Trinn

No no, that's not a small amount! I was 291 on my surgery date. 5 weeks out, I am just barely at 20 lbs under. That's a lot of weight to have lost! Some of the folks who have lost more didn't lose much before hand. On the other hand, I was 328 three months before my surgery, so I lost about 10lbs a month for three months before. I didn't have any "Water weight" to lose post surgery. I am just plugging along. I have to remind myself that 54 pounds in just over 4 months is a LOT of weight, and it's good. Remember, a bit slower gives your skin and connective tissue time to adjust!
In short, breathe, breathe! Happy place! You're fine!

I am all about checking menus out before we go. I also just order a la carte, not worrying about the menu. "I'd love just a chicken breast, please, no sides." The other day I was out with friends for the first time and the restaurant we were at was a sports bar. There was exactly ONE thing on the menu that I could eat -- grilled chicken tenders (no breading) as an appetizer. Well, I just ate one of them, slowly, over the course of the whole time everyone else was eating. I offered the rest to others. When some people I don't know joined us and commented, I said, "Oh, I ate earlier." Which is true, but my earlier was 4 hours before that. :-)
But you know, "I'm recovering from tummy problems, I am being very careful about what I eat," has worked well when I'm at school and they're serving pizza and whatnot.

Five weeks out and my days are about half "one shake a day" and half "two shakes a day." I eat what I can, but if at the end of the day I haven't made my Protein goal, I have a Syntrax nectar with extra Water to make sure I'm getting hydrated. :-) It's funny, for 3 months before surgery I was doing a Premier Protein Shake for Breakfast, and then many days one for lunch or dinner, and the other meal small Protein stuff. So, basically, I'm eating just like I was the three months *before* surgery. :-)
My NUT and my surgeon are both just fine with supplementing with Protein Shakes, as long as they are low calorie and not being used like extra Snacks. So, I don't do any of that fancy make my own stuff, because it's so easy to make those add up to 300 or 400 calories. If I have met my protein goal, no more shakes.

No no, that's not a small amount! I was 291 on my surgery date. 5 weeks out, I am just barely at 20 lbs under. That's a lot of weight to have lost! Some of the folks who have lost more didn't lose much before hand. On the other hand, I was 328 three months before my surgery, so I lost about 10lbs a month for three months before. I didn't have any "Water weight" to lose post surgery. I am just plugging along. I have to remind myself that 54 pounds in just over 4 months is a LOT of weight, and it's good. Remember, a bit slower gives your skin and connective tissue time to adjust!
In short, breathe, breathe! Happy place! You're fine!

Re the "melon", my surgeon mentioned a couple of times that some surgeons don't carefully check the stomach is flat before they do the staple/cut thing. If they are not careful, then a little extra stomach can be hidden on the back side, and they end up creating more of a ball shaped pouch than the one they're supposed to make. He explained that he's very careful to lift the stomach up and check the back to make sure it's flat to prevent that.
But otherwise, I'll tell you that even on mushy chicken/tuna, I didn't feel very full, and I thought maybe they hadn't done the surgery -- but as soon as I started eating more solid things, WOW, yes, I felt the restriction. If your duodenum is "loose", you may pass soft foods fairly easily, and not feel much constriction, but with solid foods, you may.

Either way, as others have said, it's a tool. You CAN eat more, and you CAN stretch it out, and you CAN overcome any level of volume restriction. One has to decide to make not doing that a habit.

I second everyone else's reactions:
From whence in hell do these expectations arise for newbies that you're going to lose any faster than you're losing now?
I truly don't understand it.
Here are my monthly losses:
I started at 235.6 pounds. I'm 5'5" tall and was 68 years old when I had VSG surgery.
Pre-op diet (my own): lost 10.6 pounds in 2 months
Surgeon's pre-op diet: lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks
Post-op:
Month 1: lost 10.4 pounds
Month 2: lost 11.8 pounds
Month 3: lost 9.2 pounds
Month 4: lost 10.4 pounds
Month 5: lost 6.8 pounds
Month 6: lost 5.0 pounds
Month 7: lost 6.2 pounds
Month 8: lost 4.4 pounds
Month 9: lost 3.8 pounds (reached my first weight goal during this month ... at 150 pounds)
Month 10: lost 1.8 pounds
Month 11: lost 2.6 pounds
Month 12: lost 0.6 pounds
Month 13: lost 1.2 pounds
I now weigh 142 pounds.
Those who weighed a lot more than I did initially, men, and young people probably lost weight faster than I did. But if you're a post-menopausal woman, this is what you can expect.
I might add, it's pretty amazingly wonderful to have lost 93 pounds in 13 months. I couldn't have wished for a better outcome.

