One year post op, hungry all the time!

[Ghada 6]

I'm one year post op, lost all the weight i wanted to lose and a little bit more, I'm very happy with my results and trying to maintain a nutritious healthy diet. And i think I'm doing well. My only problem is that one hour after eating anything i just feel very hungry, it annoys me so much. I was reading a research about faster emptying time for sleeves. And i think this is the worst side effect i get from this surgery. Constant hunger. I feel so full and in less than an hour I'm starving again. Its difficult to ignore it so i keep munching all the time but i try to watch my calories allover. Its working but I don't want this to continue happening and I'm terrified of regaining weight. Is it just me who feels this need to eat all the time? What can i do about this. My nutritionist doesn't get me, she says my intake is acceptable and I'm not gaining so I'm doing well. But I'm just tired of needing to munch on something all the time!

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

[Armygalbonnie 643]

You sure it's not acid? Acid makes me feel super hungry and causes my stomach to growl too.

[Babbs 14,680]

Are you mostly eating Protein? If you're eating complex carbohydrates and sugar those mess with your blood sugar levels and cause cravings and hunger. Also, what about drinking instead of eating? Like drink some Water, herbal tea, low calorie flavored water or coffee instead?

[LittleBill 2,231]

I've not been sleeved for all that long, but I have found that between meal hunger is often thirst. I take a few slugs of Water or coffee or whatever, and I am good again.

[busybeebug 415]

Acid disguises itself as hunger pangs for me. It gets really bad if I don't take acid pill. I am on protonix. It helps me alot.

It could be thrist. Hang in there. Maybe boost your Fluid intake and settle back to a mainly protien and small portion unprocessed fruits veggies? If you don't already, track your beverages/ food for a week or two and see what you are eating that might trigger the hunger. You always could check in with your surgeon and nutritionist and they can look at what you are eating and help you out.

[Guest]

On 11/28/2016 at 1:25 PM, Ghada said:

I'm one year post op, lost all the weight i wanted to lose and a little bit more, I'm very happy with my results and trying to maintain a nutritious healthy diet. And i think I'm doing well. My only problem is that one hour after eating anything i just feel very hungry, it annoys me so much. I was reading a research about faster emptying time for sleeves. And i think this is the worst side effect i get from this surgery. Constant hunger. I feel so full and in less than an hour I'm starving again. Its difficult to ignore it so i keep munching all the time but i try to watch my calories allover. Its working but I don't want this to continue happening and I'm terrified of regaining weight. Is it just me who feels this need to eat all the time? What can i do about this. My nutritionist doesn't get me, she says my intake is acceptable and I'm not gaining so I'm doing well. But I'm just tired of needing to munch on something all the time!

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I am so glad I came across this. It was a year on January 10th, and I cannot believe how hungry I get. It doesn't matter what I eat, I am easily full (especially if meat or chicken) and then an hour later I am starving. I know it is not acid/gas any of those things, hunger pangs. I will eat a yogurt, or some form of Protein or veggies and protein, and still an hour or an hour and a half hungry. I hated this feeling as well. Today it has been a hard day dealing with this.

[meli81 119]

Keep eating veggie and healthy stuff

[logicwand 269]

Ugh. I hope you guys are still dealing with this okay. I have a feeling that this will be me since I am constantly hungry after surgery.

I'm wondering if I will have to keep a large snack bag in my purse the rest of my life. Right next to the makeup bag.

[healthmatters 24]

I am about 14 months out from surgery. I can totally relate to your post. About an hour after eating dinner I feel incredibly hungry too. Day time my eating is on track. I think a lot of my hunger is due to anxiety and emotional eating. Trying to decipher whether it is emotional eating or truly hunger is difficult. I appreciate your post and everyone's responses. This is an ongoing challenge for me. Thank you.

[Hunger-Games 0]

Hi there,

I’m glad to see some posts on this hunger issue a few years after the first one. I’d like to add a few things here after years with the sleeve.

