LumpySpacePrincess

It is common to not feel a lot of restriction in the puree phase; many people don't feel it until they get on solids. This is why it is very important at your stage to measure and weigh all your food and do NOT eat more than you should (2 tablespoons at 9 days out) at one meal and do NOT eat more than every 3 hours. DO eat pureed Protein FIRST and do NOT consume starches, sugars, etc. If you are eating only every 3 hours and eating your lean protein puree first, 1100 calories would be very difficult. I'm 13 months out and 1100 calories is hard for me unless I'm just eating junk.

No, but I was born there and they did a good job keeping me and mom alive! lol

Protein and Produce before Carbs and Crap is what my surgeon has always told me. I don't "do" low-carb per-se, but my diet is naturally low in starches and grains because I eat all my protein first, then my veggies, and then IF I have room (usually don't) I can eat a bit of starch. I must note, however, that I didn't even start introducing starches/high glycemic carbs back into my diet until I'd lost about 75% of my excess weight, and then it was a gradual process. I've had great success in just a year with this way of eating.

Congrats!!! Don't hurt yourself laughing too hard at this. haha! I remember when I was fresh out of surgery and on so much pain medication I called my mom and instead of telling her I made it I for some reason shout/slurred "I AM AN UNREALIZED chicken FARM!!" into the phone. I couldn't understand why everyone in the room was laughing. HUGS to you and we'll be here to support you on your journey!

I recently took a seasonal job in retail to help pay for holiday expenses. I see a lot of super-morbidly obese people come through my line, and usually I just feel a sad twinge when they tell me the plus-size section is lacking in fashionable clothes. I remember that pain; I was there just a year ago. Recently, though, a woman came through my line who was obviously pushing 400 pounds. She thankfully wasn't in a scooter, but she was breathing very heavy just speaking to me and struggled to get her purchases up on my counter. Then she asked me a question I didn't know how to answer: "Where is the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet?" I flat out told her I didn't know. As I looked at her, a whole flood of memories came back of me sitting down to my fifth or sixth plate of buffet food that probably had less nutritional value than a frozen dinner, and just going home and hating myself the next day. Not only that, but people around me would just go with me and allow this to happen like it was OK. Well, it wasn't OK; I was slowly killing myself and people around me weren't batting an eye. I ended up telling her I didn't know. She tried to 'jog my memory' but describing the place to me, but as I stood there and listened to her having trouble breathing through her words the only thing I thought 'I'm sorry, I can't tell you. Not because you don't deserve to have the food you want but because I was you a year ago, and one of the greatest things anyone could have done for me then was to tell me no.' There was not a day that went by in my former life (and sometimes even now) when didn't wish that someone would have just taken the fork away from me, or not walked to the store to get me the Cookies or fast food. I felt like I was doing her a favor but I'm kind of wondering now...was I fair? Should I have just given her directions?

As someone who suffers from ED-NOS (basically components of a few eating disorders jumbled together), I can tell you that it is not a far leap for your brain to swing from an ED like binge eating to bulimia or anorexia after surgery. Many people with undiagnosed eating disorders have this issue; there is even a sub-category of eating disorders appearing in psychological literature called 'post-surgical eating avoidance disorder' along with orthorexia. Personally, I don't believe in 'cheating' or 'bad foods'. food is just food; its an object and only gives you power when you assign a moral label to it. Many people struggle greatly with this and post-ops often feel that eating bad food will 'ruin' their new digestive system and negate the benefits of the surgery. What's truly sad to me is that many people never get the psychological care they absolutely need to obtain and maintain a long-term healthy relationship with food. When I give advice to people on how I managed to lose so much (because of my very large cohort in a FB support group, I have lost the most so I get asked quite a lot) I give them my baseline nutrition stats. What I don't add in are all my 'extras' that might pop up. I do eat only an average of 650 calories per day, 20g net carbs and 80g protein; that's how I managed to lose my weight. BUT...if I see a cookie and I want one, I have one; then I walk away and continue with my normal diet. (This is different from before surgery when I might sit down and eat half a pack of oreos and wash it down with a pint of whole milk after a large dinner. ) I suspect that is what a lot of people on here do: they give their baseline stats but there's no reason to add in 'also you might have xxx food xxx times per week)'. Hope maybe that helps??