I'm 5 weeks out today. I think you read about a lot of people who have miserable recoveries, or loads of regret in the first few weeks. Keep in mind, that those people need a place to vent, so they come here. I think most people have a much better recovery, they just don't post about it (what's there to post? I'm two weeks post op. Feeling good. The end. LOL). If these boards were your only measuring stick, you wouldn't believe that the complications rate for this surgery are very low.
I've had a very smooth recovery. My surgeon had me on real food very early, so that helped (sometimes I think the misery in the first few weeks comes from the liquid diet. I would imagine it's mentally and physically tough). I have zero regrets. I still have minor muscle pain, but am otherwise back to normal- well, except for the 37 pounds I've shed along the way (including 2 wk pre-op diet).
It's good to have realistic expectations, that there may be pain, nausea, etc, but know that it may also be much easier than you expect. Try to remember the big picture, and know that the hard parts are such a tiny part of this whole journey. People on these boards may disagree on a lot of things, but the overwhelming majority are glad they had they had the surgery. You can't count the people who regret it in the period immediately post op, as that nearly always passes.
Follow your surgeon's instructions. Don't be afraid to take the pain medicine (that's what it's for!). Walk as soon as you can. Get your Water and Protein in. Rest, and let yourself heal. Some things are out of your control, but these are the things YOU can do to make your recovery as smooth as possible.
Good luck!!
~*~ Find me on YouTube: Trisha's Sleeve Story ~*~

Nope. You have to overeat pretty consistently in order to permanently stretch your sleeve.

@@Nomorethickchick
You really need to stop jumping to all these conclusions and just let yourself heal and worry about getting your fluids and Protein in right now. My god how in the world do you even know what's going on 2 weeks after surgery? And YES, you are swollen. Your stomach has been CUT OFF AND RE STAPLED back together. Unless you have magic healing powers, it's still swollen after 2 weeks.
And if there's a "pouch" as you say at the end of your sleeve, something is wrong. Is that what the doctor said? Because that's not supposed to be there....
FYI, I had no problem with fluids, either. I could drink quite a bit quite quickly with no problems. You need to be measuring out your portions, and not just eating and eating until you think you should feel full. You could do some damage to your sleeve.
The surgery is NOT about just restriction. Yes, the restriction helps, but cementing healthy eating habits and moving more is also a big equation, as restriction wanes naturally over time anyway. You will lose the first 6 months to a year because of the restriction, but you won't keep it off because of it. Many, many are living proof of that!

Such a range responses! I am with you on the "slap me" side of things. I have friends who had WLS, lost weight and have kept it off for over a decade. I have friends who had WLS, lost *some* weight, and have sort of spent a lot of time in the "half-way to goal" stage, talking about stalls, etc. Of those, the former -- the long term full successes -- are people who took *years* to go back to problem foods, and who do so with *bites*. So, "Three years until I had a bite of pizza, and I sometimes have a bite these days, but mostly, I have an appetizer meatball instead of the pizza at the fancy place." The folks who are "sorta-okay" are, for the most part, "I waited six months to have pizza, and I have a slice every now and then, but I don't eat the whole pizza." The former folks eat low carb, low gycemic index, high Protein "as a way of life", as people put it. The folks who are in the middle? They follow a "low carb diet" or a "primal diet", but make frequent exceptions.
Now, if I am looking to emulate the folks I want to be *like* in 10 years, then I tell you what -- I'm gonna model myself on the folks who think of a *bite* of really great artisan pizza every few months as a nice thing -- not the people I know who have a piece every few weeks (and have a little dessert every now and then, and a couple of drinks at the holidays...). I say that because I got to my weight by being *like those people already*. I didn't eat an entire pizza at a time. I didn't binge eat ice cream. I am one of those people who makes a little exception for a piece of bread when we're out, and a little exception for a bite of dessert, and a little exception for the holiday party, and a little exception that added up to, over years, more weight than I could lose on my own.

