein, healthy fats, fiber. I take all my supplements. All my blood work I've had this year for random things and specifically for post surgery, has been normal. Nothing, other than feeling off, pointed to this. I do have an appointment with nutrition and my bariatric team this week. But wanted to see if anyone has gone through this, heard of this... Anything? My initial thought is how my body is absorbing nutrients, but again, my labs have been normal.

So I found these drinkable yogurts that are super convenient if your running out the door and don’t want another shake or your shirt on protein for the day BUT, the healthy ones are quite expensive. I just made my own. I used a container of yogurt, 1/2c of unsweetened almond milk and 1/4 cup mango. It’s a tad thick so I may try more milk next time. I made it in my nutra bullet and next time I will probably just drink it out of that cup because I feel like I’m wasting a lot of it sticking to the sides of that and another glass but regardless it’s easy and good for yogurt on the go. Just thought I would share.

Hello. I am 6 weeks out and down 41 pounds as of today (which includes a 2 weeks low carb preop diet where I lost 13 pounds). I went from a BMI of 39 to 33 and will be 32 with one more pound loss. I was 235 when I had my sleeve and lost down to 167 but I stalled there for a few months and then started gaining it all back plus 23 pounds. Aside from a few blisters that are slowing my walking down I feel fantastic. I have more energy and motivation then I have had in years. I’m exercising (walking 5-7 miles a day) and making all my meals from scratch. I am also planning to start yoga the week after next when I am 8 weeks. The NP actually said 6 weeks is okay but I’ve never done it so I’m afraid it will be strenuous and I’d rather be safe than sorry. I did have a pretty tough recovery. I was in the hospital for 5 days because they couldn’t get my pain to a level that was manageable with meds they were willing to send me home on. Well once I finally passed gas like 5 times I was fine without any pain meds but it still was a far tougher recovery than my sleeve. Not sure why but with my sleeve I was home and out front the next day and asked my husband to pass me the basketball because I forgot I had surgery and that was with no pain meds. This time they also took my gall bladder out though because it looked bad. I wasn’t expecting it because I never had any symptoms so we didn’t discuss it but the post op pathology came back that I had gall stones so it saved me from another surgery I guess. I suggest discussing some of the things like that which may pop up during your surgery and what your wishes are since they can’t wake you up to ask. I was kinda surprised that mine went ahead and did it but the NP said his thought was that it already looked bad and that the anticipated quick weight loss was going to only make it worse. Anyways, I took it easy for the full 6 weeks this time. My floors have never been so disgusting. I have done laundry because I have the pedestals and dishes and that’s about it. My hubby has freshened up the bathrooms and changed the sheets but other than that it’s all waited for me. I confess that it’s still waiting. I am supposed to be cleaning now but I sat down for lunch and got started on here 😂 My surgeon does not believe in resizing the stomach so my surgery was only on my intestines. This made my recovery in terms of food tolerance go way quicker. I am back to normal food already. I had raw veggies in my spring rolls even and that was fine. Of course ask your team before you do it. I didn’t have any food tolerance issues after my sleeve either though. I have not had any of the diarrhea that they warned me about. They said some of their SADI patients had it for 3 months. One had it so bad it interfered with work. I have been eating very healthy though. I was actually constipated In the beginning and even with the stool softeners I had to do milk of magnesia a couple of times but now I am able to eat a bit more fiber in my diet so I am trying to cut back the stool softeners slowly. if you don’t log your food now I suggest the Baritastic app. You can log EVERYTHING there. You food, weight, measurements, exercise, moods, even your bowel movements and you can also set notifications for your vitamins (although I don’t hear them so I have alarms set as well). I really like looking at the trends and graphs to see how I am progressing. A fitness watch is really good too. I had a much older Apple Watch that I dusted off and it makes it so much more fun to do my walking and stuff because you can see how fast it adds up. I never exercised with my sleeve but I talked on the phone with my friend the first few times and then my husband got me these awesome headphones that don’t go in or over your ear so you can still hear traffic while listening to music. They are called “bone phones”. Now I just put on my music and take off walking. Makes the time go by so much faster. I wear them all day actually. You can listen to music on low and hold a conversation with someone even. I also started posting here and attending the in person support group meetings before my surgery this time so post surgery I have had lots of support. I go to check in with my NP more often than they generally require too because I have pretty severe anxiety and that comes with lots of questions and I just need the reassurance that everything is okay. Don’t forget to take photos and do measurements before you start your preop diet and again before surgery and set reminders in your calendar for once a month or so to keep doing them. And if you want to use that Baritastic app you can also keep track of your protein and water on there so familiarize yourself with it early. I kinda rambled but I tried to cover everything I could think of that may be helpful.

