Three Years Later - What I've Learned

Here's my experiences from the sleeve process years ago. I wish I had this information before getting the sleeve, so I wanted to share it with all of you:

GAINING WEIGHT

Gaining weight is easy: you simply eat when you're emotional, lonely, or not hungry. Even though my stomach would barely fit a slice of pizza, I could still suck down an entire large meat Lover's Supreme by eating a single slice, waiting until my stomach could fit some more and then eating another. Until the pizza was all gone. You can also do this with ice cream, burgers, fries, and all the other miscellaneous crap food widely available via drive thrus.

This is why you're required to see a counselor and nutritionist - to handle your eating issues. If these aren't handled, then DON'T BOTHER WITH THE SURGERY. You will simply get fat again by eating smaller portions more frequently. If however you only eat when you're hungry - and stick to good foods then you're golden. Now OBVIOUSLY if you did that in the first place you wouldn't be fat. So surgery is a booster shot to your weight loss, and new way of life.

Think of it as waging a war, and surgery is a tank. Now a tank is a formidable weapon. Can run over enemies, shoot some big artillery but eventually if all you have is that one tank, you'll probably lose a prolonged battle. So you gather some strategy and military air support (diet changes), some recruits and soldiers (lifestyle changes) and NOW you have a master battle plan for your war. And ultimately a better thought out path to success.

You invested a lot of money and pain into this - don't screw it up.

FIRST FEW MONTHS

The first six months your weight will drop amazingly fast, because you're out of surgery and can only eat Soup broth for a week. And then slowly mushy foods come in, followed by a few solids. You don't really need a blender, there are ample canned goods you can eat. Baby food, blending a steak and other shocking posts you read about aren't required: just shop for other things that qualify. Going out with friends during this period is depressing, since your diet is so restrictive, you're staring blankly at the menu for a long time and finally decide on Water.

Get everything you need together before coming home. You'll be on some pretty loopy meds when arriving home, and won't be in any shape to hit the local WalMart. Nor will your family want to bother with it - so plan ahead.

FOOD AND STRETCHING

You can only eat maybe a half cup of food during the first couple months. Then a cup after about five months, then two cups after longer. You can hurry this process along by stuffing your face until your stomach hurts so bad you need to go lay down, or vomit. But if your eating problem is that severe then see my multi-faceted approach to surgery from above.

Each person is obviously different, but stretching your stomach (to me at least) seems difficult and a venture of pain and suffering. I can feel my stomach naturally taking in more food over time, however I've cycled that back down by going a few days drinking only delicious fruit smoothies. This makes my tummy literally shrink back to where it was after surgery, or pretty close, dependent upon how many days I go. You can also accomplish this via more extreme methods like water or veggie juice fasting, however banana/stawberry/pineapple with some coconut water and ice in the blender tastes much better in my humble opinion.

If you do continue to gorge like a tick on bad foods, then yes your stomach will stretch. I've met a few people who's stomach has returned to normal size. Again - everybody is different, I'm just telling you MY story.

How much food you can eat varies by food type:

RICE - I can eat maybe five spoonfuls of this before I feel sick. Stuffing in another three before my body registers that I'm full and it's a vomit party. You need to eat slowly - there's a point in which eating more means bending over the toilet. And once you've experienced that joy, you quickly learn where the limit resides. Rice expands so you gotta be careful. An average meal of fried rice and an egg roll is a full day's worth of food, that requires splitting up.

SODAS - Equivalent to drinking battery acid. I've met some people who've acclimated back to it, but why bother?

MEAT - Steak is bad, try like five or six bites before calling it quits. chicken is similar. Fish goes down a little easier, and you can eat more, maybe because it's flaky.

SALADS and FRUIT - I can eat one banana. Two is painful. Ditto with grapes, strawberries, etc. These foods process through your stomach quicker, so you can eat a little more often compared to stuffing down a sirlion.

PIZZA - Takes me about 12 hours to suck down a large thin crust. Regular or deep crust, I end up tossing half of it into the trash.

Desserts - They hurt. Bad. And then make me sleepy, ticked off and depressed. I mostly stick with natural sugars now like fruits and veggies.

