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I find it interesting that the pre op diet is not the same from surgeon to surgeon. Some are all liquid for 2 weeks, some are protein and veggies with max portion sizes, and some are one day liquid. My surgeon has given me the choice between shakes and low carb high protein low calorie meals (aka chicken/fish and veggies). I am worried about the liver shrinkage so my current plan is to do as many shakes as possible. I say that now but come Jan 4-17 all bets are off (surgery is the 18th).

As of today I am down 14 pounds in just a day or two over one week on liquids. I met with my dietitian yesterday and she said I am loosing to much to fast. Because I am lactose intolerant I can’t do dairy and I’m diabetic so I can’t do fruit juice. So when we went through my food journal we figured out I was eating/drinking between 500-700 calories a day. So she tweaked it and added more Protein Shakes - I felt so much better yesterday no hunger. I’m down to a 12-14 shirt and 14-16 pants (tight 14 loose 16 in a little over a week but don’t take that as what should happen she made it really clear to me that I need at least 1000 calories a day and Protein is extremely important for my body to be healthy for surgery and recovery. She said it isn’t just about liver shrinking but also optimal health for the surgery. She is a sleeve patient herself and she said it will be 6 months recovery but she is there with me every step of the way! I wasn’t taking in enough calories and while I lost weight I wasn’t doing it the healthy way. Hope that helps! . Good luck glad you started this thread it will be helpful to many I feel!! Also no one told me to start the Vitamins with the liquid diet so just found that out yesterday

I won't get on the scale. I am still learning that this is a tool. I got frustrated with my self because I had a family emergency and I moved on to soft foods earlier. Sometimes I feel like food is stuck in my throat but I try to slow down and keep moving forward. In any case I'm walking almost 10 miles every week and using MFP. I have to count calories! I hope you all are doing well!

Welcome to the club Daisy! The first few days can be really tough (were for me) but it's amazing how quickly you get back to normal. I am 15 days after my surgery and have still only lost only 2lbs since I got home on day 2. I'm eating around 600 calories a day at this stage but I did lose a fair bit before and during my admission so am trying not to panic. Went for a 2.5 mile walk this morning at a good pace and it was OK other than a big crash in energy about 1.5 miles in (glycogen running out???) Saw my surgeon yesterday, he's happy, and I'm back to work next week so trying to make the most of the final few days at home and get some christmas shopping done now! Hope everyone else is getting used to life with their new teeny stomach. I'm on pureed food now and it's amazing after 10 days on liquids. I never want to see broth again ever. 😝 Edited to say - I am really hungry a lot of the time - I hope this settles when I'm on solids.

Other than hitting the 60 grams of protein minimum a day and 64 oz of water, it seems that minimum calories are all over the place. I've been told at 4 months out not to exceed 600, which is hard. I think it has everything to do with age and activity. I get about 30 minutes on a stationary bike or a walk, and that's it. So without more activity, I guess my calorie intake has to be that low.

Hey folks, My surgery was on September 1, and I've lost 58 lbs including the 15 I lost on pre-op diet. But I am really running out of anything to eat to keep up my interest in food and my protein grams. I'm so tired of never having anything good to eat, I'm afraid I will just snap soon. I'm not a recipe collector and I hate to cook. Other than protein bars and shakes which I am so getting tired of, what are or were you eating in your forth month? I've been limited to 600 calories, because I only get about 30 minutes of exercise a day. I need some ideas. other than laughing cow cheese and the usual meats. I'm dreaming of Arby's beef and cheddar and pizza! Thanks

Check the calories on your protein shake, I've noticed some of them can be quite high calorie. My NUT recommended trying to keep the calories around 160-180 for a 20-25g protein shake, I've seen some with over 300 calories.

My doctors told me 4-6 weeks. I work a desk job from home so I went back to work after 2. It was doable, but the exhaustion you feel between weeks 2-6 is wild, because of how few calories you are consuming, so that's something to consider.

