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Thanks for the encouragement. I have been reading a lot on here. Yes I have to do a 2 week liquid diet. So it wills tart July 3rd. That has me worried the most since I have a physically demanding job. I am not sure how I am going to make it through the day with so few calories. I am going to talk to my nutritionist about it next time we meet.

I was under the impression everyone has to do Optifast or something similar to reduce liver size prior to surgery, but maybe that is more of a Canadian requirement vs. what bariatric surgeons require in the US for patients - as I am Canadian. So yes, I was sort of expecting that whoosh of weight loss at least temporarily following the surgery. I do also think there is a little bit of hype of weight loss made by the bariatric program I was in as they do want to get paid to do the procedure ultimately. Yes, I concede that getting the surgery will help keep me on track long term, but I didn't think the weight loss would be the equivalent of the weight loss of someone who sticks to a diet and exercises everyday - the 1 or 2+ pounds a week, so maybe my expectations were off there. However I think that is a reasonable expectation nonetheless because my stomach is much smaller than a normal person - so I can't consume what a regular person would daily anyway when it comes to calories or portion size. Of course the before and after photos of many people online can be quite shocking even from 6 months to a year, so of course one hopes for similar results. Or like that actor Billy Gardell - but yes, I know he can afford chefs and other things to keep him on track. Again, I am just thinking outloud here. Maybe my entire view will change in a couple of months. I think you kind of nailed it - I was expecting a whoosh of initial weight loss. Thanks, HM

One thing you can try is tracking calories. Find a BMR calculator online and determine your current calorie requirement. Then use a calorie log for everything you eat in a day. You should be able to determine from this your daily calorie deficit. This should give you a good idea of how much weight you could possibly be losing in a week. It is going to vary depending on stalls, water weight, etc.. 3500 calories is 1 pound. So if your deficit is 500 cal per day, you would lose 1 pound a week. I’m sure it’s more than that but that’s a nice round number to see the math.

Thanks for responding. I was 425 at my biggest. I am now just under 390, but most of that weight loss was from the 4 weeks of Optifast. Not the 3 weeks now after the surgery. When it is all said and done, I am looking to be 210/220 max which is the weight I was prior to gaining the weight. I haven't been overweight all my life, but I have been for a good 10+ years now. I am an emotional eater. Eat my stress away as opposed to say drinking or smoking when it comes to other dealing with life vices. I remember one time I lost about 20 pounds in two weeks when I did the Keto diet and joined a gym. Yes, I know that much of that is water weight and that rapid weight loss wouldn't continue as well as the fact that I didn't stick with it, but these are just questions that are popping into my curious head now - will I pretty much lose the same amount of weight monthly if I just stuck to a more traditional way of losing weight. I know it is a journey and tool for long term. I guess I am thinking how am I not losing more weight from just a calories point of view of just soups and other liquids in small amounts as I am not in the solid foods yet phase. I am also just thinking outloud here and just wanted to see what other people had to say when it came to weight loss just after surgery. Thanks HM

What were you expecting to lose? If you're looking for 30+ lbs the first month, that's pretty rare unless you're the size of someone on "My 600 lb Life". For most of us "average" WLS patients, that much loss the first month is pretty unusual. Most of us lose somewhere in the 15-25 lb range. Plus most people don't lose much the first week because of the "gain" from the IV fluids you get in the hospital (which of course is just water) - and then there's the infamous "three-week stall" that many of us experience, where you can go a couple of weeks (usually 1-3) without any loss, because your body is kind of recalibrating after the surgery - so you may be experiencing that as well. you're not going to lose the weight any faster than if you ate the same thing without surgery. With the extreme calorie deficit we have the first few months out, you'd probably lose about the same regardless if you had surgery or not. The difference is, it's much more easy to sustain that deficit with the surgery. Most people probably could not go for months on end eating something like 800 calories. But with the surgery, you can. Your hunger is suppressed, your stomach is tiny, etc. The most I could ever lose before surgery was about 50-60 lbs. With this, I lost over 200, and have kept it off for eight years. No way could I have done that without the surgery.

