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If you don't already have some bariatric cookbooks, I can highly recommend these three of the several I bought: Bariatric Meal Prep Made Easy by Kristin Willard The Bariatric Diet Guide and Cookbook by Dr. Matthew Weiner The Easy 5 Ingredient Bariatric Cookbook by Megan Wolf All three have sound nutritional advice as they are written by bariatric experts, as well as some really nice recipes. They talk about portion sizes and what to aim for nutritionally as you go through the honeymoon period and into maintenance, and even give you different portions for different phases. None of the books give specific calorie goals, but that's rather standard with many programs. The focus is often for you to discover what works for you and not get sucked into a dieting mindset by counting everything so closely you drive yourself crazy. But the basics are generally to fill one half of your (small, child or luncheon sized) plate with a 3-4oz portion of lean protein and no more than a 1/2 cup serving of starch/grain, and the other half with non-starchy veg. Consume 60-80g protein. Drink at least 64 oz water. (Apologies for not having the metric measurements). Using a small plate is a really great visual cue. Check out the Portion Perfection plates, which are 8-inch melamine and printed with exactly how much of each food goes where. If you need to retrain yourself, this is an easy tool to use. They have bowls, too. (All the books and the plates can be found on Amazon in the US). Going back to liquids is extreme. I would think it would be sufficient to go back to three meals per day as described above, and either no snacks or only fruit and veg or a protein shake as a snack if truly hungry, and make sure you weigh your portions and get all your water in every day. The other thing is to look for processed foods that have crept back into your diet and get them out of your house. You can't be tempted by what isn't there. Good luck to you!

2oz is equivalent to 1/4 cup of purée. My plan was 1/4 - 1/3 cup (2-3ozs), three times a day from purée so pretty much like your plan. Honestly I couldn’t eat any more than that but I was a no hunger & no appetite person. Sometime around purées I added a high protein yoghurt or yoghurt drink as a snack to boost my protein intake. But check with your dietician, maybe you can add a high protein yoghurt as a snack too. If you are experiencing real hunger. Never hurts to ask.

Like others above, check with your team. I was to aim for 20 macros of protein for each of three meals. I couldn’t do it but that was the goal. I ended up 20 for breakfast, 10 lunch, 10 around 3pm, 10 around 5ish, and 10 in the evening one hour before bed. In my efforts to curb nighttime snacking habits, I started then (and still maintain now) 50% or more of my daily food should be consumed by lunchtime. It makes me go to sleep earlier and wake up refreshed, and mostly banished the nighttime munchies. Obviously this won’t work for everyone. I was never a morning person, nor a breakfast eater before surgery. You’re doing great, keep up the good work!

The PPI won’t cause hunger. It reduces the acid in your tummy. You’re ahead of the game if you can differentiate between head & real hunger. Yay! Those distraction activities will help when you are experiencing head hunger. If you feel hungry after you’ve eaten, that’s head hunger too. Try a warm drink instead of a shake. They’re a meal replacement not a snack. Many are advised to wait at least three or four hours between eating & only three meals a day & maybe a snack. I still have times I can feel liquids go down. It’s a bit weird at first but now it’s just one of those things like my vey noisy, rumbling, grumbling tummy. Your experience last night sounds like late stage dumping not the foamies. The foamies (frothy, thick saliva & bringing up what you ate that was stuck or too coarse or too much) occurs pretty soon after you’ve eaten the offending food. Dumping symptoms can include chills, weakness, light headedness, nausea, bloating, heart palpitations & vomiting &/or diarrhoea. Dumping usually occurs if you eat foods that are too fatty, have too much sugar. Even dairy can cause it. It occurs when these foods go through your tummy to your intestines very quickly (dumps through your system). About 40% of bypass patients can experience dumping. Once you work out what causes yours, you can avoid those foods. Some say in time they work out how much of those foods they can eat without experiencing dumping. Worth a conversation with your team to diagnose & management.

Day 5 out of 14 on the pre-op diet and I've settled into somewhat of a routine. I do a Bariatric Fusion cappuccino shake at breakfast with a 20 oz decaf tea that has 1/2 cup Fairlife milk and a scoop of collagen in it. Oikos triple zero yogurt for a mid-morning snack. Bariatric Fusion chicken soup shake for lunch. Jello for snack. 2 scoops Syntrax Nectar unflavored powder in one cup of Pacific Foods tomato basil soup for dinner. Jello for dessert. Sometimes a Good Night protein hot cocoa before bed if I'm hungry. I also take my chewable Celebrate One 45 vitamin, 3 celebrate calcium chews, 2 scoops of Benefiber, Vitagut liquid probiotic, and a liquid omega 3. Believe it or not, all of those supplements add 160 calories and 14g carb to my day! I also drink three 32oz waters with a sugar free flavor packet in each. Total average daily macros: 850 calories, 105g protein, 11g fat, 50g carb Weight loss so far: 7lbs

I took three weeks off (desk job) but could have gone back after two. I was pretty tired the first few weeks after surgery, though...

