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I am 8 months out and nothing really tastes great to me, tbh. I don't have cravings really... I usually pick the thing I am wanting most, then I start eating it... and it's just, eh. Only thing that tastes great to me --- which I hadn't had really since my sleeve... was mayo. Yesterday I had a turkey sandwich on Aldi's keto bread and only the mayo tasted good to me. My favorite things in the world: chicken and ketchup - I really don't like anymore. Thing is - I am hungry a lot. Like 2 hours after I eat - I get hungry again, so I do still eat but it is merely to stop my stomach from growling/feeling hungry... not because I enjoy it.

I also had the MGB 2 months and 1 week ago! I find mornings difficult...but once I am up, I am raring to go! I think the low carb thing does it also. There is such a thing of Keto flu....where you are exhausted. So body healing, new way of eating, exercise....we will be tired! But then it switches and you will have energy.

Water. Joking! I don’t know any new products that are Bariatric friendly but if you see anything low carb for keto it’s a good chance it will have less carbs but not necessarily less calories, however I love Ak-Mak

I have accepted tgat my future eating habits will never look anything like my old eating and tgats how I got to 313 in the first place. Tge surgery really is just 1 tool to help you reach your weightloss goals. I don't eat a lot of carbs at all, less than 60-65 grams a day 70-75 if I exercise that day. I don't really do keto as we can't have all that high fat and its not healthy long term. I just find creative ways to satisfy my favorite food cravings and whatever I "think" I can eat I put half that on my plate. If you eat sugary starchy foods more & more gradually on the regular you will decrease the amt that tgey bother you or cause dumping thus making it easier to incorporate them daily and putting weight back on. I lose 2.7 lbs a week on avg on about 600-800 cal a day but my day is mostly Protien then veggies with healthy fats and a small amt of fruits and carbs. I have been speaking with a councelor ev 2 weeks and my Nutritionist every month to make sure I stay focused, satisfied and don't make the wrong choices destroying my chances of success. Snacking is my biggest issue, Sugar free candies, Skinny Pop corn, popsicles, beef jerky, cheese sticks etc. I had to get all snacks out of my room, car and severely limit the amt I buy myself. I can easily stall if I snack on the wrong foods.. I had an eating disorder in my 20s and I had to totally rebuild my relationship with food, its still hard but being disabled and in pain daily was harder.

Hi, I was sleeved on 12/22/20. I’m just now finishing up my soft food stage and will be slowly (and nervously) heading back into regular foods next week. Any tips? Also any thoughts on what kind of diet is best for early post-op sleeve patients (keto, paleo, normal low carb diet) Thanks!

Further to what @catwoman7 said, since diets and the makeup of each individual vary so much, its difficult to advise someone on an internet board with just one strategy. Soooo....if you want to calculate your macros, you can use one of the calculators i've included below (NOTE: this is not the be all and end all medical advice to live by, just a guideline offered by just TWO sites...there are infinite sources out there....) This first calculator takes your inputted data and it will calculate the suggested macro breakdown for various types of diets as well as a "make your own" one you can customize: https://www.calculator.net/macro-calculator.html *** (see note below) The link above doesn't have a preset for ULTRA-LOW carb/Keto diets (you'll have to use the customize option), but this second one does (this is the one I used throughout my weight loss phase): https://www.ruled.me/keto-calculator/ Good Luck! Edited to add: I was playing around with the first calculator with my own data and it looks like it will give you a warning to consult your doctor if you put in data that would put your calories too low (I put in 115 lbs and selected "extreme weight loss"). Only when I set weight loss to "mild" did it give me an answer. Looks like it won't give an answer if the calculated calories is less than 1500. If you want to go lower than 1500 (which alot of people do), I suggest using the second calc and playing around with the carb value.

My surgeon has me on a keto diet, I have to replace one meal with a protein shake until the weekend before surgery. I will be on a full liquid diet the day before surgery.

