Hi everyone I had had the sleeve procedure April 14th 2016. At first I could feel soooooo much restriction when trying to eat, and now I don't feel that same restriction. Of course I eat way less but I don't feel as full as I did at first. When I first had the surgery I could feel every little move food made going into my stomach and digesting.... I have lost around 38 lbs so far and I started to stall.....

Has anyone experienced this at such a early stage in the game?

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Right after surgery, your new sleeve is traumatized and swollen and inflammed beyond belief. (Think about what it's just gone through. It hasn't even begun to heal yet.) With all that traumatized tissue that's held together with new staples and edges that haven't grown together yet, there's very little room in your stomach for anything. That's why you have to sip-sip-sip.

But that's not a permanent situation.

As the post-op weeks go along, the inflammation and swelling subside. Your sleeve is starting to heal. The stapled-together parts are starting to grow together. Blood vessels are forming, nerves are knitting together. It takes months for this healing to complete.

And as that happens, your sleeve's capacity is growing because the swelling is going down.

The first month post-op, you will be lucky to eat a quarter of a cup of food at one time. A few months out, you'll eat half a cup. Six months out you'll eat three-quarters of a cup. A year out, you'll eat a cup.

What kind of food you are eating (Protein or Cookies?) determines how much you can eat, too.

Protip: Don't eat to get full. And don't eat until your stomach tells you to stop. Measure your food and eat that much and no more. Just because you can eat more doesn't mean you have to or that you should.

Protip #2: I'm sorry this wasn't explained to you pre-op. This should have been part of everyone's education prior to being sleeved.

Your sleeve was initially very swollen from surgery. Takes at least 8 weeks for the incision to fully heal and your restriction will continue to get less and less as that happens. And then there will be a bit of natural relaxation as you start to eat more normal foods. What you could consume initially is a fraction of what you will be able to consume at 3 months and then 6 months and then years out.

I'm almost 2 1/2 years out and I think I reached my max capacity around 14 months. but I've read from veterans that they could eat more at 4-6 years out than they used to. You will find that eventually it is your head that has to control what and how much you eat, not your sleeve. That is why it is so important to banish old habits forever and learn new eating habits and coping behaviors during these first few months while your sleeve is doing most of the work for you. Eventually you will be back in charge and you need to know how to make the right choices.

Sleeves aren't fully healed until 6 months, what you feel before 6 months isn't restriction, it is a traumatized organ healing. Sure there is restriction, but you shouldn't think of that early restriction as your restriction. Long term that isn't even what you want, because you need to be able to consume enough calories to be an active person.

You don't want to start your sleeve journey relying on restriction to tell you how much to eat and when to stop.

Weight your food, eat your proper portion. Stop. Thats it. Don't push it. You should know you can eat more because you shouldn't be eating more than your weighed portion.

Make this habit early, so later on this is what you are used to and you don't have issues.