As the initial poster put it, there are a lot of things I want to Celebrate, but my ability to return to regular exceptions of healthy-for-me food? Nope. Not interested. I'm in this for the long haul -- for another three or four or five decades. I made this choice with the understanding that I might not EVER have pizza (or fries) again. I'm good with that. Your mileage may vary. :-)

I had acute pancreatitis as a complication of gall stones back in 2003. I ended up in the hospital for a week before they could do a laproscopic removal of my gall bladder. I found the IV meds *wonderful* in making me comfortable, and worth being in the hospital.

No, I don't think it's wrong to ask your SO/spouse to not tell others. Even if you do plan to tell someone, I'm one of those people who think it should be *your* time and *your* decision. I pretty much had a melt down and got very angry at my partner last week over this. Over a month ago, I had told him that he did not have my permission to disclose my surgery to ANYONE without my explicit consent. I explained he could tell his boss/coworkers I was having surgery (because he took off work) "for digestive issues" if he wanted, but no other details. I *specifically* told him not to tell his mother, because she's just been really unpleasant to me.
It's difficult. She's mostly an okay woman, in her 80's, but it's very clear that she thinks her son has chosen poorly because of my weight. Lately she's made it part of our interactions whenever I see her. So, for example, a couple of months ago, she gave me diet cook books, and quizzed us about how much we out, because she thinks that eating out is a problem. Last December I went to Christmas dinner with his family, and that was the *worst* it's been -- first, my sweetie told his mother I don't eat blue cheese, so she wasn't going to put the dressing on the salad, but then she DUMPED a giant container of blue cheese crumbles on the salad. When I later politely declined a serving, she got upset at me. My sweetie said "She doesn't like blue cheese..." and his mother denied putting any in it. We couldn't tell if she had forgotten or what. But the final stroke was that most of the foods on the table were bad for me (carby) or just disgusting -- her salad, gross stuffing with giblets -- so I ended up with small portions of the bone dry turkey, macaroni and cheese, and bread I'd made. His mother leaned over the second time I refused her salad and said, "Well, look at your plate -- you won't eat the salad but you'll eat all that? That's why you're fat!"

I cried half the way home in the car, because I had put up with that, and because of that, I have NO interest in that woman knowing about my surgery. So when my sweetie said, last week, "Oh, I told my mother you had surgery and she hopes you get well soon..." I was FURIOUS. I am not interested in that mean-spirited woman thinking she somehow influenced me, when in fact the opposite was true -- every time she did stuff like that to me, it made me sure I would NEVER have WLS.

Well, gosh--- that's been a bit of an off topic theraputic rant. But anyway, my point is, I support you having privacy. :-)

I mean, objectively, factually, Fluid is Fluid, and as long as the fluid doesn't contain something that is a diuretic (makes you pee out MORE), then it *should* count. Milk, for example, is mostly Water, and therefore, from a *factual* standpoint, drinking 64 oz of milk is very close to drinking 64 oz of Water.
However, it's clear that some nutritionists (and a few doctors) want to put plain water in a separate category. Okay, whatever. That's not fact, it's not science, but in that case, they're creating a category -- 64 ounces of WATER -- and saying that 64 ounces of WATER can only be reached using water. (And let's not even get started on how the 8 glasses/64 ounces is an arbitrary number that became enshrined in traditional nutrition...)
So, I personally think it would be more correct of NUTs with that opinion to say, "I would like you to drink 64 ounces of water *in addition to* any other fluids you are taking in, just to be extra sure you're good and hydrated." It just seems like instead of saying that, they say, "Protein shakes don't count!" or "Juice doesn't count." When they say that, they're not stating medical or scientific fact; they're just shortcutting saying, "I want you to not include those other fluids in your count of water."

