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5 days and still hungry umm and GRITS sound so good right now. I think I will try some ff Greek yogurt today. I don't even feel whole right now. On another note. I had ordered a few items from Lane Bryant a size too small and it all fit and I think I may send the capris back for a smaller size. Yay!

I'm right there with you! I'm only 4 days post op and I'm hungry! I would love to eat a piece of pizza right now! LOL I'm only on liquids but I picked up some different flavored non fat yogurts to help get me through. I was wondering if we could eat oatmeal or grits at this stage. I know you aren't suppose to but I don't see why not. Is it that it might irritate the surgery area or that it might make the pouch stretch out? All I'm asking for is some GRITS! Can you tell I'm hungry now?!!!

meat, cheese, eggs, and greek yogurt were my staples through my losing stage. I ate 4 meals per day with each meal consisting of a minimum of 15gr of Protein. With that plan, I rarely went over 30gr of carbs. I never went over 40gr per day through my losing stage. Those days the carbs were from adding extra sauces, or flavor packets from dressing, or Soup packets to greek yogurt. I didn't snack or eat anything extra. The days I got really close to going over 40 were days when I'd eat pinto, refried or black Beans for the fiber content. But, those days were few and far between. I should add that I didn't fret too much about carbs until I got into eating a really solid plan, and since I had complications that was 6-8 weeks out. I drank a lot more calories than most through the clear and full liquid stage. But, once I got to mushies, purees, and soft solids, I was a low carbing freak. Meat especially ground meats (venison and beef mainly) chicken thighs, deli meat, and scallops were my go to meats. I ate huge amounts of venison, tried some buffalo and bison (but that stuff is uber expensive), and ate greek yogurt like it was going out of style. I'd buy those large blocks of cheese and eat chunks of cheese as a snack. 1oz of cheddar cheese (full fat) is 0 carbs, 7g of protein, throw an xL or jumbo egg on there and that's 15gr of protein in one meal with zero carbs. I didn't eat fruit, the only veggies I ate were green beans and on occasion a couple of broccoli florets. Any veggie on the glycemic index over 60 points was not touched. At about 4.5 months out, my surgeon wanted me to add in more carbs to slow down my losing. I bumped up to about 50 per day, and I was already close to goal so my losing was slowing down anyways, but I did eat a few more bites of beans. It was boring, not gonna lie, but I kind of just sucked it up. Nothing tasted as good as having a 4-7lb loss per week average so I dealt with a boring menu until I got to goal.

You are doing amazing Susan!!! Wow you are losing like crazy! that cottage cheese and yogurt sure seems to be working! lol I am so happy for you and hoping that I will see similar results when I start pre-op. I have a feeling I won't though as I tend to be a slow loser really and I have likely already lost the extra I had in Water, but it is all good! I just don't want any of it back! lol EVER!

Nope, I still have a phobia about the weigh in. In fact the only times I do get a weigh in is when I go to TLBC for a fill and that is because I am fascinated by their hi-tech scale. The thing gives you a full read-out including BMI and your ideal weight given your height, age, sex, yadda, yadda.... I've been functioning pretty much entirely on NSVs: compliments, how my clothes are fitting and what sizes I can now buy. I prefer to work this way because pounds don't have any visual reality for me and yet knowing that I am carrying a lot of them is going to upset me. This is why I gave up on weighing myself when I was 25. If I weighed 200 lbs, but could fit into a size 8 and have the blood pressure of a baby, I wouldn't care. It is the NSVs which count for me. And, by the way, here is one change which will really lift your spirits while you are suffering through your tedious pre-op diet, now that I am banded I find that I do eat much, much less than I did before I was banded and I find that I don't miss the nosh. The appetite is no longer there. This has really freed me up and it is this which has helped me lose weight. Of course you must work on reassessing your eating patterns during your recovery period and this can be quite interesting. I have never been fond of soft drinks and I do like water so I kinda lucked out there. I've also never been too fond of using prepared foods but since being banded I have become fussy about looking at those Nutrition Facts labels with which our Canadian prepared foodstuffs come supplied. I learned that those great tasting Gardenay soups, the ones I lived on during the full liquid phase of my recovery, are fairly empty of the vita Cs. Eggs are loaded with the Bs. I've learned to avoid the frozen lo-cal dinners, a staple when I first graduated out of the mushie stage; they are low on calories and they are low on nutrients, too. Of course this new found hobby of mine has often put me between a rock and a hard place. This is because I really don't enjoy cooking - just eating. In the pre-band days I ate a lot of roughage-rich carbs, cholesterol rich protein (i.e. cheese), and fresh vegetables. Healthy but very fattening, especially when eaten in big quantities! Now I eat a lot of those little tins of tuna that Cloverleaf produces, the seasoned ones with the pop tops, yogurt, tzatziki, baked flatbreads, poached eggs with old cheese and salsa, avocados with fresh vegetables and a home made vinaigette, and stir-fries. I also occasionally make pasta with fresh vegetable but now this meal will last me two to three meals instead of just one. It is also easier for me than for most lap banders to tinker with my eating habits. My husband works second shift, I am retired, and we have become comfortable with fending for ourselves. This has turned out to be a long post, hasn't it?

