Arabesque

Surgeons/teams have different plans. There is no right plan. Yes, a lot of us tend to go through a two week cycle through liquids, purée then soft. But there those who do 4 weeks liquids (2 of clear liquids) & then those like @BabySpoons who don’t have to follow every stage. Always best to follow the plan you’re given.

It is hard to hit fluid (& protein) goals at first but it does get easier. As long as you’re making an effort & getting closer it’s fine. Keep your drink beside you. I have water in my bedroom, on the kitchen best, on the coffee table by the tv, etc. so I just pick it up & sip wherever I am. I also found setting routines very helpful. Set a timer to help remind yourself to sip. Drink every time you do a certain thing. For example one I do is drink every time I get in or out of my car & at every traffic light. A friend to,d me recently she used to play the drinking babe in work meetings - sip every time someone said a particular word or words ( originally she said she sipped every time someone said something stupid but couldn’t keep up 🤣🤣🤣.) I also drink at night - every time I get in or out of bed I drink - it can be quite a lot because of all that peeing - lol! I also find it all balances out in the end. You may drink a little less today, but drink a little more tomorrow. Same with your eating. Don’t forget your soups & shakes count towards your fluid goals too. I used to dilute my shakes for more fluid & just kept sipping so no distinction between eating & drinking, All the best.

Amazing & inspirational!

I still pretty much still sip all day long 4 yrs out & I easily get in about 2 litres a day. It’s all about establishing new habits. Sip regularly - some find setting a timer helpful. Sip to a routine - e.g. I sip when I get in my car & when I get out & sip at every traffic light. Also sip during the night - e,g, I sip every time I get in or out of bed (which is often because of the peeing) so get in another good cup at night. You’ll work out strategies that work best with your job & in your life. Yes it is a little harder in the beginning, much like hitting your protein goal. but it gets easier. And remember, your shakes & soups in your post op liquid stage all count towards your fluids goal. We all should be aiming to drink 2 litres of water (liquids) a day to keep us well hydrated, or more if physically active, it’s summer or live in a hot climate, regardless of having surgery or not.

You look fabulous @GreenTealael. ❤️❤️❤️

Vitamins always made me nauseous (before & after surgery) & I threw up a couple of times. Make sure you take them after eating (or drinking your shake). Certain vitamins are more likely to cause the nausea (like iron, vitamins A,D, E & K). I also spread mine out over the day so I wasn’t taking a full dose of vitamins & other supplements at the same time which helped. Also don’t take iron & calcium at the same time nor take iron around the time you have caffeine (caffeine esp. coffee reduces the absorption of iron by 65% or more). I was so very happy when my surgeon said I didn’t have to continue to take them after 8 months. (I had passed my goal, my blood work was good & has continued to be good 4 years on & I have a sleeve.)

I didn’t have children to tell but I have several nieces & nephews aged 5-27 now. I never told them about the surgery though it’s likely the older ones knew. They all noticed my weight loss & changed eating habits of course but rarely made comments. At 7, niece #5 asked why I was so skinny now & I told her it was so she could give me bigger hugs more easily. She looked at me a little quizzically then wrapped her arms around me, squeezing hard & ran off to play. (She often also used to curl up next to me & squeeze the loose skin on my upper arms - it’s so soft & squishy she’d say 😆.) Niece #3 was offering everyone cake at her 13th birthday but when she got to me she simply asked if I’d like some of the strawberries. My mum asked nephew #1 when he was 19, what he thought about my weight loss & if I was different to him now. He looked at me & said nope, she’ll will always just be Sissy to me. Nieces #1 & 2 (in their 20s) & I have have had a few general conversations about nutrition, recipes & lifestyle but nothing specifically about my weight loss. Both are dancers & one has studied nutrition. These were very interesting, reassuring & also surprising conversations & comments. Their easy acceptance of how I looked, how I ate, etc. & also how to them I still was just me - their bestest aunt. I believe if they asked me more I probably would have focussed on the healthy eating aspect, making changes to be healthier & able to do more with them. Explaining I wasn’t making good choices in the past & have learnt a lot about what I need & what’s best for me. It’s what I tell people whether they know I had surgery or don’t. You may be surprised by your daughter’s reactions too & they may eventually adopt some better/different eating habits simply through the example of your new habits. All the best.

