Search the Community

Im 4 yrs post op sleeve and i generally eat about 1 cup of food in volume. More if its salad, less if its dense meat or fluffy bread in one sitting In the first 6 months it was like 1/2 a cup. And the first month or two it was like less than 1/4 cup. The first 2 weeks was essentially nothing, yikes. Im a grazer though so i can get enough food/calories in by the end the day. Compare this to pre-surgery when I could easily get in maybe 4-5 cups of food in one sitting. I would be stuffed, but i’d get it in (im rarely stuffed like that anymore as i actively try not to reach that point because its a quite uncomfortable - in not painful - feeling) Everyone will have different experiences, best to pay attention to how food volumes (and types of food) affect YOU, and act accordingly. Good Luck! ❤️

I’m almost 3 & a half years & I still feel my restriction at times. Though it’s usually not related to how much I ate but what I ate. I felt it Saturday night because of some coarse vegetables I ate. Got a slight case of the foamies too. ☹️ However the goal really is not to feel the restriction just like it shouldn’t be to feel full as an indicator to moderate how much you eat. Once you feel full or the restriction you’ve already eaten too much. I ask myself do I need the next bite or do I just want it. And I only serve myself an appropriate portion. As @summerseeker said we’re all different. While there may be similarities you really can’t compare yourself directly to another. You’ll work out the portion size, the foods you need to eat & the calories you need to consume to lose & maintain your weight & for your body to function effectively & healthily. If you’re determined to do it you can eat around your sleeve but do you want to? To go back to eating how you did will only lead you back to each to where you were before surgery - with a weight problem. I eat smaller portions than I did. I eat more regularly now (was a meal skipper). There are a lot of foods I don’t eat any more or eat very little of or rarely but that’s my choice though there are some that don’t sit as well (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes) I don’t eat. I eat a lot more protein because of an absorption issue. I don’t eat a lot of carbs & very little sugar (real artificial or alternatives) & I feel better for it. But again that is me. You’ll work these things out for yourself too. Remember, no one diet/way of eating works for everyone. All the best.

Hi, Welcome! I also have a dairy and fish allergy so it was a bit harder for me to find a more varied diet. For the yogurt I was using Siggi's plant based yogurt but have since moved over to Kite Hill plant based greek yogurt. Less carbs, less calories and more protein. For my drinks I use Evolve mainly. I used to use Orgain and OWYN but I think those both have sunflower in them. Just make sure you read the labels and you will be fine.

Confession: i like cute food. Anything mini or sample sized is my jam, lol. Got these red bean salted egg yolk pastries as a gift and omg aren’t the little containers they are in adorable??? On top of that, they were DELICIOUS. Ate one, 210 calories. Yummmmmm.

Everyone who does this surgery will have a different story, I have found nobody is the same. We all have different regimes and surgeons' recommendations. So, everyone progresses at different rates. It is a mistake to compare yourself to anyone else. Well, I could eat for England as we say! Especially Chinese foods, I loved rice and noodles. Now I am just starting to eat a bit more, but I don't have a lot of hunger and quickly get full, so I have 5 small meals a day and 20 ounces of milk or milk shake a day. That puts my daily calories around 900 - 1200 My breakfast today was almost 4 ounces of protein yogurt and a milky coffee. Lunch was a peeled apple and a 1 ounce of French Brie cheese. I have just had a strawberry milk shake. My evening meal is 2 ounces of homemade pork sate with 1Tbsp of brown rice. The rice is just for show as I can't manage more than 2 tiny bites after the protein. Later I will have an almost sugar free ice lolly [44 Cals] and my milk allowance. If I am short on protein for the day, I will finish the day on 4 ounce of protein yogurt. I usually fit a bit of veg into my day, even if its only in a mug of soup, but not today I am used to seeing my tiny meals, but family and friends are shocked at how little I eat and don't see how big that their portions are.