What I’ve noticed from reading posts on this board is that nutritionalists offer a lot of conflicting advice. It can be confusing. I would tell my dietician if I disagreed with her advice or if it wasn’t something I could follow in my life & I’d ask for alternatives. What is your goal weight? Does your nutritionalist know what it is? What do they say to explain your lack of loss on the higher calorie diet? Sure, as you get closer to your goal your weight loss does slow but not losing any weight over 2.5 months at your weight sounds like maintenance to me. How active are you? Keto was my recommended 2.5 week pre surgery diet. My personal view is Keto is good for kickstarting your weight loss but not as a long term diet. There’s research about the risks from the high fat component of the diet & also that it can cause issues for diabetics with erratic insulin levels because of the low carb aspect. Just something to consider. I’m all for a balanced diet. I eat about 2 serves of carbs a day (rolled oats & multi grain crackers only not including naturally occurring carbs in other foods), 4 serves of fruit/vegetables, 2-3 serves of dairy, 60g protein & am low fat. I avoid added sugar & artificial sweeteners wherever I can & have a glass of alcohol about once a month. I will have a protein bar if my protein is a little low. My portion sizes are about 3/4 of the recommended serving size or I have fewer serves in a day (like 4 serves fruit/vegetables not the recommended 5). I was told my maintenance protein level was 1.2g per kg of body weight because of being a women in her 50s. I don’t take multi vitamins. This is working for me. It took me a while to discover out how much I could eat in maintenance & I kept slowly losing for 12 months. You will need to work out what works for you in relation to the point at which you can lose & the point at which you can maintain. It will be different to other people’s diets. You may be able to eat more carbs or may choose to go down the plant based protein route. You may need more or fewer calories. You also need to work out what food choices allow you to live your life - dining out, having a glass of wine, travelling (whatever that will be like), work, etc. It may be time for some straight talking with your nutritionalist about your goals & what is achievable for you & your lifestyle. Good luck.

Glad to see everyone is doing so well I lost down to under 130 last April at the start of the pandemic. I’ve gained about 5-7 pounds and stay generally between 133-138. I hit 142 right after the holidays, and went strictly bari-keto with IF and now I’m sitting at 137. The first shot was when I dipped down below 130 and I feel like I look quite skeletal. The second shot is from late summer, and the 3rd shot is from a few weeks ago (I was probably 3-4 pounds “heavier” than I am currently.) Sorry I’ve been gone for so long, but it’s been a rough last year and unfortunately the frenetic pace isn’t slowing down for me. I’ve had 2 days off since January 1st with no end in sight

You certainly don't have to do keto if you don't want to (I never did) as people have been successfully negotiating their WLS for years, decades, before keto was ever dreamed of, and will continue to do so once that fad has faded, lol. What type of test(s) did they do for your body composition and BMR? Some work better than others, and they all have some flakiness when it comes to measuring obese, or formerly obese, people, but they can give a ballpark estimate of things. I am a bit skeptical of the 1200 calorie minimum for a woman of your size (height mostly) as there can be quite a variation in metabolic rates (which the test may or may not pick up) and it's not unusual to see women of your height maintaining in the 1200 range (and some may do so at 1600 or so.) I do understand that there are differing hypotheses and philosophies regarding metabolic set points and going too low means you stay low, etc., but there is also not a real strong consensus on this issue, either. My inclination would be to keep the calories on the lower side of their range, if not a bit lower, and see how that goes. I did fine at a consistent 1100 per day, but I have a decent guy's metabolism, and was losing at a consistent 10 lb per month after the initial quicker loss of the first three months. I am also maintaining in the 2000-2200 calorie range, so I had a fairly large caloric deficit to work from, which I doubt that you have given your height and gender. There is a general tendency for our loss to decline as we lose weight over the months, simply because we aren't moving alll of that excess weight around 24/7, so a slowdown should be expected, but it also means that there is a danger of going into maintenance early if our calories are too high, or worse, increase them over time as some programs suggest. Good luck!