I completely agree with @jess9395. There is more than one way to "skin a cat". Your food plan should be catered to you individual makeup and lifestyle. I know some people who can eat soft boiled eggs on day 3. Why not? It's Protein and healthy fat. I am a vegetarian with severe food allergies. My eating plan is very different than most of the folks on these forums. Because my diet is plant based my carb intake is higher than most. Guess what? I have been able to lose steadily with no problems. In short cookie cutter treatments don't work because we are individuals, not clones. You should be having ongoing conversations with the medical team you chose to care for your unique needs.

I have hated the "taste" of Water my whole life -- long before bariatric surgery. I've therefore spent decades being nauseous when drinking plain Water. If it's room temperature especially, well, it makes me think of trying to drink a cup of spit. However, there are zillions of ways to flavor water -- Mio drops, Torani sugar free, citrus wedges, herbal tea -- so I am able to drink water with flavoring. However, I refuse to take crap for not liking the taste of water -- I simply find it disgusting and always have, since I was a child.

I have hated the "taste" of Water my whole life -- long before bariatric surgery. I've therefore spent decades being nauseous when drinking plain Water. If it's room temperature especially, well, it makes me think of trying to drink a cup of spit. However, there are zillions of ways to flavor water -- Mio drops, Torani sugar free, citrus wedges, herbal tea -- so I am able to drink water with flavoring. However, I refuse to take crap for not liking the taste of water -- I simply find it disgusting and always have, since I was a child.

Hey, there! I had my VSG a day before yours, so I am at about the same place. I am also totally feeling you! I am almost the poster child for good presurgical habits -- from June-August, I basically did 2 PP shakes a day, with one small Protein meal. I've done all the things they've asked me to do. I walk, I get my Vitamins, I am getting in all my Protein and my liquids each day. My recovery since surgery has been pretty easy -- at a week out, I feel almost recovered, though I know I need to be gentle with my body.
I have also flirted with cheating. :-) Yesterday, I got so pesky I soft scrambled two eggs with a tiny bit of cheddar cheese and ate them. Well, I tried -- after two bites, I was like OMG WTF TINY SLEEVE! But over the course of about 2 hours, I ate those eggs. Oh, and a day or two before that, I took a chicken meatball from the leftovers, and pureed it with some chicken broth and ATE IT. *grin* But it wasn't very satisfying.
As best I can tell, it's okay and normal to be feeling like this. I know that *at some point* I will be able to just eat the damned meat ball, but right now, I am a little tired of being the WLS good girl and drinking my nectar and flavored Water. :-) But in my heart, even as I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about a bite of an In&Out burger, or a taste of a burrito. :-) Last night, I imagined taking a bite of something on a TV commercial and just spitting it out after chewing it for the flavor! :-) So, I think that these urges to "cheat" are probably just the natural desire for more variety, and to move past this stage. I don't think having a bite of something means that you're going to fail, any more than cooking two eggs means I am. This liquid stage sort of sucks. :-) The only thing I can suggest to you is that when I have felt *really* like cheating, I have tried to figure out what would be best thing for me -- like those two eggs -- and least likely to cause me problems.

Short version: Don't worry now about a bite of lasagna before! Today is a different day Breathe! Have some more liquids! It's going to be okay! :-)

Hey, there! I had my VSG a day before yours, so I am at about the same place. I am also totally feeling you! I am almost the poster child for good presurgical habits -- from June-August, I basically did 2 PP shakes a day, with one small Protein meal. I've done all the things they've asked me to do. I walk, I get my Vitamins, I am getting in all my Protein and my liquids each day. My recovery since surgery has been pretty easy -- at a week out, I feel almost recovered, though I know I need to be gentle with my body.
I have also flirted with cheating. :-) Yesterday, I got so pesky I soft scrambled two eggs with a tiny bit of cheddar cheese and ate them. Well, I tried -- after two bites, I was like OMG WTF TINY SLEEVE! But over the course of about 2 hours, I ate those eggs. Oh, and a day or two before that, I took a chicken meatball from the leftovers, and pureed it with some chicken broth and ATE IT. *grin* But it wasn't very satisfying.
As best I can tell, it's okay and normal to be feeling like this. I know that *at some point* I will be able to just eat the damned meat ball, but right now, I am a little tired of being the WLS good girl and drinking my nectar and flavored Water. :-) But in my heart, even as I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about a bite of an In&Out burger, or a taste of a burrito. :-) Last night, I imagined taking a bite of something on a TV commercial and just spitting it out after chewing it for the flavor! :-) So, I think that these urges to "cheat" are probably just the natural desire for more variety, and to move past this stage. I don't think having a bite of something means that you're going to fail, any more than cooking two eggs means I am. This liquid stage sort of sucks. :-) The only thing I can suggest to you is that when I have felt *really* like cheating, I have tried to figure out what would be best thing for me -- like those two eggs -- and least likely to cause me problems.