Ok...so...when you have a food allergy, even a "mild" one, take it seriously. I'm allergic to peanuts and shellfish. With shellfish, it's literally life and death. I can't even be in the room when it's being cooked because the proteins in the air set me off. It's really that bad. I go into anaphylactic shock and I was told if it happens 1 or 2 more times, I could very likely die. So...no shellfish, which breaks my heart because me an crab legs...omg. Love affair for the ages. But peanuts.....that's not bad like shellfish. My mistake was comparing it to the shellfish. I was told my shellfish allergy is the worst case my doctor has ever seen. So comparing anything to it is not smart. But that's what my stupid a$$ did. I forgot that every time I eat something I'm allergic to the reaction gets worse. Well, I'll never EVER forget it now. I ate 2 Kind bars. I bought them because there was no mention of peanuts (ordered them from the Starbucks app). Only mentioned almonds. YUMMY!!! We love almonds. WooHoo!!! Hubby goes to get my Kind bars and my drink and comes back and tells me there's peanuts in them. I think "well, there's not a huge amount because there's more than 1 kind of nut, and my reaction has always been fairly mild, so I should be ok" (tingles in my lips and tongue, slightly nauseous and mildly light headed, but over in 15 or 20 minutes) so I figured I could eat them and deal with the reaction for maybe 30 minutes or so and then be on my way. WRONG!!!!! To be fair, hubby said I shouldn't eat them but I did anyway. Within 10 minutes of eating them, my usual symptoms set in. Ok, I was ready for that. Within another 10 minutes, the nausea got worse, I got super shaky, and the light headedness increased. Sucks, but still not the end of the world. 10 minutes later, the absolute sharp, stabbing pain in my stomach started. It hurt so bad I couldn't catch my breath and I couldn't stand up straight. It increasingly got worse and worse. I couldn't sit, stand, or lay comfortably at all. It took 30 minutes for it to get this bad. I dealt with it for an hour, then the throwing up started. And throwing up. And throwing up. OMG... Once I was done and brushed my teeth, I went and laid down and fell asleep until now (3:30am). I slept for about 6 hours (not peacefully, but still slept). I feel a lot better except I'm weak, tired, and a little nauseous still. Hoping to go back to sleep soon. But let this be a reminder that even MILD food allergies can escalate out of nowhere and become major ones. Anything peanut related is like the devil as far as I'm concerned. Now I know I have a major peanut allergy and will NEVER even think about testing it out again. Hoping to feel better soon because OMG this is absolute bull$%#t!!!.

I'm 1 month poat op and to be honest I get hungry the most is before bed. Like I literally go to sleep hungry. Not sure if it is really hunger and I don't know if I am eating enough. My dietician recommended 8 meals a day and I reach around 6 so perhaps I must add a final snack before bed like some Greek yogurt or a protein bar hmm.. I am just worri3d about calories

Ooh I just assumed it was a laxative. I was told that the colace doesn’t make you go it just makes it soft and easier to pass when you do go. I hope you’re change to the one per dose is a good solution. Another option would be to alternate between one and two (take one the first day and two the next, one the third and two the fourth and so on). This is how my NP told me to cut the Colace because I was on two a day (morning and night) and when I cut back to one i got constipated and needed milk of magnesia.

The more I think about it the more I think the creons I take are a contributing factor. They slow your digestion down as it passes through the intestines so you can absorb more nutrients. It’s used for malabsorption of protein, carbs and fats. Adds to my occasional issues with constipation. Fun! I’ve always eaten lean meats and while I eat more dairy now it’s still only about two serves of the recommended three serves a day. Can’t do the low fat or skim milk as I drink lactose free milk and reducing the fat makes it taste incredibly sweet & I can’t tolerate it. And the high protein yoghurt I eat (isn’t sweet) isn’t available in low fat. PS - The coronary artery calcium test gave me a score of zero the best you can get. At least I have a base score now for future comparison.

THANK YOU everyone! A lot of great insights and advice. Ultimately, I figured out that Starbucks has decaf espresso (which I didn’t even know was a thing because, well, why…lol) and got a sugar free decaf espresso with a drop of pumpkin cold foam. The decaf espresso was far better than the decaf roast I was using. It was heavenly and just having it made me feel better— I didn’t feel like it was wrong and I didn’t feel completely restricted. I’m working on my relationship with food and “dieting” as I recover (aren’t we all?) and it felt like a win. I also wrote down some of the concoctions and great ideas y’all gave, and started planning my own sugar free healthy concoctions to try. And I will follow up with my doctor at my post-op appointment in a few days. It’s fascinating that every single person and plan is so unique, depending on your body, your doctor, hospital, state, country, etc. It’s nice to gather so many perspectives and be able to feel *in control* while weighing your options because you’re not starving all the time. Just a thought. Thanks again!

Choose the one that comes up around 21g protein. I know that if you weigh out a 3oz serving (weight after cooking), you're getting roughly 21g protein, whether it's chicken breast, steak, or salmon.

Right. That’s where my biggest dilemma is. I don’t know when I enter it into Baritastic if I should use 3oz for the cooked chicken breast or 4oz for the raw chicken breast The calorie difference isn’t my concern. I would just enter the 4oz and be done but for protein that’s like 8-9g difference. (Really not sure why 1-2 oz is 9g difference but 3-4 ounces is 8g but that’s a whole other issue).

Really it’s the carbs and protein that I am mostly interested in but I get it. They aren’t necessarily accurate. I have to get at least 90g a day and that’s actually a great deal harder than I remember without shakes. They didn’t operate on my stomach so it’s not an issue of capacity. It’s that I already eat every three hours. I can’t imagine eating any more often than that.

