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You’re not going to feel the restriction until you are much further along in your healing (takes around 6-8 weeks) & eating solid foods. A lot of nerves are cut or damaged during the surgery so messages simply aren’t getting through or are distorted if they do. The staged return to eating is to protect your recovery and to ensure you don’t damage your healing digestive system (think of all those sutures and staples holding your tummy together- I believe it’s around 12inches of sutures+staples with a sleeve. You should only progress your stages if your surgeon advises you to. It’s also one of the reasons why we’re advised to eat slowly and are given portion sizes we should stick to. Also remember that liquids go through the tummy much more quickly than solid food so you don’t really get full in the same way as you know sipping your shakes slowly. Purées go through a little more quickly but nothing like solid foods.

Went Jean shopping yesterday and my biggest struggle was everything looked good and with my size I had so many options. Then went to VS and was picking out size small panties and they are sexy. TMI but I wore a sexy piece for the mister and I felt really sexy in my skin. It was the best freaking feeling! Attached are the very first pair of pants I bought after WLS because my 20s were way too baggy. I don’t always do amazing with my choices in food- a struggle we all will forever be a struggle for me, but damn! I did this work, I put in work at the gym, I meal prep every damn week, and I track. I am humble bragging that I am proud of myself!

Today is 3 years since my surgery. I wept a little this morning, I am still the skinny woman I always wanted to be. Every morning when I wake, I feel my tummy and Greyhound ribs to make sure it wasnt a dream. I will always be grateful to my team who took on a disabled, fat old woman and gave me this chance. I may have paid for it and put the work in but they gave me this tool.

I'm glad I got, but it was tener for a few weeks. After that, I just got used to sleeping on my back. It became a habit.

The top pick last week, the bottome pick July 2024 a week after I started the pre op diet.

Got new t-shirts for the gym and I got a 0XL and it fit!! I used to get 3-4XL 😍😍😍😍

Crazy thing is I never ate her spicy bowls the shrimp or sausage but for some reason it smelled so good to me an Thank you for the kind work I’m 3days post op an just strained my soup for phase 2 patiently waiting on phase 3 for soft foods but my overall experience has been great hope everyone is doin well

i live in workout clothes. and because i get all nice and sweaty in them every day (sometimes 2-3 times a day), i wash them ALOT. decided to take one last pic in these particular pants (my fave ones!) as they are getting tossed as they are all stretched out and are no longer super fitting...they fall down during class, especially as they get wetter with all the sweat! p.s. i also wanted to narcissistically show off my abs in their full glory as they are all sticky-outy and hard cuz i literally just came back from class where we did 5 sets of Hundreds (thats five hundred total pilates crunches omg...not even sure our instructor should be making us do this many, but i digress). in any case, all our abs will look bikini worthy for the next few hours, ha! wish i was on vacation somewhere... p.s.s. full disclosure: part of the sticky-outy-ness of said abs is cuz i recently dropped 10-ish lbs and the lack of fat makes the underlying muscle look more defined...so i cant take all the credit.

I put mine as the weight on the day I went to my first surgical consult, which was also my highest recorded weight. With the diet and lifestyle changes I made as part of the program, I lost about 13 lbs in the 6 months between then and the start of my pre-op diet. I lost another 13 lbs in those 2 weeks of liquid diet before surgery. But I want credit for all the weight I lost! Interestingly, Dr. Weiner recently said on a podcast that the weight lost on a pre-op diet definitely is credited to the surgery in his opinion. The reasoning was that if you go on a liquid diet, lose 13 lbs, and then try to keep that weight off without having surgery just by eating right, you are going to regain most or all of it in a matter of weeks. The fact that we lose that weight and then keep losing more weight instead of gaining is thanks to the metabolic changes of the surgery. He also told me in a live Q&A support group a while back to use my weight from before the pre-op diet as my starting weight if I wanted to plug it into a prediction calculator. I raised the concern of being a bit behind the prediction based on one of those calculators and he asked me what my weight was before the liquid diet. When we used that number instead of my surgery day weight, it tracked much better (and is still looking very accurate at 9 months out). He said if I had always been 225 lbs (my day of surgery weight) that would be one thing, but in reality, my "true" weight was somewhere between 238 and 251 in terms of what my metabolism was trying to overcome with the surgery. I feel like that's one of those big questions a lot of us have in the beginning and nobody really gives an answer on the calculator sites.

i use the weight i was on my first day of my 2 week pre-op diet (235 lbs which happened to be my highest weight recorded). p.s. my weight when i had my very first consultation 2 years prior to that was lower...i think it was like 220 or something. there is a statistic where you can input your weight on day of surgery, but it's just not included in the summary under your name in the side bar.... @Alex Brecher...maybe we can include "weight on surgery day" in the side bar info?

I went with mine the day of the op as it was higher than when I started the process - I enjoyed the few weeks before my surgery 😉

Yep, me. I never lost my hunger at all. I've just had to learn that if I follow my plan, I'm getting enough food. I ignore it by staying busy, working a lot, and keeping busy so I'm not focused on it. I make sure to have 3 meals and 3 snacks per day and prioritize protein, then healthy fats, then fiber, then carbs.

so a quick google states that a weight loss "stall" or "plateau" is 4 CONSECUTIVE WEEKS of no weight gain NOR loss while on a CONSISTENT calorie intake. basically, this means netting the SAME average amount of calories (intake less expenditure) for 4 weeks and staying at the same weight for said 4 weeks. this generally means that you have reached an equilibrium with your intake (calories) and your expenditure (activity). which means you either have to reduce your intake or increase your expenditure to restart a downward trend. the inverse of this is also true: increase your intake or decrease your expenditure, and you will GAIN weight. sooooo...if you are below 4 weeks of the scale not moving (in conjunction of your measurements not reducing), then stay the course...you are in a stall. if you are ABOVE 4 weeks of the scale (and measurements) not moving, then this would indicate the time to start re-evaluating your lifestyle IF you want to lose more...you are in a plateau. if you are happy with your current lifestyle, and just don't want nor need to make changes, then is a matter of accepting yourself as you are now. ain't nothing wrong with that! not everyone gets to their arbitrary goal weight. and those that do, the majority don't even stay there. find the weight that you are cool with expending the effort to maintain. it's different for everybody. good luck! ❤️

