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I went through a phase where I added a little Kashi cereal (the highest protein option) to my Greek yogurt in the afternoons before I worked out. The little burst of carbs helped me get through my run, but it was still a high protein snack. A bowl of cereal with milk? Seems like a big waste of space with not enough protein.

Ughhh, I was sleeved 12/08/15. I was having a rough time with fluids and protein but the past few days was getting better. Yesterday, I threw up...ALOT. I tried to just concentrate on staying hydrated and thought my new tummy just didn't like something I ate and figured I try again tomorrow(which is now today). I did good with fluids and breakfast and now, shortly after lunch, vomit-city! I called my surgeon immediately and they said to skip dinner and focus on fluids, it is most likely something I ate not agreeing. I'm starting to think my new tummy only likes Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and sugar-free Popsicles. Anyone else have issues like this? It sucks. Although, I have lost 14 pounds in 8 days(went to another doc appointment today).

Sleeved Oct. 14: Having so much trouble trying to find healthy food that i can tolerate. I've been living on veggie beef or veggie ground turkey soups, hot cereal, legumes and grits. Other than that I can seem to tolerate only crunchy cracker/cookie type foods. I have tried and tried to learn to be able to eat yogurt/cottage cheese without hurling but i have not been able to. I tried tofu too. I can't eat raw veggies yet (will i ever be able to?) I did manage a cucumber sliced very thin and chewed to infinity. I know that eating peanut butter crackers is not going to get me to goal. I wish I could tolerate eggs again. I miss them. I do eat hard cheese in small amounts but find myself reaching for the crunchies because I want something quick and innocuous to eat. Any suggestions? I just want to eat like a normal human being #sotiredofdieting

No, no, and no. Read all the pseudoscience and quack natural theories you want, no legitimate science will ever link dairy and stalls. Not only is dairy okay (if you are lactose intolerant, you can get lactose filtered milk, and yogurt/cheese go through fermentation that can reduce lactose reaction), but it's a GREAT way to get both calcium and protein without the carbs.

1. First question may be a bit silly and I know everyone has their own unique experience, but I'm wondering what to expect on the actual day of surgery. For some reason the surgery itself doesn't make me nervous because I know I have an excellent doctor, but being put to sleep makes me a little nervous. Also, I'm nervous that I'll wake up into excruciating pain.. Is this the case ? Either way I know eventually it will all be a minor detail but I'm just curious to see how others have reacted to surgery. For my surgery, I was wheeled into the operating room, had a few pleasantries with the staff, then bam woke up in the recovery room. No mask being put on my face, no slow fading out . . . I was just there chatting with people one second, then the next second woke up. When I woke up I did have pain in my shoulder (from the surgical gas) but I wouldn't call it excruciating. My team did an excellent job on pain control the whole time I was there. It wasn't a big deal. 2. My second question has to do with hair loss. Is there anything I can do from now to prevent my hair from falling out/ thinning. I know getting in my Protein is key, but is there anything else I can do? No, there isn"t anything you can do to prevent it. Don't waste your money on massive amounts of biotin or some sort of special shampoo. It will either happen or it won't. There are good ways you can cut and style your hair, as well as cosmetic tricks, to hide hair loss if you get a severe case of it. Usually the hair loss starts around month 3 and stops and the hair starts growing back somewhere around month 6. 3. My third question has to do with excess skin. Again I know each person is different and there are many factors to this. My question is did anyone find that toning exercises or any kind of body butters/lotions help at all? No. If there were some sort of magic trick to prevent excess skin, no one would need plastic surgery because word would spread and everyone would do it. The thing is, you already have the skin you have. You can't prevent it, it's already there. If having excess skin is going to bother you a lot, start saving your pennies for plastic surgery now. 4. My fourth and final question has to do with pregnancy after being sleeved. I don't plan on starting a family for another 4-5 years but I'm curious if the sleeve has affected anyone's pregnancy.. Did anyone find it hard to take in the proper nutrients ? Was it hard to bounce back from pregnancy? Did any complications that may not be obvious arise due to the sleeve? I haven't had personal experience, but my sister (a physician) says that pregnant women require an extra 300 calories per day to nourish the fetus, plus a prenatal vitamin. It's not hard to get 300 calories per day. Make a protein shake with whole milk and a tablespoon of peanut butter and you are just about there. Or eat a handful of nuts twice a day. Instead of having yogurt for breakfast, have scrambled eggs with cheese and avocado, plus eat a couple slices of dried mango for an after-dinner snack. Trust me, once most sleevers get a year or two out of surgery, they don't have trouble adding in 300 calories. They have trouble *not* adding in 300 calories when they don't need to! You'll be fine

