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Congratulations! I had surgery on the 1st and you're absolutely right! The first few swallows of liquid are extremely UNCOMFORTABLE! 😣 At three days out- some sips are better than others. I get this bottleneck feeling where the liquid sits and then all of a sudden fizzles down into my stomach... It's taking some getting use to...

I started telling a few people like brother-in-law and sis-in-law. I don't have the strength for secrets right now. They ask for too much creativity, lol. I'm not posting it on Facebook or anything, but my husband will be off work and his brother and his dad both stop by there; it would be hard for him not to give an explanation of why he's off for two weeks or not available for other things. I don't want to hear anyone's crap, either. So it's a balance. If someone thinks I'd hang in on a program for 1 year wait, drink liquids for 2 weeks for something that I hadn't thought through, that's their problem.

It really is an interesting topic... I have a friend who is sharing with everyone (coworkers, friends, strangers, you name it 😆) and I'm the complete opposite. I agree with you 100%! I do not need any validation from those around me- the same way I didn't need any pressure or negativity while overweight and considering my options. I received the sleeve just three days ago! I'm slowly but surely feeling better physically and happy with my decision. Like you, this wasn't as drastic as a decision for me like others may feel. Nonetheless, it was the right decision for me at the right time and I'm looking forward to this journey of good health and feeling my best!

Yep, I'm on Salpraz for the next 6 months. And nope, didn't do a breath test. He checked me out and is confident it's ulcers and swelling around my stoma. If it doesn't clear up with a week on the drugs, he'll reassess.

My 3 week stall happens to coincide with my menstrual cycle - oh joy 😕

@erica1030 thank you for sharing it takes courage to seek help. Besides the marvelous counsel, you have gotten from our fellows. It also seems you may be experiencing some anxiety. Create a support line, I have been sober for 6 years from alcohol and other stuff. Why do I bring this is because my personality and behaviors is left unchecked could and have become addictive just like the one you express. Having said this I am no saying you have an addiction or a behavior my point is that I can understand your worrisome. I have a great support system put in place. I am in my 7 day post-op and I am meeting my daily liquids and protein, but because of this I thought 🤔 I can do more when really I can't. My support system is Overeating Anonymous, I have a psychologist, a shrink and another counselor. I do 2 sessions of therapy a week do meetings etc. Hope my share could help you and bring hope

Like @lizonaplane, I get this if I eat too quickly. It does dissipate but it hurts! Maybe try to get a small timer (if you have Apple devices, Looping Reminder is an app that you can set for, say, every three minutes... it taps my wrist and I eat a bite).

Those of us who had a hiatal hernia repair with our WLS need to start a club, we'd have so many members! And Ooof - how it adds to the post-op pain. It took a good couple of weeks to not hurt when I breathed in deep. Even though things haven't been smooth sailing for me, I regret nothing and couldn't be happier that I've had this done. As frustrating as it felt at the time, the year long wait I had to do for my health cover was actually a boon as it prepped me mentally for it. It doesn't erase the pre-surgery nerves though. It's a BIG change, but once out the other side it's not so scary. This is a tool that helps, even down to changes in taste-buds. What I will plead with folk for is to get bariatric psychologist support if you have emotional eating issues, or binge eating disorder. I'm super fortunate that I've never had those issues and got to where I was purely through gluttony and boredom - but from others' stories on this forum, it can really affect folks post-op and it's heartbreaking.

I had my surgery on November 1st and it’s been very gassy. Definitely looking forward to the weeks ahead

I'm six weeks out and have stalled twice already! It's annoying and frustrating but just part of the process. As others have said, stay off the scale and stick to your program. It'll pass. Your body needs these breaks to adjust to its new normal.

Catwoman7: Oh I've no doubt I was building it up, mostly because the idea of having something put down my throat while sedated. I have THE most sensitive gag reflex, so the mere thought makes me feel panicky. It's why I would no-way no-how be able to get a gastric balloon. Sorry to hear you got saddled with two strictures! lizonaplane: My surgeon said it should get better in a week, as I'm on a double dose of 40mg Salpraz this first week to really zap it. If it's not better in a week, I have to go back as it may then be something else. Regardless I have to stay on the medication for six months. Shoppgirl: Thank you! If it drags on I may be less zen about it, but for now I can roll with it. As you said, it could have been worse!

yep - sounds like the infamous "three week stall" that happens to probably 90% of us. If you do a search on this site for it, you'll find over 17,000 posts on it. And no, I am NOT kidding. just stick to your plan and stay off your scale for a few days. It typically lasts 1-3 weeks. But it WILL break and you'll be on your way again...