I stalled about that same time too. I was still loosing, just slower. I added probiotics and personally worked on getting better sleep (meditation, CBD, journaling stress out, etc). The weight kept going down in spurts. It was just random spurts until the 2&1/2 year mark. Then I had to be super mindful and pay attention to my vitamins/minerals. It helped me to join some groups like Dr. Wiener , and a hiking club, just to be with like minded people who were trying to be healthy. I hope you find your tweaks and habits that help you :) Yes, there’s more gas in your tank to burn. It is possible.

I had a stall during my pre-op diet which took about a week to end. Then at 3 weeks post op I had stall. But in week 4 suddenly 10lbs was gone. I get more stressed about it if I weigh myself every day, so I try not to, but it's really difficult not to.

Yep, I'm 9 months post-op and may or may not just be coming out of about a 3-week stall. It's very normal and expected to start slowing down, stalling, and having small weight gains at this point. I hit a low of 170.2 toward the end of October, immediately bounced up a pound, and didn't drop below that low point until 3 days ago. Personally, I find that whenever I hit a new low after a little bit of a stall, especially if it involves a large one-day drop (I went from 170.8 to 169.0 in a day), I'll usually bounce around a little before seeing any steady declines. Most people continue losing weight until at least 12 months, and sometimes a little bit more until 18 or 24 months. But with a lot more stalls, especially the closer you get to a "normal" BMI. (I'm about 14 pounds away from not being considered overweight by the medical charts). The important thing is to develop a healthy eating and exercise routine that is sustainable no matter what the scale says. If you're doing what is reasonable and recommended, keep doing it. There's no need to change what isn't broken. On the other hand, if you know you've been straying from your good habits, focus on getting back to where you know you should be. Eating healthy foods in the correct portions on a regular schedule, moving your body throughout the week, getting the right amount of protein, taking vitamins, and drinking water are all things you will be doing for the rest of your life, even though at some point the scale will stop going down. The advice I am giving myself these days is to try to separate those good things I am doing from the number on the scale. Because for me, if I start seeing weight loss as a "reward" for "being good", it makes it harder to continue the good lifelong habits when that "reward" inevitably goes away. It also won't do you any favors in the long run if you try to introduce a bunch of things you know you will never be able to maintain just to get the scale moving faster. I might be able to drop a few pounds really fast if I went back to 500 calories per day or re-did my 2 week liquid diet, but I can't live like that forever, so it's a false victory. I think we all have to find the right balance of habits we can maintain fairly steadily for a lifetime and a healthy weight we can maintain without torturing ourselves. And remember that just because you hit the 12-month mark doesn't mean the game is over. You can always introduce improvements to your nutrition or your exercise that will result in slow and steady changes over time. You don't have to workout 5 days a week for 2 hours a day if that isn't your thing, but if you add some resistance training a few times per week or an extra walk after dinner, you will see those results down the road.

I have my surgery on the 18th if you ever want to talk! I am also working on figuring out some plans on what to eat the two weeks before surgery gets here. You are going to do amazing!

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.

Stalls are inevitable. If this is your first one then you have been lucky. Just follow your plan and you will get your weight drop eventually. You can't force it.

Has anyone ever had weight loss "stalling"? The scale has not moved for almost a month (it has not gone up either). I doing everything I can think of: exercising, eating correctly, measuring food portions, food journaling, more water, daily vitamins. EVERYTHING. Is the end of the road for me? (I am 10 months post-op. ) Anyone else go thru these times?

I am 12 weeks/3 months out. It wasn't my best weekend as far as carbs, but I also don't think it was terrible; it was my highest calorie count since surgery at 1500. The next day, I just tired to really focus on protein and low carbs. I did go walk today and got in a little over 2 miles so that feels good to be more active again.

Welcome PlantMom! There's already some really good advice here on your query. If you can spend some time reading this forum generally you will gain SO much knowledge in a short time. Well worth it. I'm 3 years post sleeve. It has suited me very well - I am 5'9" and was 276lbs before I started my WLS journey, so not that far off your stats. I made a positive choice to have the sleeve based on minimum changes to my anatomy. My surgeon laid out the pros of that Vs the bypass (he only did those two ops) and I decided. I would be really concerned about anyone trying to shoehorn me into what was easier for them. I did have reflux when I was morbidly obese but I lucked out and it actually improved after I lost weight (as it always had before) but if you're a fellow sufferer that might be one to consider carefully. In IRL I know people with sleeve, bypass, AND band, who have failed to lose, or lost and regained everything and more. WLS is a chance to re-think and redefine your relationship with food. I am saying this as someone still doing that and who will be negotiating that forever! It's a lifelong journey for those of us who were born with the propensity to gain gain gain weight in the obesogenic society we now live in. Choose your tool carefully and after as much research as you can. Even then it doesn't work out for everyone but I think it maxes out your chance that you'll be one of the lucky ones. I wish you all the best.

I need to get back on working out; I have been slacking. I'm doing okay food wise though so that's good. I just got my bloodwork done so I'm waiting to hear back on how all my levels are since surgery. I had my first cookie and first small glass of wine this week at a baby shower; it was nice to feel more normal again, but also not go crazy.