@@sonya89 use/buy a timer set it for 10/15 minutes when it goes off start drinkin' set timer again do alllll day through the evening 51 lbs down!! you are aces don't know your starting weight or goal hint, hint - ticker PLEASE stall past month?? come on kiddo we all have them part of life with or without WLS i frequently start my day of with a GNC lean Protein shake 25 gr protein - yummy swiss miss it the way to go !!! Fage greek 0% plain yogurt has 20 gr protein i mix in one sweet 'n low and some fresh blueberries delicious!! baby bel cheese cottage cheese etc etc then of course your basic chicken, fish get in more water and protein 5 months w/sleeve down 51 lbs!!! don't 2nd guess yourself now!! don't let the scale ruin your life!! stay off the scale for a while!! eating bad stuff? GRAZINGGGG?!!! eeeeek !!! KNOCK IT OFF follow ALL the rules (i'm keeping an eye on you LOL) things should get better you will loose more weight keep UP with the water and protein and watch your weight go DOWN!! good luck kathy

My surgeon only restricted me to Clear Liquids while in the hospital but once discharged, he had me on phase 3 which includes full liquids, purees/mushy/soft foods like cottage cheese, yogurt, tuna. I was sleeved just over a week ago and stuck with full liquids, pureed soups, and yogurt the first week but I recently had some pureed tuna w/mayo, pureed rotisserie chicken with gravy and everything has been fine.

Cheese and yogurt have been a major part of my post-op eating. Not bothering me at all.

I eat Greek yogurt and cheese and drink milk EVERY SINGLE DAY. I lost over 100% of my excess weight in 10 months and have kept it off for 14 months, so I'd say, no, dairy does not stop weight loss.

Hey, I was also the 10th too its hard for me to get down all the fluids as well I just do not be hungry my Dr has said not to worry about the protein as much this week if I can't but fluids are important yesterday I did about 56 oz today I'm not close..gas pain is annoying but like you said each day has been better than the last today has been pretty good to me looking forward to tomorrow day 6 to see how I feel. One week follow up appt fri at that point I should be able to move onto the next food phase of like yogurts and hot cereals

I also had my surgery on the 30th. I had to stay an extra day due to the vomiting and nausea. It was not a pleasant experience by any means. I managed to do alright and get home. I seen the surgeon yesterday and am down 20 pounds since the surgery. I have progressed to the puréed diet. I tried the eggs today. That was a big no go for me. I was sicker than a dog. Yuck . So back to the drawing board with the liquids again. One thing I will say I am having a hard time finding Greek yogurt that is artificially sweetened, blended, no fruit pieces and contain less than 20 grams of carbs in it. Any suggestions at all? The premier protein shakes at Walmart I nearly died at the price of them. I bought the whey protein but that stuff is nasty as can be . I can only eat canned meat, yogurt, mozzarella, Swiss, baby food, refried beans, all low fat n no sugar. Still take in 64 ounces of water a day. They just added the multivitamins n b12 last week. This week they added vit c n d and b complex. I still have to venture out and obtain these . I find myself extremely fatigued so I rest when I can, considering I am older than majority of you all. Lol Hope this helps Cathy

I have 9 total chewable that I have to take a day. I tried taking 4 at a time once.....big mistake. I like your idea of taking them before bed though. My calcium pills are the ones that give me the most trouble. I'll give it a shot. Thank you! Mixing with yogurt? Great idea!

When I had to take a chewable they made me sick. I had to crush them and mix in with my yogurt. Now I take capsules and have no problems. But mixing them with yogurt did the trick. I ate just enough of the yogurt to finish the vitamin and would save the rest.

I am suppose to take 3 a day. I got the OK from my Dr to take them all at once. So now I take them right before bed with a little yogurt. If I don't take them will food I get all the symptoms of being about to throw up. This is the only way I've found that works for me. I am 4 weeks post op. They must be working because my hair and nails are growing like crazy.

@@Lisee45 You're doing great! I had my RNY on Dec 1, too. I lost some in the pre-surgery diet and all in all, i'm down 24 pounds. It's like a pound a day for me now, too. I lost more in the beginning, which makes sense. But I have a lot more to lose than you do, too.And like I said, that includes ten days pre-surgery, all the way to today. I'm still on full liquids (creamed Soups, yogurt etc) but move to pureed on Dec 23 and can start having even more choices. It's so exciting, like "Christmas!" hahahahaha... I also have had no problems with eating or drinking, so far. Good luck!

