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You know I think everyone heals different. I was fine th first 24hours after surgery it was when I tried to eat yogurt that I got really sick and started hurting so bad! My third day was the absolute worse I remember telling my husband I did not think it was worth it! But 38lbs later I feel completely different about that statement. There are so many trials and triumph's I think my husband put it best last night....It took you how long to put on the weight and you've lost 38lbs since Dec thats not bad. I was soar after my second fill too where the first was fine. Others have said they were not soar at all! Keep your head held high. Its a journey with many different roads ahead!

I am a year out and this is the way I eat steak and chicken. For the most part, I don't cook, cause I live alone. So at home I drink a lot of Protein shakes,lunch meat, Protein Bars, greek yogurt, chicken or egg salad, and these are all soft foods. Dense foods like chicken or steak are things I eat when going out to dinner. Yes, I chew it up until it's just a mushy liquid in my mouth. If I don't,it's going to come back up.

What do you add to your chicken and tuna salads? I thought of adding sour creme? or maybe unflavored yogurt, then again the low fat mayo would probably be more to my liking. Do you add veggies to it..like onion, pickles, eggs?

I'm a little over a year out from my surgery and find I'm usually tight in the morning so this is my "Breakfast smoothie": 3 oz of pineapple juice 3 oz of milk 1 vanilla low-fat yogurt (I use Activia) 1/2 frozen banana 2-3 frozen strawberries (8 blueberries or so if I have them on hand) 1 scoop whey isolate Protein powder - vanilla I just mix it in my blender and it's great. It is about 280 calories and 28 grams of protein. That is pretty much my fruit and dairy for the day. For lunch and dinner I concentrate on getting in the remainder of my protein and try to get a little veggie in. HTH!

I know the feeling. Im on day 6 today and am eating my first yogurt. I have a 4 ounce cup thats probably going to be on my desk all day. Trying to figure out what the full feeling is. Still sore from surgery so cant really tell what is pain and what is full. I just started protein shakes yesterday. Havent really been hungry but do have an empty stomach sensation. When will my stomach feel normal?

I have a new blender! It has a food processor canister, a masher for making thicker style mashed potatoes and veggies and an immersion blender for smoothies. But today i used Davinci Sugar Free English Toffee syrup in my OptiFast shake. It was sooooo delicious!!!! I have been using their syrups for years now. I can make sugar free protein ice cream and flavorful smoothies and flavored plain yogurt. I have all kinds of flavors, mint, dulce de leche, english toffee, french vanilla, orange, raspberry, pancake syrup and just pain sweetener. I buy them from netrition.com go check them out and buy a few. Well it is getting closer to surgery day and the excitement is building by the second.

I am in Bandster Hell also!!! What a crazy process this is!!! I feel full all the time no hunger pains but I feel like I am going to starve and get dehydrated. I feel exhausted by 5pm! How can a human live on under 500/day for over a week. Diet prescribed by my surgeon: 5-7 days liquid diet (water and whey protien drinks only) 5-7 days soft food diet (low fat refried Beans, pudding, Jello, yogurt, and cottage cheese). Solid diet after that Thank God Bandster Hell is not permanant

I'm 4 weeks out so I'm no expert but I'm also not a big/good cook. I've cooked twice since post-op. I started puree/soft foods 2 weeks ago and this is what I do... For breakfast and/or lunch, I eat yogurt or have a protein shake. My nutritionist said I can have turkey bacon so sometimes I throw some in the microwave and have that. For dinner: I've been eating canned salmon (not big on tuna) and canned chicken. They last a pretty long time and there are some really simple recipes for them. I don't consider that cooking because mostly I saute them with frozen onion and peppers, season it and I'm done in 10 mins. If I want more flair, I'll add a small amount of teriyaki sauce or oriental sauce. As far as fast food, I've also had rotisserie chicken from the Peruvian restaurant by my house. It went down better than the canned meat! Right now for the most part I just eat meat so it's pretty easy to track. I have a digital scale and I just measure out 3-4 oz. The 2 meals I cooked were 2 different types of chili. Both of which only had like 5 ingredients. I had leftovers for a few days. I haven't been to a restaurant yet but I like all the advice that BigSue gave on this. I'll def keep them in mind!

