Arabesque

Check with your surgeon as 1/2 cup may be a little too much. I was advised 1/4 - 1/3 cup from purée. But all plans are different. Even though your tummy can hold 6ozs doesn’t mean you eat that much & yours may not hold that much. They’re only approximating based on how much of your tummy they removed. Plus your tummy is a muscle that stretches.

It often takes a good week for the gas to escape. But burping & farting won’t help because the gas is actually in your abdominal cavity not in your digestive system. The pain occurs because it rises & settles under your lungs causing nerve pressure (the shoulder pain). It escapes by attaching itself to water molecules in your lungs & you breathe it out. So gentle activity like short walks (around your home, garden, street) as you’re able, marching on the spot, carefully lifting your arms up & down ( don’t pull on your tummy) & slow, deep breathing help the gas escape. A heat pad can also help ease the discomfort too. The pain on sipping is swelling from the surgery from where they inserted the breathing tube. Try warm drinks - warm water, green or herbal tea, even add room temp or warm water to your shakes. They are often more soothing than cool or cold liquids. It will get easier every day & will be gone in a couple more days.

Were you given portion sizes? Mine were 1/4 - 1/3 of a cup once on purées. Check with your surgeon & team for what they recommend you need. You should aim to stop before you feel full. It takes time for the full message to get through to our brain & often messages don’t get through or signal differently as a lot of nerves were cut during surgery. By the time you feel full you’ve had way too much. It’s why we’re told to eat slowly & to watch portion size. Ask yourself have you had enough not are you full. Do you need the next bite or just want it? It’s okay if you don’t eat all your recommended portion either. Try it again later or save it for tomorrow. My fridge often has unfinished meals & I’m 3.5yrs out. PS - juice is usually a strong no after surgery. The sugar content of the fruit is too high. Consider how many oranges you need to make a glass of juice. Would you eat that many pieces in one sitting. When you’re allowed, eat whole fruit. More of our necessary vitamins & nutrients in whole fruit than in juice alone.

It can be a shock when you see the higher number on the scales, but fluctuations happen when you’re losing & when your weight is stable too . Fluid retention, constipation, hormones, just because our bodies can be weird can contribute. It could even be your scales - uneven surface, failing battery, etc. I’ve posted this before but my scales read this a couple of months ago. It initially read more than 150kg - 3x my weight. So yes, heart palpitations & a second or two of thinking how the &**##$ did I put on that much weight before I regained my senses. Replaced the batteries which saw the 136kg weight but turned out the scales were dying.

It often takes a good week for the gas to escape. But burping & farting won’t help because the gas is actually in your abdominal cavity not in your digestive system. The pain occurs because it rises & settles under your lungs causing nerve pressure (the shoulder pain). It escapes by attaching itself to water molecules in your lungs & you breathe it out. So gentle activity like short walks (around your home, garden, street) as you’re able, marching on the spot, carefully lifting your arms up & down ( don’t pull your tummy) & slow, deep breathing. A heat pad can also help ease the discomfort too. Yeah binders are a some do some don’t. If you find a binder supportive & more comfortable, use it.

A lot of nerve endings were cut during the surgery, so many of our old signals just don’t get through or don’t get through in the same way. This is why it’s very important to eat to the recommended portion sizes & to eat slowly. You may find too, that when those signals come back they’re different & you have to relearn what they mean. Also try not to eat until you are full (& try to stop before you feel your restriction when that kicks in). Signals take time to get through (another reason why we’re advised to eat slowly) & by the time you’re brain says you’re full, you’ve actually eaten more than you need. Eat until you’ve had enough. That is when you’ve eaten what you need not want. Don’t feel you have eat until all your portion either. If you feel you’ve had enough & don’t need any more stop. I still often have partially eaten food in my fridge. You can finish it later if need be or save it for tomorrow. Left overs are great. I know lots of things to learn & learn about yourself. But you’ll work it out. Congrats on your surgery.

I just did the exact same thing. I don’t think they’d be for me. Not an offal eater. No tongue, brains, liver, kidneys, sweet breads. Nope can’t do it. Sorry @Tomo

Yep, the gas is in your abdominal cavity not your digestive system & the pain occurs as it rises & gets trapped under your lungs. It escapes by attaching itself to water molecules in your lungs & you breathe it out. Best things to help are walking (gentle but regular walks around your house, garden or down the street as you’re able), marching on the spot, rising your arms up & down, slow deep breathing & heat packs. The activity helps move the gas up & breathing more deeply or heavily helps it escape. It can take some a week for theirs to fully dissipate.