Short version: Don't worry now about a bite of lasagna before! Today is a different day Breathe! Have some more liquids! It's going to be okay! :-)

I live *damned* well. I mean, I live so well that it's embarrassing. But my living well doesn't have to include having this or that particular food.
Y'know, during my pre-surgery period, I went to an awesome wedding. I had two shakes over the course of the day -- at one point, I even stepped out of the reception to have one -- and then at the dinner, I had some of the meat entree, and a little piece of the vegan-gluten-free carrot cake they had as the wedding cake.
But there's the thing. If you ask me about that wedding, I'm not going to tell you what I ate, or how much I enjoyed having the food. I'm going to tell you that we danced to awesome ridiculous 80's hair band music because the bride's family is from new Jersey, and *I* was dancing too because I had already lost 20 pounds from my pre-surgical diet. I will tell you that I found the citrus theme colors and citrus tables hilarious. I will talk about the amazing pictures or just how beautiful a wedding ceremony it was because it was focused on the bride and groom's roles in local activism for marriage equality. I will say the bridal FEZ was amazing. But what I'm going to remember, 20 years from now, is not the food. Honestly.
So, do I love great food? I do. But the central part of my well-lived amazing awesome life (and it's pretty fricking awesome right now, seriously) is not food. It's not gonna be food. I'm okay having food be the background, and not the centerpiece. Last weekend, 3 days after surgery, I spent the day at a friend's 15th anniversary puzzle hunt and vow renewal and party. We raced all over downtown San Jose solving clues. (I just raced a little slower...) Afterwards, people had great Mexican food (but I had a tiny Syntrax nectar shake) and we did silly costuming things and the memories now are again, amazing -- even though I didn't get to eat anything at the event. :-) Three months ago, it would have been much harder for me to do that.
I want to have *those* memories. I'm not really worried about eating pizza or ice cream, if I can be there with the people and do all the great things. :-)

Hey, there! I had my VSG a day before yours, so I am at about the same place. I am also totally feeling you! I am almost the poster child for good presurgical habits -- from June-August, I basically did 2 PP shakes a day, with one small Protein meal. I've done all the things they've asked me to do. I walk, I get my Vitamins, I am getting in all my Protein and my liquids each day. My recovery since surgery has been pretty easy -- at a week out, I feel almost recovered, though I know I need to be gentle with my body.
I have also flirted with cheating. :-) Yesterday, I got so pesky I soft scrambled two eggs with a tiny bit of cheddar cheese and ate them. Well, I tried -- after two bites, I was like OMG WTF TINY SLEEVE! But over the course of about 2 hours, I ate those eggs. Oh, and a day or two before that, I took a chicken meatball from the leftovers, and pureed it with some chicken broth and ATE IT. *grin* But it wasn't very satisfying.
As best I can tell, it's okay and normal to be feeling like this. I know that *at some point* I will be able to just eat the damned meat ball, but right now, I am a little tired of being the WLS good girl and drinking my nectar and flavored Water. :-) But in my heart, even as I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about a bite of an In&Out burger, or a taste of a burrito. :-) Last night, I imagined taking a bite of something on a TV commercial and just spitting it out after chewing it for the flavor! :-) So, I think that these urges to "cheat" are probably just the natural desire for more variety, and to move past this stage. I don't think having a bite of something means that you're going to fail, any more than cooking two eggs means I am. This liquid stage sort of sucks. :-) The only thing I can suggest to you is that when I have felt *really* like cheating, I have tried to figure out what would be best thing for me -- like those two eggs -- and least likely to cause me problems.