Greetings, So I finally had my sleeve surgery 3 weeks ago and while there has been weight loss, it hasn't really been what I expected. I don't have unrealistic expectations, but I expected to lose more weight than if I just did it on my own without the surgery with little calorie intake and some activity like with doing Optifast prior. Or just eating healthy and going for a walk everyday - which I wasn't doing prior. Perhaps it takes a month to really get things going, but I am hardly really eating anything when compared to the 4,000 calories+ a day I was eating that got me this way. I do eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I am not starving myself - but I am not yet in the solid food phase yet. I have sort of reprogrammed my brain and I am not really craving the things now that made me obese. Now granted I know I JUST had the surgery and don't know how things will be 4 months from now, but I am just sort of wondering in the back of my mind if the surgery was really necessary in the sense that I maybe could have lost the same amount of weight if I finally just stuck to living a better life when it comes to food and my health. I would appreciate any feedback or advice from anyone else where weight loss started a bit slow even with having a smaller stomach now or feedback in general. Thanks! HM

I found that I needed more and more calories to be satiated as the months passed. By 6 mo post-op, I just couldn't maintain a very low calorie diet without becoming ravenously hungry. And, my weight loss progressively slowed down each month until the weight loss petered out at 9 months post-op. I reached my goal weight, losing 100% of my excess weight. I currently eat 1800-2000 calories a day and have maintained my final weight for five months so far. While my hunger has returned, it is nothing like it was pre-op. I feel very much in control of my hunger, and I find it difficult to overeat... even when I want to. And my body generally craves healthier, cleaner foods vs. the garbage fast/junk food that was the staple of my diet pre-op. I suspect the reason people regain is they increasingly indulge in slider foods... crackers, chips, cookies, etc... and start drinking their calories... sugary drinks, alcohol, ice cream and such. I think it would be very hard for me to eat enough "real" food to regain. My restriction is still very present, but it's easy to defeat it by "eating around" my sleeve.

My hunger came back gradually too into my second year. I had my first experience of real hunger at about 8 months after a busy day when I hadn’t really eaten but not again for months. I still have times when I’m not really hungry or don’t eat all my usual portion & I’m 4 years out now. Because I eat regularly throughout the day I don’t really feel HUNGRY just yep must be time for my meal/snack. Your portion sizes slowly increase as your losing until you get to a point where you are consuming the calories & nutrients your body needs to work effectively & your weight stabilises. It’s then up to you to manage your portions & calories by permanently adopting the changes & things you’ve learnt within your lifestyle (what you need & how you want to live & enjoy your life). I eventually I reached a point where I was I eating about the accepted portion size of the protein, vegetables, fruit, dairy, etc. for my meals & snacks & to get in my daily calorie needs to maintain. It’s plenty of food & I don’t need or want more. I consume about 1500 calories which is appropriate for someone my height, age, weight & activity levels. (Interestingly I consumed about 1300 when I first stabilised & though I eat more now I’ve pretty much maintained my weigh. I presume to do with my body settling & adjusting.) I choose to rarely eat sweet foods or drinks. I don’t eat bread, rice, pasta or potatoes but then they tend to sit heavily so an easy choice. I tend to eat whole or low processed foods most of the time. Do I experience head hunger at times? Yes. But I recognise now that it’s not real hunger.Of course there are times I give in to it but I make better choices - like a few nuts, a little fruit or am trying beef jerky at the moment. It’s funny but I rarely specifically crave salt, sugar or a specific food anymore except sometimes after I eat yoghurt I will crave salt. Don’t know why though. This is how I am. You may be totally different & that’s okay. It comes down to how you manage it.