There’s grazing & there’s grazing. Grazing when you eat an appropriately portioned size healthy meal over a few hours or eat several small healthy meals over the day that meet your caloric & nutritional needs are fine. Anything else, like grazing just to eat, or for boredom, etc. or grazing beyond just a mid morning &/or mid afternoon snack can be worrying & lead to the weight gain fear you have. Consider what you’re grazing on & why you’re grazing. Do you exceed your caloric need by grazing? Maybe try the mini meal grazing or eating a meal by picking at it over a few hours. Or even reduce your grazing to just a single between meal snack. (I snack three times a day. It gives me a needed additional 25 odd grams of protein but still fits within my caloric needs.) Worth trying.

100% agree. I drink sparkling water (let it go flat), green tea & plain water as my go to drinks every day. I also add extra milk to my rolled oats breakfast & count the extra as fluid. Gives me some variety & makes for an easy routine & habit for me to follow. And it ensures I get in a minimum of 1.75L but usually 2L or more (2L is 67.6 oz.)

If snacking &/or overeating are your concerns, IF may not work for you. As @SpartanMaker said, its success depends upon compliance. If you’re drawn to snacking &/or overeating now, you’ll likely still do it in the smaller eating window of IF. It doesn’t stop you from eating or stop you from making not the best food choices. If these are your areas of struggle, you’re half way there because you’ve identified the problem. Go back to measuring & monitoring your portions to get back on track. What are you snacking on & why are you snacking? Habit, boredom, craving, etc.? Look for something to distract you instead of snacking. We’ve years of thinking we need to go on a ‘diet’ when we put on some weight. When some simple changes of behaviour might be all we need.

Some do it & swear by it but then you can find someone who swears by any diet and many for whom they didn’t work. No one diet works for everyone because we have different needs. In maintenance you need to find, not a diet, but a way of eating that works for you. One that is sustainable (this is life long & many diets are short term only), provides your body with what it needs & complements your life & how you want to live it. It may incorporate aspects of many styles of eating. For example I’ve included aspects of keto & Atkins, occasionally include vegetarian meals, usually fast for about 13hrs overnight, etc. I only fast 13+/- hrs because if I eat breakfast too early my tummy doesn’t like it & it sits heavily or I feel blah. And I eat the high protein of keto/Atkins because I don’t absorb protein well. So I included these aspects just to keep my body happy & functioning well. So, sure give intermittent fasting a go & see if it works for you.

So much of this is an individual journey. There are averages & common experiences but a lot of variation too. From whether you’ll lose hair or not & how much you’ll lose & for how long to how fast or slow you lose. As for the hair loss, some, people swear by taking supplements to help with the hair loss (biotin is very popular) but their hair loss still slows to their usual rate after 3 or 4 months like most do. I say save your money. Cut your hair if it’s long so your new growth doesn’t take as long to catch up to the length of your remaining hair. Plus short hair looks thicker & bouncier without the weight of longer hair pulling it down. And it doesn’t look as much in the bottom of the shower. 🙂 As for the rate of weight loss, best advice is to stick to the plan you were given by your dietician. Or if you didn’t get one for past the initial staged return to eating, get in touch with them to review what your eating, guidance & other options yiu could include in your diet. But I agree, 25 lbs in 2 months is a good loss. Remember you lose at your rate & your weight loss will slow as you get close to your goal.

Let us know what your doctor says.

Beautiful pxt, Jake. Thank you for posting it. Your fan club misses you. We’ll put the date in our diaries so we remember to message you. (Don’t worry we won’t crash the wedding 😆😆.)

It can be difficult at first to get the full 64ozs in. Swelling from the surgery & a sensitive tummy can’t make it more challenging. As long as you’re making an effort & getting closer to the full 64ozs you’ll be ok. And don’t forget your protein shakes, soups, broths, all count to your fluid intake. Often warm drinks are more soothing & easier to drink: try adding green or herbal tea to your daily fluid intake. Protein waters are great addition as well. Some find it helpful to set a timer so they sip every 5+/- minutes. I also drink during the night. 64ozs or 8 cups of liquids is actually the recommended intake goal for all adults not just those who’ve had weight loss surgery. It’s necessary for your body to function effectively.