I definitely didn't find that. Greek yogurt and 2% cheese sticks are staples in my diet during the actively losing phase and now in maintanence too.

I'm only 4 days post op and am on clear liquids & protein drinks for one week. Next week I can add yogurt, protein pudding & small curd cottage cheese. The following 2weeks I can add chicken & fish but it must be puréed. If your stomach doesn't seem to be handling what your eating, try this plan that I was instructed to eat/drink.

It's nothing that I have ever found - real milk in protein shakes, greek yogurt, cheese, etc. I guess that there could always be some outliers that might respond like that, but they would be just that - those well outside the norm.

This seemed like a better place to post than in post surgery questions.. So today is 3 weeks for me. I've got a cruise scheduled for this coming Saturday and pre-surgery was pretty nervous about it.. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with it now and I'll be at day 26 when we leave.. I'm not saying I don't have some nervousness about it but I sit on my ass programming all day long already so not much of a change, just a different locale.. It's going to be challenging walking on the ship and not being drunk though.. I'll have no natural balance. I haven't had any booze for 5 weeks now and not that I'm not interested but my stomach is constantly busy.. Either full of Water or gurgling away at some food. The gurgling is always fun at meetings Plus a little too soon for any booze. I bought some wine (I hate wine), to try out at home, just a little bit, but lost the urge and decided that I just won't have any yummy rum punch on the beach, no welcome aboard pina colada with a dark rum floater, no bucket of caribe with dirty ice on the pool deck, no miller lite before dinner, no after dinner desert drink with souvenir cup, no late night cucumber martini's, no drink of the day, in souvenir cup of course and no morning bloody mary's .. just saying that I won't have any of those, not that I've been thinking about them at all. We've had this cruise scheduled from Jan of 2015 and although it was close to surgery day, I've hoped for the best and had this dream of hitting the beach without a bra or at least 20 lbs down, never expecting to be 36 lbs down.. Everything I have is falling off and looks stupid but it's so comfortable to not have the waist band flip over on a pair of jeans or shorts, or not having them riding into my ass crack.. My kids are bummed because my bathing suit doesn't stick into my ass crack anymore after walking.. I didn't think about it much, but I was hairy and fat, now just hairy, fat, pale and have a half shaved torso.. They shaved my stomach at the hospital for surgery and while I was hoping it'd grow back in time for shirtless time, it hasn't and now the dilemma, to make the rest match or not care.. Old, grey and hairy on top with a pale pinkish white looking bottom half. Anyway, down a total of 36 lbs since pre-op diet and at first, I didn't considered pre-op diet as part of the journey, but it definitely was. I stayed on Protein shakes and water for pretty much 2 weeks pre op and then first week post-op. Cheated once or twice post op with yogurt, cottage cheese type stuff but not until about day 4 or 5.. It was the '7 days and I want food thread' that kicked off my cheating .. When I saw the doc on week 1 follow up, he said it was okay to ease into pureed foods, which was great but there's only so much appeal to pureed swedish meatballs, eventually, other than a different shade of tan, everything looks the same when it comes out of the blender.. and for the most part, tastes the same.. I find now, I stay with soft stuff still but maybe leave a little texture in it when pureeing and chew as much as possible until the habit of my tongue shoveling it back can't be overcome anymore... I still love Protein Shakes though even though I didn't have one today yet.. I've venture into soft foods a bit and some chewing recently though as I need to learn how to eat that stuff for the cruise and won't be able to bring my bass-o-matic with me.. Got the go ahead from doc for softies.. I think I've learned my lesson last week when I thought I had soft foods down, was late for a meeting and had some leftover fish from the night before that was microwaved and a bit chewy.. Figure I'd chew chew chew and yikes, I had the worst pie hole blockage ever.. The pain was amazing and unrelenting.. Thought I would hurl but couldn't.. I never realized that when you have a blob of food stuck in your throat that the body makes mucous and saliva to help it go down but with nowhere for that stuff to go, it all piles up on top of the bad choices and makes it worse.. foamies? I had to walk for about 40 minutes, in pain and mouth watering non stop.. Went to the meeting and thankfully the watering mouth stopped but it took a while for that one to go away and I did it to myself a couple more times by not paying attention and drinking before or after and things like that.. Just stupid mistakes by being distracted.. I will have to say though that my actual stomach has never had any pain, just the long journey down the pie hole pipe has.. Live and learn I guess.. I think I'm at the point where I almost realize my limits and what and when I should eat or stop eating something.. It was a tough 4 or 5 days on week two though and had to try new things and adjust old habits.. Like instead of taking pills first thing in the morning, wait until after you've topped off the tank. Couple of other things that I've learned.. Constipation is a real pain in the ass.. lol. Nothing seems to help yet so I'm going with the flow and trying to get more Fiber in. Probiotics seemed like a good idea so took one and it got stuck right in the pie hole again and killed.. I figured I'd see if one dissolved in my water and would be of any value but it stuck to the side of the bottle and didn't dissolve or budge for hours.. Not taking those for a while. I'm out of excitement, full of **** and have bored you long enough.. So.. See ya and best wishes to y'all.. M

Congratulations and best wishes for all the December surgeries. I had mine 12/2/15 and feel wonderful. My belly doesn't feel "normal" yet but I don't expect it to for a while. At this point, I'm just tired. Protein drinks......I've had some horrible experiences. I bought a bunch of samples and am working my way through them. Today I had strawberries and cream with soy milk. I always refrigerate for as long as possible because it does help with the taste. I took the shake with me while helping a group assemble holiday gifts. It was horrible. I had to hold back gags and ended up drinking it as quickly as possible. I try to drink one 28 gram protein shake/day. I'll have 15gram chicken broth and yogurt. I just started cottage cheese so that's adding to the daily goal. I know I need to get in more protein but I should be able to have pureed Soups tomorrow (post op visit). I make a mean lentil Soup that'll be delicious and protein packed ala pureed. It's interesting to read the differences in post surgery diet phases. I was on small amounts of Water the first day and then straight into Protein shakes the next. My food tray would come with one Protein Shake, Jello, broth and a big water. Nice choice! I'm supposed to stay on protein shakes and clear liquids (sf popcycles, sf jello etc.) until my post op follow up. I added cottage cheese a day ago (have to remember not to shovel it my mouth) and did fine with it. I have also started eating high protein oatmeal. It's very liquidy and there's really nothing to chew. Not the best oatmeal I've had but it's high in protein and doesn't make me gag. I also found a high protein bread for down the road. It's got 28 grams of protein / 2 slices. Good reviews too. I'm a vegetarian so I've been looking for tofu recipes. Tofu is in the same bracket as Protein Drinks with me. But, I'm going to give it a shot. I think if I get it really crispy and use a tasty dipping sauce, I'll be good. Pam

I would say put down the chicken and just drink chicken or beef broth for Protein. I wasn't allowed chicken or beef even if it was pureed until much further out than a week. My surgeon doesn't worry about protein intake until you're on regular foods at around 6 weeks. Especially if you can't eat soy or dairy. What about smooth Peanut Butter or other nut butters? You can also puree bean Soups, although I couldn't handle Beans that early. I'm at 4 months out and I feel normal - although it is a NEW normal. My new normal is to order a hot artichoke appetizer with celery sticks instead of chips, eat maybe half of it depending on the size of the dish, and take the rest home. My new normal is half of a small chicken breast. One egg with cheese. Most of a greek yogurt. Four or five small meatballs or one large one. A three-inch piece of kielbasa instead of a 12-inch piece.

My mom used to make yogurt pie--graham cracker crust filled with a mixture of 2/3 yogurt and 1/3 cool whip. You could do that with Greek yogurt for the Protein and sugar free cool whip, or even real homemade whip cream with no sugar or fake sugar. Then just eat out the filling and leave the crust while others eat the crust. I like to make it with Key lime yogurt and it's a mock key lime pie!

I didn't have a purer phase but I ate (and still eat) a lot of Greek yogurt and cottage cheese.

@@sam42 Greek yogurt (best is Total Farge 0% which you can get in Tescos) There are lots of Greek ones but watch the carbs! Cottage cheese, eggs, Milk (highish in carbs though, until in mantenance) Ground beef, turkey, chicken and fish, salmon, halibut shrimps, sardines, light tuna in Water ... Pork is high in Protein too. ( I had fillet of pork with a tiny bit of apple sauce, sprouts, cauliflower and a couple of asparagus for dinner tonight # yum) The Protein powder can be added to coffee (decaf!) and Soups but don't add it when the drink/soup is hot or it will curdle. I also love my protein latte which I have every morning at work. Check out www.myprotein.com - and www.discountsuppliments.com I order a lot through myprotein.com.

You need to really stick to what your team and NUT have suggested especially so early on. I ate a lot of high Protein yogurt and cottage cheese, sticking to the Protein drinks and adding a food every other day and being very careful and over zelous with the puree machine I used. Take it slow so you know what works and doesn't work for you. Best of luck and congratulations on the surgery