Search the Community

Hello! Newbie here👋🏽 I finished my first official day of being on an all liquid diet and honestly I’m hangry, I’m a bit irritated, and I just want to eat! Lol but I’m hoping after about day 3 or 4 I don’t feel the need to eat like I used to. Any tips on how to curve the craving for food in general?? Surgery date is August 7th😮‍💨

I eat things like tacos with the shells made from chicken, cauliflower crust pizza, etc... Absolutely LOVE it. I buy a brand called Real Good Foods. Designed for people on keto and low carb diets, but also perfect for bariatric diets. I've never been brave enough to try to make a homemade pizza, but I might just look into this one

Welcome to the wide & varied pre & post surgical plans. 🙂 I was put on a keto plan before surgery. My surgeon puts different patients on different pre surgical diets. A friend was on the all shake diet & her friend was on the two shakes & one meal version yet we had the same surgeon. I think he does it based on a number of factors: starting weight, pre existing health status, weight loss/gain history, etc. Maybe your surgeon is the same. I wouldn’t be concerned, just enjoy still having a variety of food choices available to you. All the best with your surgery. PS - Best to avoid fruit juice too as it has a high sugar content. Natural sugars but still sugar & calories. It takes several pieces of fruit to make a glass of juice but you would sit down & eat the sane number of pieces of fruit in one go. Plus it lacks a lot of the essential nutrients a whole piece of fruit does. When you can introduce fruit into your diet again go for whole fruit not juice.

I've returned from the land of those out of it. I was severely dehydrated a week after the surgery and I'm back on track drinking and eating soft foods. I had to up the water game since were going to the beach this weekend. My sister is also taking me to Disney in October . She purposely made sure I was in the next level for eating. I am thankful she had the surgery before me.

Mashed potatoes will be during the puree stage starting at 3 week. HOWEVER, each program is different.

I very truly feel your pain. I was sleeved in 2009 and I did fantastic the first 6 years. I lost 149 lbs and 9 dress sizes. At first, I wasn't even exercising and the weight just melted away daily. When I got down to the weight limit that could not be exceeded on an elliptical machine that I borrowed from a sister, I started exercising on it. Eventually, I was using the elliptical for an hour, non-stop, 5 days a week. Everything began to change in December 2014. My father passed away and he was the be all end all of existence for me. I am the youngest of 13 kids and was totally a daddy's girl. He was very ill already, but he ended up dying on my mom's birthday from a heart attack in his sleep. I was the first one to get to his house after my brother who was taking care of him called us all. When I got to my dad, his eyes were still open. My brother was dealing with the coroner and the police officer. I really freaked out and thought I'd better close his eyes before my other sisters or my nieces and nephews saw him. So I did. I closed my father's eyes. My heart broke in half right at that moment. I kinda lost my sh*t. My doc ended up putting me on Xanax and Ambien. Fast forward a few months to April 2015, I ended up getting divorced. Then 15 months later in July 2016 my mother died. Her heart stopped, and during CPR administration, her ribs broke and one pierced her lung. It filled with fluid and because she'd had respiratory issues most of her life, they couldn't help her. She died after 3 agonizing days in the hospital. Then in 2017, I was transferred from one job post to another. They weren't even going to tell me until right before I showed up for work, I found out sooner by accident. I'd been at that post for 10 years. It was a retaliation from a supervisor who knew that I knew too much information about illegal activity that went on under his nose. Literally, every year something horrible was happening to me. The anxiety, depression, and meds led to me not giving a sh*t about what I ate and a lot of drinking. I was drinking every night. I wasn't exercising anymore. I was eating anything I wanted to eat. It was still very little food, because I had a lot of restriction. But I was eating every kind of junk food you can think of. I was eating at all hours of the day. I was grazing, as they call it. I could eat every 3 hours. And the alcohol was just straight shots of tequila. By 2022, I had regained most of my weight and gone back up 6 sizes. You can lose weight again. You can detox from carbs. You can go back to protein shakes. This past May, I started dieting (on my own) because the doc wanted me to lose weight before he'd do the revision. I was drinking a protein shake for breakfast and for lunch, then I was eating a good, solid, very low carb (even zero carb) dinner. No alcohol. In 30 days, I lost 30 lbs. And this was before my surgery. It is absolutely possible, but you have to make the effort and you have to have the discipline. The first 3-4 days are tough as you detox, but then it just gets easier and easier. I wish you luck, friend.