Three bits of advice if you can manage it: 1. Curbside pickup for groceries 2. Takeout instead of eating in for your restaurant meals 3. Hotel close to your hospital for the night before if poor weather is at all a possibility. For many reasons, my mom and I are staying in a hotel the night before my surgery, and Mom will stay the next night while I'm in the hospital. Traffic, early call time for surgery, snow. I live about an hour from the hospital and there is a nice Courtyard Marriott about 1 mile from the hospital on a very busy road that is sure to get plowed 24/7. Plus my mom hates night driving, especially to and from areas she doesn't know well, and she wanted to be sure she could come see me in recovery and feel safe driving by herself.

Yes, fish is good especially soft flaky fish. Try poaching them in a broth flavoured with various herbs. Yum! I made a lot of mince meat dishes. Actually I probably only made two or three because I had enough for a week’s worth of meals of each dish 😁. Put single portions in zip lock bags & froze them. Easy to take to work for lunch too. Made meat balls/rissoles, bolognese meat sauce, savoury mince. Ate soft runny scrambled eggs, milky instant rolled oats (transitioned to traditional low processed oats after a couple of months), omelettes, slow cooked stews/casseroles, etc.

It was a while ago now but I remember I still wasn’t hitting my protein goal. I wanted to do real food only too & plus I found the shakes disgusting & never touched one after liquids. For breakfast I scrambled eggs with extra milk & took three days to eat them or ate rolled oats again made totally on milk & took three days to eat a serve. Lunch & dinner were often just protein (maybe 2 ozs) & nothing else or with just a green bean or two or a small cauliflower floret with dinner. And yes I’d take a while to eat that - 45 mins +/-. After a week or two on soft food I added a high protein yoghurt or yoghurt drink as an afternoon snack to burst my protein. I wasn’t hungry or really interested in eating. I simply couldn’t eat more than I was but I was following my surgeon’s portion size recommendation of 1/4 - 1/3 cup from purée slowly increasing to a cup by 6 months If you are worried by getting your protein in try protein water. You’ll get about 16oz liquid, 15g protein & about 70 calories. So fewer calories (if you count calories) than a shake (which is really a meal) but not as many nutrients. Just watch those with added sugar or sugar substitutes or artificial sweeteners.

I don't know if this helps, but when I saw the nutritionist last week for my last pre-op appointment, she suggested choosing three regularly spaced meal times, 4 to 6 hours apart. I've decided on 8:30, 1:30, and 6:30 because it works best with my daily work schedule. She said to eat what I could of "real" food at the mealtimes, but not to let myself keep eating beyond 30-40 minutes. My goal is 20-25g protein at the meal, but let's say I managed to eat 10g for breakfast. In that case, I would want to supplement 10-15g of protein shake at 11am (halfway between breakfast and lunch). If I managed to eat 20g of protein at lunch, then I could skip the supplement between lunch and dinner. But if I only got 5g protein at dinner, I should supplement with 15-20g of protein shake a couple hours after dinner. That way you're trying real food first, but not letting yourself get behind as the day goes on. She said it would take quite some time to ween off protein supplements completely and that was fine. Eventually, she wants me to be at 3 meals and no snacks with 60-80g protein per day. If you don't want to rely on protein shakes but you find you can easily eat something like a Greek yogurt in between meals, you could do that instead. But basically it's just going to take time, and even after you are at a point that you can usually get all 20-25g of protein in a meal, there still may be some days where you can't and you need a supplement.