I'm sorry you're struggling. Hitting a plateau or weight loss stall is so frustrating. It's a time when we are very vulnerable and likely to give up on ourselves, go back to unhealthy habits and resist support or advice. It feels like nobody understands what we're going through, or how we feel, and that old self-loathing starts to rear it's ugly and counterproductive head. Please don't give up on yourself. You made a decision to move forward with surgery because you wanted something very badly, don't let it go. Now that it's done, give yourself some grace and try to get back into the headspace where you can take advantage of the benefits. You've made changes, but are not getting the desired results. So, you need to make some tweaks to nudge your body back into the weight loss track. In order to make those tweaks, you're going to need to buckle down for a short time and track your eating. There's really no other way to go about figuring out what has you stalled without taking a very close look at that. It's a major pain int he a$$ and it takes discipline, but it's not forever. Commit to doing it 100% for just one week, that's long enough to reveal where the pitfalls are and find a solution. It's entirely possible that you are not eating enough. My longest stall was broken when I made a very moderate increase to my protein and fat. It was literally a difference of about 4 ounces of food a day that flipped my weight loss from stop to go. Tracking can be approached in different ways: you can either use an app to track things as you eat, write things down each time you eat then log everything into an app or website at the end of each day, or make a menu, log it at that time and stick to that religiously. I cycle through these methods depending on the other things going on in my life at any point. The last scenario is easiest to manage if you put aside time to do your meal prep for the week, so the food is ready for you to just reheat (if necessary) and eat. I can never stick to a planned menu unless I have the food ready to grab n go. I've tried a few apps, my favorite is MyFitnessPal. After tracking for 7 days, take a good critical look at your macros - calories, protein, fat, carbs, fiber and sodium (my personal demon) - and see if anything jumps out at you as higher or lower than you were assuming. Share your diet and macros here and you will find advice on making adjustments that will have you back on track in short order. You could find that a small change can net big results. However you decide to move forward, I wish you the best and hope you enjoy the holiday season with your family and friends.

I'm so glad to hear it! I eat about 1300-1500 cal a day and am still losing 3-4 lbs a week, so the "yOu ShOuLd OnLy Be EaTiNg 500 CaLoRiEs" stuff just grates on my nerves. Maybe it works for some people; you and I are not those people. I am so glad I found a nutritionist who doesn't just read the n-th generation copy of the guidelines. (I work off about 600-700 of those calories just doing my work and workouts.)

Today is day 1 for my liquid diet: protein shakes and clear fluids only (Plus sugar free popsicles, 0 calorie flavored waters, clear broths, sugar free jello) I have ~80-100 lbs to lose. Yesterday I cleaned out my fridge and freezer, and stocked it with just the shakes/foods/drinks I can have. It's nice to have a clean fridge, and 0 wrong choices available. Mentally, it will be much tougher. I've written down 3 motivator/values in my planner so daily I will be able to refocus and remind myself why I'm doing this and what the outcome can be. Carbs are a precursor to the production of serotonin in the brain, and I know for myself that low carb diets will make me depressed. I'm worried about that. @huskymama had reported that she's already lost 10# in a week on this diet, and of course, that it's really difficult. But 10# is a lot, and that gives me hope. So thanks, huskymama! PS-does anyone know what percentage the liver shrinks on the preop diet?

I’m right there with you! I don’t think my sweet tooth truly ever went away but dumping curtails many shenanigans. But I also go through food phases. I’ll love something for 2 months then never want to see it again. 😂 I tend to share all desserts with others or “buffer” dessert with a vegetable intensive or low calorie meal. Honestly it does as much for me mentally as calorically. I need chocolate on a monthly basis. Let me know if you find a solution!

One thing I can tell you from my very experience is, you can have 20 physicians in a room and still won't find 2 to agree on anything. So evidence shows that to decrease the size of the liver, there is no consensus on how long the diet should go on for. With bypass, given they have to access the gastro-esophageal junction which the left lobe of the liver can obscure, this will definitely warrant a diet of longer duration. In the paper I read, generally the longer the diet the more shrinkage, however... A greater decrease in size was noted with higher protein diets. Also you risk being in a catabolic state (this is not good for healing) if you are on these low calorie liquid diets for too long. All this to say, some surgeons change their practices to reflect the evidence. Some were just trained a certain way and stuck with it. Im on a week long diet and my BMI is 41

You all are doing great!!! Congrats!! I'm still at my same 69 lb lost since surgery/87 lb since March. Haven't lost a thing since Oct 25th and no idea why. Total inches lost last month (Oct thru Nov) was only 1.75 too when previous months had been close to 10 inches or more. I usually measure on the 7th of each month but checked a few measurements last night and it looks like there won't be much loss this past month either. Don't know what's going on. Never had a stall last more than a few weeks. I tried shaking things up by eating things off plan/lil more calories/lil less too. NONE of it worked.