RESTAURANT EATING

Eating out with friends has a lot of rules tagging along. You must wait 30 minutes after drinking water before eating (which works out great, since that's how long food takes to arrive). I order an appetizer or split a full meal with a friend, so this is not a big deal. I see and hear lots of drama about this mingling around, but it's not THAT bad, and you can easily make it look perfectly normal without telling people you had surgery. You don't need a little happy note from your doctor saying you had surgery, just get a doggie bag or go halfsies with a buddy.

CONCLUSION

These are just my two cents, and I hope they help someone.

I lost about 100lbs, then gained back 50.

I'm in the process of losing again thanks to a diet change (I went 100% raw food) and exercise.

True, true, and true!! Your statements are spot on. I KNOW I could easily gain back every pound I've lost - all I'd have to do is graze and make bad food choices. It's critical to learn, and then practice, the things you have outlined. Thanks for sharing some really important points.

Thank you for sharing. As someone who is beginning this process, this kind of information is so very helpful to hear.

I so appreciate your honesty - it's nice to have the point of view of someone who did not stay perfect. I would say most of us have food issues in our heads, not so much our bodies. We eat for any other reason than hunger. This is the first re-gain story that has been shared - but, you didn't let it get far, and you're working on turning it around. Good for you!!

Doug..excellent post. Thank you for sharing and probaby saving a few peeps, like me.

Your 2 cents is worth a million$$ !

This is a must read!

Great insight that a newly sleeved or about to be sleeved person should read and take heed of.

This is an AWESOME post - and one that I think EVERYONE should read before deciding on surgery! So many people get this surgery thinking it will be the "magic bullet" and that they can just go back to eating "normally" afterwards - as you have eloquently pointed out, we will spend the rest of our lives watching our intake, even WITH the sleeve - the sleeve is just an aid in the process, but we still must change our lifestyles!

This is an AWESOME post - and one that I think EVERYONE should read before deciding on surgery! So many people get this surgery thinking it will be the "magic bullet" and that they can just go back to eating "normally" afterwards - as you have eloquently pointed out' date=' we will spend the rest of our lives watching our intake, even WITH the sleeve - the sleeve is just an aid in the process, but we still must change our lifestyles![/quote']

Yes,

I would like to see this post in the pre op section too!

Thanks for sharing such an honest post. Good luck as you move forward!

I totally get how you can still gain weight after this if you don't follow the rules. You can graze all day and still get in a significant amount of calories. That is why they tell us to only eat our 3 meals a day and no snacking. I'm only 4 days out from my surgery' date=' so I'm so glad to have read your post! I really appreciate your honesty![/quote']

How many times you should eat varies between doctor eating three meals and no snacking is not always the case

Thanks for sharing

Doug, this was an awesome read....Thank you so much for sharing!

Three Years Later - What I've Learned

Here's my experiences from the sleeve process years ago. I wish I had this information before getting the sleeve' date=' so I wanted to share it with all of you:

GAINING WEIGHT

Gaining weight is easy: you simply eat when you're emotional, lonely, or not hungry. Even though my stomach would barely fit a slice of pizza, I could still suck down an entire large meat Lover's Supreme by eating a single slice, waiting until my stomach could fit some more and then eating another. Until the pizza was all gone. You can also do this with ice cream, burgers, fries, and all the other miscellaneous crap food widely available via drive thrus.

This is why you're required to see a counselor and nutritionist - to handle your eating issues. If these aren't handled, then DON'T BOTHER WITH THE SURGERY. You will simply get fat again by eating smaller portions more frequently. If however you only eat when you're hungry - and stick to good foods then you're golden. Now OBVIOUSLY if you did that in the first place you wouldn't be fat. So surgery is a booster shot to your weight loss, and new way of life.

Think of it as waging a war, and surgery is a tank. Now a tank is a formidable weapon. Can run over enemies, shoot some big artillery but eventually if all you have is that one tank, you'll probably lose a prolonged battle. So you gather some strategy and military air support (diet changes), some recruits and soldiers (lifestyle changes) and NOW you have a master battle plan for your war. And ultimately a better thought out path to success.