I try not to reply to these threads before other folks because my experience is nearly two decades past and my personal experience was anything but normal. But here we are. I lost a bit more than 500 pounds so yeah, I had a little extra skin. I had initially planned for abdominoplasty and thigh-plasty whatever it's Latin name was. Others I would then ponder later. I say initially because after the abdominoplasty I hemorrhaged and died briefly when they ripped me open to fix the problem. I was supposed to end up with a virtually invisible scar, but that ship sailed when they had to open me back up. Once I woke again my recovery followed a pretty normal trajectory for the time: 15 pounds of skin removed and lots and lots of pain. Lots and lots of pain wasn't unexpected as everything I read beforehand indicated such would be the case. And yet the reality of it was a bit overwhelming. After about three weeks, as I recall, everything became manageable and life began returning to normal. I'm not sure how much the methods and pain have changed, I'll leave that to others. I honestly can't see how my experience or recovery would have been different from a woman's experience and I certainly didn't ignore anyone's experience in my research. I lived in Las Vegas, NV at the time I had surgery, but there wasn't anyone in town that was able or willing to do my surgery, so I ended up having it done at UCLA Medical Center in Southern California. So, I can't really name surgeon's that might help you. Good luck, Tek

I agree with @ChunkCat. And also add, yes it is difficult to hit those protein goals as you move through the first stages & you’re eating so little. On purées (cause I couldn’t stand to continue on the shakes) I ate a high protein yoghurt to boost my daily protein intake. (You can make it into a drink by blending with milk which also gives you additional protein). Don’t worry too much if you’re not hitting your protein goal every day in this time. As long as you’re close to it & getting closer you’ll be okay. It’s one of those things that gets easier as you progress. It’s likely you’ll lose some hair from around three months regardless of whether you reach your protein goals from the beginning or not. It’s your body reacting to the stress of the surgery, anaesthetic, hormonal fluctuations, etc. And it’s just an acceleration of your usual hair loss cycle. It lasts about three months. And your new hair is still growing at the same time you’re shedding just at its usual rate. It’s quite common after many major surgeries, periods of stress, child birth, menopause, etc.

OK so I could eat most of that in one sitting these days! There's no way I could stop when you did, but I'd have a break of a few hours (3 approx) before having to eat again. How long after those three bites of the sandwich and few forkfuls of the greens did you need to eat again OP??

This is terrible. What sort of aftercare is that. Send an email directly to the surgeon if you can listing the questions you have & didn’t receive answers about or didn’t have a chance to ask because you were pushed out the door. I had good follow up which is why I’m very surprised & disappointed for you at your after care. I saw my surgeon at week 2, 1 month & then the 3rd month. A colleague then took up my follow up appointments. I saw them every three months until my third year. I still see this doctor every 6 months. I don’t know for how much longer though. I guess my next appointment at my 5 year mark will tell.

I am about to turn 57 and had my surgery almost 23 years ago. I have given birth to three children and stayed thin the whole time. I started at 250 and settled at 125 ( I’m 5’4.5” and that made me a size 0 or a 2) When I was done having my last child I settled back at 155, still wildly successful. When I entered into perimenopause, it became a fight to keep my weight off and I kept fighting. And then now through full-blown menopause two years since I’ve had menstruation, I’m almost as big as I was when I started. I’m wondering if there’s any help in this situation. Any doctors who will look at a revision I guess or make some practical suggestions. I have changed my eating, habits a dozen different ways to try and bring everything down but it’s like it was before, the weight loss is nearly impossible. I can get it down sometimes but then it comes back and it never goes down more than 30 or 40 pounds. I regularly get my hormones checked and I’m on progesterone and testosterone. My estrogen is always fine or even high. Looking for optimistic ideas. Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Three weeks from today I should be checked into the hotel with my mom and trying to get a good night's sleep before surgery! Crossing my fingers there are no further delays. The hospital is only an hour away, which would normally not be a big deal, but rush hour traffic is bad and I'm not sure how early I'll need to be there in the morning, so we decided to go the night before. My mom wanted to be able to stay and visit into the evening but doesn't like night driving, so she felt better about being in a hotel the night I'm in the hospital. Luckily, there's a Courtyard Marriott about 5 minutes from the hospital. Sadly, no hot tub