If you don’t want to log your food everyday perhaps you could do it for a few weeks and then just check in every once In a while to make sure you are on track. I know that I only cook so many meals and I have it in my head how many calories it is for one slice of cauliflower crust pizza or one burrito or whatever. I have a shake for breakfast and a P3 protein pack for lunch most days so I know how many calories I am allowed for dinner and have figured out what I can have that is on plan so I don’t have to count calories every day. I also have snacks that are around 100 calories (some are 80 some 120 but it averages out) so I just have to keep track of how many I have in a day not the actual calories. Maybe something like this would work for you. I hate to see you wasting time just being disappointed and depressed because your hunger will come back eventually and it will no longer be as easy to make the good food choices.I know that you are only eating low calorie food but you can still overeat even if it’s the right things. But you don’t necessarily have to count calories daily, Just figure out how many calories you are allowed for each meal and snack and then the first time you have the meal you have to measure and calorie count but from then on you know whether it’s on plan or not and you can either have it or you can’t unless you skip a snack or whatever. Just try a version of this that works for you.

Hello! I am new to the forum but hoping to be more active. I have been considering a revision for quite some time now and would love people's opinions and possibly some experience with revisions. I am not sure if I want to have my gastric sleeve resized, have it converted into a DS or possibly have it converted into a RNY. For some backstory: I got the gastric sleeve almost 8 years ago and I feel like I did rather well, I lost roughly 100 lbs total. I maintained this weight loss for about 4 years doing extremely well. I then ended up getting pregnant with my daughter in 2017. I have medical conditions as well that makes weight loss extremely difficult too (I have PCOS and possibly hypothyroidism.) I ended up gaining back 60 lbs and for the life of me cannot lose it. I tried exercise, many different diets (low calorie/high protein, low carb, and keto with no luck. The only thing that seemed to work for me was the sleeve. I definitely want the surgery revised in some way but I am unsure how to proceed. Does anyone have any advice? It would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Hey July buddies! how are we all. So Im coming to the realisation that my body is starting to plateau! For the first time. Yes I’ve been very lucky I’ve lost weight every week since surgery, sometimes 1lb, sometimes 5lb. however the last 3 weeks I’ve been sitting between 149-147lbs. It goes up and down. Sometimes daily! i started at 210. So I’m really happy with what Ive achieved!l so far! However I kinda wanted to be around the 138 mark as a overall target. my BMI is now in the green for ‘normal’ does this mean I’ve hit my end goal? Is my body telling me that’s it now? i mean I can’t complain I’ve gone from a UK18-20 to a UK8-10! but I’m still a little disappointed. either that or I need to just bide my time and wait. I’m hitting about 1200 calories on a good day - 600 on restricted days. But have notice the last few weeks I can eat a little more per portion. perhaps I need to exercise more.. if im honest I don’t do much… im not good at exercise 🤦🏻‍♀️ just leaving this here as I complain to my family and friends and they think I’m being weird and just thought you guys would understand where I’m coming from. xxx

I’m sorry you feel this was the worst decision for you & you’re angry. And it doesn’t work for absolutely everyone - sometimes for genetic or physiological reasons, sometimes for psychological reasons. But if you can honestly look in the mirror & say yes I’m making changes to what I eat, I’m choosing low fat, low sugar & low carb foods, I’m eating differently to how I ate before, I’m eating smaller portions, I’m following my surgeon’s plan & my dietician’s recommendations, maybe you are one of the unlucky few for which surgery doesn’t work. The average weight loss after bariatric surgery at about the 5yr point is around 65% of the weight you had to lose to put you in the healthy bmi range. Some lose more. Some lose less. Complacency, lifestyle, health issues, age, gender, genetics, personal choice, etc. all play a part in how much you will lose & then the weight at which you happily maintain. So odds are you won’t lose & keep off all the weight you need (or want) to lose in the long term but odds are you will weigh less than you do when you started. If you buy a gym membership & never go, you won’t get any healthier, or stronger or fitter. Weight loss surgery is the same. If you don’t take advantage of the tool nothing changes. The amount of success you have is directly in proportion to the amount of effort you put in to making the long term changes. Like most (all) of us I’ve lost & regained hundreds of pounds over the years. Tried every diet, & exercise program. This time, I took advantage of the benefits the surgery afforded me in the beginning. I used the tool. I did a lot of research & changed how & what I ate. Put new habits into place. Came to understand why I was eating & worked out how I could manage those drives. I did & continue to do the work. If I didn’t consciously make those changes & continue to work at it every day, I’d be very near my highest weight again. That’s what always happened in the past: I dieted, lost weight, then would return to my old eating habits & food choices & would start to regain within days. I ate little to begin after my surgery: less than 300 calories. I was healing (all those sutures & staples holding my tummy together) plus no appetite & no real interest in food. But my calories increased as did my portion sizes over the weeks & months. I eat about 1300 calories to maintain but I’m shorter than you, likely older than you, not very active, female & have a small frame. But before surgery I could barely maintain my obese weight eating 1300 or fewer calories a day & I regularly skipped meals for decades. My metabolism was shot. I eat regularly now, eat more nutritionally dense food & eat more often then I’ve ever done before. I haven’t been this weight since I was 12 yrs old. I feel great.

