Three Years Later - What I've Learned

[DougNichols 124]

Three Years Later - What I've Learned

Here's my experiences from the sleeve process years ago. I wish I had this information before getting the sleeve, so I wanted to share it with all of you:

GAINING WEIGHT

Gaining weight is easy: you simply eat when you're emotional, lonely, or not hungry. Even though my stomach would barely fit a slice of pizza, I could still suck down an entire large meat Lover's Supreme by eating a single slice, waiting until my stomach could fit some more and then eating another. Until the pizza was all gone. You can also do this with ice cream, burgers, fries, and all the other miscellaneous crap food widely available via drive thrus.

This is why you're required to see a counselor and nutritionist - to handle your eating issues. If these aren't handled, then DON'T BOTHER WITH THE SURGERY. You will simply get fat again by eating smaller portions more frequently. If however you only eat when you're hungry - and stick to good foods then you're golden. Now OBVIOUSLY if you did that in the first place you wouldn't be fat. So surgery is a booster shot to your weight loss, and new way of life.

Think of it as waging a war, and surgery is a tank. Now a tank is a formidable weapon. Can run over enemies, shoot some big artillery but eventually if all you have is that one tank, you'll probably lose a prolonged battle. So you gather some strategy and military air support (diet changes), some recruits and soldiers (lifestyle changes) and NOW you have a master battle plan for your war. And ultimately a better thought out path to success.

You invested a lot of money and pain into this - don't screw it up.

FIRST FEW MONTHS

The first six months your weight will drop amazingly fast, because you're out of surgery and can only eat Soup broth for a week. And then slowly mushy foods come in, followed by a few solids. You don't really need a blender, there are ample canned goods you can eat. Baby food, blending a steak and other shocking posts you read about aren't required: just shop for other things that qualify. Going out with friends during this period is depressing, since your diet is so restrictive, you're staring blankly at the menu for a long time and finally decide on Water.< /p>

Get everything you need together before coming home. You'll be on some pretty loopy meds when arriving home, and won't be in any shape to hit the local Walmart. Nor will your family want to bother with it - so plan ahead.

FOOD AND STRETCHING

You can only eat maybe a half cup of food during the first couple months. Then a cup after about five months, then two cups after longer. You can hurry this process along by stuffing your face until your stomach hurts so bad you need to go lay down, or vomit. But if your eating problem is that severe then see my multi-faceted approach to surgery from above.

Each person is obviously different, but stretching your stomach (to me at least) seems difficult and a venture of pain and suffering. I can feel my stomach naturally taking in more food over time, however I've cycled that back down by going a few days drinking only delicious fruit smoothies. This makes my tummy literally shrink back to where it was after surgery, or pretty close, dependent upon how many days I go. You can also accomplish this via more extreme methods like water or veggie juice fasting, however banana/stawberry/pineapple with some coconut water and ice in the blender tastes much better in my humble opinion.

If you do continue to gorge like a tick on bad foods, then yes your stomach will stretch. I've met a few people who's stomach has returned to normal size. Again - everybody is different, I'm just telling you MY story.

How much food you can eat varies by food type:

RICE - I can eat maybe five spoonfuls of this before I feel sick. Stuffing in another three before my body registers that I'm full and it's a vomit party. You need to eat slowly - there's a point in which eating more means bending over the toilet. And once you've experienced that joy, you quickly learn where the limit resides. Rice expands so you gotta be careful. An average meal of fried rice and an egg roll is a full day's worth of food, that requires splitting up.

SODAS - Equivalent to drinking battery acid. I've met some people who've acclimated back to it, but why bother?

MEAT - Steak is bad, try like five or six bites before calling it quits. chicken is similar. Fish goes down a little easier, and you can eat more, maybe because it's flaky.

SALADS and FRUIT - I can eat one banana. Two is painful. Ditto with grapes, strawberries, etc. These foods process through your stomach quicker, so you can eat a little more often compared to stuffing down a sirlion.

PIZZA - Takes me about 12 hours to suck down a large thin crust. Regular or deep crust, I end up tossing half of it into the trash.

Desserts - They hurt. Bad. And then make me sleepy, ticked off and depressed. I mostly stick with natural sugars now like fruits and veggies.

