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Don't get back into junk and empty calories... that'll snowball fast. Compensate with healthy fats complex carbs, and the occasional treat. I like to add the occasional bread, pasta,or rice to a meal if I want more. But that's after I eat my healthy stuff first. If you're going to the gym, maybe more protein.

Premier Protein for me.

Well it should be a really good thing that you like water post op. Not sure about the salad. With the surgeries they actually cut your stomach and intestines it’s a while before your allowed salad but do they actually cut anything with the balloon or do they do they fill it after it’s in there somehow? I had the sleeve first, and I recently had a revision to the CB because of weight red and because they didn’t operate on my stomach. I had to wait like two months until everything was healed and now I can eat whatever I want so I’m back to salad earlier than those who had their stomach operated on. I’m sure you’re a doctor will tell you what is appropriate for you though. I really wish one of our restaurants would have Bogo on salads. I actually love them too. I have found that when logging all of my macros in an app that salad is actually not as great for us as we think it is as we tend to eat it. It’s mostly the dressing even one serving is pretty high in calories but if I am careful what I have the rest of the day I’m able to enjoy it on my plan. I finally figured out that if you put it in a bigger container and stir it around with the dressing, it’s easier to get a little bit on all of the lettuce with a smaller amount of dressing. Kind of like they do when they prepare Caesar salad. Of course it’s kind of hard to do that when you’re actually in a restaurant, but then I will just ask for the dressing on the side and dip a little bit as I go. With the smaller stomach, I mostly eat the toppings anyway, and just a tiny bit of lettuce to get the protein and nutrition before I run out of room.

I too have dealt with stalls….and struggled with water and protein intake. the struggle is real! And so odd right? For me it was going from eating everything in sight to sharing a plate with the hubs when we go out to eat. one thing I did because I was so sick of protein shakes and bars…. I even went through a phase when I ate baby food every so often just to switch it up! i started experimenting with unflavored flavored protein….soups, sugar free jello, pancakes/muffins ect tons of recipes on this site. once you start eating regularly and getting out and about, you will feel so much better….trust the process (as they say!) also make sure you are taking the vitamins/meds recommended by your doc good luck 😊

Congrats, LeighAnn! I also had back pains and it ended up being the gas from the surgery. It dissipated after about 4 days, and I felt much better. Remember to drink REALLY slowly and the nausea hopefully will lessen as well. I had some nausea just because at this point, I am SO tired of protein shakes! I still have a little trouble 12 days out, but trying different flavors helped some as well as the slow-paced drinking.

My nutrionist approved me to go on the soft food phase. After protein water, shakes everything just tastes so much better! Currently going to try and see how much of one whole egg, one egg white and a bit of avocado I can get through,

I had the sleeve on 4/22. I have lost 36 pounds since starting liquids. I previously had a lap band that was removed 10 years ago. With the sleeve I feel almost zero restriction. I feel I could eat as long as I wanted. I can drink and drink. I’m getting close to 2 gallons a day with no issue and have been from first day post op. I am hungry all the time. I don’t feel satisfied ever. I’m restricting myself to 1200 calories a day. I thought this would be more like the band where you felt full. I hate being constantly hungry. I’m at a loss. I read other people saying they they can only eat small amounts and have to struggle to get the protein and I think I wouldn’t mind some of that.