The surgery will give you lots of help to lose weight to begin (loss of appetite, smaller tummy, etc.) but in the long term you have to make the decision to make the permanent changes to how, what & why you eat. If you go into this thinking you’ll come out the other side weighing less but still eating the same way & for the same reasons you’ll put the weight on all over again just like you always did. That might sound harsh but it is the truth of it. After surgery, I really looked at what, why & how I ate. I took that time to refocus my food choices & gained a better understand of my eating cues. I did a lot of reading & worked out a new eating plan because I realised I couldn’t go back to how I used to eat if I was to be successful in the long term. You may find you won’t follow a specific restrictive ‘diet’ like keto or Atkins, etc. to maintain your lower weight but you may pick & choose & develop your own eating style that fits into your lifestyle, isn’t too restrictive &, this is the big one, is sustainable. Generally I eat lowish carbs, lowish fat, very little sweet, high protein. Big change was eating more nutritionally dense food & eating more regularly. And I eat about the same number of calories as I used to eat when I was obese. My metabolism actually works now so I can eat about that same 1300 calories & maintain my current weight. Do I miss the foods I avoid now like sweet things? Nope, not really. Uncle’s 80th yesterday. Most had dessert. I had a cup of tea. There was birthday cake later & I had tea again. Did I feel like I was missing out? Nope. Didn’t want it either. Realising you can reach that mindset where you’re not really interested in foods you used to crave & love to eat is a bit of a head spin. Weight loss surgery is an amazing opportunity. You just have to fully embrace all it can offer. And don't be afraid to ask for help from a dietician or therapist along the way. All the best what ever you choose.

I’m really sorry for how you’re feeling. I believe part of the nausea you’re experiencing is the lack of proteins and calories in your diet. I agree with others that you need to add non-flavored protein powder to your broth or whatever you’re drinking. You really need the proteins and at least 1000 calories to function. I would suggest making an appointment with a therapist. I believe a therapist will be beneficial in helping you workout those issues regarding with your surgery. A therapist will also teach you ways to be with family members even if they don’t support you. I know from experience what your body does when you push your feelings and frustration away or try to deal with them alone. Your body can physically make you sick. I had gotten so sick for almost two years for not dealing with tough issues with my older sister my college classes. I let it fester to the point I ended up using my wheelchair cause every time I stood up to try walk I passed out. Doctors didn’t know what was causing the problem. It through all kinds of testing. All tests came back normal. Finally a psychiatrist came to my hospital room to evaluate me. He figured out that my continued passing out ended up related to severe stress to where I had withdraw from my college classes. I think you’re trying to deal with your emotional pain by yourself or you’re pushing the away so you don’t have to deal with them. With that said this could be adding to the nausea along with the lack of of nutrition you’re experiencing. I know when I was having nausea from my gastric sleeve surgery which was on 11/01 I was afraid to drink anything except my water. When I explained this to my doctor, he said my nausea was due to lack of protein and calorie intake. Even though it was difficult I had to push myself to drink my protein drinks. I have the Boost Glucose Control MAX 30g of protein. My doctor and nutritionist require me to get 64 to 80 grams of protein per day.

I’m sorry but this negativity is so off putting to your success. You need to do the work and surgery is only ever a TOOL. You should not be assuming it’ll magically work for you but also this should have been explicitly told to you by your care team prior to surgery. I haven’t gotten my surgery yet but I’ve already had every care practitioner emphasize that it’s a tool and I have to actually work for results. The way it’s different than just calorie restriction/exercise is that the surgery limits the amount you can eat and it also removes the part of the stomach that has the hunger hormones. This makes it actually possible to calorie restrict and exercise without the ability to binge or feel super hungry. If someone tried to do 800 calories a day without surgery they would feel like they are completely starving. Listen to your doctor. Seek a therapist. This is a safe space but also the negativity in your comments has been awful. You need to work on yourself and how you treat others too. Healing and weight loss are best friends, it takes a LOT of work.