Short version: Don't worry now about a bite of lasagna before! Today is a different day Breathe! Have some more liquids! It's going to be okay! :-)

I live *damned* well. I mean, I live so well that it's embarrassing. But my living well doesn't have to include having this or that particular food.
Y'know, during my pre-surgery period, I went to an awesome wedding. I had two shakes over the course of the day -- at one point, I even stepped out of the reception to have one -- and then at the dinner, I had some of the meat entree, and a little piece of the vegan-gluten-free carrot cake they had as the wedding cake.
But there's the thing. If you ask me about that wedding, I'm not going to tell you what I ate, or how much I enjoyed having the food. I'm going to tell you that we danced to awesome ridiculous 80's hair band music because the bride's family is from new Jersey, and *I* was dancing too because I had already lost 20 pounds from my pre-surgical diet. I will tell you that I found the citrus theme colors and citrus tables hilarious. I will talk about the amazing pictures or just how beautiful a wedding ceremony it was because it was focused on the bride and groom's roles in local activism for marriage equality. I will say the bridal FEZ was amazing. But what I'm going to remember, 20 years from now, is not the food. Honestly.
So, do I love great food? I do. But the central part of my well-lived amazing awesome life (and it's pretty fricking awesome right now, seriously) is not food. It's not gonna be food. I'm okay having food be the background, and not the centerpiece. Last weekend, 3 days after surgery, I spent the day at a friend's 15th anniversary puzzle hunt and vow renewal and party. We raced all over downtown San Jose solving clues. (I just raced a little slower...) Afterwards, people had great Mexican food (but I had a tiny Syntrax nectar shake) and we did silly costuming things and the memories now are again, amazing -- even though I didn't get to eat anything at the event. :-) Three months ago, it would have been much harder for me to do that.
I want to have *those* memories. I'm not really worried about eating pizza or ice cream, if I can be there with the people and do all the great things. :-)

Things I brought and used -- lip balm and Biotene spray (fixes dry mouth). The Biotene is probably the single most useful thing I brought other than lip balm. Sipping Water early on is *very difficult, and you really have to sit up to do it. The spray immediately solves dry mouth and you don't have to sit up to use it. :-) Also, slippers for walking around in the halls.
Things I brought and never used -- pajamas (couldn't put them on with the IV and stuff, and they get in the way of things like checking wounds, blood draws. Robe -- again couldn't put it on unless they disconnected my IV lines. Laptop (well, I used it once for 10 minutes.) Gas-X -- I had them, but I found that just sitting up in a chair was more helpful than anything else for getting air out.
Part of the thing about the Gas-X strips is that they help with gas in your stomach and upper intestinal tract, but the gas we're talking about is initially put into your abdominal cavity and only slowly works itself back into your organs to be passed. Some of what we think of as "gas pains" is that pressure and discomfort of the gas working its way back in. You can't "fix" that with Gas-X strips. :-) So, walking was actually more effective for me than the strips, when I used them at home.

Hey, there! I had my VSG a day before yours, so I am at about the same place. I am also totally feeling you! I am almost the poster child for good presurgical habits -- from June-August, I basically did 2 PP shakes a day, with one small Protein meal. I've done all the things they've asked me to do. I walk, I get my Vitamins, I am getting in all my Protein and my liquids each day. My recovery since surgery has been pretty easy -- at a week out, I feel almost recovered, though I know I need to be gentle with my body.
I have also flirted with cheating. :-) Yesterday, I got so pesky I soft scrambled two eggs with a tiny bit of cheddar cheese and ate them. Well, I tried -- after two bites, I was like OMG WTF TINY SLEEVE! But over the course of about 2 hours, I ate those eggs. Oh, and a day or two before that, I took a chicken meatball from the leftovers, and pureed it with some chicken broth and ATE IT. *grin* But it wasn't very satisfying.
As best I can tell, it's okay and normal to be feeling like this. I know that *at some point* I will be able to just eat the damned meat ball, but right now, I am a little tired of being the WLS good girl and drinking my nectar and flavored Water. :-) But in my heart, even as I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about a bite of an In&Out burger, or a taste of a burrito. :-) Last night, I imagined taking a bite of something on a TV commercial and just spitting it out after chewing it for the flavor! :-) So, I think that these urges to "cheat" are probably just the natural desire for more variety, and to move past this stage. I don't think having a bite of something means that you're going to fail, any more than cooking two eggs means I am. This liquid stage sort of sucks. :-) The only thing I can suggest to you is that when I have felt *really* like cheating, I have tried to figure out what would be best thing for me -- like those two eggs -- and least likely to cause me problems.