If you google “hunger after the sleeve”, you’ll more than likely end up on sites talking about “mental hunger” and trying to distinguish the difference. I’m here to tell some of you that there is something else going on with a few of us sleevers that is not being researched from what I can see.

Before I had the sleeve, I had mild acid reflux and was on acid reducers. After the sleeve, I thought I could come off the acid meds but I was SO hungry after the surgery that about a week post-op, I was back on them. This did help me to stop feeling hungry ALL the time. However, it didn't take away the starving feeling throughout the day.

In the first post-op year, I thought nothing of the times when I’d have to get to a convenience store, supermarket... any place close that served food at times when suddenly I had hit “starvation mode”. All that time I told myself it was because I had a small stomach and I just needed to eat more often.

I guess I can be slow on the uptake because it took me 4 years to figure out that I had serious issues with hunger. One day, I had eaten a pretty good Breakfast, was starving by 10:30 AM so had my lunch at work, and by 1:00 I was starving again. I was ticked off because I didn’t want to leave work to get food and it suddenly hit me…after a few years post-op with the sleeve, I was able to eat a lot more food in one sitting. So, from what I had eaten that day, why was I as hungry as I was less than 3 hours after my decent-sized lunch?

I am now 7 and a half years post-sleeve and realize that my weight gain and eating habits are dictated by my hunger issues. No matter what I eat (dense Protein, healthy fats, light carbs, etc.), I will be starving about 3 hours later. If I don’t plan right, I have to get up out of bed to eat and it’s really frustrating. I go out to eat with friends and then a few hours later, I have to tell them I need to eat more.

I am on acid reducers because I do have acid reflux and more of it since the sleeve. I am 100% convinced that the hunger is an overabundance of acid build-up in my stomach. There have even been times when I have been starving and can hear the gurgling sounds in my stomach. Coincidentally enough, a year back, I had a conversation with a colleague who had just had the gastric bypass surgery. Without sharing much about my own surgery, she told me that one of the reasons she had had the bypass was because she had had the sleeve before that and was “hangry” every two hours. I didn’t know what “hangry” meant and she explained it is when you are so hungry, you get angry. I was stunned as she described my situation perfectly…except for me it’s every 3 hours.

Post-bypass, this colleague no longer feels “hangry”. She knows when she needs to eat but that gnawing feeling in her stomach is gone.

I have been in touch with a few bariatric surgeons because of my acid reflux and all of them have suggested I have the RNY bypass. I will have it in the near future and am hoping that the surgery will help my hunger issues go away. After 7.5 years post-op, my sleeve is still intact and I don’t eat an enormous amount of food at one sitting. Of course the first two years post-op are considered the "Honeymood Phase" and so I do eat more than I did back then, but still, it's not crazy amounts. I’m very happy with that but what I learned is that when you end up having to eat every 3 hours, you can really take in a lot of calories during the day. My weight issues were always due to bingeing at night, but never grazing during the day. Now, I find it really frustrating having to eat during the day when I really don’t want to…because I’m starving. (And a light snack when starving doesn’t do much for me at all. I’ve played around with calories and if I don’t take in about 300+ cals at these times, I’m starving even earlier than 3 hours.)

So, I’m writing this because when I asked the last bariatric specialist I went to see about whether he knew of any research done on hunger issues post-sleeve, he said no. (I’m not talking about research regarding reduction of hunger…I’m talking about those of us who end up with MORE hunger.)

This post is not meant for those of us who have had bariatric surgery and aren’t sure if they are really hungry when they eat. That sounds more like head hunger to me. This posting is for those few of us with the sleeve who know we’re starving all the time. I hope I remember this site after I get the RNY. If I do, I promise I’ll leave another post to tell you if the RNY actually did relieve my hunger issues.

Stay tuned!

Edited March 15, 2019 by Hunger-Games