Hunger also came back gradually for me, along with my sweet-tooth - so gradually that I can't even pinpoint the time when I really noticed. I was just very slowly and steadily able to eat a little more. My weightloss was also a steady, slow thing, so I didn't have the big-loss numbers in the first five months others can have, I had constant stalls and a rate of loss no different to pre-surgery diet efforts. My loss did slow down closer I got to goal, but reaching goal also snuck up on me because the slow weightloss had me take my focus off the scale for a month or so because I just assumed it was going to take ages. That whole a-watched-pot-doesn't-boil thing. These days I try to keep my calories around 1500, which I'll always have to be super mindful of because it takes so little to go over. Grazing is the enemy. Protein keeps me satisfied the longest, so that's always got to be the priority. The plan is for life.

My last meal was Marco's pepperoni pizza and cheesy bread. That was actually my last two meals -- I got a whole pizza and order of cheesy bread and ate half of each on each of my last two days before surgery. I planned out a whole week of food funerals, but the catch was that I had to stay under 2,000 calories per day (I lost 70 pounds in the 5 months before surgery by limiting calories). The half pizza and half cheesy bread was my entire 2000 calories for each of the last two days. The rest of the week (which I know because I recorded it all in MyFitnessPal) included: Ribs and sidewinder fries from my favorite local restaurant Steak and onion rings (the steak was a ribeye from Walmart and really disappointing -- I wish I had splurged on a better steak) and half a piece of cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory (660 calories for half the slice!) Red Baron pizza and the other half of the slice of cheesecake Bacon cheeseburger that was voted the best burger in the city and a Klondike bar Pizza and wings from Pizza Hut I... really liked pizza. Before surgery, if I so much as saw an extra eating pizza in the background of a TV show, I would get an insatiable craving for pizza. Once a week, I would fast all day so I could have a whole Red Baron pizza as my one meal for the day (their brick oven pizza is underrated in the frozen pizza world). After surgery, I made some attempts at healthy pizza (e.g., chicken crust, low-carb tortilla crust) but eventually came to realize there were much tastier and healthier things that I would rather eat. I haven't had real pizza since my surgery (almost 3 years ago) or anything even resembling pizza in the last couple of years and, oddly enough, I don't miss it.

For me, hunger came back gradually. At first 800 cal was hard to get to, then it became easier, then 1200 seemed impossible, then it became harder to stay at 1200 calories... Etc. It's natural for our capacity and hunger to expand a little overtime but never close to what it was pre-surgery. The honeymoon period is the best time to reinforce the right way to eat and how to deal with life's problems without food. I think one of the reasons people gain lots of weight later is because they just aren't committed to the life-long changes needed to keep the weight off. Many use life's problems as an excuse to eat around their sleeve, like snacking on slider foods. Some blame the surgery itself when it isn't the surgery but their unwillingness to stay on plan from day one. If you stick to the basic rules of your program, and stay focused you will be successful. Many gain a small amount weight after reaching it's lowest weight, but that is just the body adjusting to get to a healthy weight for you and that is natural too.

I limit my simple carbs like bread, rice and pasta to less than 30g day, but don’t limit complex carbs. It is not just about calories in and out, macros play a big part in weight loss. I’m 7 months post op, appetite came back at 5 months but I go by the simple rules of protein, non starchy carbs, and unadultered fruit. I have lost 145lbs and now maintaining my weight at 180lbs. All that being said I track everything going into my body and all energy expenditures to ensure that I’m on track, just my way to ensure I don’t slip. My dietitian has said to live by the 80-20 rule, follow 80% of the time and save 20% for a cheat day, I have been brave enough to try for fear of slipping back to old habits. Best of luck, wishing you all the success to meet your goals.

Fun fact: whenever my boss is on vacation I tend to drop weight, years and years after surgery. High stress job, little time to eat. Part of my meals of the day is usually fruit. The containers I use for a mixed fruit salad holds about 450 g. Sandwiches, wraps, quick bean pasta dishes... everything not-too-unhealthy, tasty and quick - and carbs all the way. It's the calories that makes or breaks it, folks. The calories. Not some magic macronutrient balance.