I’m 5 1/2 weeks post op and really have no problem with any food I’ve tried. I’m able to get in my low protein requirement and stay well below my calorie requirement. I try to bump that up so I’m hitting the low end of my goal, but I am just not able to. However, doing all of this now that I can actually eat real food again is leaving me feeling extremely guilty, as if I’m just gorging. In my mind, I know I’m not, I’m eating well within my plan, but I feel so gross like I used to before surgery when I’d eat crap. On top of this, I’ve hit my first plateau and have only lost 1lb in 2 weeks, which makes me feel even worse. Anyone else feel this horrible guilt? How did you work past it?

Hey! I'm getting sick of my usual and looking for some new meal idea and snacks. I'm dealing a lot with craving carbohydrates and salt. I'd like to only eat whole foods and complex carbohydrates if I decide to eat them but stick mostly to protein and veggies. I'm a vegetarian but feel free to share with my your meaty meals because I can always modify them and make them veg with tofu and other plant based proteins. I usually eat eggs or a protein shake for breakfast, salads, cheese, crackers and soy products like tofu or Tempeh for dinners and lunch. I ate a lot of chips and barely drank any water this week because of my environment (which I'm about to leave thank god) but in general dont feel that great after eating things like that. I tried having oatmeal for breakfast the other day and found it really gross. I don't like sweet things or fruit but I feel like eating a half serving of fruit will help manage my carbohydrate cravings. And when I say carbs I mean like breads and chips. So i'm curious if you want to just drop your typical meal plan in the replies. I'd love to steal some ideas! I'm eating about 1200-1300 calories a day at the moment and aim for 60 grams of protein. A pretty good day for me looks like a protein shake, a snack, and a meal. Hbu? Sent from my SM-G975U using BariatricPal mobile app

Oh wow - I also cannot go to bed hungry. I thought I was alone in this (seems so weird but I just cannot sleep if I am). I would rather be hungry all day than risk not being full at bedtime. So - as soon as I could eat solid food after my sleeve I purposely hoarded calories to eat at bedtime. Probably 20% plus of my daily allowance. And ideally carby - so, porridge with fruit, or toast, etc. I kind of relate this to my night owl metabolism generally. I know that morning people (larks) mightn't understand that but as a fellow night owl I totally totally do. Chronotypes are real and they have an impact on weight loss.

I seem to want to snack after dinner as well and I try to eat things that are very low calorie like popsicles or pickles depending on what I am craving. If you are actually hungry of course a protein snack would be your best option.

I second the Fitbit. I have a charge 4. The watch itself tells me my step count, heart rate, water count, and a few other things. However, you have to have the fitbit app for it to work and do all these things. Plus the app offers everything from my step count, heart rate, sleep patterns, fitness history, food journaling, stress management, calories burned and much more. They have a free and pro version. I've had the same watch and original band for a few years now. I have a screen protector on it. The fitbit is reliable and seems accurate. Each fitbit version has different features so be sure to check for what ones are important to you. Sent from my SM-S115DL using BariatricPal mobile app

I have a Fitbit charge 5. It's been reliable with my calories in and out as far as weight loss. Been trying the maintenance program the past month. So far so good. It helps with my sleep patterns and tells me how long I am in each of the sleep stages for the night, week, month. Also my heart rate variability, skin temperature...Etc. I like the ecg scan too. The battery lasts a week or more. I also like that I can set goals for steps or whatever. I don't have any other experience with any other watches but I am very happy with this one.

Desire I feel the same!! Yesterday was 6 weeks, I’m in a stall at 25 pounds and I know I shouldn’t compare but we’re humans and it’s what we do. I am following to a T as well and I’m seeing others at 6 weeks or less eating sooo much more or such different things than what I’m eating, nearly same starting weight, and losing much more. Right now I can’t have any fruits, veggies, carbs, etc. I keep hearing to eat more calories but I guess diet culture has taught me against that for so many years it’s a hard concept. I’m doubting myself a lot which I know I should be proud of 25 pounds but I get in my own head. You’re not alone, and now either am I and there’s some comfort in that so thank you!