Memar, there is a phenomenon termed the “three week stall”. It is quite well known, often occurring at 3 weeks post op, but can happen at other times post op. Your body is just catching up and if you stay with the plan your bariatric team has outlined, you’ll see movement on the scale again!

I chose to do the surgery because I was tired of being held back, energy-wise, by carrying two of me around everywhere. I'm an aspiring filmmaker and photographer. I've been at this for 3 years, and my weight was holding me back because I would go into a shoot knowing that I had a finite amount of energy to work with and I better make it count. I had to tap out early from a once-in-a-lifetime shoot over the summer because after I had dragged all my gear up the stairs I was too tired and sore to keep going for much longer. I fainted while taking a friend's wedding photos over the summer because I overheated. Additionally, my content is on YouTube and I was constantly worried that someone would discover my "dirty secret"--that the "Betty Badass" urban explorer they were watching was morbidly obese. I'd go out of my way to edit around portions of my footage where you could see my reflection in shop windows, etc, because I didn't want to be made fun of. My fear of my own camera kept me from connecting with my audience. I decided to appear on camera for the first time two weeks after my surgery--I told myself it was time to be fearless and if someone had something to say, they can watch me shrink over the next year and eat their words. I managed to accumulate about 3-4 months of content before my surgery that I'll be putting together while I'm recovering, and I can't wait to hit the road again. I can't wait to be able to actually ride my motorcycle. I can't wait to not get winded going up stairs. If I can survive this process, I can survive anything. There have been moments since the surgery I've felt like I was walking barefoot through hell, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know how indestructible I am now.

I have. They're aware of what's going on and while they're ok with me going at my own pace to build confidence, they set a reasonable goal for me to try to get 500 calories a day. I get there maybe once or twice a week. I have had a lot of issues with air bubbles/acid reflux, and it kind of spooked me around week 3. Unfortunately sometimes I feel full all day long. I've found a few "safe" things that are rich in nutrients that I try to get down every day, even if it's 2 oz at a time.

Once your heart rate has slowed a little and you've calmed down, drink water very slowly. It will make you feel worlds better. I had the same thing happen to me a couple weeks after my surgery and it scared me half to death. The good news is that now that you know what that feels like, it will be easier not to panic. I hope you feel better!

I just keep mixing it up to break a stall. Changing protein/ fat/ good carb intake up and down seems to do the trick. It is definitely slowing down though since I am 8 lbs from goal.

Hi I had my op 3 weeks ago. I lost 5kg in my pre op so was over the moon and in the first week of the op lost another 6kg, but for the last 10 days the weight has fluctuated up and down by .5kg. I am following everything. Is this normal? Am i expecting too much? It feels a bit disheartening

I’m with you. Today makes a week for me. I miss food.

I have. I mean for me it was not bad being what it is and having zero everything. LOL I only use a little bit anyway if and when I do use dressing so definitely doable. But everyone is different. But to be honest, if I were to only eat salads and require dressing very only every now and then or even once or twice a week, I'd probably just get a lite version from the supermarket or even the regular one. I doubt using so little of it so infrequently would be an issue.

That is exactly what I was thinking. I have severe, severe,severe acid reflux and gastro paresis and my surgeon 100% said the sleeve would only make it all worse. I am scheduled to have a bypass in 2 weekes.

I had sleeve almost 8 weeks ago and I travel for work. I worked from home the first 4 weeks and started back to traveling the 5th week. OMG... I travel light, but I can barely lift my suitcase into the overhead compartment now because I've lost so much upper body strength. I was so careful about lifting during my 4 week restriction - I would ask the grocery store to just put a few things in each bag or I'd bag things myself. I asked for help carrying EVERYTHING. And now I'm weak as an overcooked noodle. Glad you're doing so well!