SouthBeach Diet Tips and Guides The SouthBeach Diet is different from the Atkins diet in that it is not a low carbohydrate diet. Regardless of which phase you are currently in, you should follow these recommendations: Drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water, decaffeinated beverages such as club soda, tea, coffee, or decaffeinated sugar-free soda every day Limit your intake of caffeine-containing beverages to 1 cup each day Take one multivitamin and mineral supplement daily Take 500 mg of calcium for both men and women under the age of 50, and 1,000 mg for women over the age of 50, each day Eating can be both pleasurable and healthy as long as you eat the proper foods. All the meals in the SouthBeach Diet consist of healthy combinations of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Dishes can be made by anyone and the ingredients can be found in most grocery stores. These foods will satisfy your hunger without depriving your system of the low-quality starches and sugars that caused problems with your blood chemistry in the first place. The SouthBeach Diet does not involve counting calories, fat grams, or portion sizes. This plan was designed to be simplistic and will help you understand the principles of metabolism and put it to work for your own body. A major key to success with the South Beach Diet is the Glycemic index (GI), which ranks carbohydrate foods based on the effect on blood sugar levels. When you start adding foods back into your diet in Phase 2, keep your focus on low-GI foods such as apples, berries, grapefruit, high-fiber cereal, and whole grain breads. Preparing For The Rest Of Your Life Mindset Change for South Beach Diet You have learned what the South Beach Diet is, how it works, and what to eat. Now, you need to get prepared to change the way you eat, for life. Start by accepting that the first couple of weeks will be a big change but one you will not regret. The first morning of this diet, you will eat a breakfast that may consist of a two-egg omelet with two slices of Canadian bacon, cooked in either spray canola or olive oil. In your old life, you may have toasted bread or a bagel and had fresh fruit or fruit juice to go along with your omelet. However, with the South Beach Diet, the bread will have to wait. Most people have been conditioned their entire life to add bread to meals. You have toast with breakfast, sandwiches on bread for lunch, dinner rolls with dinner, and cake, cookies, or pie for dessert. However, during Phase 1, you will have to forget about the bread. It may take a few days to leave old habits behind but keep in mind that it is during this time that your body’s inability to process sugars and starches is being reversed. After trying numerous diets, most leave you feeling hungry, is one of the most difficult aspects of any diet. A common denominator seen with overweight people is that most of them skip eating breakfast. When this happens, blood sugar drops, which then increases the desire for bad carbohydrates to escalate until lunch when the entire meal is blown. Planning for South Beach Diet Planning will help you stay away from snacking or substituting things that are not healthy and could cause weight gain. Remember that once you start into Phase 2, carbohydrates will start being introduced back into your diet along with fruits. You also need to remember to eat your mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, even if you do not feel like it. Some of the greatest low-fats foods to incorporate into your planning include cheese and yogurt to replace the fats since they have no bad carbohydrates. In addition, the sugar is found in the lactose, milk sugar, is one of the things you can have with the South Beach Diet. The South Beach Diet is a lifetime change, lifetime commitment, and a lifetime of health and vitality! How Does The South Beach Diet Work? As mentioned, the South Beach Diet is unique, successful, easy, and works in a three-phase process. Unlike many other so-called diets, with the South Beach Diet, simply substitutes your bad carbohydrates and fats for good ones. After trying this, you will be amazed by how well and quickly it works. South Beach Diet Phase 1 South Beach Diet Phase 1 lasts for two weeks. During this first phase, you will eat normal meals of chicken, beef, turkey, fish, and shellfish, lots of vegetables, eggs, cheese, nuts, and garden salads using 100% olive oil for your salad dressing. Each day for 14 days, you will eat three, well-balanced meals. While eating until your hunger is satisfied may go against most diets, with the South Beach Diet, it is part of the plan. Trying to lose weight and become healthy by depriving the body of food makes no sense. In addition to the three meals each day, you will also eat a snack between breakfast and lunch, and then again between lunch and dinner. Even if you do not feel like eating these snacks, for the South Beach Diet to work, you need to, and after dinner, you will even have dessert. Additionally, during this phase, you can drink all the coffee and tea you want and be sure to drink lots of water. You may be thinking that this is a lot of food - it is! With most diets, you deprive your body, eating only small portions of foods that are unappealing. The change you will make during this phase is that you will cut out all bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, fruit, candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, or sugar. Keep in mind that these eliminated foods will be added back into your diet, starting in Phase 2. In addition to taking these foods out of your diet temporarily, you will also need to avoid beer, or any kind of alcohol. Once you start Phase 2, reasonable amounts of wine can be added back in. Instead of feeling overwhelmed about the foods that will be taken out of your diet during the first two weeks, stop and think about this for a minute. To achieve a life of health and lose unwanted weight, two weeks is a small investment to make. After all, you are worth it! The first two or three days will be somewhat challenging, but breaking any bad habit starts out a little bumpy. Once you pass this small hurdle, the rest of the time will go by quicker than you think. When you see the results that these changes bring, you will be glad you did not give up!