Short version: Don't worry now about a bite of lasagna before! Today is a different day Breathe! Have some more liquids! It's going to be okay! :-)

Hey, there! I had my VSG a day before yours, so I am at about the same place. I am also totally feeling you! I am almost the poster child for good presurgical habits -- from June-August, I basically did 2 PP shakes a day, with one small Protein meal. I've done all the things they've asked me to do. I walk, I get my Vitamins, I am getting in all my Protein and my liquids each day. My recovery since surgery has been pretty easy -- at a week out, I feel almost recovered, though I know I need to be gentle with my body.
I have also flirted with cheating. :-) Yesterday, I got so pesky I soft scrambled two eggs with a tiny bit of cheddar cheese and ate them. Well, I tried -- after two bites, I was like OMG WTF TINY SLEEVE! But over the course of about 2 hours, I ate those eggs. Oh, and a day or two before that, I took a chicken meatball from the leftovers, and pureed it with some chicken broth and ATE IT. *grin* But it wasn't very satisfying.
As best I can tell, it's okay and normal to be feeling like this. I know that *at some point* I will be able to just eat the damned meat ball, but right now, I am a little tired of being the WLS good girl and drinking my nectar and flavored Water. :-) But in my heart, even as I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about a bite of an In&Out burger, or a taste of a burrito. :-) Last night, I imagined taking a bite of something on a TV commercial and just spitting it out after chewing it for the flavor! :-) So, I think that these urges to "cheat" are probably just the natural desire for more variety, and to move past this stage. I don't think having a bite of something means that you're going to fail, any more than cooking two eggs means I am. This liquid stage sort of sucks. :-) The only thing I can suggest to you is that when I have felt *really* like cheating, I have tried to figure out what would be best thing for me -- like those two eggs -- and least likely to cause me problems.

Short version: Don't worry now about a bite of lasagna before! Today is a different day Breathe! Have some more liquids! It's going to be okay! :-)

Hey, there! I had my VSG a day before yours, so I am at about the same place. I am also totally feeling you! I am almost the poster child for good presurgical habits -- from June-August, I basically did 2 PP shakes a day, with one small Protein meal. I've done all the things they've asked me to do. I walk, I get my Vitamins, I am getting in all my Protein and my liquids each day. My recovery since surgery has been pretty easy -- at a week out, I feel almost recovered, though I know I need to be gentle with my body.
I have also flirted with cheating. :-) Yesterday, I got so pesky I soft scrambled two eggs with a tiny bit of cheddar cheese and ate them. Well, I tried -- after two bites, I was like OMG WTF TINY SLEEVE! But over the course of about 2 hours, I ate those eggs. Oh, and a day or two before that, I took a chicken meatball from the leftovers, and pureed it with some chicken broth and ATE IT. *grin* But it wasn't very satisfying.
As best I can tell, it's okay and normal to be feeling like this. I know that *at some point* I will be able to just eat the damned meat ball, but right now, I am a little tired of being the WLS good girl and drinking my nectar and flavored Water. :-) But in my heart, even as I'm doing those things, I'm thinking about a bite of an In&Out burger, or a taste of a burrito. :-) Last night, I imagined taking a bite of something on a TV commercial and just spitting it out after chewing it for the flavor! :-) So, I think that these urges to "cheat" are probably just the natural desire for more variety, and to move past this stage. I don't think having a bite of something means that you're going to fail, any more than cooking two eggs means I am. This liquid stage sort of sucks. :-) The only thing I can suggest to you is that when I have felt *really* like cheating, I have tried to figure out what would be best thing for me -- like those two eggs -- and least likely to cause me problems.

Short version: Don't worry now about a bite of lasagna before! Today is a different day Breathe! Have some more liquids! It's going to be okay! :-)