It has been 7 months since I had my ESG procedure in March. What a weird ride. I guess I'm just posting this to muse on the situation as a whole. Wall of text time! Six Weeks of Suck A six week liquid diet was awful. It went in 2 week chunks and degraded over time. The first two weeks, it was amusing. I got to tell people what was going on! The first entire week I was basically sleeping anyway and took sick days, so it was just me, in bed, playing Pokemon Sword. A weird sort of vacation, really, even if half of it was crippling nausea and whining to my husband. The next two weeks was boring and a bit annoying, but I at least got to sip chicken broth and relish the fact that my food tasted like actual food. (I bought a jar of low fat chicken gravy at the store at one point and sipped it in the car while feeling like some kind of jewel thief having pulled off a heist. It was the best food I have ever eaten.) The last two weeks, I just wanted to strangle the doctors for not letting me eat solid food. Six weeks! People who have literal stomach removal have less time than that! But no, the surgeon said that six weeks was because the sutures are internal, and thus are constantly disturbed, so in a weird twist they take longer to heal than gastric sleeve surgeries. Did I mention basic recovery sucked for the first few days? When I came out of anesthesia, the doctors said I had been under for a long time, because I was just too sleepy to actually wake after I was technically conscious. They kept me until I could walk, which was way longer than they thought. Even walking down the driveway made me so tired I had to lean on someone. Going to the bathroom and back to bed was enough to take a nap afterwards. I had to rotate constantly to stop feeling nauseous or crampy. I emergency-called the doctors for some more anti-nausea meds because the first ones just didn't work well enough. Then, like magic, around day 7, it all stopped and I could get up and do stuff normally. Not being able to lift more than 15 pounds or whatever the limit was, was almost a deal-breaker. I work with heavy machinery a lot, but I saw that problem coming. My long-suffering (but kind) coworkers carried things for me. But at home, do you know how many things weigh 20 lbs? Stuff full of liquid is right out. A gallon of water by itself weighs 9 lbs, heaven help you if you have to carry anything else with it. My husband had to haul our pet food and litter bags, which we buy in 50 pound sacks because we hate having to shop a lot. Even normal grocery shopping bags can approach 15 pounds if you fill them full. When I was still exhausted, I had to get a very confused Target employee to help me carry a single bag out to the car. I'm sure this guy had no idea what was going on, with a 30-something woman shuffling up to him like an old lady and holding out a fairly light bag and asking if he would be wonderful and carry this to her car because she had picked up too much stuff and now her body was saying it was time to sleep right here on the floor if she didn't hand it off. Did I Cheat on the Diet? Yes. 100%. I absolutely cheated. I cheated like a soap opera spouse. Honestly, the lesson I learned was that this really caused no harm whatsoever. Probably a bad lesson, but in the end, it made those last two weeks bearable. The doctor said clear liquids only, but I added in pureed chunky soups, Greek yogurt, and scrambled eggs. I chewed for a long time and made sure everything in my mouth was blenderized into pure liquid, and I still ate incredibly small meals. But really, anything to get me off those fake-ass protein shakes. I didn't tell my team the extent of the cheating, but I never felt any pain, and I still made my calorie and macro counts. The first day I let myself eat tuna from a can was the day angels sang in my ear. I furtively snatched it up at CVS, a tiny can the size of one of those Fancy Feast cat food tins. I snuck it in the car and dumped the can in a recycle bin before my husband could see it and wag his finger. Oh, it was good. What I'm getting at is that I was losing my bananas during the last 2 weeks of that dang liquid diet, and I needed something to eat that felt like real food, or I was going to crack. I think this worked out. Have I Lost Weight? 45 pounds so far. From what I can tell, there is really no way to beat the "1-2 pounds per week" rule. No amount of surgery was going to take my resting metabolic rate of 1800 and somehow get 5 pounds a week out of lowering it to 1000 cal/week. I think all the "omg I lost 10 pounds my first week" is water and glycogen, no matter who you are, unless you're very obese. Water weight will get you early on. If you gain weight or have not lost weight even 3-4 weeks after the procedure, it's probably still water weight. There's no way your body can retain fat on 1000 calories a day unless you have a disease/disorder. You will gain weight abruptly when you start putting food back in your body. I'm shocked at how much food in various parts of digestion weigh. That said, according to the Mayo Clinic, food takes about 36-48 hours from entering, to exit your body. Think about how much you eat in 48 hours. Let's say, for round numbers, you eat a meal weighing 3/4 lb, 3x/day. So that's 2.25 lbs a day. 48 hours is 4 days. Before the meal on day 1 exits on day 4, you've put a total of 9 pounds of stuff into your body. 9 pounds! That's like 4 weeks of weight loss, supposedly gone immediately! But it's not. If, like me, your last weight reference was right before the surgery, you fully blasted those 6 or so pounds of food out of your system with the absolutely awful colonoscopy cleanse they made you drink. You know how much you ate at each meal before surgery, at least ballpark. Add those "phantom" pounds to your hospital weight, and you have your "actual" weight. So my actual weight was really around 260, not 251, because it was 251 with my entire intestinal tract scrubbed to a bile-yellow liquid shine. (Ew.) Basically, expect water weight to cover up early weight loss and food weight to cover up weight loss about 1-2 months in, depending on when you're allowed to eat solids. Frustrating Points I am still not particularly lower in my dress size. I have absolutely lost some inches, but it seems to be coming off relatively evenly, so I'm still a 16-18 in a dress. I'm frustrated, because part of the point of this was to fit into my old college clothes, but I expected to lose a couple of dress sizes in 45 lbs of weight loss. I still have a bunch of clothes sitting around waiting for me to be able to fit them. That said, women's clothing sizes are stupid, and I really don't know what my dress size was when starting. I thought it was 18, but I gained weight over the pandemic, so I have no clue anymore. Awesome Points I can eat what I want. Seriously. The physical size of my stomach limits me from eating a lot, but I can eat single meals, and usually they last me the entire day. I routinely take home leftovers now. But in the end, the food I want isn't fast food and pizza -- though to be fair, I still do eat pizza. I just eat way less of it. I don't have to optimize now, and my body seems to actually obey calorie counts now without getting hungry. I still eat pizza every so often. I still have dessert. I had candy on Halloween. I still don't eat salad. In the end, I feel like this was what I wanted: the ability to eat the food I actually like, socially, while having my body go in a direction I don't hate. I have actual hunger cues now, and I'm not constantly thinking about food. Would I Recommend ESG? I will tout ESG from the tops of mountains now. Some suck early on for a feeling of actual control over my body and a sense that I finally obey physics as I know it? Yes. Yes, please. I should have gotten this years ago. When my parents offered to cover weight loss surgery when I was like 23, I should have said "YES NOW" instead of "ugh why would you offer that?".