ACK... my mouth is still on fire. I've had four doses of the prescrip stuff so hopefully it will be better by this afternoon. Back at work today and will probably leave this afternoon when I start to get tired. I can tell the swelling is starting to go down now cause I'm hungry more often. I had 3 ounces of chicken breast this a.m. then a 15 g protein shake around 9 and then a sf jello a few minutes ago. I forgot to bring my chicken to work so I'll do another drink I guess for lunch plus I brought some kefir probiotic yogurt smoothie stuff too. My mouth is so friggin' tender that just about anything I eat or drink hurts... i think I'm ssssin' my words too. Tongue feel swollen. Soreness is SLOWLY but surely diminishing each day. I feel like I've been in a wreck every a.m. when I wake up and try to get out of bed. I haven't had any ibuprophen yet today but may break down and take some here in a few minutes. Surgeon and other fellow bansdters say I should start feeling about normal around Friday. Considering I am one week to the day today from the operation I'm doing GREAT. Driving myself to work and everything.

Congrats on your fill and results! I am nervous about my first one coming up, although I dont think I need one yet. My Dr. told me it was a snug fit and I think he was right, I cant eat even 1/2 yogurt without feel to full. I had surgey 10 days ago and have already lost 10 lbs, total of 20 since starting the preop diet. Im missing a few thousand calories! I hope I cont. to be successfull

Hi guys - Did anyone else ever just get an old fashioned stomachache out of the blue after surgery? I will be 3 weeks out on Friday and have only had yogurt and pureed cottage cheese so far along with my broths and jell-o, etc. So I don't think it can be something I ate, as those things have gone down fine. It's a weird, achey, ugly sensation in my belly and it's making me so nervous. I don't want to eat anything, it just feels gross. I've been sipping Water and took a chewable Tylenol, which has been taking care of any discomfort, but not this. I hate this, has anyone else had it?? I've been feeling so normal until now!

I will have to look into other yogurts, maybe that will help. Right now Im living on gogurts and Yoplait light. I keep wanting to try egg/tuna/chicken salad but trying to get past the making it part, I know it sounds stupid but looking at stuff makes me nauseas, of course I refuse to breathe through my nose when near food now too lol. Don't make it, go to the deli and buy some. This is probably only temporary until you get to feeling more normal so treat yourself to some deli made egg/tuna/chicken salads. Or ask a friend to pick some up for you if you can't stand the smell of the deli. Good luck, hope it gets better soon.

Congrats on moving up! Rule is protein first, veggies, etc. if you have room. And this early, they're really not worried about the quantities of stuff, they just want your stomach to get used to the new textures to see if you can handle them. Most of your nourishment should still be coming from liquids/yogurt, etc.

Update on Whole Foods Plant Based diet. I continue to lose weight - I think 3 pounds in the past couple of weeks. I am not yet 100% plant based (still using some Greek yogurt, whey protein, and occasional egg in chaffles), but 90 % plant based. This means a lot more legumes, nuts, seeds and whole cooked grains. I am getting plenty of protein - no issues with that. A lot more carbs, which is so counter intuitive with weight loss, but it is still coming off. This morning before my bike ride I had a bowl of Old Fashioned oats, cooked with quinoa, teff, and amaranth. Added some hemp hearts, flaxseed meal, and barrel cactus seeds (like chia). Sweetened with raisins, and a little banana, with soy milk. Very yummy and filling. I ate this 2 hours before my ride. For lunch I had split pea/lentil soup with carrots, celery, onions. Also some fruit (cantalope and berries.) I added half a scoop of pea protein to the soup. Also had a spoon of peanut butter after my ride. Dinner will be a "Budda" bowl with shredded Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, romaine, spinach, cucumber, tomato, avacado. Cashew nut/nutritional yeast "cheese" mixed with apple cider vinegar for a dressing. Topped with slivered almonds, hazel nuts, dried edamame, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, barrel cactus seeds, and hazel nuts. Cooked beans, butternut squash, and cooked buckwheat on the side. If I have room, I will steam some squash and beans from the garden, along with some broccoli. I may also have a couple mini corn tortillas with refried beans and salsa. Evening snack is soy (or Greek) yogurt with mixed berries, mandarin orange, slivered almonds, and homemade granola. Sometimes I have a square of 80% cacao chocolate. I eat about 2 pounds of vegetables/fruit per day (mostly veggies). Legumes every day, seeds/nuts every day, whole grains every day. I am completely full all the time - never hungry. With prepped veggies always in the fridge, there is always something to grab if I feel the need for a munchie. I feel good - mentally alert, physically strong, sleeping well (better, in fact). I don't feel as "heavy" inside as when I was eating more meat. However, I do have to be careful for bloating and smelly gas. I found this to be a problem with raw broccoli and beans that I cooked without draining the soaking water. Even Beano did not help. Canned beans do not do this. It can be a problem with bypass patients, as our gut biome changes, and it is harder to digest and break down those particular foods. I just have to cook the broccoli and be careful with the home cooked beans. So far, so good. My fear about inadequate protein is completely dismissed. I am getting so much good nutrition and I hope inflammatory markers will be way down with my next lab draw in Feb.