You may be one of the unlucky ones whose hunger doesn't go away with surgery. And I will say that your surgeon's idea that you must stay on 800 cal a day to lose weight flies in the face of scienc. Stand back, I'm going to use MATH! If you were maintaining your (heavy) weight by eating, say, 3500 calories a day, then that's your maintenance for that weight. So now, if you are eating 800 calories, you are in a deficit of 2700 calories a day, which means you'd lose three quarters of a pound per day on average. If you're eating 1200 calories, you're in a deficit of 2300 calories a day, which means you'd lose two thirds of a pound per day on average. Yes, different macros (protein, carbs, fat, alcohol) do work differently in your body, but ultimately your body is bound, like everyone's, to the calories in-calories out equation. I suspect what happened to you is twofold: 1. You're in a lengthy stall (search up "three-week stall", it happens to almost all of us, it's incredibly frustrating, it's not always at 3 weeks, and it can last a month for some people). It's because your body has depleted its glycogen and is probably somewhat dehydrated (it's hard to drink enough right after surgery), and your fluid balance is adjusting itself. 2. You're frustrated and not tracking what you eat. Unfortunately, this is something that has to be done. You can't fix your diet if you don't know what your diet is. And that means, at least for me, pre-prepping meals and weighing things out. I just pop a tray in the microwave a few times a day and have it all specced out. I use MyMacros+ for tracking. One of the big culprits is cooking oil/fat. How many people measure the oil they put in a pan to cook their, say, chicken breast? Nobody except bariatric patients—everyone else just sploops some oil in a pan until it looks right. I actually have a bar jigger on the counter so I can measure in 1/2 ounces and full ounces. Track your food. Literally track your food. If you find you're not losing weight on 800 cal a day, spend a week eating 1000 cal a day to see if it'll shock your system. I am at about 1400-1500 cal a day a little short of three months post-op, because I work physical work and am very active (gym, running, hiking, etc.) and need the calories to be able to function. But I still track each and every day. The surgery isn't bullshit. If it were possible to just severely restrict calories without it, nobody would get the surgery. But there are thousands of people here, myself included, who found success with the surgery that wouldn't have been possible without it.

So did I, and i turned out just fine. I too was often lightheaded the first little bit, and went through a period of food aversion. From month 3 to 7, weight loss sowed down to roughly 10lbs a month (i was eating more, as well as getting smaller, reducing my need for calories) Lost another 10+ lbs after goal and been sitting there more or less ever since. Im 3 yrs out. I assume you have shared your lack of energy and other concerns with your doc and nut? And that your labs have come back with uneventful results? Unless your team is worried, probably no need for you to either. Good Luck! ❤️

On Black Friday, I bought a Ninja Creami for my family. The Creami allows you to make your own ice cream pints. You make your liquid mix, place in it one of their plastic pints and freeze it for at least 24 hours. You put the pint in the machine, spin it for a few cycles and you get ice cream. Here is why it is great for bariatric patients: you can make delicious, high protein, low sugar ice cream. Not an exaggeration. For my first ice cream, I mixed a 16 oz Premier Protein 30g chocolate shake, a packet of Chocolate Toffee keto chow, 1 tsp of MCT oil and 4 tbs of 2% milk. I had to put that mixture into a blender to get it all mixed because it was pretty thick. But then I poured it into a plastic pint and froze it. When it was done, it tasted just like a creamy chocolate ice cream and had the following nutritional profile (per MyFitnessPal) 356 calories 9.2g of fat 5.5g of net carbs 4.4g of sugar 57.7g of protein 109% of my calcium 34% of my iron 2,135mg of potassium 27.5% of Vitamin A 26% of Vitamin C (By way of comparison, a pint of Blue Bell vanilla has 640 calories, 32g of fat, 68g of sugar and 16g of protein). The Creami is not cheap (Normally $170, bought it for $125 on Black Friday). But if you can afford it and you like ice cream, I highly recommend it. You can use protein shakes, protein powders, Greek yogurt and a ton of other bariatric-friendly ingredients to make something that tastes like ice cream that you can eat guilt free.

To break a stall you may have to heat MORE. It's counter-intuitive, but your metabolism may have gone into "starvation mode" hanging on to as much as possible. You may still lose inches during a stall and your body will eventually catch up. To speed up the process, try increasing your daily calorie consumption to 1000-1200 for a couple of weeks and see what happens.