I was sleeved August 12. I don't have much variety in my meals, either. I eat refried Beans at least twice a day. I mix it with melted cheese and a spoonful of Greek yogurt. I also like to eat Shelly's Baked Ricotta (scroll down for the recipe: http://theworldaccor...reed-foods.html). I haven't cooked this yet, but I want to try Shelly's Quickie Meatball Bake today (http://theworldaccor...-leftovers.html). I am a terrible cook, but hopefully it will turn out nonpoisonous. I have some Greek yogurt here, some cottage cheese there. I try to make sure that my mushies are high in Protein, because I am not a huge Protein shake fan. Now I only have to drink one protein shake a day (that I mix with skim milk for added protein).

Do you see your nutritionist? I am 5 weeks out and am in a very similar spot. I was just told if I don't turn it around in 3 weeks they willl put a feeding tube in. I can't do the shakes but she did give me some ideas - I have the ok for Protein bars, protein Jello (apparently at GNC), she told me I can nibble all day long on Protein Bar, cheese, yogurt, Peanut Butter and continue to drink if I need to. I know it's all against the rules but she told me I need to be doing anything I can.

I have not been able to tolerate protein shakes since surgery, I couldn't even handle mixing powder in with smoothies so I totally get it. My go-to has always been string cheese. I buy huge packs of it from Costco. You can try Greek Yogurt too.

I like a ham and cheese roll up with a little low fat mayo. I also like the small prepared meatballs in the frozen food section. You can use a little mustard or some marinara sauce for dipping. I like my plain Greek yogurt with a classic orange crystal light mixed in. Tastes kinda like orange sherbet. Good luck with your journey. You'll find something to your liking in the posts here. I'm learning a few new ideas myself!

I am going to get some carnation instant breakfast. My kids liked it when I bought it before. I also like the hot chocolate idea too. I ordered some unflavored unjury protein in hopes I can hide it in my decaf coffee. I use sf hazlenut creamer and so I think I could tolerate it. I love peanut butter to and I can lick the spoon! lol. What a novel idea. I like the idea of granola/almonds mixed in the greek yogurt. I am going to try that too. I have some premium mixed nuts but I am not supposed to have those for another week. I think we are sleeve sisters! August 8th right? I will also try to bacon and carnation instant breakfast. I could drink that on my way to work. A quick note: My doctor prescribes me generic zofran for nausea. It works wonders! It is a tiny pill and I take one every morning because my sleeve doesnt like Water or anything really on an empty sleeve. This enables me to drink milk in the morning without the discomfort. I dont have to worry about nausea at all. Its soooooo much better than phenergan. Phenergan puts me to sleep but zofran doesnt. I like that its generic and free with my insurance. Maybe you should check into it with your doctor. Hope that helps some with discomfort with milk, or alternatively you could take a lactose pill over the counter.

I was thinking a tablespoon of pumpkin puree (no sugar added), vanilla protein powder plus pumpkin spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, etc... I make my own), with a bit of greek yogurt and enough water to blend might make a pretty clean, high protein pumpkin spice shake.

Peppercma, I read your blog. Thanks for sharing all your details. Did you say yogurt was considered a clear liquid pre-op? That would be great! What else did you drink? broth, gatorade?

Well, I am 3 weeks out tomorrow. I was on a liquid diet for 1 extra week due to some pain with swallowing. After being SCARED TO DEATH to try anything semisolid, I did it!!!! I just tried Cream of Wheat. It's amazing to me how different it felt than my liquids. I was able to get 4-5 small bites in before becoming full. How odd thi seems..... What was your first mushie? I have two weeks of mushies ahead of me. I plan on a lot of refried beans, yogurt, egg salad, tuna salad...What else were your favorite mushies?