Last year Thanksgiving I was two days post op and treated myself to diet cranberry juice watered down and some chicken broth. I was so happy this year that I could enjoy a normal Thanksgiving dinner...even if it was just 1 Tablespoon of every dish! Your progress is amazing...keep it up!

Classic dumping symptoms. Your body isn't ready for starches yet. Give your body time to adjust to the new way of digesting food before you add them back in and just stick to Protein for now.

I'm a year out and sometimes the big Vitamins that are oblong get stuck sideways still. I opt for chewables for both my multi and my calcium. Multi I take is called Spectrovite and tastes like an orange creamsicle. I buy CVS brand chewable calcium that tastes like a gummy bear. As for other vitamins, my 50,000IU Vitamin D is really small so I swallow that one, along with my Biotin.

I'm a year out and I can only eat about 6 ounces of soft food (or half cup) or four ounces (about a third of a cup max) of more solid Protein before I get full. The only exception is soft dairy like yogurt or cottage cheese, of which I can eat up to 8 ounces at a time. For additional perspective I can eat about: half a sandwich of any variety if the bread is thin one slice of pizza one small chicken breast three egg whites with half an english muffin half a large tomato two hard boiled eggs Hope this helps!

I am a year out (sleeve) and I can still only eat 6 ounces at the absolute most in one sitting, so I'll just be having very small amounts of everything and just being mindful of when I start to feel that I've had enough and ending my meal there. No grazing, no snacking during the day. The few traditional 'sweets' I made (cranberry bread and pumpkin pie) were made with splenda instead of real sugar, and we typically don't eat things like candied yams or mac and cheese anyway. I'm just most excited for the spinach quiche and turkey!

I have been obese all my life, since I was 3. I experienced a few traumas very early in life that triggered my binge eating disorder and I have always just eaten too much because of that. The nutrition we had growing up was really good; no junk food in our house, I just ate way too much.

Keep it light; you probably won't use most things you bring with you. I was so out of it I couldn't focus on anything. I know everyone recommends gas-x strips, but you won't be able to take them when you are in the hospital. All you really need to bring is: warm socks a lightweight robe to go over your hospital gown change of underthings phone and phone charger personal identification (purse, wallet, etc) a list of questions you might have for the doctors and nurses Wear to the hospital whatever you want to walk out in; it saves on packing. I brought my laptop, but honestly had a hard time using it since I was so drugged up until about an hour before I left. Leave most of your electronics at home and REST.

Not counting calories is where I completely disagree with your dietician to a point. Calories absolutely do matter, and the lower you can keep them the more you will lose. However, if you are eating 80g of LEAN Protein per day and keeping under 30 net carbs coming from non-starchy veggies, your calories should still be fairly low. That is, if you don't add in other things like sauces, dressings, cheeses, etc to what you are eating. I say this not just as someone who is very strict with themselves, but someone who has charted weight for a group of women who had the sleeve at the same time I did last year. There are six of us who all started out at approximately the same weight, are within a 10 year age range (none of us over 40), and had the same co-morbidities before surgery. Three of us counted calories while the other three based their diets solely on counting carbs and protein. Out of the three of us who were restrictive, I was the most restrictive, never eating more than 800 calories in one day and averaging 75g of protein and only 30g net carbs from non-starchy sources. The results: those of us who counted calories and kept them low lost more weight over our counterparts who did not watch calories. Out of the three of us who did watch calories, I lost the most. One year out, I am only 6 pounds from my goal weight, while the other two who were restrictive with calories are 25 and 34 pounds away from goal. Those who only counted protein and carbs and did not restrict calories still have an average of 75 pounds of weight to lose (+/-15 pounds). Calories absolutely DO matter, and if you are not losing it is probably because your calories are too high. You are NOT eating enough protein, and you are NOT eating frequently enough. If you are having trouble eating because you fear gaining the weight, you might need to seek counselling for a disorder called Post-Surgical Eating Avoidance Disorder. It is more common than people in the WLS community want to talk about. Otherwise, it shouldn't be that hard at your stage to squeeze in 75g of protein for less than 400 calories per day, and you can fill the other 400 with low-carb items such as vegetables, a little bit of good fat, etc. You don't have to eat six times per day, but you need to eat frequently enough to get your baseline protein. Hope this helps!