My surgery was the 25th of April. I hit 2 stalls. First after 2 weeks, then I lost 16 lbs. Stalled again for the last week. I'm down about 30 lbs since surgery. I just saw the nutritionist. He bumped me up to 8-900 calories from 6-700. Still seems like I don't eat anything. He said the stall should end, and I'm about 6% off where I should be. That was 4 days ago. Still zero loss since. Supposedly, this is normal. Sucks, though. I do have a cousin that had the same struggles, but she finally came out of it. She felt depressed that she went through it for nothing, but finally met her goal. I understand her feelings, and yours. I guess we just need to stick with it, and be patient. That's damn hard. Wish you success! Allen

I had surgery April 26th and haven't lost anything in over 2 weeks. I'm getting discouraged. I started at 235 and am at 207 now. I want to be at 150 or less. Shouldn't it be moving down by now? I mean I eat very little so it can't be calories.

I lost 16 lbs my first month. I don't understand why you would feel discouraged at this point. 19 lbs = 66,500 calories. I would say your WLS is doing it's job.

Thank you! I've watched many of the videos, and this provided the best explanation. Nutritionist broke my heart when he said I should have hit 15% excess weight loss by now. I was at 9%. Getting my water in, and averaging 800 calories, so it's hard to wonder why it's not progressing.

Hang in there! This is a great video describing what is going on: The TLDR Version: In the first three weeks, you are losing more weight than is possible given your calorie deficiency, that is extra water around your body. You actually become dehydrated in those first few weeks until your body regulates itself and starts to store some more water to get you out of that dehydrated state. That usually happens around week 3, so you stall. You are STILL losing fat, you are just retaining more (needed) water than the fat you are losing that week.

Congrats, 85 lbs is a lot. I've lost around 46 pounds and I've been stuck in the same or similar weight for a while. i had two setbacks this year due to injury. In the beginning of the year I twisted my ankle walking in icy conditions. And in April I fell in the street and bruised/broke some ribs, so that limited my exercise for a while. i've started exercising again and hope there will be no more injuries. I'm tracking my eating through myfitnesspal and I'm eating 1000 to almost1400 cals per day. Most days it's around 1200 per day. Myfitnesspal is always saying something like: "If every day were like today... You'd weight 87.5 kg in 5 weeks", And yet that doesn't happen. Is it possible my body has adjusted to a lower calorie amount? Or will I be able to start losing again once I can exercise more?

I wish I could hug you, You are having it hard. If you are in the top 1% then maybe I make the 10% club. I had nausea quite bad for the first 8 months. I felt the same as when I was pregnant. I don't think it is / was as bad as you are suffering. I could eat tiny slivers of cheese. I could eat deli meat in tiny bits and jerky. I could eat Melba toast with soft cream cheese on it. I could also manage milk and peanut butter. So this is what I lived on. I never made my protein or even the liquid requirement. I never was able to take my calcium tablet. I survived but I was so lacking energy. My family were worried about me. There are still foods that revolt me like eggs, hummus and fish. I still eat a lot of dairy. I have no room for carbs. Slowly I began to eat a little more and then the nausea became less and less. I have a huge restriction, I can only eat 50 grams of meat. I eat 4 small meals a day, down from 5. I can not eat late at night because of severe GERD, waking with acid in your lungs is nasty. I can drink big gulps now which is a blessing. Just continue to eat what you can, when you can. Forget low calorie, try a big variety, some of it you might be able to keep down. Don't give up