I’ve lost 60 lbs in just under 4 months. 🤗 liquids: all I drink is water (64 Oz) and I have 1 cup of coffee a day. I have lost my taste for coffee. I go through phases craving other things. I haven’t done Crystal Lite except for my first 2 weeks post op. I felt like the longer I drank it, my weight loss slowed. I have always noticed that about me and artificial sweeteners in steady, large amounts. on the liquid phase of post op, I had bone broth, sugar free jello, sugar free ice pops, AND water. 🤦🏻‍♀️ there is some recipe floating around on this site I think for mashed potatoes with cream of chicken soup and the lumps are strained out. It’s delicious and I was happy to have that for dinner every day. It’s all really a blur now. I had no appetite and I still dont, so I made sure I met hydration levels. When I was able to do that, I added in protein. I think I used Atkins because I detested Fairlife and Core and the others. The surgeon told me to be hydrated first and then concentrate on protein. Atkins has a 30 g of protein shake that I try to have once a day now. I know that I don’t eat anywhere near the calories I am suppose to, but I am simply not hungry and I take my vitamin with iron so I’m not going to worry about it. my biggest most constant craving is salad. 🤣🤣🤣 With a small amount of sugar free salad dressing and crisp lettuce, and white meat chicken (Panera), I’m good. I try to meet the protein numbers with Atkins Protein Wafer Crisp bars (1 a day). I read every single label before I buy anything, and I’m enjoying cooking for the first time in forever. Making things yourself is a great way to be sure you are getting what you need. Shrimp, salmon, egg white/egg salad are all things I enjoy. mom wracking my brain trying to remember 2 days post op. I know I was supposed to drink clear s/f Gatorade or something, but I was so nauseous (even with patches, etc) that I did ice pops, jello, and the next day I was able to graduate to broth, and protein shakes. I stayed on liquids for a long time-maybe 5-6 weeks because I wasn’t hungry, it was the dead of summer, and I didn’t feel like going on to the soft foods phase. Mashed potatoes were great, and I literally could not eat more than a tablespoon before I was full.

I am single but live with my elderly mom so I cook some for her. I haven't had my surgery yet but I love Panera Breads tuna sandwich without the bread and it is only 200 calories and 21g protein.

Do yourself this favor and stick to your pre op diet until surgery day anyways so you can really think this through. I think you are just having last minute jitters. I had sleeve so I can’t really speak to dumping other than only about 30% of bypass patients dump to any degree and many of them who do can still have sweets and fat just in much smaller portions. Once you are back to regular food, traveling and eating out shouldn’t be an issue (it is also doable during the staged return to eating it will just take some planning). You will eat smaller portions, but you will be able to eat most of the same foods you eat now (I can tolerate everything I ate before). You will of course make healthier choices the majority of the time and eat smaller portions but I eat at restaurants all the time. In terms of catching up with friends over dinner I think you will be an even better dining companion because you will be less focused on the food and more on the conversation. I go out with my best friend now and I have noticed that our conversations tend to go deeper and our lunches run longer but I actually think that’s kinda cool. As for the glass of wine, teams seem to be all over the map about when or if they allow alcohol again. My team was fine with it after 3 months but of course it’s empty calories so everything in moderation. I honestly think you are starting to morn the loss of food a little and that’s not uncommon. If you find that you really have a hard time with all this you may want to consider a bariatric therapist. As I’m sure you have heard, the surgery will fix your stomach but it takes some work on our part to fix our brains and that’s a very important part to being successful with all this. And if you really aren’t ready, there is no shame in rescheduling. This is a major surgery and only you know if you are ready.

