Shay27

I had my gallbladder removed about 10 months before getting sleeved. I gained about 38 lbs in those months and the weight gain didn’t seem to be slowing down so WLS was a must at this point. Comparing the two, I feel like I had less pain with the WLS. I actually asked my mom if she was sure they even did anything!

1. I didn’t need any painkillers after WLS, but I took them for about a week after gallbladder removal.
2. I’m typically a stomach sleeper and was also able to go back to sleeping on my stomach faster after the sleeve.
3. i only needed to sleep on a recliner for 2 days after WLS, but slept in a recliner for about 10 days after gallbladder removal.
4. Moving around was also easier for me after the sleeve, mainly because I felt like I couldn’t stand up straight after the gallbladder removal.
5. I was sleepier after the sleeve and generally had less energy the first week.
6. I had a bowel movement faster after WLS and going to the bathroom was easier in general.
7. TMI but I had sex sooner after WLS than I did after gallbladder removal.
8. Oh, my surgeon used my main gallbladder removal incision (the top one) so I only had 2 new tiny incisions for a total of 3 incisions for WLS. He felt like it was unnecessary for me to have more scars than I should so maybe that’s an individual thing that differs from surgeon to surgeon so I’d ask if that was possible. I only have the 3 WLS incisions visible and the gallbladder ones were so tiny they disappeared (you can only see them if you know where to look).

So all in all I’d say my recovery from the sleeve was easier than the gallbladder removal, but of course that’s just me. I’m sure other people have it the other way around. Either way, you can do it! For me, the hardest step was actually deciding and committing to the WLS. Don’t worry, you got this!! Please feel free to message me if you feel like you have more questions or if I missed anything.

Today I had an unexpected and surprisingly satisfying NSV. I noticed that my belly button shrank. It's about 50% shallower than it used to be! Who knew I would be so pleased about less depth to my belly button? 😆

Oh gosh, your post brings back memories. I had my WLS done in January this year. Straight afterwards I had buyers regret....what the hell was I thinking....every mouthful I felt ill, I worried I would dehydrate as I wasn't getting enough liquids. So I sat myself down and gave myself a stern talking to 🙂
Take one day at a time. If one mouthful fills you up, great. Just move on and take another mouthful in an hour or so. I still feel full after just one mouthful now, so I break it up into tiny little bits, and graze for an hour over my food. I can get about a half to full cup of food in over that period of time.
Psychologically the struggle was real. I fought with myself that I needed to eat more, and when I was full and still had a delicious mound of baked potato with lite sour cream and bacon bits sitting on my plate, I got so sad. That's when I really had to work hard to only put on my plate what I knew I could finish, and start mindful eating and enjoying the company I was with.
This is a huge lifestyle change for anyone who has the surgery, and I don't think any of us really understood the impact outside of the physical.
If you can only cope with liquids, stay on liquids and make sure it's full of nutrition. Very slowly increase the thickness, puree leek and potato Soup, pumpkin soup with tasteless Protein (you'll laugh, one pot of soup lasted me 3 months...I froze it in half cup lots). Pulverize chicken noodle soup.
Good luck, we'll be waiting for an update 🙂

The BariatricPal Store carries a huge selection of bariatric friendly Protein bars at https://store.bariatricpal.com/collections/protein-bars !

Here are some of the awesome protein bar brands they carry:

- BariatricPal
- Built Bar
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- Epic
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- Keto Wise
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- Power Crunch
- Proti Diet
- Quest Nutrition

First off, let me say that you should always listen to your doctor and nutritionist...rather than crazy people on the internet, myself included.
But here's my rant today. And for what it's worth....this is just MY feelings on this nonsense. I'm no expert.