Mine was just 24 hours of liquid prior - but my husband was 2 weeks when he had it done. in his case, (insulin dependent diabetic), he had to have an endoscopy prior to having a surgery date. He was put on a 3 day liquid diet prior to the endoscopy and it showed he had food in his stomach from 4 days prior to the liquid diet! The doctor said that diabetics don’t digest their food well. so doing our liquid phase is dependent on our challenges personally and to make sure there is no food in our stomachs as well as shrink the liver.

I'm not long term but I just wanted to sympathise. I'm sure you thought after 8 years that you had this all sorted. I'm really sorry to hear you're having a hard time. I think from about 2 years after the sleeve lots of people probably can eat much more 'normal' quantities of food, and that's when your approach to eating really matters - clearly you did it well for years and years. The people I've seen here pulling things back seem to go back to their way of eating in the immediate post op period. Track everything, make sure you get plenty of fluids. When you eat it's protein first, veg second, carbs last (or not at all). Wait at least half an hour after eating before you drink anything. However this isn't personal experience. I'm sure someone who has lived this will drop by soon to give proper advice. It's so good that you've pulled yourself up before it got too far away from you. I wish you the best of luck.

I developed allergies to foods and lactose intolerance after both of my surgeries. After my sleeve, I developed a NASTY shellfish allergy and lactose intolerance. After my revision to bypass, I developed an allergy to peanuts and an allergy to the surgical glue they used. Surgery can do weird things to the body. Major surgery like this throws the body WAY out of whack.

I agree with the above comments. I am 14 1/2 months out from my sleeve and 4 weeks out from my revision to bypass. Rice, noodles, pasta, potatoes, breads were all HUGE no-no foods for me. There's no nutrients in them, a TON of carbs and calories, take of valuable real-estate in your stomach that needs to have protein and veggies in it first and foremost. They don't serve any real nutritional value, and there's LOTS of foods you can use to substitute for these that are healthy, bariatric surgery friendly, and DELICIOUS.

Two weeks until surgery!!!! I scheduled an appointment with my surgeon to go over ALL of my last minute questions. One of the concerns I had was of my post op diet. My surgeon seems more "liberal" when it comes to the pre op and I am allowed to eat fruit, eggs, bacon, cottage cheese, protein, vegetables, nuts, cheese etc until two days before surgery. From most of what I've read online it seems like most people go on a liquid diet during this time. I wondered if maybe he thinks patients maybe won't stick to it and that's why he didn't assign it so I made up my own semi liquid diet with the information I gathered which was basically 100% fruit juice Popsicle, sugar free pudding, gelatin, soup, protein shake and ground beef salad everyday. I wrote down what I was doing and handed it to him and he proceeded to ask me where I got this diet from and straight told me that this diet was crap, snacks had no nutritional value which would make me weaker before surgery, Popsicle had a bunch of sugar and that my liver would shrink by cutting Carb and starches alone and that i need to eat and stay off the internet 🤣🤣 Did anyone else's surgeon put them on a diet like this pre op? Don't get me wrong I am of course happy to eat food, but I've never heard of anyone else having such a liberal diet pre op and it makes me wonder...

I have to agree with the above comments. I have only started eating rice and noodles after the first year. My program allowed me to have carbs once a week. Even then it was not easy on my stomach specially the rice. I live in Malaysia where rice and noodle are staple food. If I don't bring my lunch from home and have to eat outside, it is mostly going to be one of these. I take a small portion of rice and load on vegetables and proteins if served separately. Noodles are usually mixed with the vegetable / protein so I can't do anything about it.