Okay so I will remind you yet again that my surgery was a revision and they did not operate on my stomach so I’m probably quite a bit further along when it comes to food tolerances but when you get there you may want to try these spring rolls. The rice paper is kinda hard to work with so the first ones looked pretty bad but I got to the end they looked a little better. My guess is next time they will be good. I still don’t know what to do with the leftovers. I made 8 instead of 10 because I didn’t ration the chicken well enough but it just increased the protein which btw is kinda low in this as well. I am thinking I may add edimame next time. This time I just supplemented by having a shake for my snack. Ooh and the peanut sauce is super salty. Maybe because I used 100% ground peanuts and that doesn’t have any sugar but next time I may try reduced sodium soy sauce. Anyways, here is the recipe if you like spring rolls. The hardest part was trying to figure out the mandolin to julienne the veggies. https://www.bariatricfusion.com/blogs/recipes/bariatric-recipes-chicken-and-veggie-spring-rolls

Yea. I eat five times a day. Well technically breakfast is a shake with coffee so that’s drinking but I have two meals and two snacks. Takes that much to reach my protein goal unless I just ate meat and eggs all day

Okay pretty much what I do now LOL I run 5x a week, HIIT once a week, close min 10k steps a day, lift heavy 5x a week. Maybe I need to incorporate Pilates then. Do you feel like you need to eat more? I am closing close 1700-1800 calories a day. I tried to cut back and I was sooooo tired. My protein is above 150g a day. you look phenomenal! Your stomach is so flat, and not to be weird but are you blessed up top or did you have a breast aug? My have completely depleted. I went from a 44DD to a 36A (barely) LOL

Coffee wasn’t restricted for me after WLS but I absolutely used the protein shake as creamer work around daily. It was the absolute best option to make sure I got all the protein I needed because coffee made me have even less of an appetite.

Thank you!! I lift heavy 3/4 days a week (legs/glutes, back/chest, arms/shoulders, strength and conditioning) and do Pilates twice a week. I also run/jog daily on the treadmill, I do HIIT once a week and I close at least 10k steps a day! That’s pretty much it! I focus on protein mainly and enjoy eating out on weekends.

I would definitely try the recipe above. I was an iced coffee junkie, and I learned to make mine with a caramel protein shake, and I have used the skinny syrups and they are quite tasty as well. I’m sure the pumpkin will be delicious and then you can have it every day with no guilt plus get your protein in early in the day. That’s what I have what I call my proffee which is my caramel shake that has 30 g of protein and a little coffee over ice every morning. That’s my breakfast even after I had the sleeve and gained all my weight back. That was the only thing that stuck and I still did it before my revision and now again after. If you don’t wanna go through all that they also make one called Café latte that’s premier protein makes it and it’s like a latte but it’s 30 g of protein and it has caffeine in it.

So I have a work around! You will need: 1. vanilla protein shake 2. sugar free pumpkin spice syrup (Jordans skinny syrup as a yummy one) 3. sugar free pumpkin spice sauce (Jordans skinny syrup as a yummy one) 4. pumpkins pie spice Recipe: 1 vanilla pre-made protein shake (such as premier or fairlife) 10 pumps of sugar free pumpkin spice syrup mix them in a jar together and you can use it as a creamer. Then I take a pre-made protein shake (about 1-2 oz) and use my frothier to make the foam THEN I assemble. 2oz on the bottom of the glass jar, ice to top it off, sugar free pumpin spice sauce, add decaf cold brew, then add your foam and sprinkle some of your pumpkin pie spice. ITS DELICIOUS! I drink one almost every day and its 36cal!

i dont have a set recipe, i always just kinda wing it/taste test it...but basically: - 1:3 ratio of grated fresh ginger with chopped green onion/scallions in a bowl - corn oil - sesame oil - salt/pepper to taste - dried chili flakes (optional) - Heat up the corn oil on high heat until its shimmering, enough to be able to coat all the ginger and green onion you have - add grated ginger, cook for 15-20 or so seconds - add green onion, cook for another 20-30 or so seconds (you can add chili flakes here if you want) - transfer to a bowl - add sesame oil to the bowl (about 1 tbsp give or take), add salt pepper to taste. Taste and add what you need based on your preference. - move it all to a resealable jar and add more corn oil until it covers it all. - keep in fridge after it reaches room temperature. Its supposed to be able to last a week in the fridge, but honestly my fam finishes it like 2 days so I can’t confirm that timeline lol. ** I’ve added a bit of sugar to the recipe sometimes depending of what I plan to serve it with…the sugar version works well with duck or lamb and other gamey-er proteins ** ** also use this condiment to fry rice or noodles, YUM **

GLP-1 receptor agonists are now being studied for alcohol use disorder so that maybe an option for our population. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/28/1194526119/ozempic-wegovy-drinking-alcohol-cravings-semaglutide https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/news-events/research-update/semaglutide-shows-promise-potential-alcohol-use-disorder-medication https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10371247/