I'm checking in! Surgery itself went smoothly in Monday morning although the gas left kind of a tight band sort of feeling around my chest that felt far too much like an anxiety attack. I remember them trying to talk to me and I just kept saying -tight chest, anxiety, don't like. They gave me some anxiety medicine that soothed me but did make me take a little longer to shake off the sedation. I elected to send my Mom and friend home after I was settled into my room because my Mom doesn't drive and she is so anxious herself that I tend to worry more about her than myself when hard times happen. I did some standing Monday afternoon before they prompted me because I knew standing and walking would be the only way to feel better and work the gas out. It took several tries for me to figure out how much of the flavored propel water I could drink without gagging it back up. It only took once though for me to realize retching )being sick to my stomach hurt like heck and was VERY unpleasant. I started rocking side to side, standing, walking, and stretching as much as I safely could to bring on burps because those delivered a bit of relief. Sleeping overnight was interrupted as expected by staff checking on me, getting vitals, etc. Tuesday morning I felt a little better and resumed the walking. I found that I needed to be sitting up completely with good posture if not standing for my little sips to go down better. I started sitting in the recliner more than. The bed for this reason - plus it taking less effort to get up that way. Staff was great though, bringing me heated blankets, helping me adjust the room temperature , etc. They moved me to to protein shakes Tuesday as well but as I was warned even the little sips still felt heavy and kind of unpleasant. Also, they don't taste very good when warm. I did more walking Tuesday and the staff even offered to help me shower but I went with the huge wipes instead because I was pretty tuckered out. I have 4 or 5 incisions with a total of I believe 12 staples. They took the bandaids off yesterday evening because they were starting to pull and be uncomfortable so that was my first look at them. There is one main incision in the center that tucks against a fold of skin that is definitely the most uncomfortable. I had to keep testing my comfort level for fluids and walking, I requested a different type of protein and found that room temperature beef broth didn't taste any better than the shakes. Ugh. They gave me some unflavored protein powder today to mix with my Propel and I got down about 2.5 oz but still not loving it. I was offered the chance to go home today but lucky me - my body DID decide to double up with my period starting this morning. I elected to take an extra day of IV fluids before heading home tomorrow seeing as I live 2 hours away from the hospital. All in all I keep being told I am doing great but I'm tuckered out. I have been frequent in asking for my pain medication, anxiety medication, and nausea medicine. This evening I've also had some heartburn. Oh - and you do need to ask for things generally, they will loosely ask if you need anything but can't just randomly offer pain meds. You can also ask for ice packs. Oh - the only things I had to ask for more than once was for my IV to be redone. My hand kept going cold with the meds and fluids making it ache more so I finally pushed a bit gently to get them to change it out. Bidding you all the best, hope this helps someone! 🙏🏻

Sometimes you don’t have any symptoms for you to discover you have gall stones which may be why you had your gall removed unexpectedly - they only found the problem during your surgery. I found out I had a gallstone 9 months post sleeve. No symptoms then at 25 months post sleeve I had my first attack (the pain is horrendous!) and my surgeon removed my gall. The gall regulates the stomach acid entering your tummy. It can take a little while for the body to compensate for it not being there and the extra acid can cause some smelly diarrhoea. My surgeon said to let him know if it continued for more than a month. It didn’t though every now & again I might have an attack of this sort of diarrhoea (my sister-in-law does too but my aunt doesn’t). Some people struggle with fatty food after gall surgery. This is a more common malabsorption issue. Me, I got the more rare protein malabsorption. Also have issues absorbing some meds (notably my HRT). I think I have the fat one as well & is why my cholesterol has been slowly increasing - waah! Out of curiosity, why couldn’t you have the latte? I wasn’t told I couldn’t have anything after my surgery.

Really starting to feel like I am in a groove getting in all of my fluids, protein and vitamins. It’s no longer a huge struggle I have to constantly think about. I take my calcium with my morning proffee that I drink first thing that gives me a really good start at 20oz fluid, 30g protein and one vitamin down. (Just take the vitamin with the last sip as opposed to the first if your vitamin has a lot of iron) and I mix in a spoon of soluable fiber so I get that over with as well. While I’m drinking it I get out my three calcium’s for the day, take my stool softener and take my daily rx meds. The rest of the day is pretty easy. I don’t get up at a set time so I just make sure to wait at least two hours to take my calcium’s and just fit in all three like an hour before I plan to go to bed at which time I take my second stool softener and the magnesium she added for muscle cramps. If i am going to be out for the day I will set alarms for the calcium’s and put them in my purse during my proffee. . A long time ago I created alarms for every half hour of the day so that it’s super simple to just toggle on whichever alarms I may need in the morning and when it goes off I just have to figure out what I’m forgetting 😆 You may have to turn off the ”everyday” function so when you turn it off it’s really off but doing that has helped me with everything I have to remember since I get distracted pretty easily. This would be way easier if you get up at a set time because you could turn on that everyday function and set the alarm once and it’s done from then on. At this point I’m only reminded of the pain a handful of times throughout the day. The only thing that is still not easy for me is the 30 minute rule. I know that I was supposed to do that forever after my sleeve but around the time I gave up hope on that I started back with drinking while eating and it’s a really hard habit to break. I do find that if I brush after meals and swish water around and spit it out it helps some. Next step is soft foods I am so looking forward to this stage and at the same time anxious I will overdo it too fast. I believe I mentioned before I am a rule follower and prefer more structure “soft food” is a bit vague for me. I survived it last time, though so I’m sure it will be okay I really hope everyone else is recovering well if early out and starting to get in their groove as well if they are a little further out. Any tips that you guys have worked out to remember it all?

