How Have Your Tastes Changed Since Surgery?

[Alex Brecher 10,516]

A lot of WLS patients find their tastes change after WLS. Sometimes it’s too bad, like not liking healthy foods like chicken or salad anymore. Sometimes it’s a good thing, like when you don’t like greasy foods anymore.

Sometimes it’s a direct result of surgery, like being intolerant to super sweet foods after gastric bypass or not liking the taste of Water anymore after the sleeve. Sometimes it’s the result of getting used to a new set of foods that you first FORCE yourself to eat, and later actually enjoy more than the junk food you used to eat.

Like many lap-band patients, I didn’t notice any immediate changes in my tastes post-op, but my tastes have definitely changed in the years since surgery! Now, I like healthy foods, and don’t automatically prefer high-calorie sugary or fried foods. I like yogurt, and oatmeal, and fruit, and vegetables, and prefer unprocessed foods.

What about you? Have your tastes changed since surgery? In which ways?

[reree6898 1,164]

I was sleeved a month ago and pre op I loved lemon and sour things, now I can't stand them. I tried the lemon aid drops for Water and it was so bad. I also can't tolerate barbecue sauce or a few other old favorites.

[Micdruss 213]

Before my sleeve if I wanted junk I immediately turned to sweets....now I crave salt, like tortilla chips or popcorn, but do my best to not indulge. I also have noticed that if I do have something sweet it's usually too rich

[Cervidae 2,389]

I've had a few changes, but I'm mostly just really happy I can tolerate spicy things and still enjoy them. I would have been sad to never be able to/want to eat spicy again.

[Madeleine Renee 77]

I have a hard time with plain Water, does not sit right in my stomach. So I take Vitamin Water, Crystal Light. I also have developed a distaste for eggs, used to eat them every morning, now I can barely eat 1 a week. Strange....

[heather5565 959]

I don't like food at all now. Nothing tastes good.

Nothing smells good.

I'm never hungry. I have to remind myself to eat and drink.

I have heard this happens but never in a million years did I think this would happen to me!

I do hope I will enjoy food again someday.

Edited November 2, 2015 by heather5565

[WLSResources/ClothingExch 3,444]

My in-between solution may meet scorn; friends looked at me cross-eyed at the time.

Before surgery Diet Coke was high on my list. I stopped drinking it as-is when the band was installed, but, wondering which component I may have preferred all along -- taste or fizz -- I experimented with letting it go flat. For a couple of months, I'd fill glasses, leave them in the refrigerator until flat and drink up happily.

Came the day that I took a sip and snarled, "Swill!". The taste had become loathsome with no warning. It's probably been 5 1/2 years since that last taste. The only fizzy things I've drunk at all since are champagne and hard cider, but not as often or as much as I'd like.

Edited November 2, 2015 by WLSResources/ClothingExch

[MzB 297]

5 months into the sleeve and I haven't really noticed any taste changes at all. However, Based on the fact that I detested a Calcium chewable that my husband said tastes like skittles (he liked it), I suspect skittles may be a taste change. I haven't tried skittles yet (for obvious reasons. ha!) but I don't think that is a big loss. ????

[Healthy_life2 8,330]

understand I'm in maintenance phase.

For Halloween I had an amazing date with my husband. I tasted cherry pie filling for the first time after surgery. It was not the same experience. It had the taste of rubber to me...That's the only way i know how to describe it.

[Jack 855]

After several phases of postOp changes, many of my long term life favorites simply aren't that appealing.

And such as Pasta, spaghetti, sauces, mashed potatoes, french fiies, etc, have beome a "1% of the time" food....might have them one meal a QUARTER rather than 1 meal a day.

I eat smaller portions by choice.

I've been to McD ONCE in the last 12 years! Consider it a mistake at that.

Eat home made or take-with about 90% of the time rather than eat out.

Never cared for syruppy gooey sauces of any kind, at least since circa 1988 when Dx'd as diabetic.

Actually carry bottled Water in vehicle and find it very refreshing.

My liquid intake is Water, a couple black coffees in the AM, perhaps 6 oz skim milk (or none) daily, never diet/aspartame anything. Have abstrained from alcohol nearly 30 years without any dire effects.

Do have various cheeses about now & then. Protein/grain bar now & then.

Like the little tangerine Cuties, fresh greens, of course the garden & fresh berries, now in decline....but plenty in the freezer.

Nearly any restaurant meal requires take-home box.

I do favor a decent corned beef hash now & then.

[IncredibleShrinkingMan 437]

Unfortunately, they haven't at all. It's all about avoiding the consequences, short and long term, of certain foods. But the cravings and obsessions are still there (although thankfully they don't take up every minute of every day), and luckily the sleeve makes them very easy to quench.