Yes, you will. It just takes a little time while you’re healing. You may find warm/hot drinks more soothing on your throat. One day you realise you are eating & drinking pretty much like you always did. I still tend to take smaller bites & sips but that’s a personal decision to eat & drink more consciously not because I can’t eat or drink more. Though I still can’t take more than two large mouthfuls of liquids at once. Not because of discomfort on swallowing but it seems to settle heavily in my tummy & my tummy gurgles & whines more. Just one of my quirks. Others can glug down glassfuls quite easily in time.

Your body is likely still producing the same amount of stomach acid for your smaller tummy as it did for your much larger tummy. Plus you aren’t eating much & what you’re eating (shakes, then purées & small portions) doesn’t require as much acid to break it down as part of the digestive process. A PPI, as everyone has suggested, is your best bet until you’re eating more soIid food & larger portions & your body has adjusted to your new needs re acid. Over the counter antacids don’t really help as they may sooth the symptoms of excess acid (heart burn) not the cause. PPIs reduce the production of the acid. But do speak with your medical team.

The morning after I got home so day 4. And I was able to swallow capsules straight away. (Thankfully by then my swelling had reduced & it didn’t hurt to swallow them but only one a a time.) But check your instructions or contact your team. Some surgeons are very particular about when you start your vitamins & what sort (chews or capsules, etc.).

Oh yeah, it’s common. I didn’t have an appetite for months. It probably came back before my hunger did but having no appetite or hunger helped me start to look at food differently: as a source of necessary nutrition. That whole eating to live not living to eat thinking became true for me. So even if I wasn’t really hungry or interested I eating I knew I had to eat something that was nutritionally dense. There were times I just ate the protein component of my meal. I also starting to eat to a routine which I continue to follow most of the time 4 years out. If it’s not a meal or snack time I don’t eat. Now, I’ll happily drop a snack if I’m not hungry because my meals are much larger & are more nutritionally balanced than they were when I was losing weight. My enjoyment of food hasn’t changed (still look forward to marks, dining out, eating socially). It’s more that there are foods I value more & enjoy eating more now & others I just don’t want to eat.

Food aversion are quite common so your so not the only one. I love vegetables & couldn't wait to have my first meal with my favourite vegetables. Nope they were awful. I found the only ones I could tolerate were cauliflower, green beans & cabbage. The oddest thing was smoked salmon. Before surgery I rarely had it as I found it too rich. After surgery it was fine & I often had it with cream cheese rolled around wedges of cucumber but a few weeks later it was a nope too rich for me again. So you can never tell what your tummy will or won’t like like fir the first couple of months. It’s a good opportunity to try foods you never enjoyed before. You may develop a real taste for them. Personally I embraced the aversion to sweet and never really introduced it back again. Don’t really miss it either.

Check with your team. Different plans have different requirements regarding fruit & also ask about portion size. Yes, juice is not encouraged - lot of the goodness of the whole fruit is not in the juice & it takes several pieces of fruit to make a cup of juice where you would only eat a single piece of fruit at a time. Vegetables should be okay if the taste doesn’t bother you. Just again check your allowed foods list first.

Check with your team because as @SleeveToBypass2023 said it depends on the fruit. And it depends on the plan your team has you on. For example blueberries were fine but not strawberries because of the little seeds on their skin for me. I was also allowed watermelon which you’d think would be a no so … 🤷🏻‍♀️Also ask about their portions recommendations too.

How heavy is your heavy lifting? Check with your team & ask for a weight limit so you can better gauge whether you can do your assigned work. You may be fine or you may be to do some of the lifting i.e. the lighter items that fit within your limits. Better to be safe than pull your internal wounds where you’re still healing.