We are having the same issue!! I will say one thing I could tolerate Protein in is hot chocolate - I get the diet swiss miss and use beneprotein. Now I am out of that and need to try it with one of the other unflavored protein's I have - the beneprotein mixed well if you can get that near you and I couldn't taste it in the hot chocolate. Also when I saw my nutritionist last week she told me I was imposing too many rules on myself - otherwise I was FOLLOWING THEIR RULES and not getting what I needed so I needed to BREAK THEIR RULES!! She told me it was ok to lick a spoon of Peanut Butter all day and still drink. She said if I needed to drink, do it. I have been doing better than I was. Today so far I have 20 protein in at breakfast! How exciting! 3 pieces of bacon and a carnation instant breakfast. I don't think the milk agreed though so we'll see if I can do that again. I can do greek yogurt but not everyday. I do the cheese sticks, mozzarella is the highest. Maybe you could nibble on a few of those? I know your doc says 3 meals, period. But we have to do what we need to during early stage so we don't get our bodies in trouble - we are still swollen and like you said just not able to take much in at a time.

Hey all. I'm one week Post op. Where do I start. Well the day of surgery I was pretty out of it and really tired from the anesthesia and pain meds. My doctors and nurses kept me really comfortable with my pain. I had to have an upper GI study before I was able to drink anything. Unfortunately my system was moving really slowly, so I had to have the upper GI done three times until things finally started to move along. My second time doing the GI, I fainted, but thankfully the doctor caught me lol. After things were good, I was finally able to do ice chips and I couldn't of been happier. After the ice chips, I started to do Water. The next day after surgery I was able to do sugarfree Popsicles, and broth. I really didn't care to much for eating or drinking because I was to tired, but they wouldn't discharge me until I was able to drink 4oz of water in a hour. My pain was bad, but thankfully they were keeping it controlled. The gas pain was horrible. The worst part for me was getting in and out of bed, that is when it hurt the most. When getting home I felt a level of regret, but just kept reminding myself why I'm doing this. I was doing Protein shakes, sugarfree Jello, sugar free Popsicles, and broth. I was doing good for the first three days, but after that I started to feel nauseous more which made me sad lol. I've been taking my water in perfectly even though I feel like I'm starting to hate the taste now lol. I have now been able to add sugar free pudding, low fat yogurt, egg beaters, cottage cheese, and refried Beans to my diet. Well I'm not a bean and cottage cheese kind of person, but I was so excited after doing liquids for so long. I tried beans with ms.dash seasoning and it was a fail! They were so nasty. I then tried the egg beaters with the ms dash seasoning and again I threw it in the trash. It sucks! I don't know what to do because the stuff they tell me to eat does not appeal to me and I get nauseous thinking about them. It's definitely been more of a struggle for me then I thought it would be. I had a minnie break down today and just cried. I have been so tempted to eat solid food, but I know the dangers, so I just sat in the shower and cried. It's definitely hard when the rest of your family can enjoy what they like and your just there by yourself not able to. As for pain now it's pretty much controlled by my pain meds except for the gas pain. The gas pain definitely sucks still, but I just been using the heating pad for it. My incisions are healing fine, it's just really the mental/emotional thing I'm struggling with. I also notice I have to brush my teeth constantly because I have a nasty taste in my mouth. Besides this long post I can say I'm taking it one day at a time trying to make it to the end lol. Sent from my SM-G900T using the BariatricPal App

Pretty typical day for me: BF: 1 egg omelette with a Tbspn of Wendy's chili and some shredded 2% sharp cheddar, splash of tobasco Snack: 2 Kavlis Crispy Garlic flatbreads with 1 wedge of laughing cow cheese Lnch: 1/2 Amylu's Carmelized Onion chicken Burger diced and sauteed with some veggies, 1 Tbspn unsalted peanuts, and just enough Kung Pow Sauce to cover Snack: Wendy's side salad with low cal vinegarette dressing Dinner: 3 oz Fish or chicken breast with baked tomato slice, fresh basil and mozarella sprinkles Dessert: Yasso Frozen Yogurt bar

