carolinacrumb88

@@CanyonBaby I understand this because I used to post here when I had lapband often, but regardless wording can be a bit more sensitive/less accusatory. I completely agree with what Bufflehead posted, but it was indeed a harsh way of putting it and it was misconstrued bc I was just asking for other's experiences (not asking for permission to eat what I want) and this is discouraging because i feel misheard.

@@Bufflehead I am not asking for others permission, I am just curious as to how others were at day 7 out and if it is crazy to even be wanting to eat meat this early. I am not going to do anything without talking to my nutritionist or doctor first but thought this was a safe place to ask others about their thoughts and experiences further out with gastric sleeve without being chastised.

I was allowed full liquids as soon as I came home on the third day. At one week I was allowed to go on to purees. Baby food was disgusting, so I just put regular food in the blender and ate that. For chicken or veggies I added chicken broth (the homemade Bone Broth cooked with carrots, celery, onion, and garlic) that has actual nutrients.
At week two I started soft foods, but for meat I pretty much stayed with chicken because it was moist. Fish was too flakey and beef too course.
At 4 1/2 weeks I started whole cooked foods as tolerated. The first thing I went for, on the way home from the doctor's office was Wendy's chili. It was just a couple of bites, but at the time, it was the best food ever!
It is so easy to get impatient with the program our doctors have set in place. If you need a reminder of what just happened to your stomach, watch a Youtube video on your kind of operation. It will put your condition in perspective. There is a lot of healing that has to happen, and your stomach is counting on you to resist caving in to head hunger.
It still helps me to weigh and measure what I know I can handle, and then never eat the last bite.

i knwo your pain and mine was not head hunger, it was real deal stomach grinding hunger. I also thought it was heart burn and it was not cause i niped that in the bud with prilosec. It was hunger and stomach spasams. I stuck with the diet even though it was hard as hell. it will be over with soon. Just hang in there. You will be fine.

@@McButterpants and @@CanyonBaby Thank you for your responses... very helpful! I actually didn't end up with the pump catheter thing (which I was grateful for because I would have had to pull out myself after going home!) but yes, everything is so new right now and so different from how I felt when I had lapband. Hunger and feeling full are soooo different and strange. I am now starting to get this little "burp" that seems to be a good indicator that I should stop and then I feel good and not overfull. I know each day will get easier but my stomach seems so confused right now (as expected when 85 percent of it is suddenly gone!)

@@Bufflehead I am not asking for others permission, I am just curious as to how others were at day 7 out and if it is crazy to even be wanting to eat meat this early. I am not going to do anything without talking to my nutritionist or doctor first but thought this was a safe place to ask others about their thoughts and experiences further out with gastric sleeve without being chastised.

@@McButterpants and @@CanyonBaby Thank you for your responses... very helpful! I actually didn't end up with the pump catheter thing (which I was grateful for because I would have had to pull out myself after going home!) but yes, everything is so new right now and so different from how I felt when I had lapband. Hunger and feeling full are soooo different and strange. I am now starting to get this little "burp" that seems to be a good indicator that I should stop and then I feel good and not overfull. I know each day will get easier but my stomach seems so confused right now (as expected when 85 percent of it is suddenly gone!)

@@sharonintx haha thank you very much for your very honest reply I definitely ate a bite of my fiance's chicken yesterday (like the smallest morsel that could be called a bite and chewed it to a pulp) and dissolved a ritz cracker in my mouth and ate that. We are human and imperfect and it makes me feel alot better to know that others have done things like this too and survived (and done well!). I am going to try to stick to my doc's recommendations as best as possible, but once again, we are human!

@@McButterpants Yes, I agree. I should perhaps edit original post bc I think I am not asking what I want answered correctly. I am going to talk to my doc and nutritionist tomorrow (and before eating anything new) but was curious if others were as hungry as I am and craving real food this early.

@@Bufflehead I am not asking for others permission, I am just curious as to how others were at day 7 out and if it is crazy to even be wanting to eat meat this early. I am not going to do anything without talking to my nutritionist or doctor first but thought this was a safe place to ask others about their thoughts and experiences further out with gastric sleeve without being chastised.

Yea mine was definitely acid that was making me feel hungry but I felt like I HAD to eat something other then liquids. I mean TWO weeks of liquids and then I just had two weeks of liquids for a pre op I was going insane. I ended up eating those to go Campbell Soups cause they had lil tiny bits of chicken in the noodle Soup. It made me mentally fell better but I still stuck to my eating phase 90% of the time! I'm sure it will work for you. Its not forever! Good luck!

It is amazing to me that I can now (I'm 4 months out on the 4th) look at food (in a grocery store, restaurant, my husband's plate...) and NOT have it trigger me!!! I actually walked through the bakery of my local grocery and it DID NOT call my name! Today at the restaurant nothing appealed to me, and there were tons of things on the menu I would normally love to have. I ended up with a basic breakfast...one I could divide up for the next 3 meals (after I ate the egg on it!). Boring, huh? But I think it is GREAT as this was the result I wanted from my surgery...no cravings, no desire for things I shouldn't have, a life NOT revolving around food. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy my meals, but it doesn't CONTROL me anymore. HURRAY!!!

Thank you all for your replies. I am going to call my nutritionist and doc tomorrow to ask her. But I think you all are right, a majority of it is head hunger :/ Wouldn't actually eat anything like that without talking to them but was curious as to how others recovered. Will stick to my Protein shakes until then (le sigh).