Thank you everyone who responded, I needed that logical thinking and reassurance. @Fred in Pa i really appreciate the recommendations around exercise before and after. I’m going to try that. Also thanks for sharing your pizza moment. It makes me feel less the villain of myself and more human. @summerseeker I’ve been following along with your posts since I came here back in February and am always given a level head after reading your responses. You’re right that I shouldn’t make food the enemy; I just want to eat less overall while taking in good stuff. @summerset my team has me on 90 protein, 40 carbs and around 25-35 fat per day. I have been given the goal of keeping all of that within 800 calories until my fifth month I believe. I’m not perfect, I often go slightly over or under the 800. When I started adding exercise, my routine blew up because of the hunger Fred mentioned. I’ve been struggling to modify my intake to support exercise without exceeding the limits until I speak with my dietician again next month. I will email her today and ask if I should adjust these limits given my added activity. @learn2cook you’re so right about therapy. I do have a therapist I’ve been seeing for many years. I didn’t realize I had disordered eating until I started this process, but now I realize it has been there since I was a kid…. And she knew it too… I need to journal again. That’s a great idea. It helps calm that voice that torments me in my head, the one that simplifies food to “good” or “bad” and attempts to label me the same way. @catwoman7 great thoughts around starting weight and loss rate. It’s so hard not to compare myself. On the one hand I know losing slower will help with skin elasticity, but I also feel like I’m failing or doing something wrong until a friend like you reminds me of the reality. Thanks for that 🙏

Like the others have shared, your weight is lower so loosing will be slower. My program doesn’t count carbs either, but I only give them side eye because they might make me dump. Food isn’t evil, it nourishes us and keeps us healthy and alive. Diet culture encourages this good/bad thinking. If you’re feeling stuck in rewind over fears and anxiety about eating and falling into old habits, it will only help you to seek a therapist who specializes in disordered eating. Like old me used to wake up in the middle of the night to eat 1-2 lbs of M&M’s in secret. Then I would run 4-6 miles for two weeks everyday to even out the calories. Newer me says, let’s do some yoga to get the feeling out of my body, then journal to explore the feelings that are honestly bothering me. That’s how therapy helps you to differentiate and evolve. Are you throwing all your energy and attention into making pizza, milk and a few candies into a monumental experience of all your life efforts? Or is pizza just pizza? Only you know.