I'm 7 weeks out and no problems so far eating. Breakfast: Protein shake with instant coffee or egg with Morning Star Sausage pattie, or bacon Lunch: Tuna with olive mayo and dill relish with 4 crackers or costco italian meatballs with bbq sauce or some type of sauce. I've also made a pizza out of a 1/2 pc of flatout bread with pizza sauce, turkey pepperoni, cheese and sometimes add Morning Star meal starter cumbles. (like crumbled sausage) Dinner: Shrimp, stew meat in crock pot, meatballs, hot links, chicken or hamburger meat. I have not tried steak yet. If we go out to eat Mexican, I will get a soft beef taco and just eat the inside, not the tortilla. Oh and I haven't tied lettuce yet etiher. Refried Beans are good too. Snacks; Protein bars or shakes, fruit...like cherries, strawberries with greek yogurt and some granola. (sometimes I have that for breakfast)

I feel your pain. I had my first scrambled egg yesterday and was pretty much in misery most of the day. I didn't overcook the egg so it was still moist, I ate it slowly and chewed like no one's business. I got very full very fast and couldn't even finish it. After eating I felt as if I had gravel churning in my little stomach (I had VSG). I had been craving eggs since the pre-op liquid diet and so looked forward to this day but it wasn't all I had hoped for. Today I'm sticking to smoother things, like greek yogurt with some unflavored protein powder and it's going much better and have been doing pretty good getting my liquids in.

Wow. Post op i was only allowed to drink my protein. I was 2 weeks post all liquid. You're lucky if you get to do yogurt and stuff already. Keep up the good work.

Just wondering for anyone who has had their band for awhile, if anyone else has food tolerance problems throughout the day Morning: My band is very finicky, usually I can only eat a yogurt or drink a protien shake or have a sugar free instant Breakfast with nonfat milk, but anything solid and it usually doesn't go down real well. Lunch: Still a bit tight, and most of the time, solids don't go down real well, so I try to stick to Soup, But I am getting sick of this, and when I try to eat even like a block of cheese, it may or may not go down. This is frustrating because I am hungry but never know what to eat for lunch now. dinner Time: It takes me awhile to eat, but I can usually end up eating a whole plate of food, and I am still hungry sometimes even after a full plate of food. It's so weird to me that my band is so tight all day and then at night, I can eat a whole entire plate of food! I want to get another small fill because I am a SLOW looser (only lost 26 lbs so far in 4 1/2 months) but I am afraid that I wont be able to eat anything all day if I do. Just wondering if anyone elses band is this finicky? And what do you eat? BTW..I work out at least 5 days a week and it is so frustrating that I am not loosing weight faster. I have even cut out almost all bread, I dont drink soda, I never eat fast food. I just eat a lot at night because I am hungry from not eating much all day. Is this kind of what it "should be like" and I am just not giving it enough time yet?

I was never able to get down the Protein drinks. I started drinking liquid yogurt and keifer to get in protein and good calories in the second week. Sometimes, all I could handle was vanilla flavored milk (the one in the juice box). Just make sure you keep up with liquids in general, the biggest problem right now would be dehydration. As you add more real food, your protein levels will go up. Hang in there---

5 months post-op. Tried different powder ones after WLS. By far the best tasting to my yards buds is Premier Protein 11oz 30g of protein, 1g sugar, 4g carbs, comes in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I purchase at costco for about $28 case of 18. I buy a three. Love them. You can also find online amazon but cheapest place is Costco. Good luck!! PS I agree with other post, my taste buds change lots, sometimes I mix the powder ones I despised after WLS 1st couple of weeks. Save them and try to mix/blend with other thing, frozen fruit, Peanut Butter, yogurt etc..,

I am 8 weeks post-op and have been following the plan laid out for me by my surgeon & dietician. I am eating 2 protein shakes a day (breakfast & lunch), a snack of nonfat plain yogurt or 3 oz cottage cheese (if needed) and one meal of 3 oz lean protein & 6 oz veggies. I eat the protein first like I am supposed too and then start on the veggies. I have been told that when I feel satisfied I should stop and its ok if I don't finish what is on my plate (contrary to what most have been told our whole lives :-) ). There are times that I know I am satisfied but continue anyway because I am thinking "It's only salad, how bad could this really be for me?" or "I am only allowed this small amount of food anyway, I might as well eat it". Any tips on how to recognize that feeling of satiety sooner so I am avoid overdoing it? Thanks!

liquids in, liquids out. Once you can eat some yogurt, it really helps with the GI tract imbalance. It is frustrating, but you'll have relief soon.

Can you have yogurt yet??? I actually would chew up the vitamin, and then eat some yogurt, wait the 30 minutes and then start drinking.