cottage cheese or greek yogurt...shortly you can add Kashi go lean cereal with milk... the cereal has 14 gms of protein +whats in the milk, and tastes good! I also bake things with Bobs Red Mill low carb baking mix... I had chocolate donuts with almond butter for breakfast today...Check eggface for great low carb high protein baked recipes.

I liked Anderson Split Pea. It has 9 grams of Protein per cup. I could eat about 1/2 cup max early on. Can you have greek yogurt? I like Fage 0 Plain with some Splenda. Lynda

*waves* Hi, y'all. Long time no see Let me share my current experience with this. On Tuesday, I got a fill - from 1.75 to 2.5. I felt immediate restriction - all good - happy happy. Tuesday night I had Soup for dinner, slept like a baby. Wednesday, I had my Protein bar for Breakfast (not my brightest moment), yogurt for lunch and instant potatoes for dinner. I was still a little hungry after dinner, so I had a graham cracker, and my Water. I was up off and on Wednesday night with horrible reflux. Thursday, I had a Protein shake for breakfast, yogurt for lunch and really really runny instant potatoes for dinner. Had my water. Had a snackwell's chocolate cookie (ugh). Up most of the night with reflux. Still have it this morning. Now, I came to the board to read a bit because I'm thinking - this is too tight, not good. Then I realized...my period is due tomorrow. And when I have good restriction, I am always tighter a few days before and a few days into my cycle. And it's not just my stomach, I can feel it all over in my midsection, which says to me - you're bloated, Jill, get over it~ So I'm not panicing (thank you), but I am back on straight liquids, and I'll go get some Prilosec before I go home tonight. If this hasn't cleared up by mid week, I'll go get a partial unfill. Til then, I'm babying the band.

Thank you, and you are right my friend is truly my best friend and has been for many, many years. She is having trouble getting her Protein in during her working hours, so starting Monday I will start packing her lunches. I hope to come up with (with the help of this site and "EggFace" some creative protein packed lunches. It will give me a purpose .I am feeling short of feeling useful right now. I did try my first greek yogurt today. My new sleeve winced a bit, but was it ever good!!! Please, everyone, keep in touch. Valentina

Hello I was wondering if the Oikos triple zero Greek yogurts are ok for the 1 Week post op liquid diet ?? Sent from my SM-G935T using BariatricPal mobile app

I usually have one of the following: 3/4 cup of Kashi with almond and flax or yogurt or Protein bar or Protein shake. (all with a cup of decaf) My NUT says to eat high Fiber for breakfast and high protein for lunch and dinner. I have found this works for me and don't follow a crazy no carb rule for breakfast. The most type of carb I eat is a pita shell. Hope this helps:) Nina

Welcome to the forums! Congratulations on making the decision and getting your date! That is awesome! Every surgeon is different in their requirements for food plans. Follow the directions that your surgeon gives you as they know what is best for their practice. When I was on my pre-op diet, I could have Protein shakes as well as "real food" items like salads. That made it more bearable. A full liquid only diet would consist of clear fluids - Water, crystal light, Isopure, broth, sugar free jello; as well as liquids that would fit through a straw - milk, yogurt, Protein Shakes, pureed Soups, etc.

Definetly will try this. I haed greek yogurt in the beginning, but have really grown to love it. So many thing you can do with it.

Hummus, ricotta cheese can be dressed up savory or sweet. liquid Protein can be mixed in with herbal teas. I like cottage cheese with fruit. You can blend them if the curds are too large for you. There are puddings and Gelatin you can buy online from places like Amazon or Bariatric Choice. Can you have eggs? Soft scrambled eggs are good. I mix a tsp of greek yogurt and a bit of shredded cheese and keep stirring until they are done.

Hey i am 4weeks post op on Monday, if you can't keep up with protein don't worry as long you drinking enough fluids ideally with electrolytes as I think that's why you feel weak because of dehydration. Get electrolyte powder and add to ur water with water flavouring or squash, drink apple juice and any juices you like, have yogurts and make urself some meat/poultry broths and have about 3oz of that at each sitting ideally aim for 5meals aday and you will be okay. Sent from my VOG-L29 using BariatricPal mobile app