1 year+ post op sleeve stretch

[Pinkbunny 10]

I’m scheduled for the sleeve on March 12th. Woohoo 🎉. But my most recent weight loss attempt, I lost about 60 lbs from eating less than 1200 calories. One day I just gave in to everything in my freezer/pantry and ended up consuming over 4,000 calories in a night. I just couldn’t bring myself to stop since I had dieted for the prior 6 months strictly. The big question: is that possible after let’s say a year or two after the sleeve? How difficult is maintenance after a year or more with the sleeve? Have you been able to eat as much since before the sleeve?

Edited February 24, 2021 by Pinkbunny

[Arabesque 7,605]

Congrats on getting your surgery date. Whoo hoo from me too!

As to your questions: Nope, you won’t be able to eat as much as you did before the sleeve unless you want to experience discomfort but then would you want to eat that much again? Look where it got you then.

I’m 21 months post surgery. There are times now when I can eat a true portion size of food, which fits nicely on a side plate, but most times it’s still less. I can easily eat a single serve of rolled oats, a loose cup of vegetables & 3oz of meat but I can’t eat 2 eggs. Can it be challenging to maintain? It sure can. For me, I had those old habits for almost 54 years. I went out to dinner last week & boy did that dessert menu look tempting. Before surgery, I would have ordered something without thinking if I needed it or if I was already full. Now I made the decision not to - yummy but no thank you. Plus there was no way I could have eaten anything else - I’d had enough. Do I have the odd thing I usually avoid? Sure. Over Christmas I ate dessert one night & had Christmas cake. But I haven’t since.

If you persisted in eating larger servings, ignoring the discomfort, you may be able to stretch your tummy after surgery over time. Much like you likely did before surgery over the years. But again, would you want to?

Part of this journey is coming to terms with how, why & what you ate before & discovering how this needs to change post surgery to be successful.

I hope your surgery goes really well.

[sideeye 1,440]

I think you’ll get different answers here from different people, but for me three years out? No. I could not plough my way through my pantry anymore, not without a lot of pausing for digestion. You’ll have a much better internal brake, which will hopefully make you consider what’s happening instead of the headlong rush you used to be able to do.

For instance, if you cooked half a pound of Pasta and tried to eat it in one sitting, you probably wouldn’t be able to. You’d maybe manage half of it, feel uncomfortably full, and then have to either put it away or slow waaaaay down and eat the rest of it over the next hour or so. So you become very aware of binging tendencies (at least in my case).

This is where it becomes important to understand there will be a “WHY” you’re overeating, and to get ahead of that by lining up a therapist. For some people, the absence of hunger pangs is like flipping a switch - that hormone is gone, and now they’re good! For others there is a real need for a certain taste, like fast food fries or ice cream, and that craving is very difficult to snap because of the “just one taste” impulse. Some people are emotional eaters whose overeating is prompted by an emotional state change. And for others the act of overeating itself created an endorphin feedback loop, so overeating actually rewarded you by making you feel good, sort of the opposite of the emotional eater (I was this kind).

For me, the endorphin rush is gone now and so I’m not chemically rewarded for overeating, even a few years out. That chemical hit just isn’t possible anymore. My stomach is around the same capacity as it was 9 months out, I can only really eat a max of 1.5 cups of food in one 20-minute period. My pandemic problem has been grazing (2.5 cups of pasta, snacked on during a day around other meals, for instance) plus a weird stress reaction where I pack all of my tension into my jaw and mouth and guess what alleviates that ache? Chewing and swallowing actual food, not gum (dammit!).

I maintained for two years with little problem. The pandemic knocked me for a loop. Am relatively confident I can reset (if I can get this damn jaw thing under control) but I’ve come to think a LOT of success in WLS is getting to the root of WHY you eat. That will help you in deciding how to manage the rough spots, and will prevent you from getting blindsided as much.