Yeah, I would just keep an eye on portion size to avoid overdoing it early on. I have a couple of favorite cookbooks out of all of the ones that I've bought (because I always overdo everything). They are: The Bariatric Diet Guide and Cookbook by Dr. Matthew Weiner (a bariatric surgeon), and Bariatric Meal Prep Made Easy by Kristin Willard (a registered dietician who specializes in bariatric nutrition). I would 100% recommend both of them and you can get them on Amazon. I like Dr. Weiner's book because he gives you what serving size to expect at different stages post-op. For instance, there's a chickpea curry with riced cauliflower. If you're at 1-3 months post op, your suggested serving is 2 tbsp curry and 2 tbsp cauli (which is 1/4 cup total). If you are 3 months to 2 years, it's 1/4 cup of each. If you are 2 years or more, it's 1 cup curry and 1/2 cup cauli. What I like is that it normalizes the reality that you start with really small portions and naturally eat more over time. I see so many people getting so nervous because they are hungrier at 1 year than they were at 1 month, and it's like yes, that's what is supposed to happen! I wish this book had the nutrition facts spelled out for all three portion sizes, not just the largest, because my math sucks with fraction. And I wish it had more photos, although the ones it does have are very nice and the overall quality of the book is high. What I like about Kristin Willard's book is it gives you 6 full-week meal plans and is meant for doing prep ahead, grab-and- go types of meals that you portion out in advance. Also, it is gorgeously illustrated with full-color photos for every single recipe. There is one weekly menu for purees, one for soft foods, and 4 for normal diet. They even include a shopping list for each weekly plan. In my opinion, (comparing to my surgeon's plan and what I see in Dr. Weiner's book) the suggested portion sizes are geared toward a patient who is 1-2 years post-op, so bear that in mind. You would probably get twice as many servings out of each recipe in the first year, and up to 4x the servings in the first few months. And of course both books are likely to have specific foods at a stage that your own program disagrees with, so you have to adjust accordingly. I'm also going to give an honorable mention to The Easy 5-ingredient Bariatric Cookbook by Megan Wolf, a registered dietician and bariatric specialist. The book loses marks for the lack of photos but gains marks for its stage specific portion size suggestions and for all the recipes being really easy to pull-off without buying out your entire supermarket for ingredients. The author is based in Manhattan, and these are definitely recipes you could accomplish with a tiny NYC kitchen and limited cooking skills. Honestly, if I had a friend going through WLS, I would probably give all three of these as a gift, along with a set of small (4 oz and 8-12oz) freezer safe food storage containers. Hope that helps!

Three days into a two week liquid diet before surgery on Feb. 7th. So far it hasn't been as tough as I thought it would be. Trying to stay busy to pass time faster.

Instead of snacking as you’re driving, try stopping & having a proper meal - salad, soup, grilled/steamed fish, etc. At three moths you'll have a few more options. Even picking up some yoghurt or pack some protein shakes & have them in a park. It may take you a bit longer to get where you’re going but it should reduce your desire to mindlessly snack in the car. Remember that’s just head hunger - eating out of boredom as you sit in the car. Travel safely.

They pump you with a lot of fluids after the surgery so you’re probably still peeing that out. When I had my gall out the pumped me with so much fluid I gained a good 2 kgs. Thankfully I’d lost it two or three days later once I’d peed it all out.

Okay - I have a one month update! This has been a difficult month! I had my surgeries on December 15, 2023, and I got a tummy tuck with fleur-de-lys, 360 liposuction, Brazilian butt lift, breast lift / reduction with implants, and arm lift for both arms. It was a lot! I spent the first week recovering in Tijuana in the recovery house, and then flew home to Seattle on Dec. 21. I had two drains, one on either side on my groin area. The plane ride introduced the first main issue I had. The left-side drain got yanked in transit and by the time I got home it had come out. The right-side drain wasn't far behind it; it had come so far out that I accidentally tripped on it on 12/22 and that one came out as well. Now I was drainless but still had a TON of excess fluid with no easy place to drain from. So, all that excess fluid escaped out of the easiest places possible - basically all my nicely sewn up tummy along my fleur-de-lys stitches! I went to the ER; I was so scared that first night - I thought any small movement, my belly was gonna split open and spill my intestines on the ER floor, and of course I also had a cough and every coughing fit made me very scared. The ER doctor dressed my wounds that had opened up and reassured me that my belly wasn't going to split open. The next business day, I scheduled an appointment with a plastic surgeon and wound care in my doctor's office. Basically, my wounds were: Left breast: two large wounds along the vertical incision line; one wound at the T-junction under my breast (this one becomes important later) Abdomen: an 1-inch-long split along the fleur-de-lys line above my belly button; split near the bottom of my belly button Lower abdomen: 2-inch long by 2-inch wide by 1-inch deep triangular hole at the T-junction where the fleur-de-lys incision meets the tummy tuck; 2-inch long seam opening along my groin / right hip Various small wounds on my arms, tummy, and hips My back healed perfectly! I met with the plastic surgeon and he recommended ways of dressing everything until I could be seen by wound care on January 5. In the meantime, I had developed an abscess behind one of my wisdom teeth and had to have them pulled. I scheduled that for January 5 also because I'm a glutton for punishment, but I opted for just laughing gas cuz I needed to be clear-headed for my wound care appointment after. Remember that T-junction left breast wound? Well, that started to open up wider and wider in the week leading up to wisdom teeth / wound care day. It was leaking a ton of fluid, and I could see something black inside the wound, which I initially thought was some form of necrosis. January 5 came, the dentist yanked my three wisdom teeth, and me and my designated driver headed over to wound care. Well, wound care was just as stumped as I was because it felt plasticky and they could shine light through it. They had never seen it before at wound care, but turns out my left implant was deciding to be an explant... and needed to be taken out. 😞Wound care patched me up great and sent me over to my plastic surgeon to discuss the implant. Because I had literally had my wisdom teeth out that day, they couldn't do the surgery to take out my implant until the following week. I was really sad and went through all the stages of grief, including bargaining, with the plastic surgeon. I asked what my options were for saving the implant and he said it looks like it has to come out. I said "Looks like, so there's a chance it can stay in?" Nope. I also asked about my options for removing the right-side implant in the same surgery so there's at least symmetry. He said that because the right-side isn't infected or splitting open, insurance won't cover the right implant removal. This was the first time I stopped crying and grinned up at him, "So I have a week to get the right side infected, yeah?" 🤣 Nope, again. The plan was to just get both breasts (and literally EVERYTHING ELSE) healed, and address the asymmetry later. I got my left implant removed on January 11. While I was under, my plastic surgeon also removed a ton of exposed stitches from my various wounds that allowed them to heal up so much faster. My implant was small, just 285 cc's, and while there is a visible difference in my boob sizes, it's not too bad for now. I'm going to decide later whether I want to re-implant the left side or explant the right. So that's my very long one-month update! It's been a crazy wild ride. Oh!!!! I also don't regret it! Other than the whole left-breast-implant-loss-thing, that is. I feel amazing in my body; in fact, I was just telling my therapist that I finally feel like I exist in my body for the first time in my whole life! They excised about 18 pounds of excess skin in all, and I am still a little swollen and losing water and wearing my stage 2 fajas. I'm so happy I had these surgeries! With as much as I had done, it went about as well as can be expected, and one loss in what like ten surgeries? I'll take those odds. 😉 ~Kukui