RESTAURANT EATING

Eating out with friends has a lot of rules tagging along. You must wait 30 minutes after drinking water before eating (which works out great, since that's how long food takes to arrive). I order an appetizer or split a full meal with a friend, so this is not a big deal. I see and hear lots of drama about this mingling around, but it's not THAT bad, and you can easily make it look perfectly normal without telling people you had surgery. You don't need a little happy note from your doctor saying you had surgery, just get a doggie bag or go halfsies with a buddy.

CONCLUSION

These are just my two cents, and I hope they help someone.

I lost about 100lbs, then gained back 50.

I'm in the process of losing again thanks to a diet change (I went 100% raw food) and exercise.

[amytug 996]

That's cool. Stop sucking down half of pizzas tho.

[Kristina J. 581]

This may be the best post I've read here! I really appreciate your honesty and insight!! Thank you so much for sharing!!!

[Ballermom 803]

I love reading your story it is Honest and indeed helpful. Thanks for sharing.

[Bec101 227]

What I great post!!! Thanks for sharing

[Melhendy 15]

I totally get how you can still gain weight after this if you don't follow the rules. You can graze all day and still get in a significant amount of calories. That is why they tell us to only eat our 3 meals a day and no snacking. I'm only 4 days out from my surgery, so I'm so glad to have read your post! I really appreciate your honesty!

[ms.k 20]

Thanks so much for sharing!!

[Geminitraveler 2]

Thanks for all of the details.

I am still pre surgery so the more armed I am with information and you gave it real.

Good luck and hope to hear more from you. I will keep everyone posted about my journey.

Cheers

[2013sleevegirl 126]

Thank you for this post.

[luckysmomma 407]

[clk 3,519]

Thank you for sharing your experience!

It is all too easy when we're fresh out of surgery and hardly able to eat to feel invincible and as if we can conquer the world - that regains only happen to other people and of course, we're never, ever going to be those people.

The reality is much more complex, as you've pointed out.

Obesity is just as much about disordered eating as it is about quantity. And the sleeve only changes the quantity of food you can take in at one time. It doesn't change anything else that helped make a person obese in the first place.

I hope that a lot of people, especially those researching surgery, come across this and view it as a reality check. The sleeve is not your miracle diet cure. On it's own it's only going to affect your ability to eat a cheeseburger or a pizza in a single sitting. If you do not work towards healthier, lifelong habits you will not maintain. Losing the weight isn't the hard part. Keeping the weight off is the hard part.

Good luck on tackling that regain, and thanks again for posting your experience,

~Cheri

[Irish_lass 4]

I realy needed to hear your story. I lost 100 snd recently gainf back 40. I feel so fown about myself right now and lonley. I love eberything ypu wrote. I am 2 yrs post op. I'm finding it hard to find support. I'm going back on my diet. I love the smoothie idea. I've been thinking about that for a couple of werks now. I'd like to stay in contact to help motivate eachother. Again thank you so very much for sharing.

[DougNichols 124]

That is why they tell us to only eat our 3 meals a day and no snacking

I call this the "Three Meal Fantasy". Who determined we should eat three meals a day. Why not 4, or 2? Makes no sense. For millions of years we ate when we were hungry, assuming food was readily available.

You should eat healthy, nutritious foods until you're satiated. And only when you're hungry. Feeding our bodies the nutrition it needs via healthy, plant based foods slows down our hunger mechanism and disables the constantly-hungry switch in our heads. Then once we handle the bad habits, we score a win as our bodies return to normal weight.

[jtower97 28]

Three Years Later - What I've Learned

Here's my experiences from the sleeve process years ago. I wish I had this information before getting the sleeve' date=' so I wanted to share it with all of you:

GAINING WEIGHT

Gaining weight is easy: you simply eat when you're emotional, lonely, or not hungry. Even though my stomach would barely fit a slice of pizza, I could still suck down an entire large meat Lover's Supreme by eating a single slice, waiting until my stomach could fit some more and then eating another. Until the pizza was all gone. You can also do this with ice cream, burgers, fries, and all the other miscellaneous crap food widely available via drive thrus.

This is why you're required to see a counselor and nutritionist - to handle your eating issues. If these aren't handled, then DON'T BOTHER WITH THE SURGERY. You will simply get fat again by eating smaller portions more frequently. If however you only eat when you're hungry - and stick to good foods then you're golden. Now OBVIOUSLY if you did that in the first place you wouldn't be fat. So surgery is a booster shot to your weight loss, and new way of life.