This surgey was not something I took lightly. I prayed about it and prepared for 8 months before I got the call for Dec 19, 2022. I made this decision purely for my health as I’m sure most of you did as well. I was starting to have heart problems and my knees would hurt as I walked down the stairs. I was told it would be life changing and when it came to the weight loss it has been, but the complications that have bombarded me has me questioning if it was worth it. I don’t want to scare anyone off, because ninety-nine percent get through their gastric sleeve and adapt after the initial healing, but I have always been the one percent. You see I was the one percent with my pain management as well because I took steroid shots to my back after giving birth to my daughter. This went on for 10 years and then I developed adrenal insufficiency because my body became dependent on the hormone. It could no longer produce its own cortisol so I was then on the precipice of dying if I didn’t start a steroid regimen immediately among my diagnosis. I literally was down to that one percent of cortisol in my body. For five years I suffered unimaginable low energy, adrenal crisis when my body was to stressed, countless hospital visits and of course massive weight gain from cushions disease. I thought nothing would ever be as bad as that time in my life when I finally recovered after those five years and stopped my steroids. But the damage was done and I was severely obese at my heaviest of 270 and on top of that my thyroid suffered in the process so I could never get the weight off. Thats what led me to the only solution my doctor had and the realization that their are things worse than Addisons disease, at least for me. Since my surgery I have not been able to keep any food down. I have had to be admitted to the hospital for days on end where I would go back to the liquid diets. A few weeks ago I had a little tuna and my body rejected it with a fury sending me to the hospital for five days where I had two emergency surgeries. The doctor couldn’t believe what he was seeing on my mri. Somehow so much scar tissue has devolved that it was causing my sleeve to be pulled by my gallbladder and they were attached so we thought that was the reason I couldn’t keep any food down. After I came out of that surgery I felt relief and I wanted to cry because another thing I forgot to mention is that I had been nauseous 24/7 since my sleeve surgery, but for those five hours after waking up from the anesthesia and pain meds I felt normal. The nausea was gone. But the next day it was back with a vengeance and more imaging found that my gallbladder was infected and had to come out immediately. So under I went for the 3rd time in 6 months reentering the same wounds that still hadn’t healed. And again for a while I wanted to cry out that it’s a miracle, it’s all better, but as soon as all the meds wore off I was right back were I started. I also had to have a drain put in because their had been blood pooling around my sleeve since the first surgery. All they could do was prescribe me 3 medications to control the vomiting. I lost 7 pounds during that hospital stay. When I got home after being on a liquid diet for a few more days I slowly eased into the soft foods, but to this day after every meal or healthy snack I make my way to that porcelain hell were I retch until the nausea calms. I then take my nausea medications and Valium to relax my stomach muscles. It usually takes about three hours and then I do it all again because I’m only eating twice a day to avoid being sick morning, noon, and night. The only thing that has changed is the constant nausea, it’s now only after I eat something. I’m literally living off of soft cheese and fruit, but more than a few bites and all hell breaks loose. I can tell how malnourished I am because my hair is falling out in clumps and my skin is dry. I’m drinking as much liquid as I can, but dehydration is always around the corner. My doctor says I’m loosing more weight than he anticipated so I always thought hearing those words would bring me joy, but I’m so depressed and have no energy for my family so I have to ask myself daily was it worth it? Will it get better with more time? Again, I don’t want to scare anyone because their are more good stories on here than bad. I simply want to share my story because there is no other like it and that scares me. My daughter is always asking if I could die, she did this when I was sick with addisons too? I tell her if things get better before I reach my healthy weight of 130 then I’ll be ok because right now even though i’m not getting the calories I need my body still has enough fat storage to feed off of, but at the rate I’m loosing- a pound every other day, I will be severely malnourished if it gets to that point. Most people say the surgery is a blessing, but for me it may still be, but a blessing in disguise. I have spoken with my doctor and he doesn’t have the answers. I have scoured medical journals and comment boards also with no answers. If there is anyone on here that is going through the same thing please reach out and if you prefer to talk in private my email is marsgirl22@gmail.com. I know this was truly a long post, but my journey has been just as long and I hope that my story can help someone else to get the answers that seem to allude me. Oh and just for clarification of how rapidly I am losing I started at 260 pounds two weeks before my surgery and now I am 175 pounds and counting down. Bless you all for taking the time to read my story and I sincerely hope you want hesitate to help me if you can.

I’m in the same boat and I’m 6 months post op. I eat about three bites of something protein or really anything, veggies too and then I immediately throw up. Doctor has me on multiple medications for this and Valium to relax the muscles in my stomach. I also had to have two emergency surgery’s 2 weeks ago because my sleeve was stuck to my gallbladder with so much scar tissue so they thought that was it, but then a day after that surgery they saw that my gallbladder was bad and they had to remove it immediately. Still no change and I feel so sick all the time because I’m barely getting 300 calories in daily. I loose a pound every other day. I know for 99 percent it’s a miracle and worth it, but I have always been the 1 percent when it comes to my health. I have lost 80 pounds since Dec 19, 2022, but I feel like it wasn’t the right way and I’m worried I’m loosing way to fast. Anyone else suffering like this because my doctor says it’s unusual and I can’t find anything on the internet. Thanks for all the helpful replies in advance. If anyone out there understands my pain feel free to reach out to me through email- marsgirl22@gmail.com

So? How many calories was that? Why? Eating low carb is not necessary. Low carb is a trend, just like low fat was in the 90s. It's calories that count. Eat less than your body burns and you're going to lose weight, low carb or not. Restricting yourself more than the situation calls for means setting yourself up for burnout without it being necessary No, your body is fighting back. Put a normal weight person who've never had eating issues on a diet like yours and watch them freaking out and getting obsessed with food. Your body needs nutrients - also your mind needs nutrients (yes, that includes macronutrients like carbohydrates as well), even while losing weight.