I was hoping the OP would return so we could discuss some of the things posted here, but they have not. As such, I wanted to take a bit of time to delve a bit deeper into what was posted in the event anyone reading this was confused. Sorry, but this will be a long post. The TL;DR version is that most of what was posted was inaccurate. Let's start with this section: Dumping syndrome (feeling very sick when eating certain foods), is really variable for both Sleeve and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass patients. Some people have this, and some don't. It's generally accurate to say that dumping is more common in gastric bypass but regardless, relying on this as the way to keep you from eating things you shouldn't, is just not a good strategy. As I mentioned before, neither surgery fixes what's between your ears, so if you go into WLS expecting that this is going to keep you from binge eating, you likely won't be successful. Stomachs can stretch, but it takes repeatedly overeating for this to happen. I wanted to make that clear since some people are overly worried about this. As long as you stick to plan, this should not be a concern. Again, not a good strategy expecting dumping syndrome to "fix" you. Fix your eating problem first, then have surgery to help you get to a healthy weight. The OP seems to have a misunderstanding about how fat cells work. White Adipocytes (fat cells), store lipids (fats) as droplets in the body of the cell. The volume of the droplet stored in each cell can grow or shrink as needed. The point is that the number of fat cells one has does not determine some sort of "baseline" amount of fat you will store. Yes, obese people often have more fat cells on average, though this is somewhat determined by genetics, overall body mass, as well as how long you have been obese. The OP is correct in that you can grow new fat cells if you exceed the capacity of your existing adipocytes to store lipids. What's not correct is that this somehow makes it more likely that you'll gain weight if you overeat. If you overeat, you'll gain weight regardless. This is factually wrong. Yes, being cold does require your metabolism to work harder to keep you warm. Studies have shown that on average, if you were to exercise in a very cold environment vs. a warm one, you can burn as much as 30% more calories when subjected to cold. Keep in mind that this effect only occurs when you are exposed to cold however. Let's take a simple example to illustrate how little of a difference this makes: Let's say your basal metabolic rate is 2000 calories. If you burn 30% additional calories in a 15 minute session of shivering as the OP suggested, that means you'd burn about 21 extra calories. (2000 calories divided by 24 hours is about 83 calories. That times 30% equals about 25. Divide 25 by 4 since it's 15 minutes of shivering and you get about 6. So if you take the OP's advice, you'd burn about 6 extra calories for your 15 minutes of shivering. Now if you actually workout (rather than just sit), in a cold environment, you can certainly increase the calories burned, but again, it's limited. I hope you see that this is not a good way to actually lose weight. Plus, we should be exercising for other reasons like to improve our cardiovascular health. Shivering won't do anything for that. If you want to know the real way to exercise for weight loss, you need to do strength training. Why? Because as you strength train, you also increase your basal metabolism. In other words, you burn more calories even when you're not working out.

My nutritionist was okay with it. I know most average about 5-600 calories now, but I can get up to 7-800. He said that the goal for me by month six is 1200. I don't know if that is going to be possible, but he wasn't too worried.

I'm with you and can eat more then I think I should. I can eat 1 scrambled egg and 1.5 ounces of chorizo. I'm also starting my 3rd week after surgery. I honestly can't feel my stomach getting full and someone elses post made sense to me that a lot of our nerves have been cut so maybe as we heal more we'll be able to feel that full feeling before we eat to much. I was never given any size or calorie advice from my bariatric team so its a really hard thing to judge.

You’ll be so glad you have it!!! With the sugar free syrup it almost makes you feel guilty indulging, even though it’s NO calories. My go to dessert!!!

Dinner! A cute little bowl of homemade Mao Pao Tofu (Szechuan seasoned ground pork w/ tofu cubes) over rice; with an espresso martini beforehand (not shown): 320 calories Yum. Ate it all!

I weigh myself every day and the scale has not really moved in the last 4 days. So I might be in the dreaded 3 week stall. I think that you can gain weight even with the low calories but I don't think its fat, I think its water weight or constipation. Eventually your body will get the clue and let go and you will see the scale move. I would call your dietitians though and let them look over your food log and see if they have any suggestions. My dietitians said usually the stalls are caused by either not enough calories, low protein or not taking vitamins. But I would talk to your team and see what they think. It should at least help your anxiety and give you some input from the experts. Good luck!

Who else weighs everyday? How do you get past the weight fluctuations? I know it's about the downward trend and there's no way eating 500 calories, I gained 1.1 pounds in a day. But idk. It still sucks. I was totally looking forward to getting out of the 330s for the first time in forever...

Nothing has really changed. I eat the same things, but I can consume more now. I wasn't exercising then (I walk at least 3 miles a day, and that hasn't changed), and I've never been one to count calories. I just keep track of my protein and carbs.

I found a great article on calories here but will double check with doctor. How Many Calories Should I Eat After Gastric Sleeve: A Quick Guide (drjalil.com)

That is just it, I have no idea what my calorie goals are supposed to be. I use myfitnesspal and I am super under but for some reason I thought I was supposed to be between 5-600 right now.