Thanks for both of your posts! It makes me feel better. My surgeon's PA (who is also his wife lol) also said the same thing about the 8 pounds a month. I love this board, so many helpful suggestions and people but I get anxious reading about people that stay below x amount of calories until a year out from surgery. Or those that have met goal (although a similar SW to myself) by 6 or 7 months. I definitely get the low carb thing but I paid for surgery with the hope that keto wouldn't be any part of my future. I've tried it and it's just so expensive and unrealistic for me personally. I wanted the switch and my surgeon said he thought I'd do fine with the less severe sleeve and promised no keto required. Lol. I'm hoping that slow and somewhat steady will win the race. Thanks again!!

@serenity786 YAAAY!! I know the exact feeling when Dr. Hong took it out last year. It feel a heavy burden to relieve out and your mindset is now healing through trauma of symptoms we went through the bad. I remember after woking up from surgery asking the nurse if the band was out. LOL .. I am so happy to tell you i lost 40 lbs and i am still working on it. i will never ever take my weight loss for granted. I am on keto/ low carb diet and it had been working for me. Right now the post surgery will be painful for aleast a two week. My tip is to keep walking and then take couple hour to sit and lay in bed and keep rotating your body otherwise your back is gonna be hella sore. Speedy Recovery and now it time for you to enjoy and breathe in this healing journey ❤️

Hi folks. So it's been more than four years since I posted on this thread. Thought it was worth updating my story. So last time I posted, I was struggling with some modest (c5 lbs) regain after reaching 177lbs - which was a weight I was happy with but it will still about 12 lbs above my goal weight. Over the next four years, I gained more - getting up to 200lbs last January. Then the pandemic hit. I was working from home all day, getting no real exercise (bar a few half hearted runs in the park) and eating a lot out of boredom - with the result that I gained another 20lbs by this January. Of course there's lots of regret about allowing myself to regain 43lbs, especially as I never even got to my goal weight in the first place. But regrets don't change anything. I'm back on it now, aiming to lose c2lbs a week. I'm limiting my calories to 1750 a day, and aiming to burn between 2750 and 3000. Most days I come in under my 1750, but I allow myself one day a week where I can 'use up' any leftover calories to bring my daily calories up to a max of 2500. A few basic rules: (a) nothing is off the table - that sort of diet doesn't work for me, and I know I will fall off that particular wagon quickly; (b) back to no drinking half hour either side of a meal; (c) if I want a snack, I have to drink 500ml water first, to see if that changes whether I want it or not; (d) I measure and track everything I eat with MyFitnessPal - and my calories are built around my meals, which I pre-log so I know what I have to play around with for snacks etc; (e) no fizzy drinks during the week, only water or sugar-free cordial. There are a few tactics I've used to avoid boredom snacking. As noted above, I drink before snacking and always when I feel 'hunger' try to get in tune with whether my body is actually hungry. Where I control my virtual meetings at work (from home) I try to schedule them at peak snacking-risk times (usually the two hours before lunch, and the two hours before I finish up for the day) to make sure I have something to do that means I can't snack. I have also been doing some longish walks to avoid snacking (usually taking the dog and no money so I'm not tempted into a shop...) There was a point - maybe two years ago when I tried a pouch reset diet. I lasted about 2 days. This time around I tried Keto for two days. I've realised that the only thing that works for me is bog standard Calories In < Calories Out. Everything else will fail for me. So now I'm two and a half weeks in. I'm down from 220 to 211 and pretty happy with the results. Starting to see some very slight changes in my belly and my shoulders. Weirdly, even though the initial lockdown caused me to gain, this lockdown is helping me to lose: being at home all day gives me total freedom to make good choices, to measure everything I eat and track it. If I can get down to roughly 175lbs I'll be happy. But would ideally get down to about 165lbs.

Watch Keto during weight loss because of its high fat requirement. My cholesterol levels went up a lot & my liver function went hay wire while I was losing weight even though I was eating low fat. All the bad cholesterol I had stored in my fat was being released into my blood stream as I was losing. Once I stopped losing my cholesterol levels dropped back to normal. My recommended pre surgery diet was keto (2 1/2 weeks only) but there’s no way I’d use it again because of the high fat - I don’t enjoy fatty foods at all.