You invested a lot of money and pain into this - don't screw it up.

FIRST FEW MONTHS

The first six months your weight will drop amazingly fast, because you're out of surgery and can only eat Soup broth for a week. And then slowly mushy foods come in, followed by a few solids. You don't really need a blender, there are ample canned goods you can eat. Baby food, blending a steak and other shocking posts you read about aren't required: just shop for other things that qualify. Going out with friends during this period is depressing, since your diet is so restrictive, you're staring blankly at the menu for a long time and finally decide on Water.

Get everything you need together before coming home. You'll be on some pretty loopy meds when arriving home, and won't be in any shape to hit the local WalMart. Nor will your family want to bother with it - so plan ahead.

FOOD AND STRETCHING

You can only eat maybe a half cup of food during the first couple months. Then a cup after about five months, then two cups after longer. You can hurry this process along by stuffing your face until your stomach hurts so bad you need to go lay down, or vomit. But if your eating problem is that severe then see my multi-faceted approach to surgery from above.

Each person is obviously different, but stretching your stomach (to me at least) seems difficult and a venture of pain and suffering. I can feel my stomach naturally taking in more food over time, however I've cycled that back down by going a few days drinking only delicious fruit smoothies. This makes my tummy literally shrink back to where it was after surgery, or pretty close, dependent upon how many days I go. You can also accomplish this via more extreme methods like water or veggie juice fasting, however banana/stawberry/pineapple with some coconut water and ice in the blender tastes much better in my humble opinion.

If you do continue to gorge like a tick on bad foods, then yes your stomach will stretch. I've met a few people who's stomach has returned to normal size. Again - everybody is different, I'm just telling you MY story.

How much food you can eat varies by food type:

RICE - I can eat maybe five spoonfuls of this before I feel sick. Stuffing in another three before my body registers that I'm full and it's a vomit party. You need to eat slowly - there's a point in which eating more means bending over the toilet. And once you've experienced that joy, you quickly learn where the limit resides. Rice expands so you gotta be careful. An average meal of fried rice and an egg roll is a full day's worth of food, that requires splitting up.

SODAS - Equivalent to drinking battery acid. I've met some people who've acclimated back to it, but why bother?

MEAT - Steak is bad, try like five or six bites before calling it quits. chicken is similar. Fish goes down a little easier, and you can eat more, maybe because it's flaky.

SALADS and FRUIT - I can eat one banana. Two is painful. Ditto with grapes, strawberries, etc. These foods process through your stomach quicker, so you can eat a little more often compared to stuffing down a sirlion.

PIZZA - Takes me about 12 hours to suck down a large thin crust. Regular or deep crust, I end up tossing half of it into the trash.

Desserts - They hurt. Bad. And then make me sleepy, ticked off and depressed. I mostly stick with natural sugars now like fruits and veggies.

RESTAURANT EATING

Eating out with friends has a lot of rules tagging along. You must wait 30 minutes after drinking water before eating (which works out great, since that's how long food takes to arrive). I order an appetizer or split a full meal with a friend, so this is not a big deal. I see and hear lots of drama about this mingling around, but it's not THAT bad, and you can easily make it look perfectly normal without telling people you had surgery. You don't need a little happy note from your doctor saying you had surgery, just get a doggie bag or go halfsies with a buddy.

CONCLUSION

These are just my two cents, and I hope they help someone.

I lost about 100lbs, then gained back 50.

I'm in the process of losing again thanks to a diet change (I went 100% raw food) and exercise.[/quote']

Thank you so much for sharing your story. When did you start gaining the weight back and over how long a period did it take to gain the fifty pounds.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Awesome post! I'm still in the pre-op phase and am trying to make sure my head is "right" before having surgery. We all hear what we are and are not supposed to do post-surgery. My nutritionist plays a video on why you should not *drink* with meals. Has been really helpful visually as I am trying to do behavior modifications now so that post surgery it may lessen how many behaviors I need to change. Anyway, I thought this would apply nicely in this thread. Here's a linky: