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@@Cheri_j I understand the concept your doctors are getting at. For me, I think of my day as broken up into 5 small meals. Basically at 7 am, 11 am, 2-3 pm, and 6-7 pm. I hear you on the slippery slope to grazing! @@lealor Some of my small meal ideas include everything the others said (jerky, nuts), but I do my apples with PB2 (reconstituted of course). I also depend on "meatless meatballs" -- a few with some tomato sauce is yummy, pre-cooked turkey meatballs with a few green veggies, and low-cal chicken salad. Chicken salad is easy to make with left overs or canned chicken and a little light mayo or greek yogurt sauce. I also have small meals with convenience foods if I'm out and about: Quest bar is a nice Meal Replacement, or quest Protein chips with some salsa. Lots of dairy meals too -- why can't you do dairy? Ellen

I was sleeved on March 30th. Went back into the hospital with a 9cm leak on April 8th. Spent 6 weeks in ICU. Doc said I came as close to dying as you can come. I spent another week in a general care ward and went home with a drain and a pic line with a mesh stent in my esophagus. The stent hurts like hell. I am allowed to eat mushy foods like cottage cheese and yogurt but swallowing hurts so I rarely eat. I get TPN at home every night. I did a swallow study last week and I have a less than 1cm leak still. Doc says each person is different and heals differently. The most time to heal he has heard of is two years. I have lost 92 pounds which is good considering TPn is high in calories and sugar. I am in a wait and see mode at this point. I take four percosets a day and am on a 150 microgram fentynal patch that we change out every three days. Life pretty much sucks right now but I know when the leak heals and the stent comes out I will be much better. Don't try to compare heal times with others because it will just frustrate you. It will be a rough time but be as patient as you can and you will get through.

Yeah I have. They just tell me to keep doing what im doing (eggs, yogurt) ive seen on here protein shots and I think ill try them. Know anything about their taste?

My plan is pretty strict. The only Greek yogurt my surgeon and nutritionist wants me to eat is Kroger Light Greek. It only has 7 grams of carbs, which is way lower than any of the others. And it tastes great!

Please be careful, I think the consistency of bananas us too thick for your new pouch. If you are allowed soft food, stick with yogurt, sf pudding etc. if your pouch tears, it is a really painful process to repair.

Well guys the date is fast approaching! It's my last day at work, trying to get everything ready while I'm out. I'm not worried - I work in a great office and I have several people who will be watching my desk while I'm out. This weekend I'm stocking up some things to have food wise when I get home on Tuesday....greek yogurt, Jello, SF popsicles, and broth! BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!

Oikos Triple Zero Greek Yogurt is a great choice. It's zero added sugar, zero fat, and zero artificial sweeteners.. THANK YOU!

Oikos Triple Zero Greek Yogurt is a great choice. It's zero added sugar, zero fat, and zero artificial sweeteners.

What brands/types of yogurt are people buying for this stage? All the yogurt I look at has so much sugar in it! Any suggestions?

Day 10 of my 2 week liquid diet. I've pretty much resigned myself at this point. I wake up, prep myself some Protein shakes for work. Make sugar free pudding and Jello for Snacks, look forward to my bowl of Soup at night for dinner, and relish my greek yogurt with PB2 powder (it's like a creamy Peanut Butter cup). Smelling other people's food has become daily torture, but I'm not as depressed as I was the first week.

I also saw myself in this posting of yours. I am in my 3rd month of the 6th month supervised diet. Due to the disability I suffer from cooking during the work week is very difficult so I have done what others suggested. I cook all my meats on the weekend and weigh out my 4 oz portion and make them up into several individual bags and then put that one type of meat into a large gallon bag. I have at least 6 different variety of meats in my freezer right now. I have all kinds of pouch or canned tuna, chicken, ham and turkey, cheeses, and meats for lunch as well and make rollups minus the bread. For breakfast a shake or yogurt, cottage cheese or eggs in the microwave using the new eggstatic being advertised. For veg I have canned three bean salad, zucchini, beets, frozen butternut squash, peppers, onions, cauliflower and salad. I still have variety and don't have to cook much during the week at all. If I am still hungry at a meal I will have canned fruit as well. Now a days there are lots of higher protein-lower carb frozen brand named foods for those time when you really do not want to cook. Every now and then I don't think it would hurt to have them, unless your Dr or NUT said to stay away from them for one reason or another. You must be doing something right to have lost 20 pounds in your first month. Try some of the suggestions everyone has provided you with and I am sure you will get through the 6 months. I believe we exchanged friend requests, so if you are one to chat on yahoo Im send me a request there and we can chat and help each other seeing as how we are going through the 6 month supervised diet at the same time and have about the same amount of weight to lose.