Haha- when I saw your question I knew right away there'd be some backlash over it.
I ate some small bites of most anything I wanted after a week. You can bet your a** that some of our members here jumped all over me. So let me clarify: I do not recommend eating anything you want anytime you want. I'm just sayin what I did.
I ate bites of pizza, meat, chicken, etc. 2 or 2 small bites was plenty. After 2 or 3 weeks I ate whatever I wanted. 3 days out I sucked some cheesecake off the end of a spoon and let me tell you it was delicious. It never bothered me nor did I suffer any ill effects.
Just answering the question. That's it. It's been 2 years. I haven't stretched my sleeve, I didn't get a leak or stricture, and I have done pretty well.

That has really helped me a lot as I am having exactly same issue! I have even put a couple of kg back on, but yet not going over 800cals a day! I am starving and just want food all the time but I think it's head hunger! But cud it be I have acid instead

@@carolinacrumb88
I guess everything posted on here is subject to interpretation. That's why it's best to take it "with a grain of salt", as they say!
As for the meat craving, or whatever it is, try to remember the "head-hunger" thing, because that appears to be your issue right now. When you eat, remember to eat very slowly, chewing millions of times (even if you feel you don't need to chew it), then swallow. This is going to take practice, but then FEEL where the food hits your sleeve, after each bite. When you feel full, you are TOO full. So the next meal, try and remember how many bites you took last time and reduce it by one or two. If you feel full, food is likely in your esophagus, and you don't want that. Nasty. You want to feel SATED and NOT full. There is a difference. Sated is a "sweet spot", that will make you feel content, and not uncomfortable. It takes PRACTICE!!!!! And lots of it! Different food densities will give you different sensations, so don't think "ten bites of meat" will be the same as "ten bites of salad"..... Ah, learning to eat all over again! But once you get it, you should be fine! Good luck to you!

@@carolinacrumb88, I get it.
Here's my answer to the hunger question...I was allowed food immediately after surgery. My surgeon was very progressive when it came to introducing foods immediately. In fact, when I came home and started seeing a local bariatric surgeon for aftercare, I actually had to backtrack and go on fluids.
In the first couple of weeks after surgery, I started to feel what I thought was hunger - it wasn't hunger, it was acid. Many sleevers will be put on a PPI (proton pump inhibitor) post-op. Once you start to figure things out, you will know when you're supposed to feel hungry. I ate on the clock early on - I ate every 2-3 hours as my doctor suggested.
I hope this helps!

I went band to sleeve also. I had 1 week of clear, and 2 weeks of full liquids. It is tough, but I was more afraid of creating a complication or leak than I was of the hunger. I surely wouldn't try beef yet. I think of all meat Proteins it is the hardest to digest.
I think it would be best to bite the bullet and follow your surgeons plan... it seems incredibly tough now but it is really a matter of days and once you get to soft foods/purees it is totally different. They do seem to quell the hunger pangs.
Just hang in there, most of us have been there and understand the liquid phase burn-out.

@@McButterpants Yes, I agree. I should perhaps edit original post bc I think I am not asking what I want answered correctly. I am going to talk to my doc and nutritionist tomorrow (and before eating anything new) but was curious if others were as hungry as I am and craving real food this early.

You should follow your doc/nut guidelines. This is not a choose your own adventure.

We who have been on the site awhile have seen the same questions asked over and over again, some with seeming total disregard for the true purpose of WLS. While it may seem chastisement, it isn't, really. After repeating the same answer over and over again, those answers may seem like chastisement, but it may be more of a quick way to answer the question. I think most of the people who are on the site and give responses to questions, truly care for each other, even though it may not seem like it. Why else would we be on here? Especially those of us who continue to answer questions brought be "newbies" to WLS. It is a learning process for all of us, and sometimes lessons are hard. As in anything.

I completely get what Ur saying as I feel and felt the same, and I put a query up bout my sleeve and got chastised aswell when I wasn't actually saying what they believed

This is an amazing process for those of us who automatically thought that any growling in our intestines is hunger (::::raising my hand:::. One thing I learned is that what I thought was hunger is not. What I thought was my "stomach" growling was actually my intestines processing what was already there. I have learned to trust the other manifestations of hunger -- feeling a little light headed and irritable is where I look rather than intestinal/abdominal cues.
When I was a week out and on liquids, I had intense head hunger. Being home and recuperating led to lots of TV, which led to lots of hamburger and pizza commercials. I also realized that all the things I had prepared -- pudding, sugar free custard (I had a great recipe), yogurt -- grossed me out. I wanted salt. So I found some Soup and pureed the heck out of it. That worked better!!
It is okay to be hungry at this stage, though. Just don't eat what you're not supposed to. You won't die. Follow your doctor's / nutritionist's instructions to the letter. If they say don't eat solid food, don't eat solid food. If they say drink 64 ounces of liquid, drink 64 ounces of liquid. What keeps me going when I need to do things that my pre-op self didn't want to do is some self-talk: the old me may have eaten that, may have chosen not to exercise, may have not followed instructions. The new me has changed her lifestyle and does what she needs to do.
It is too soon, though, even if you were allowed solid foods, to eat ground beef or a brisket. I'm five weeks out and I was advised not to eat beef in any form for a few months, as it might be too rich for our new plumbing to process at this point.

As I understand it, the risk of adding solid food back to quickly is that your stomach could start leaking into your abdomen. This would be a very bad thing. You are also more likely to vomit. I know after my surgery I was terrified of throwing up.

@@Bufflehead I am not asking for others permission, I am just curious as to how others were at day 7 out and if it is crazy to even be wanting to eat meat this early. I am not going to do anything without talking to my nutritionist or doctor first but thought this was a safe place to ask others about their thoughts and experiences further out with gastric sleeve without being chastised.