I try not to snack at all, really. If I get hungry between meals, I usually reach for pure Protein like extra lean deli turkey slices, leftover roast chicken, or shrimp. Try to leave your fats and carbs for your regular meals and only snack when you are truly, truly hungry.

In the future, weigh and measure all your food before you eat and do not go over your allotted portion size. At your stage, that should be no more than 2 ounces per meal. Even if you don't feel 'full' after that two ounces, stop. Undereating your sleeve will serve you much better. To answer your question: its hard to know if I could have eaten that at a few weeks out, since I didn't see the size of the food (and as someone said, the bones take up more room than you think). However, I do remember at 3 weeks I was still on purees and could only eat maybe 1/4 cup if I ate it slow enough. I don't know who told you 1/2 cup per meal at your stage, but that's not correct. You shouldn't eat that much until about month 6.

You sound like I was before surgery. I was extremely physically active, even at 315 pounds. The odd thing is, once I started exercising post-op, I noticed the weight loss would either slow down or stop. Once I stopped exercising, I lost at a steady rate of 3 pounds per week until I got down into the 180's. There are some of us for which exercise actually has the opposite effect: it will make the weight loss halt. Keep this in mind as you go along. You will need to cut your activity way, way back for at least the first four or five months due to the very restrictive calorie level, but that's OK. Build back up over a long period of time. If you are doing that much physical activity per week (and I know how this feels), your body is probably due for a rest anyway.

I don't worry about food much anymore. If I want a few pieces of what my son brings home, I'll allow it within moderation. Stressing and creating anxiety about food is one of the reasons I became obese. The cycle of eating, guilt, and repeating is vicious. For years I thought the component that needed to be removed was the food, but amazingly it was the guilt that needed to be removed. When the guilt was gone, suddenly eating in moderation became easy, I no longer binged on anything. I allow myself to have it because extremes of any type (either ultra restrictive or ultra permissive) aren't healthy.

I'm a bit different. I couldn't drink caffeine pre-op because my blood pressure was so high and I didn't like the sensation it gave me. As my BP went down and I started weaning off my medication, I was getting horrible headaches. My PCP recommended coffee to help with it. At the time, I didn't even own a coffee pot. I bought a Bialetti stovetop Mukka pot, and now a three-shot Cappuccino is just part of my daily routine. My nutritionist and surgeon have no problem with me drinking it as long as I don't add any sugar. I sweeten it with Splenda and use Toriani sugar-free syrups for flavor if I want. I work retail along with attending graduate school for Counselling Psychology, and have a 9 year old boy at home. No idea how I'd get through the day without my coffee!!

I have one once in awhile now, but didn't until I was more than six months out. I hold it in my mouth for a few seconds before I swallow so most of the carbonation fizzles out. I think in moderation, its fine. I have a diet soda maybe twice per month, and usually don't even finish it. I also don't believe that it would stretch your stomach unless you were drinking big chugs of it all day. You're more likely to stretch your stomach with too much solid food or foods that expand like rice. For me at least, liquid just slips right through, and the soda fills me up so fast I don't really want a lot of it, usually just a few sips.

1 year since I started my pre-op diet, 10 months since surgery. 150 pounds gone! 10months.tiff

I recently did a side-by-side comparison of me now vs. me 1 year ago when I started my pre-op diet. I look at the old picture and I don't even recognize that person anymore. What really surprised me, though, was that I honestly never thought I was that big! I always thought I looked nice when I went out, always tried to present myself in a very neat, orderly way. When I see photos now, though, I see a sloppy person drowning in their own fat. Its horrendous!! Anyone else have that moment where they just didn't realize how big they'd gotten until they'd lost most of their excess weight?

@@AngryViking The liquid Splenda is not 1:1. I think for a cup of sugar sweetness you'd only need 1/4 teaspoon of the liquid. For reference, I usually put about 7 drops in a cup of coffee vs. 3 packets of granulated Splenda. There are 800 drops in a bottle, so it goes a long way!

JamieLogical...here you go!!