Hey all, so I've been lurking for about a year, off and on and finally made an account once I received a surgery date. Backstory in a nutshell: This is not my first rodeo. Been on a bajillion diets and yo-yo'ed for too long. Had some success, some lasting years, but my Achilles heel is keeping it off. I like to exercise so mostly that part of the equation has not been a sticking point for me. I started my journey to WLS on Oct 2019. I wrapped up my insurance-required steps by April 2020 BUT initially had been doing so well on my own with losing that I thought perhaps I wouldn't even go the WLS route. Then covid happened and threw me off balance a bit, but I kept to my exercise and keto/low carb diet with success. Things went wonky in June when I broke my ankle and then again in December when I sprained that same ankle (grrrr). All my progress stalled while I healed and it didn't take much for me to gain nearly all my lost weight back in about 7 months. I asked my bariatric team to go ahead and submit my paperwork in November, I think. Processes were slow due to the virus, but I was shocked to get a pretty quick approval and surgery date for Dec 17. That was put on hold, but just this week I received a call that elective surgeries were being scheduled again. I have pre-op visits on Jan 22 with the anesthesiologist and surgeon. I am not sure if I'll have to do a pre-op diet. Guess the surgeon will tell me Friday! I'm pretty excited and trying not to be too nervous about the days ahead. I'm married and have two kids (ages 18 & 20). My username is kind of a private joke. No matter how heavy I am, I've always thought I had nice ankles. 😄 So anyway...Hi! 😊

Thank you. I can't help but be depressed. There are other things going on in my life (work & family) that are contributing factors, so this mess with my stall & my hair doesn't help. I feel like if I had a full head of hair (which was thin & fine, to begin with!) and was continuing to lose weight, it might help and feel like progress. I'm trying to stick to things as best as I can, but when the surgical staff says "stop snacking, only eat meals", it's hard! I just can't do it. I get stomachaches easily and do better with frequent snacks. I'm pretty much on a keto diet as it is. I just hope this stall breaks quickly... I have 50lb to go to get to my goal. Even if I don't fully reach it, I want to get close.

Hi , I am a newbie still but I 'll share my input. Dont be depressed, you ve made alot of progress from what I can see in ur stats. My hair is thinning too at the middle parting and more hair falls out when I wash out. I am expecting it to get worse at some point so. I dont think we can do much but let it run its course . I havent stalled yet but my weight loss is a bit slow. So I am taking a more keto approach, having protein shakes and salads more. Keto might help you but general advice is to stick to your plan until the stall breaks.

Hi guys - I'm in a similar boat. Sleeved March 2015 at 292lbs. Got down to 177lbs. Was pretty happy there but was aiming for 165. Started to gradually gain - by Jan 2020 I was up to 200, and then because of the pandemic and lockdown (boredom eating mainly) I was up to 220 this January. So I've not regained all my weight, but still regained about 40% of it. I'm on week three of trying to lose my regain. Down 10lbs so far (but some of that in week 1 was probably water weight). This is what has been working for me: 1. Keep it simple. It's calories in vs calories out. I tried Keto for two days and was so miserable that it was never going to be sustainable. So I'm just going for a straightforward trying to consume 1000 calories less than I burn each day - i.e. less than 1750. 2. Within that calorie allowance, I allow myself to eat anything I want, subject to the following rules. 3. My first calories get used on a protein heavy breakfast, lunch and dinner. Only after I've logged all of those do I get to incorporate snacks. 4. No drinking with meals or 30 minutes either side of a meal. But otherwise lots of water. 5. No fizzy drinks except at weekends. I never had a calorie problem with fizzy drinks as my weakness was Diet Coke. But now I only drink sugar-free cordial (Robinson's Orange and Mango or Orange and Pineapple for those in the UK). 6. If I want a snack, I have to have a drink (water or cordial) first to see if that stops the craving. 7. Everything - and I mean everything - I eat is measured and recorded on MyFitnessPal before I eat it. It helps me see the impact of a particular choice on my calorie levels for the day, and sometimes leads me to make a different choice. 8. Six days of the week, I must be under 1750 calories. One day a week (usually Sunday) I allow myself up to 2500 calories but only if I have 'banked' enough calories during the week. So if, say, on Monday I consume 1500 calories rather than 1750, those 250 go into the bank and I allow myself to use them on Sunday (up to the maximum of 2500, which is roughly what I burn in an average day of activity). I've been doing that since 4 January, and have gone from 220lbs to 210lbs. I am aiming for 2lb loss a week for the next three months, and then to slow it down to about 1lb a month for another three or four months.