What about trying a fodmap diet? It cuts out lots of foods know to aggravate the digestive system & then you slowly reintroduce them to see which ones don’t work for you. Your dietician should be able to give you information on it & the eating plan. My cousin is on it for strange digestive issues. It’s not a quick process - she’s been doing it for 6 months now. I believe she went to a gastroenterologist who recommended the diet to try & identify the cause of her problem. I believe most bariatric surgeons are gastroenterologists. Mine was so maybe your surgeon is too & would be worth going back too if you haven’t (but that could just be in Australia).

So... today, my daughter and I made that TikTok chicken crust pizza at home. It was really good! I'm 1 month and 4 days out of my revision from sleeve to bypass, and I'm on regular food now. It is high in calories, but I'm sure if you choose healthier options for the ingredients, you could make it even better! I used what I already had at home because I wasn't even sure it was going to work. But there are some modifications I plan to make for when I make this again. For example, I would use reduced fat or fat-free cheeses. Those seem to be the ingredients with the highest calories. Also, I would use fresh chicken, cook it and shred it. But for this recipe, I used canned chicken breast. I'm including a pic of the pizza and a pic of the nutrition information per slice. I doubled the recipe because I was going to share it with my daughter, then I combined all the nutrition information for the whole pizza and divided by 8 slices. Take into account that a regular slice of pepperoni pizza is 313 calories, 13g protein, and 35 carbs. This one is 197 calories, 22g protein (because the crust is made of chicken, Parmesan, and egg), and 3g carbs. for the ~10" crust: -2 cans 10oz canned chicken breast in water (drained) -2 large eggs -1 cup shredded Parmesan (gonna look for a lower fat or lower cal version) Combine these 3 things and season as you like. I used Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, and some sprinkles of black pepper. NO SALT, because the canned chicken is already salty. Like my life. I mixed it all together to create the "dough." I put it on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and formed it into a thin crust (~10") and baked it at 425 for 20 minutes. my toppings: -1/3 cup Chef Boyardee Pizza sauce (again, I'm sure there's a healthier alternative) -2 cups shredded mozzarella (next time I'm using low fat or fat-free) -16 turkey pepperoni slices Once I added the toppings, I put it back in the oven for 10 minutes at 425. I did 5 min on bake and then 5 min on broil (low) because I wanted the cheese to get just a tad toasty Added all the ingredients to the Baritastic app (you can scan the barcodes of all the ingredients) and divided by 8 slices, so this is the nutrition info per slice. Yes, the slices are small like from a personal pizza, but I can't eat more than that anyway, so it was very filling! I ate half a slice then later had the other half a slice. I remembered the crust is made of chicken, so I ate slowly and gave it time to hit my tummy.That's why I was only able to do half at a time.

@TRClark23 so grateful for your updates, it’s keep motivated thru this little rough patch I’m going thru. My surgery was on July 11th, and I’m about to go to puréed food on Wednesday. My mouth is literally burned out from liquids, I’m barely reaching my intake goals. I can’t wait to try a quesadilla lol!

@TRClark23 so grateful for your updates, it’s keep motivated thru this little rough patch I’m going thru. My surgery was on July 11th, and I’m about to go to puréed food on Wednesday. My mouth is literally burned out from liquids, I’m barely reaching my intake goals. I can’t wait to try a quesadilla lol!

tofu and paneer would be soft - but not pureed re: rice and noodles - I didn't eat those at all for at least the first year. I'm not sure if they'd be considered "soft", but they're not very nutritious and take up real estate in your stomach when you should be filling it with mostly protein since your protein needs are very high the first few weeks. Also, even at eight years out, even though I do occasonally eat rice and noodles, i can't eat much of either since they sit in my stomach like a brick. So you'll eventually be ALLOWED to eat those things (all my food restrictions were lifted once I was about six months out), but they do bother some people.