Edited February 24, 2021 by sideeye

[S@ssen@ch 745]

9 hours ago, Pinkbunny said:

The big question: is that possible after let’s say a year or two after the sleeve? How difficult is maintenance after a year or more with the sleeve? Have you been able to eat as much since before the sleeve?

To answer this...

1. I don't think it's possible to binge through your entire pantry/freezer in one setting. However, it is possible to graze your way through your day, and depending on what you graze on, you could theoretically get up to 4000 calories.
2. I think the difficulty with maintenance is entirely individual. This is YOUR journey and your own habits/practices dictate the difficulty level. Since COVID lockdown, I noticed that I've reverted back to some old (aka BAD) habits like sweets/baked goods/etc. I'm struggling a little to eliminate those again. It's like crack or something... Fortunately/unfortunately, my husband was recently diagnosed with diabetes and we're getting back on track TOGETHER. So, I guess the point here is that it's easy to revert to old habits. If you have strategies in place to keep yourself on track, maintenance will be much easier. Side note: take advantage of your Bariatric TEAM. Consult your nutritionist as needed. If you need counseling, get it.
3. I'm almost 3 years out and I absolutely cannot eat as much as I could before the sleeve. Can I eat more than I could in the 1st year? Yes, sometimes. That depends on exactly what I'm eating. Some foods fill me up much faster than others, but my typical meal fits on a small dinner plate (like the one you put under your coffee/teacup).

[catwoman7 11,284]

I don't think I could eat 4000 kcal a day anymore. I would be really uncomfortable. But I can eat 2500 easily if I'm not careful (and...I have). But doing that consistently will definitely cause weight gain.

Long term, basically WLS controls how much you can eat at one sitting. Before WLS, I could eat half a large pizza at one sitting. No way could I do that now - it would be physically impossible. I can eat 1-2 pieces, and that's it. HOWEVER, there is nothing stopping me from eating 1-2 pieces at 6:00 pm, then another 1-2 pieces at 7:30 pm, and than another 1-2 pieces at 9:00 pm. Ta da! Half a large pizza in an evening. THAT is what you need to watch.

and no - it's not easy to maintain. It's a daily struggle once you get a couple years out. I have to watch my intake and weight like a hawk, because if I don't, my weight starts heading north. But I do it because I don't EVER want to be morbidly obese again. EVER.

Edited February 24, 2021 by catwoman7

[ms.sss 15,837]

OK...i want to stress that this is my personal experience only and do not advocate what I do/did to others. Do as I say, not as I do!!! lolololzzzz.

I am 2+ years out and I can definitely eat much more than I could the first year (in terms of volume). BUT no where near what I could pack in pre-wls. Pre-wls I could easily eat 2-3 full plates at an AYCE resto (plus room for dessert!). Now a meal that is under my barf line is about 1 to 1.5 cups in volume (more if its salad greens, less if its dense Protein or fluffy bread).

I went through my logs to see if I ever went over 4000 cals. According to MyFitnessPal, i came close in June 2019 with 3896 calories. Though after looking through the list, it probably was well over 4000 cuz i notice I didn't log any alcohol that I KNOW I drank that day. Further, I did my logging after the fact as it was one of those morning-to-afternoon-to-night-to-the-next-morning backyard bbq parties. I was basically eating/grazing all day (and night) long. I also recall being sick a couple times in the evening.

Now, I had just reached maintenance the month prior, and was concerned about my continued weight loss at the time so I figured, what the hell, I'm gonna go all out. It was not pleasant.

Since then, I counted 9 times that went over 3000 cals in a single day (cheese, alcohol or dessert where the main contributors). But a normal day for me now is about 1800.

My restriction is still alive and kicking, but I can definitely eat around it if I wanted to by grazing all day.

In case you are interested, here is the log for that day (again, my alcohol consumption is glaringly missing from this log, so I would guess add another 800-1000 cals on top of this)

Edited February 24, 2021 by ms.sss