14 days post surgery - got my sleeve at 8:30 am on Oct 20th. I've followed the program perfectly - easy, since I have little interest in food - and been able to get in 60 grams of proteins every day and 64 ounces of water every day, although it was not easy the first week. First week was rough - felt bad physically, pain from surgery and from drinking/eating, fearing loss of food enjoyment as a thing in my life. Days 7-10 I started to gradually feel better. By this last Monday, Day 12, I guess, I felt totally normal, back to myself. Although I don't crave it, I find drinking a tasty broth or eating a sugar free jello or pudding pleasant. So much better. I averaged 300-350 calories the first week and 500-600 calories the second week. Down 12 lbs since surgery date, total of 22 lbs since pre op diet, and 40 pounds since I started the bariatric program in July. Sometimes it feels a little unreal, and I'm startled I undertook something that is going to change my life so profoundly, but I'm looking forward to a future with improved mobility and health (I hope) or at least proud I have done all I can to move towards that goal.

This sounds like me. I had my two month check in about 2 weeks ago, and the nutritionist said I should be at 1000 calories a day, especially since I was adding in moderately intense exercise again. I was averaging 600-700 at that point! They also wanted me to ease off the shakes (I was having one shake a day) in favor of food, though protein powder was definitely ok to use. She emphasized that WLS isn't supposed to be very low calorie forever, otherwise other problems arise. I assume it is metabolism concerns. I've managed to get it up to more like 800-850 calories on a really good day, but it is hard. I'm just doing the best I can - yesterday I managed to get to 1000 for the first time but wow that was a project. I feel like I am eating or drinking or waiting to drink all day long. I'm keeping the one shake a day because honestly that is an easy 160 calories, otherwise I need to figure out another snack to add to the rotation. I'm just doing the best I can, without adding in unhealthy things. So, adding in good carbs and listening to my body as much as I can. Just focus on doing the best you can. Good luck.