Savoury mince. Made it for the patient (my mum) who ate two spoons & deemed it too oily. Hilarious. Lean heart mince & a quick spray of oil to sauté the onions. Her tastebuds are way off at the moment. I found it heart warmingly delicious. Lol!

Thanks @GreenTealael. She’s on the mend as she hasn’t stopped telling me what to do today & then asking if I’d done it yet! Mind you she coughed all night long so neither of us had any sleep. 🙄

I’m concerned you may not be following your plan & may be stressing your digestive system & hindering your recovery but plans do differ so …. Please check with your team about what you can eat at this stage & also how much to be sure. Portion size is always important but more so when you are still healing (& you will be for some weeks more). For example I was advised to eat 1/4-1/3 of a cup of food from puree. Think of all those sutures & staples holding your tummy & digestive system together. If you had a sleeve your tummy would have several inches of staples & stitches - imagine that on your arm or leg. The staged return to eating is to protect our tummy & support our recovery. Another consideration is that many nerves are cut during surgery so all our old signals of feeling full or that you’ve eaten enough & hunger aren’t getting through as well & usually are different to how they felt to you before surgery. This includes feeling your restriction (which is a tightness &/or heaviness around your chest - you may feel you want to thump your chest to ease it). Most of us don’t feel our restriction until we’re on soft food, usually around weeks 5 & 6, & when we’re more healed. But the goal is not to eat until you feel your restriction. You need to learn to stop before that, when you’ve had enough & don’t need (not want) to eat more. I’m a believer in a all because you can doesn’t mean you should thinking during this whole experience. There is a heck of a lot of things to learn & especially about yourself. You’re only three weeks in & you’re not expected to know it all straight away. I’m still learning four years out. Missteps are understandable & allowed. Never be afraid to ask your team for more information or clarification. And everyone here is always happy to make suggestions, offer support, etc. All the best.

I have a delayed eating schedule. I don’t work any more which makes it easier to manage. I don’t have breakfast until around 8:30/9 because it doesn’t seem to sit as well earlier in the day. I ‘mid morning snack’ at around 1pm, mini snack at 3ish, lunch at around 4pm, dinner at about 6/6:30pm & final snack (protein bar) at 7:30ish. One thing about this whole experience has been to realise my old eating routines (like breakfast at 6am, etc.) didn’t work for me at all & I feel so much better for starting my day later & eating regularly. I drink all day & night. I keep water by my bed & drink every time I get in or out of bed (which can be a few times as I pee a lot 😁). I drink in the car (sip when I get in & out, at traffic lights, etc.) PS - I watched a medical documentary last year that advised that coffee can inhibit the absorption of iron by 70 or more percent. So if you’re going to do coffee as part of your breakfast routine, may be best to leave your iron supplement,if you take one, to later in the day,

I think that’s a pretty great loss too. We all lose at our own rate & there’s no really wrong or right rate of loss just what’s best for us & our body. If your team is happy with your loss you’re doing fine. Remember it took a long time to put all your weight on so it’s going to take time to lose it too. It’s not over yet. I reached my goal at 6 months but kept losing for almost another 12 months. In that additional year I lost another around 11kgs (24lbs). Yes it was very, very slow but it brought my total loss to 42kgs+/- (90lbs). My starting weight was on the lower which affected my rate of loss. What was your starting weight?

Well I did make soup from those lamb cutlets (mixed vegetables, cumin, rosemary, mixed herbs, barley). Trimmed off the cutlets to dice the meat & threw the bones in with the sautéing onion, celery & garlic. I had a bowl for dinner but had to pack up the rest to take to my mum’s this morning. She was taken to hospital last night for a few hours with a chest infection because she has limited lung capacity & is prone to pneumonia. At least I won’t have to cook for us for a few days while I’m keeping an eye on her. PS I’ve decided this is more a potage than a soup because it’s is so thick & chunky. No pxt cause it just looks sort of brown. 😁