Hello everyone! So just to give details, I had surgery 5/29/18 and lost 95lbs originally post surgery. However since, I gained back 35lbs and have been depressed about it. I’ve lost the 35lbs then gained it back (and the cycle repeats). I’ve tried Keto, Vegetarian, Whole30, the works! And it seemed as if my stomach stretched out and I was back to eating almost all the way normal. This time around though, I figured I would go back to what I learned pre-op and make the lifestyle changes I made 2 years ago to lose the weight. I restarted about two weeks ago, eating my food slowly, listening to when I was actually hungry, taking my supplements, drinking my water, eating protein first, getting active each day and eating 3 meals without snacks. Two weeks later, I’m already down 6 pounds and now it seems like I’m eating the portions I was eating 2-3 months post-op! Even the dumping sensations I felt when I eat too much came back (something I TRULY didn’t miss lol) I realized that I was seriously overeating and not utilizing the tool I’ve been given. All of this to say, if you are someone like me, going through regain loss and have been a ways out from surgery, don’t overcomplicate it. Go back to basics and use your tool. It hasn’t stopped working. It hasn’t stretched out. It’s just not being utilized. And you can pick it back up again. We got this! Don’t give up.

I am happy WLS is working so well for you. I would like to lose weight quicker. Even when I eat small amounts the scale doesnt move much. So trying more of a keto approach of reducing my carbs. Replaced breakfast with a protein shake and lunch with a tuna salad. Heres hoping...

Today is 1 month and 1 day since I had my VGS surgery. And I can’t tell you all how happy I am to have had this surgery. It has made all the difference in the world to my life. I have 10x the amount of energy I used to have, almost like I have a bounce in my step again. My SW: 260 My CW: 217 GW: 175-180 It just seems like it’s really working. What I wanted to share with some people that seem to be struggling with the weight loss is that I have made my diet mostly keto. I understand carbs are just as important during the recovery time, but being more keto has helped the weight come off faster. Faster than even when I was not eating much after the surgery. I am really surprised by how fast it is dropping now... I think I’ll be at my goal weight before I even know it. Because of all this new found energy, I have been able to do so much more. I want everyone to be this happy 😃

- if both surgeries are just as easy to fail as they are to succeed, why do the research charts show this difference? Research is based on averages. The numbers you are quoting do not apply to everyone in exactly the same way....it is an aggregate of those who reach goal AND those who don’t. 1 person loses 100 lbs. Another loses 40 lbs. Average weight loss of this “control group” is 70lbs...which is no where near what each person actually lost. @catwoman7 probably explained this better than me In her earlier post, lol Second, if you need to rely on averages for your peace of mind, it may be worth your while then to look into the makeup of the studied. Age, gender, starting weight, lifestyle habits, medical conditions, genetics, etc. Daunting, yes, but more informative and contextual. But really, wanna beat the average? Stick to plan more consistently than the “average” person (barring any medical conditions of course). Also, I wanted to ask, did you get to choose the size boujie you wanted for your sleeve or know what size Dr used for you?? Doc just did his thing with no input from me. I have no idea how what size he used! Also, did you cravings and hunger completely return after 6 months or it does but slightly? My hunger levels and occurrences has not returned to pre-op levels. I can’t remember when I first felt hungry though (it was months in)...but I do remember it was a rare occurrence. Even now at 2+ years out, i still have days of just not wanting/forgetting to eat. When i do get hungry, it isn’t the ravenous kind of hunger though. And it doesn’t take much to satisfy it. Lastly, can you just do complete Keto during the first year after surgery so you stay under 20 net carbs and in ketosis? Or our body doesn't need to be in fat burning mode because of the surgery? I didnt do full-on Keto during weight-loss phase because there was no way I could get in the percentage of fat required...but I did do ultra-low carb (20 net carbs max) during that time. But number of grams of carbs consumed is no where near as important as total calories consumed for weight loss. Though going low carb does tend to make me look lean. For my body this is good, cuz i can see more muscle definition, but for my face, not so good, as I look Skelator-ish. Since I have been consuming a higher number of net carbs (anywhere in the 100-175 range) my face looks much nicer, but the bod looks “soft” P.S. sorry this was so long