Hi everyone, this is my first post. I will be having hernia repair and vertical gastric sleeve on 8/6/24. SW 295.9 CW 270 GW 150 My food education class is this coming week, and I hope to learn a lot more about what I will be allowed to eat. I do know that I will be on a 2-week pre-op and 2-week post-op liquid diet. I will actually get all my vitamins and protein powders during my class. I am fortunate that my insurance covers the surgery at 100% and I only had a 4 month waiting period from my first doctor visit. I stopped all caffeine, carbonated, and high calorie drinks back in April. My daily water goal of 64oz is pretty hard to reach sometimes, but I do my best. Ironically, I do better on the days I am at work as opposed to at home. Best of luck to those of you giving up smoking.

Such good advice above. I so love this forum. 😍 OP I hope you can judge yourself less and forgive yourself a few lapses - you are human, as are the rest of us. You have done the best thing you could for your health and have gone to enormous trouble (and expense?) to do it! We ALL have slips and do things that we know aren't good for us. If we can look back and analyse why we did what we did then sometimes that can help us avoid the same mistakes in future. I am 3 years post sleeve and I carry protein-based snacks wherever I go - usually nuts or seeds in little packs that I can carry in my bag. If I am hungry (and I do get fierce hunger at quite short notice a couple of hours after eating) and I'm in danger of eating something I shouldn't, then I will eat those. I know they will help stop me eating the rubbish that my head wants but my body doesn't need. It works a bit for me so I hope will help you. I never leave home without them. In addition I have stock phrases to 'explain' (not that I have to but - yunno) why I am not indulging in the delicious sugary fatty rubbish along with everyone else. I learned those phrases here. Oh I ate before I came! I'm just not hungry right now. I'm doing strict keto so I'm avoiding sugar at the minute. And so on. IME people completely lose interest if you say 'a thing', LOL. I wish you the best of luck. You've stumbled a little this week, that's OK, it's a marathon not a sprint. I hope you can use some of the resources suggested above. It's hard. It's hard every day, even after WLS. Take one day at a time and be kind to yourself. We are all here for you.

I was released from the hospital on the pureed stage (hurray for no all liquid part). But I for sure wasn't about to have pureed meats - yuck. It was a lot of more shakes, yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta bake, cheese sticks well chewed, and soups. Mainly I did lentil veggie soup blended and black bean soup blended. Also no sugar added applesauce and no sugar popsicles. (i do not like jello so i skipped that option). My program didn't include tuna, mince meats or eggs at pureed stage as some do. If you do get eggs in your plan and can tolerate them, i would say to add in some cottage cheese to scramble as it makes them much creamier. It's definitely great to plan ahead - homemade soups tend to more flavorful and you can control what's in them (and cook them down enough to not even have to puree)and then freeze them in smaller portions - however try not to over plan as your taste buds can drastically change after surgery. Sometimes it's short term - like mine was for about a month post and went back to things tasting fine - others stay with aversions to taste, texture and/or temp for a much longer time.