I lost 42kg so just a little less than you asked for. I don’t enjoy exercising. Never have. Still don’t. Over the years before surgery I tried lots of things: walking, yoga (one I enjoyed most), aerobics, swimming, cycling, etc. They never helped me lose weight or maintain my weight so I really wasn’t all that surprised when I discovered exercise only contribute to about 10% of any weight you want to lose. Of course there are many other benefits to exercising but don’t rely on it to help with your weight loss. Did I exercise during my weight loss? Nope. I just upped my everyday activities: parked further away from where I was going, walked up & down escalators & travelators, made multiple trips up & down my stairs (why carry groceries up in one trip when you can do it in two or three), etc. I still don’t exercise as such. I exercise snack at home by doing 5-10 minute sessions about 4 times a day of stretching & using resistance bands. I have loose skin (not a lot but enough) but my arms look more toned from using the bands - I just don’t wave my arms about. Too many factors influence how much loose skin you’ll have. Age, genetics, how much weight you lose, how long you were at your higher weight, your weight loss & gain history, etc. You can’t stop it. Your skin has already been stretched. You may get a little snap back if you’re younger & still producing elastin. Think of your lose skin as a well used & over stretched hair band/elastic. Can’t fix that. As to exercising helping with it, your muscles lie under your skin & your skin drapes over the top. You’ll need a lot of muscle to fill your skin out. My thighs would have to be three or more inches larger to fill out my loose skin there but I don’t want large thighs again. Nor do I want a large butt again to fill out the loose skin there. Surgery is your only option if your lose skin bothers you, limits your movements or gets infections, rashes, etc.

You should just be taking a sip every few minutes of all your liquids. No gulping mouthfuls or downing glassfuls so you won’t feel full. Liquids go through your digestive system more quickly too. Plus many nerves were cut during your surgery so messages about hunger, satiety, fullness, etc. don’t get through in the same way or at all. This is why it’s very important to stick to the portion sizes & the eating & drinking guidelines (sipping, eating slowly, etc.) you were given most especially in the first weeks while you are healing. (I still sip & eat slowly 4 years out.) Actually not eating or drinking until you are full is an important learning. It takes time for the message to get through that you are full so by the time you realise you are full you are more than full & have eaten or drunk way too much. Listening to your signals & signs as to when you have had enough & don’t need more (need not want) does take time and they may be different from what you know them as. If you had a leak you’d know about it. Symptoms include: fast heart rate fever chills stomach pain chest pain shortness of breath of breathing difficulties nausea & vomiting If you have some or all of these symptoms contact your surgeon & go to your nearest medical centre. All the best.

I have to clean out my freezer too @ms.sss. Am defrosting some lamb cutlets I bought 6 months ago - yikes - which I found this morning deep in the frozen depths. I’ll make a dukkah paste & cook them tonight … and then freeze a few of them again. Ha! The circle of life. Actually they are a bit icy. Maybe I’ll make a lamb & barley soup instead in case they’re not tender now. (I blacked out the price because it would horrify you all. 😱)

Try adding in an electrolyte drink to your fluids to give you an energy boost. Low blood pressure (postural hypotension) causes the dizziness on standing. It usually passes as you start eating more (I have it all the time but I always tended to low BP so nothing new for me). Make getting up slowly a habit & wait before moving. If my vision starts to narrow I reach for something solid like a table, chair, walk (or person), to ground me for those few seconds. I also bend over so my head is lower or equal to my heart until everything starts to right itself again. As an example of what I meant by the portion not being right for you at this time: I used to take hours to drink a protein shake. I’d dilute it (double the water) to make it more palatable & easier to drink. But there was no way I could drink one as a 20-30 min ‘meal’. I still take up to an hour to eat a tub of yoghurt & then sometimes can’t eat the whole tub because it can suit a little heavy or I just don’t want more. Try making the yoghurt into a yoghurt drink by blending it with milk (extra protein bonus) & sip it for ages too. Both count towards your fluid goals as well as protein. Meeting your protein goal gets easier as you progress & are able to eat a little more & a little more easily.