It’s becoming more & more common & not just for weight loss surgery patients. I know 3 women who have iron infusions (none had wls). Five years ago I knew no one. (If you will continue to take iron supplements as well as the infusion, don’t take the iron when you take calcium as the calcium inhibits the absorption of the iron.) As for restless legs, my mum (suffered for decades) found a lot of relief from Sifrol. It’s a Parkinson medication. Worth talking to your doctor about.

I feel exhausted just thinking about it. PS - Set a date for your wedding yet, Jake? Or if you are married, we need pxts. 😁

Congratulations. Fabulous achievement. 🥇🏆

I’m a big fan of acupuncture. When I did my back & ended up with oozing discs, I did three sessions of physio over two weeks & no real help - she just gave me exercises which I religiously did. Went to my acupuncturist & had a dramatic improvement after one session. He used heat lamps & electroacupuncture. Worth a try.

I didn’t get all my protein in either in those first couple of weeks. You’re healing, not hungry or interested in eating. My surgeon was ok as long as I was making an effort & was getting in a little more every couple of days. Same with fluids. You’ll notice some days are easier than others & that’s fine too. You’ll get there. Just slowly sip on those protein shakes, soups, etc, all day. They count as fluids so double win. Try protein waters too.

Head hunger or real hunger? Real hunger feels different. I get restless & think something is wrong. I don’t crave a specific food, flavour or texture. It also doesn’t go away. And there is always a logical & reasonable reason why I’m hungry like I haven’t eaten much all day or have missed a meal. It usually occurs later at night but that’s me (been known to get out of bed to eat some chicken meat at 11pm). Head hunger is related to boredom, habit, emotions, time (it’s lunch time I must be hungry), etc. Also excess acid can cause you to think your hungry. And in most cases, a grumbling, rumbling tummy is actually just your digestive system working not that you’re hungry. It can take time to work out the difference but is all part of our learning. As is discovering how to manage the head hunger if it is that. Have something to drink like water as others have suggested or a warm drink. Distract yourself: craft, clean, read, play a game, ring a friend, check social media or this forum, etc. Or wait 30 mins or so before satisfying the hunger. But yes, your hunger does come back. When is individual though many seem to start at about 6 months. But as with most things some start earlier & some later. So you may be experiencing real hunger. Check with your dietician to review your current food choices & intake. Maybe adding a little more food to a meal, if you’re able, will help if it’s real hunger. Try a couple of nuts, some jerky or other meat, yoghurt, boiled eggs, & other protein dense foods as snacks. But again check your plan & ask your dietician for suggestions.

Bresola with crème fraiche & fresh grated horse radish. Super easy to prep & to eat. Took it my cousins for a pre Christmas drink. Forgot to take the before pxt but took one after the plate had done the first round of the guests. Unfortunately we don’t get those ginormous tree branch sized horse radish roots you see on UK cooking shows. Just sad looking, wizened roots.

I detested them too which is why I turned to drinking yoghurt. Shop around as some don’t have a lot of protein or have a lot of sugar (real or artificial). The one I drank had about 25g of protein per 200mls if I remember correctly. Unfortunately they don’t make it anymore. 😩 You can make your own- just add milk to your favourite yoghurt to thin it out. Add some fruit & extra protein powder if you want.

I also lost my interest in food & wasn’t really hungry so I get how you feel. I also was only eating two ‘meals’ a day to begin but then I realised I needed to eat for my body to function properly. So I started to eat more regularly. I found eating to the clock helpful. It actually changed a lot of my relationship with food. That adage of eating to live not living to eat became true for me. (I still very much enjoy food but I consider what & why I’m eating it.) As a place to begin, try adding a third meal of a smaller portion & eat it even more slowly than you normally would just to get into the routine. Or add a yogurt drink or shake at sometime during the day & look at them as a drink not a meal with the bonus of necessary nutrients. Have you had a chat with your dietician to review your diet, nutrient & calorie intake. They may have some suggestions re nutrient dense meal suggestions. The lack of hunger & interest in eating doesn’t last. It’s a temporary bonus of the surgery. Though my lack of hunger lasted into my second year, most find it starts to return in their first year from about 6 months. Actually you’ll get to a time in the future when you wish you still experienced them.