Were you given a diet & list of what you can & cannot drink/eat before & post surgery? If you didn’t ask for one. It’s really important to follow the plan you’re given. Surgeons can have different plans with different requirements. For example the pre surgery diet could be three protein shakes a day, or it might be 4 shakes a day. It could be two shakes & one meal of meat & vegetables (low fat, low carbs). Some even specify what brand of shakes to drink. I was on keto so lots of differences. Generally post surgery it’s protein shakes, bone broths, cream soups, consumes so protein, protein, protein. Some are allowed sugar free jello but again you should follow your surgeon’s plan. All the best.

I appreciate you responding and your suggestions. I don't know about beef jello..I have texture eating issues. Is it just like regular jello? My day goes like this: Breakfast: Coffee w/heavy cream (1 tsp), my multivitamin chew, 1 calcium chew, .5 mg taurine, 2.8 grams magnesium glutamate, 2 tsp collagen protein w/hyaluronic acid all in my coffee, 1 pro/prebiotic 3 strips turkey bacon at 30 calories each and one egg or 2 egg white egg bites with 1/2 teaspoon red pepper Lunch: 1/2 cup turkey chili w/mushrooms and teaspoon G. Hughs chili Thai dipping sauce (no sugar 5 calories 2 carbs) with 1 tablespoon Fage Greek yogurt or Atkins protein bar. Dinner: Fairlife Core Elite protein drink (42 grams) or above chili 1/2 cup or 3oz chicken breast w/broccoli florets - 2 IF I have a snack: its .5 cup fair life chocolate elite core creami protein ice cream 10+- protein grams. This is all I eat for a max of 800 calories. I lost 21lbs before surgery (started diet before surgery May 29th) and lost 50lbs since surgery on August 21 to today. I just don't understand why I've only lost 21 lbs in three months and only 3.8lbs this last month.

I would second the idea of trying warm liquids - I found it much easier to hit my fluid targets this way. Have you thought about VLCD-type soups? They are high protein (because they're intended to contain a whole day's requirement in 3 servings). Alternatively greek yoghurt/skyr or protein yoghurts? One tub of the latter has 20g protein and I could usually manage one in two or three sittings at your stage. I also quite enjoyed the pureed food phase, although there's no way I would have come anywhere close to my protein goals on the volume I could manage a month post op. There are so many things to juggle with your new stomach. The first few weeks can be difficult, and we worry about everything at the start. I think you'll relax into it and be absolutely fine. Keep trying your best and asking for advice - there are so many people here with loads of experience to share.