When I get to the soft foods stage, will I be able to have rice or noodles? I live in a very diverse city where pho & indian food is highly prevelant so I was wondering if those would be allowed? I know with curries since they're already in a pureed consistency they'll be okay even during pureed stage so as long as I don't eat the meat chunks in it. Unless I shred the chicken? And is tofu and/or paneer (in Indian food) considered soft or can I eat it in pureed stage? I'll of course ask my dietician when I go in tomorrow, but I was curious if y'all had any experience or issues.

Hi, I had surgery on July 6, I have lost 13 lbs. For the last 4 days I have been the same weight or the scale has been fluctuating up and down by ~a pound. I hope to start losing again soon. I am still on the liquid diet, I will be moving to pureed on day 21. Good luck to all.

I’m 6 months post revision on a 10 year old sleeve. I’m having terrible stomach problems. Dumping, cramping, nausea. I’m talking with my doctor and nutritionist about. They think it’s either diet or I’ve developed a post surgical IBS. They just put me on a two week course of Rifaximin. I don’t know what is safe to eat any more. Everything seems to make me sick. I’ve lost 75 lbs post op 30% of my body weight in 6 months and MOST IMPORTANTLY the reflux which prompted the revision is gone. I’m sure some of it is my own doing. One piece of candy or something with sugar (even ketchup) and I’m on the toilet. I have discovered that I need 45 min (not 30 as recommended) between eating and drinking. Anything but pure protein seems to be a problem. Salmon or chicken are ok but if I have fruit, rice, grains of any kind, and even some veggies like broccoli or zucchini I’m on the toilet in an hour. I’m learning my portions, which are so sensitive, one bite or two too many and I’m feeling green and laying down. I guess I’m looking for advice on how to systematically find my safe foods and portions? Has anyone else developed an IBS like condition post op such that you needed medication? I can’t tell if this is that or diet or both and I’m not happy either way.

I am 6 weeks post surgery and I've been pretty open about it. Mainly because it's easier to explain my small meals and I don't have people trying to get me to eat. What drives me crazy are the people that when they find out you had surgery, give advice like "why didn't you just walk a little more?" I want to scream "gee why didn't I think of that!". Instead, I grit my teeth, smile and say, "it doesn't always work that way". Really, do people think that I would have major surgery and spend the next 6 weeks drinking liquids and trying to reintroduce myself to food if instead all I had to do was a walk a little more?

Morning! It is really interesting to hear all the different post-surgery diet plans from our doctors. Mine has been a very strict 2 days clear liquids, 2 weeks full liquids, 2 weeks purees...will start on soft foods next Thursday and can hardly wait! 😅

Welcome all! I agree with @tamra. Feeling all the things. And like @MeNotYou worried about losing my hair is one of those things. I’ve always had great hair, and now I’m messing with that one thing…but still ready for it! Also, as an avid baker, wondering how I’ll do with no sugar, but willing to only bake savory and eat little if it. Goodbye my beloved crème brûlée… It’s dumb, some of the things I worry about, especially since I’m aiming to avoid cancer with this surgery. Vanity and food addiction!

Hi just now seeing this. I went pack to basics and intermittent fasting. The two protein shakes and one meal is what you have to do to get weight moving. Also you can never eat regular again to maintain the weight loss. That’s what I found works for me. I keep my calories around 1000 or less per day and I’m fine. If I splurge one day I only eat a little of the bad item. Also no leftovers of not good food choice items.

I was a low-BMI patient, so I didn't have to do the liver-shrinking diet. I did have a few food funerals, but I realize now that they weren't necessary. They were just my food addiction rearing its ugly head. Your journey to health begins today. Later on, you'll be able to have a bite or two of those foods you used to love. But you might not even want to! We think that we're going to miss the delicious garbage that we used to eat, but I really don't. And if my husband is eating something that just really makes me want it, I have one bite. That's enough - and it usually doesn't taste as good as I thought it would.