Thanks I know not worth the risk just have been on the optifast already 3 weeks and the taste is killing me. But tomorrow he has approved smooth yogurt. The hunger pains would come in my sleep so was not sure. I know during the day just my head saying it should want more not me physically needing more . I am trying to think about what kind of yogurt I want tomorrow. Big decisions.....for those who say this is the easy way I ask them to just try the pre op diet then get back to me. Nothing about this has been easy!!!

My boyfriend and I are in our mid-sixties. We had both been thrown away twice by the time we met nine years ago. I was short and round, he is tall and thin, but smokes. The one thing we appreciate most about each other is that neither one of us has asked the other to change. We realize that health and habit changes are very personal decisions. To comment on food as foreplay: It is at our house, too, but in a healthy way. He is from Malta and has crazy Mediterranean cooking skills. It did not take him long to figure out that my favorite aphrodesiac is the smell of onions and garlic cooking. A man who cooks is very sexy. We make adjustments now to compensate for the change in my nutrition requirements. If he makes spagetti and meatballs, I pass on the Pasta and have meatballs with extra cheese. He makes homemade breads and eats some every day. I might have one thin slice when it first come out of the oven, but bread has a tendancy to sit in my new stomach like playdough. So, if he has a Peanut Butter sandwich, I might have peanut butter on a spoon. pizza was one of my favorite foods before. Now he just takes one of those big giant mushrooms and bakes my favorite sauce and toppings on that. It is sexy to me that he is considerate of my dietary needs and goes out of his way to make what I can eat as delicious as possible. My dear beloved ice cream has been replaced with ricotta and Greek yogurt blended with vanilla and some sweetener. It has way fewer carbs and helps meet my Protein requirements. Our day still revolves around the kitchen and we still enjoy eating together very much. I eat anything I want, but what I want has changed. You don't have to match your mate bite for bite to enjoy a meal together. We accept each other "as is" and don't apply any pressure to change anything.

What about shakes for breakfast? I don't like eating actual food that early but I can do a shake. You can buy premade ones so there is no prep in the morning. What about yogurt? You can add different fruits to it everyday to mix it up. Hardboiled eggs are easy, so is tuna. I've recently gotten in the habit of planning all my lunches and Snacks on Sunday or Monday for the entire work week. That way it's only one day of cooking. I make containers with yogurt and fruit for my morning snack, something for lunch (usually chicken and a veggie, or tuna), and bring a cheese stick for my afternoon snack. It does require some time to prep, but then you're only doing it one day. If you don't want to eat the same thing for lunch everyday you could freeze leftovers in serving size containers and then you can pick different ones each day. Keep at it! You're doing great so far.

I am mostly a lurker and will add my opinion when it might differ from someone else's. That said, I love forum and all of the information that I've absorbed. I'm 15-days post op. I had a conversion from a stomach staple to a RNY. Before my surgery, I read everything I could and totally expected to have post op pain, issues with eating, and emotional days. This seems to the be the norm? Well, the day after surgery, the doctor came to see me and I asked him if they actually did something other than poke seven holes in me. He proved it later by having me take the standard "leak" x-ray. I saw the surgery and the pouch. I felt great - a little tired, but overall pretty good. I had surgery on a Wed and went home Fri morning. The doctors and nurses were amazed at how I bounced back from the surgery. The next Monday, I started working every day from home. The following Monday, I'm back at work (I have a desk job). Yesterday, I walked two miles and this morning, I already have one mile under my belt. I started my pureed diet yesterday and had a half cup of chili. I have had no issues with food tolerations whatsoever. I've also started enjoying yogurt - before my surgery, I hated yogurt. Now, I look forward to my yogurt and plan to have yogurt become a regular part of my diet. Has anyone else had a great recovery? Oh...I just thought - I'm probably jinxing myself by writing this. So now the stupid part. I would say that sweets, pastries, ice cream pretty much contributed to most of my weight gain. I'm an addict. Because I'm a diabetic (surprise!), my surgeon recommended the RNY surgery instead of the sleeve. This was good news to me because I knew that sugary foods caused dumping. From prior experience, I know that if a food makes me sick, I won't eat it - no matter how good it is. A week before surgery, I read that only 80% of people will dump. OH NO! My luck, I would be in the 20%. So, I had to test it out. I had to know! There was no getting around it. Did my research. I know that every meal should less than 10 grams of sugar. I found a candy with 14 grams of sugar. I didn't want to make myself too sick. I ate it. Good News! I'm a member of the 80%! I felt sick to my stomach, there was some stomach discomfort, dizzy, light headed, and then I started sweating. I felt terrible! I still have the headache. I felt like - wow, if this little candy does this to me.....never again do I want to feel this way. And I know I got a small dose of what could happen. So I'm good. I know. Will I tell the nut or RN at my next check up, probably not. Ok, am I the only one who had to test it out?