Think of it as waging a war, and surgery is a tank. Now a tank is a formidable weapon. Can run over enemies, shoot some big artillery but eventually if all you have is that one tank, you'll probably lose a prolonged battle. So you gather some strategy and military air support (diet changes), some recruits and soldiers (lifestyle changes) and NOW you have a master battle plan for your war. And ultimately a better thought out path to success.

You invested a lot of money and pain into this - don't screw it up.

FIRST FEW MONTHS

The first six months your weight will drop amazingly fast, because you're out of surgery and can only eat Soup broth for a week. And then slowly mushy foods come in, followed by a few solids. You don't really need a blender, there are ample canned goods you can eat. Baby food, blending a steak and other shocking posts you read about aren't required: just shop for other things that qualify. Going out with friends during this period is depressing, since your diet is so restrictive, you're staring blankly at the menu for a long time and finally decide on Water.

Get everything you need together before coming home. You'll be on some pretty loopy meds when arriving home, and won't be in any shape to hit the local Walmart. Nor will your family want to bother with it - so plan ahead.

FOOD AND STRETCHING

You can only eat maybe a half cup of food during the first couple months. Then a cup after about five months, then two cups after longer. You can hurry this process along by stuffing your face until your stomach hurts so bad you need to go lay down, or vomit. But if your eating problem is that severe then see my multi-faceted approach to surgery from above.

Each person is obviously different, but stretching your stomach (to me at least) seems difficult and a venture of pain and suffering. I can feel my stomach naturally taking in more food over time, however I've cycled that back down by going a few days drinking only delicious fruit smoothies. This makes my tummy literally shrink back to where it was after surgery, or pretty close, dependent upon how many days I go. You can also accomplish this via more extreme methods like Water or veggie juice fasting, however banana/stawberry/pineapple with some coconut water and ice in the blender tastes much better in my humble opinion.

If you do continue to gorge like a tick on bad foods, then yes your stomach will stretch. I've met a few people who's stomach has returned to normal size. Again - everybody is different, I'm just telling you MY story.

How much food you can eat varies by food type:

RICE - I can eat maybe five spoonfuls of this before I feel sick. Stuffing in another three before my body registers that I'm full and it's a vomit party. You need to eat slowly - there's a point in which eating more means bending over the toilet. And once you've experienced that joy, you quickly learn where the limit resides. Rice expands so you gotta be careful. An average meal of fried rice and an egg roll is a full day's worth of food, that requires splitting up.

SODAS - Equivalent to drinking battery acid. I've met some people who've acclimated back to it, but why bother?

meat - Steak is bad, try like five or six bites before calling it quits. chicken is similar. Fish goes down a little easier, and you can eat more, maybe because it's flaky.

SALADS and FRUIT - I can eat one banana. Two is painful. Ditto with grapes, strawberries, etc. These foods process through your stomach quicker, so you can eat a little more often compared to stuffing down a sirlion.

PIZZA - Takes me about 12 hours to suck down a large thin crust. Regular or deep crust, I end up tossing half of it into the trash.

Desserts - They hurt. Bad. And then make me sleepy, ticked off and depressed. I mostly stick with natural sugars now like fruits and veggies.

RESTAURANT EATING

Eating out with friends has a lot of rules tagging along. You must wait 30 minutes after drinking water before eating (which works out great, since that's how long food takes to arrive). I order an appetizer or split a full meal with a friend, so this is not a big deal. I see and hear lots of drama about this mingling around, but it's not THAT bad, and you can easily make it look perfectly normal without telling people you had surgery. You don't need a little happy note from your doctor saying you had surgery, just get a doggie bag or go halfsies with a buddy.

CONCLUSION

These are just my two cents, and I hope they help someone.

I lost about 100lbs, then gained back 50.

I'm in the process of losing again thanks to a diet change (I went 100% raw food) and exercise.[/quote']

[aliekat55 157]

thanks! i can see the wisdom of experience in the post and i plan to make great use of it. one query-- why do people use so much coconut Water? is it just for the flavor? it seems to add pointless carbs--all sugars by the way.

a novice