Ya'll need to eat. Not overeat. But also NOT UNDER-EAT. Eat healthy food you enjoy.
I know how it happens. Your weight loss gets sluggish and stuck and you think OMG, this isn't working, I'm Failing at this! You start to panic.
And what does a lifelong self-destructive dieter DO when they start to panic? They go exteme.
They go...ok, my doctor said it was ok to eat this much.....so I'm gonna try to eat HALF of that to speed up my weight loss!
I'm going to work harder than anyone! I'm going to eat less! I'm going to force this weight off of my body...because this is my last chance and I'm freaking out and I can't fail at this, so I NEED to do better and cut back!
Only, here's the thing. You don't need to cut back. You need to stay the course, nourish your healing body, have good energy to boost your metabolism and lose weight sensibly.
Why do people do VLCDs? (very low calorie diets....1000 or less calories a day)....they do them because they show results in a hurry.
And there is nothing people like better than a lower number on the scale...regardless of how they're achieving it. Or how harmfully they are achieving it.
When you eat less than 1000 calories a day, did you know you lose more muscle than fat...even if you are eating tons of protien grams?
When you lose muscle, you slow your metabolism, endanger your organs that have muscle (heart anyone?), and decrease your bone density. None of this is a good idea.
And when you're eating starvation level calories, your body tries like hell to keep you from dying....by, you guessed it, slowing your metabolism even further.
And the carb thing...can we talk about that a minute? You DO want to avoid carbs that are metabolized to sugar really fast, like sugary foods and refined white flour items because they can cause your pancrease to over-react and send too much insulin and you'll end up with rebound hunger....but other carbs, particularly ones that have good Fiber content to slow the sugar can also have good protien content...and they don't do the rebound hunger thing. They give you great available energy.
Why do we lose so much weight so rapidly when we do Keto? We don't really....but the first five pounds is so quick and shocking that it MUST work! (except you're not losing fat, you're losing the Water that your liver stores extra glucose in.....and you've stripped your liver of its emergency reserve of energy. And yeah...you can make the sugar you need from other things through gluconeogenesis....but it takes amino acids that your body is typically harvesting from your muscles.) Don't do that thing where you lose the five pounds eating keto....then eat a few carbs and go OMG, look at the weight I've gained!....and go keto again and lose the same five pounds of water. It's an illusion. (Not saying keto people can't lose weight...they do lose weight fast...but they also have about five pounds in lost water from glucose storage, no emergency stores, and their bodies may be consuming their muscles)
Food for thought (literally!) Guess what organ runs exclusively on sugar? Pure glucose. Your brain. Your brain burns over 300 calories of glucose every day. At just 2% of our body weight....our brains burn about 20% of the calories we use each day! The CPU needs fuel.

Lots of people lose weight rapidly with Very Low Calorie Diets after bariatric surgery. They have these amazing results that other people notice and are in awe of. They lose to goal eating very little and feel very accomplished about their self discipline and their amazing fast results.
And then guess what happens?
At goal...they are still people who have never learned how to eat sustainably for life. All they know is starvation and self deprivation. And starvation doesn't work long term.
Please learn to eat sustainable amounts of calories. Do it early so you don't fudge your metabolism into starvation level calorie requirements.
One of the best ways to have a robust metabolism...is to do exercise every day. It doesn't have to be the gym or something you find tedious. Do things you enjoy....but keep moving.
It's hard to build your robust metabolism.....when you're too tired to do anything but go to work and go to bed...because you're starving yourself.
Please eat. Don't overeat. But eat. Learn to eat right, not starve. Starving is not the cure and in many cases sets the stage for significant regain.
Do it right, even it it's slower than other people. Do it sustainably. Learn to coexist with food, not avoid it. (easier said than done)
Don't get discouraged by small losses. Just keep losing to goal with small sensible tweeks. You don't have to suffer extremes to have success.
Learning to control your diet moderately...is the best skill to have when facing a lifetime of sustaining a significant weight loss.

This end my rant.
Totally ok if you think I'm nuts/wrong/whatever. Take what you like and leave the rest.
Peace and best wishes to everyone on this crazy road.

ice cream turns to liquid pretty quickly in your stomach, so it goes right through you. So I'm not surprised you can eat a cup of it. I agree with the others - why are you eating ice cream now in the first place? If you're serious about losing weight, going about it that way isn't going to work. Get a plan from your surgeon or dietititan if you don't already have one and follow it. That's the only way this is going to work. People who start pushing the envelope right away after surgery usually end up failing.

Right after surgery some people can't feel full because of the nerves recovering from the surgery. You shouldn't have been pushing to eat 4 eggs in the first place and ice cream shouldn't even be in your diet this early out (it's not nutritious and has basically no Protein in it so it's wasted calories, carbs, and fat that you should NOT be consuming this early on). I think you need to call your surgical team to see if you unintentionally damaged your stomach pushing more food than you should have.

You should reach out to your medical team. Why would you try to eat 4 hard boiled eggs or any ice cream at all 10 days post op? You still have internal sutures you could be damaging. It's possible you have nerves that are not yet healed and thus you are not yet feeling the restriction but you should be sticking to a nutrition plan regardless. And while I know plans can vary widely from surgeon to surgeon I don't think any would recommend ice cream or 4 whole eggs at one time. You shouldn't be trying to test the limits of your stomach.

Just because you CAN eat something doesn't mean you SHOULD. I agree with what everyone else is saying, but you might also consider seeing a therapist if you were overeating due to binge eating especially if you have struggled with that in the past. If you were just testing out the limits of your stomach, call your surgery center, but if it was that you were craving ice cream, and felt the need to eat four eggs instead of one, think about whether therapy would be of use.