The best thing a woman can do is eat 5-6 small meals a day. This means 2-4oz protein, and whatever space you have left should be a carb (fruit, veggies, or complex carb). This lessens a risk of a drop in blood sugar, which causes cravings for the bad stuff. An ideal world: Brkfst: egg white omelette with spinach and tomatoes Snack: Greek yogurt with fruit on the bottom Lunch: chicken and broccoli Snack: handful of nuts Dinner: salmon and asparagus Dessert: flavored protein bar/shake (opt) Basically if what you're doing is working and your blood nutrition looks good, keep it up. NUTs don't know everything. Not even close.

I can barely finish a cup of yogurt. I usually leave a third of it. However, yogurt to this day is my slider food. When I'm not very hungry, nothing else seems appetizing or I just can't get anything else down I can get the yogurt down. I know that as soon as I went home I was on full liquid which included yogurt with milk to water it down. I was scared to push it. So a quarter of a cup at a time was good, but I was so hungry the first few weeks!

Gas pains are much more likely than you experiencing actual physical hunger, either gas pains or head hunger. My head hunger came back pretty quickly but realistically I knew it wasn't physical hunger. Every doctor is different, but for the first two weeks I could have Protein shakes, smooth yogurts, broths and sugar free Popsicles. I just got approved for puréed foods, which with my doctor is something I'll be on for the next 3 weeks, then soft foods for 3 weeks and finally introducing normal foods at 8 weeks out. If your doctor has said no, it's not worth the risk in my opinion. I know it's hard but as much as I wish it was, this surgery is definitely not the easy way out, it's going to be a lot of hard work and going without the things you want most. Best of luck!

I Did clear liquids for a week after (really 5 days), then full liquids for a week, now I'm at soft and probably won't get the go ahead for more regular foods until at least my one month check up. I did have a lot of gas pain the first week or two. Now at three weeks and am just getting part of that hungry feeling back. Usually it is just my tummy telling me to drink more water! Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. Lol. Just realize that your stomach is probably swollen and tender and so you have to be kind to it. I think I had yogurt as part of my full liquid after a week though...

Hey everyone I had the lapband removed and had the gastric sleeve done on August 6th. I am really feeling pretty good overall . My one thing is I am not sure if I am having gas pain or a hunger pain at this point in my recovery? I asked surgeon he said no but that is what it feels like. I have been on liquids for 3 weeks now and really want food, like a yogurt has anyone cheated and what was the consequence of doing that? The band never really worked for me so really hope this is my answer.

Week 3, 4, & 5 are pureed for me. Yogurt, mashed potatoes, pudding, scrambled eggs etc.

yogurt, cream soups and guess what.....scrambled eggs!

Hi all what did you all eat? I can eat purrees. But I don't think I can eat scrambled eggs or anything. I'm sticking to yogurt and cream soups. What did you guys eat?

Also, one thing that helped when I was at work was having Snacks that were ok to munch on through out the day. I kept things like yogurt, string cheese and hard boiled eggs close by. Just don't get too busy at work and forget to eat. That's when you'll run into trouble!

this is my favorite: http://www.gnc.com/Natures-Best-Isopure-Lemon-Green-Tea/product.jsp?productId=3080286&green=A41425E7-4980-543E-0821-04342C502AFA Or adding genpro to soup, coffee, yogurt