First of all I just wanna say congratulations on your success! All of the points you gave on why you chose to go with the sleeve sounds a lot like me which is why I know my Dr. Is gonna push for the sleeve lol. And im less afraid to go with that too. I'm afraid of dumping syndrome, of meds and vitamins not being absorbed enough, or having my intestines rerouted. Etc. The only thing that bothers me is why the statistics say the sleevers lose 60-70% excess weight and bypass lose more. I'm asking from a completely objective standpoint - if both surgeries are just as easy to fail as they are to succeed, why do the research charts show this difference? Also, I wanted to ask, did you get to choose the size boujie you wanted for your sleeve or know what size Dr used for you?? Also, did you cravings and hunger completely return after 6 months or it does but slightly? Lastly, can you just do complete keto during the first year after surgery so you stay under 20 net carbs and in ketosis? Or our body doesn't need to be in fat burning mode because of the surgery? Sent from my SM-N986U using BariatricPal mobile app

I didn’t start at as high a bmi as you but I still thought I’d share my experience so far. I chose sleeve with my surgeon’s support, even though I suffered from stress related gerd. Yes, I have some issues but manage it with medication. I chose sleeve surgery because it doesn’t change the digestive tract as much as other surgeries. Yes my stomach is smaller but it is the same length as it was as are my intestines. I think this is why absorption is not as great an issue with sleeve. My nutrient absorption is good. I haven’t taken multi vitamins since I reached my goal a year ago & my blood work come back fine. Yes, bypass patients do tend to lose weight more quickly to begin but the 5 year average of weight lost & maintained across both surgeries is about the same - 60-65% of the weight initially to be lost. Dr Vuong has a great video that explains this very well. Think it’s called how to maximise your weight loss. The amount of weight you successfully lose & maintain really comes down to the individual. Even though I’ve exceeded my original goal (lost about 135%), I’ve had the view that I would find a place of balance between maintaining my weight & maintaining my lifestyle. I believe that if you restrict your food choices & intake to a point you can not enjoy your life & the things you like to do your diet will fail because you will consciously or subconsciously revolt against the restrictions you employed. Honestly, my diet is still pretty restrictive but I’m not quite 2 years out so I have a long way to go to find the balance of what works for me. Currently, I eat low sugar & artificial sweeteners, low fat, moderate carbs (whole or multi grains but no breads, rice, pasta), fruits, vegetables & of course I’m protein & portion control focussed. I have the odd glass of alcohol but I often don’t finish the glass. It’s easy to manage & doesn’t affect how I socialise so far. The keto debate is an interesting one. My 3 week pre surgery diet was keto but I know I could not maintain the high fat requirement long term but that is me - I don’t like overly fatty foods. But it certainly gave me a kick start. There is research that says the high fat content causes cholesterol problems. There’s research that shows that while it may help people with diabetes to begin, long term it can cause erratic insulin levels due to the low carb intake. And of course there’s research that it’s great. I think you have to find the diet that works for you. Good luck whichever surgery you choose.

I personally can't eat a ton of fat at one sitting, but I do know RNY "vets" who eat Keto, so evidently it's do-able! There's no general requirement to keep fats low with either surgery, that I'm aware of. Programs vary a lot, but they all seem to be fairly high protein. Some programs are also low carb, but not all (mine was pretty balanced - and I eat a pretty well-balanced diet now, at almost six years out). I don't think most programs have much to say about fats. It seems like everyone talks about protein - and many (but not all) about carbs.