I wish I had taken some 'before' pictures so that I could see the great changes. I still don't think I see the real me in the mirror at times so wish I could look at how fat (I can now say that about myself 😄) I was pre-op. I did switch to decaf for the two weeks pre-op as read it online but the hospital were giving me (disgusting) coffee the day after the op and continued to offer it to me every day I was there but my tastebuds couldn't hack it so I went with herbal tea each time. Now, a year later, coffee is no problem and have it running through my veins. I also made a batch of liquid soups for the first week and froze them in 150ml containers so that I wouldn't have to worry about it, just needed to add protein powder at the time, plus I prepped the veg for a second batch of soup and froze them so it meant I just had to put them in the slow cooker with a stock cube, no standing around peeling, chopping etc.

hi Christine. I find the reverse is just as true too. Where the most commonly experienced effects of surgery just aren’t shared with patients by their team. How many post do we see from people upset, depressed & frustrated about stalls, hair loss, foamies, etc. Though I know there could be things missed simply because there is so, so much information we’re given & have to absorb. I do advocate sticking to the plan given to you by your team but we know there is no one size fits all (in life, clothing or plans). If something isn’t working for you, ask for alternatives, other options or suggestions as to what you can do or eat or drink, etc. Take suggestions & experiences people offer here & ask your team if you could try them. They’re supposed to know you & are best placed to advise what will support you without compromising your recovery or progress. Hope your upcoming surgery is successful & everything is put back to where it’s supposed to be. PS - Fellow teacher here too - well was one of my careers. What year levels or subjects did you teach? Congrats on your retirement.

I had VSG (2015) to RNY revision on January 18th due to GERD. I also had regained almost 70 pounds from my VSG post-op low weight. I've so far lost about 20 pounds since the pre-op diet & surgery. I need to lose another 20 pounds (for normal BMI) to 50 pounds (for calculated ideal body weight). I'm now on unrestricted food textures, and per my program's dietician, I'm supposed to be on my "maintenance" diet now. However, they refuse to discuss any calorie goals or macros other than protein. I'm someone who needs very clear goals and guidelines (thanks, long-undiagnosed ADHD), and I'm feeling very lost about what my diet should look like moving forward. The lifelong guidelines for my program, as I understand them: 60-80g protein per day Up to 4 oz. (1/2 cup) per meal, consisting of: Up to 3 oz. protein per meal Up to 1 oz. (total) veg, fruit, or starch per meal 3 meals per day 1 snack per day (the program guide I was given says 1-2, but per my surgeon I'm only allowed to have 1 snack per day and it has to be between lunch and dinner) - I have no guidelines for the amount I'm allowed for the snack. I assume it's not supposed to be as much food as the meals, but I don't know. Protein shakes/powders are frowned upon The only sample menu provided in my program guide is as follows: Breakfast: Egg omelet with sautéed peppers & onions Snack: Protein shake OR Greek yogurt with berries [removed per my surgeon's instructions] Lunch: Lettuce wrap with turkey and avocado/cheese [it is not clear to me if the / means avocado OR cheese, or avocado AND cheese, but I assume the former] Snack: Apple slices with 2 tablespoons nut butter OR carrots with hummus Dinner: Pesto chicken with spaghetti squash, sautéed spinach, and cherry tomatoes I plugged this menu into the Baritastic app to try and get a sense of what the calories and macros are supposed to look like. The sample menu gave no amounts other than the nut butter, so I used the 3 oz. protein + 1 oz. veg/fruit/starch rule. With the carrots & hummus snack option, here are the macros for the day: 593 calories 62g protein 32g fat 17g carbs (13g net carbs) 4g sugar 4g fiber And here are the apple & nut butter (I used natural peanut butter) macros for the day: 739 calories 67g protein 43g fat 21g carbs (16g net carbs) 8g sugar 5g fiber So from that, I'm extrapolating that I should be aiming for the following daily: 600-750 calories 60-80g protein 30-40g fat less than 25g carbs less than 10g sugar I have a few concerns... I have already been going well over those amounts at just over a month post-op. I've typically getting around 800-900 calories per day. It seems like a real struggle to get to the upper range of protein daily while sticking to the allowed amounts and without using any shakes or protein supplements. Even then, 80g seems low for a protein goal. I have never been a big meat eater (I was vegetarian through most of my teens and 20s), and I absolutely cannot stand any fish or seafood. I do eat a lot of dairy, eggs, and beans, but it seems like that's not going to do it. The standard daily fiber goal I've always heard is 25g per day. I've been getting about 12-15g per day right now, but knowing that I'm overeating and already having too many carbs means even that's not sustainable. I've struggled with post-op constipation... I have gotten to a much better place recently, but if I need to cut back to 4-5g of fiber per day to be within my other limits, I'm afraid of going backwards. That I'm limited to 1/2 cup of food per meal for the rest of my life came as a shock to me, as a revision patient. I knew that my pouch would be smaller than my sleeve, and like with my original surgery, the amount I'd be able to eat at one time would be very small initially. But with my sleeve (which was done by a different surgeon in a different program), there was definitely not the expectation that the amount I could/should eat at 1 month post-op would be the same as what I could/should be eating at 6 months or 1 year out. My bypass surgeon also told me that she left my pouch a little larger than normal so that I wouldn't lose too much additional weight, so my pouch is already larger than a regular bypass patient's. Do these amounts seem in line with other people's experiences? Or am I way off-base?

Hope everything went smoothly for you. How are you feeling? I had the sleeve 3/18! I'm working on getting 2 protein shakes& water in to stay hydrated. Not a lot of calories so low energy at the moment.

Thank you. That was very helpful. The desire is definitely to chew. The food cravings I have are from Mediterranean cooking accounts on instagram. The salads look amazing. The old me would have liked at sugar and baking that way. At least the food I want is healthy. My surgeon doesn’t want me starting my vitamins until the 2 week follow up. The rationale is that getting all the fluid and protein that I need in a day should be my primary focus and he doesn’t want too much put on me all at once. im prescribed omeprazole twice daily. I’ve been taking the morning dose but not my evening dose. That also seems to me when I start feeling the “hunger”. I start taking them twice a day as prescribed.

@SandyT I'm having a gastric sleeve on May 6 as well! Glad to read about others' experiences here, helps me feel like I'm not on my own. I started my protein shake diet a couple days early on 4/19, and it has been rough so far (extreme fatigue, headaches, brain fog, and bloating). A few people have told me it usually gets better after 3-5 days, and I really hope that's the case!

Hey there, I'm 6 days out from gastric bypass too and the only things I'm having right now are protein shakes, water, broth, and little bit of zero sugar yogurt or unsweetened kefir. Focus on fluids first, protein shakes second, and anything else only when your goals are met for hydration and protein. I'm finding hot tea (decaf) and broth go down much better than cold stuff, so you could give that a try and see if you are the same.

Follow up: Surgery went well. Doctor was very pleased with it and my post-op. Tomorrow is the one week mark and I feel pretty good. Following the protein and water intake rules. Using a medicine cup to drink from so that I remember to sip helps a lot. Anyway happy to report that surgery at 60 is going even better than it was at 50 so far!!

I don’t personal buy it on bariatric pal, but might look into it. Before my surgery I bought some protein soup and protein pudding on Amazon. I picked the one that is bariatric friendly like low in carb, and low in sugar. The protein pudding I tried the variety pack first, but the 0 sugar one didn’t taste to my liking and I bought the one I like that have 2garm of sugar in it. The soup and pudding have extra 12-15 gram of protein. I only use it when my meals does not meet my protein requirements and it can give me a boost, or I use it when I am craving dessert. It does help a lot for me. But I had only used 2 time after surgery. I used it more when I was in my pre ob liquid diet.

Most days are ok providing I’m willing to prepare with protein ‘enriched’ products before going to work - I hate having to force in 20gm s of protein before bed.. I’m on soft food stage but I don’t think I’m doing this as well as I can still relying on protein powders and pre packaged drinks instead of sourcing it from food so I guess I’m still on that steep learning curve haha. basically currently I’m a non cook ( a great pre-heater though) but bestie made me all these nutritious home made soups that got me through up until now - I’ve still some in the freezer but I just can’t look at them the same at the moment ( kind of like Optifast…. I’ve reached THAT point. im reading this really cool book which I got from eBay called Ultimate Gastric Sleeve Success which is where I found out about this forum ( lists website address in book) by Dr Duc c Vuong which has all these activities to do - so now I’ve got to decided if I can learn to cook 👩‍🍳 haha that’s why I married my husband lol