Always starving and difficulty eating.

[MissRhonda 0]

First time posting...here is goes... I had my surgery 3-4 weeks ago. It was a rough start at first. I couldn’t get enough Protein or liquid, so I was always weak. A week ago I transitioned to the purée phase. Since starting the phase, I have had so much more energy. My diet is now mostly shakes and deli meat. Unfortunately, I’ve gained a few pounds since I’m no longer on the liquid phase.
For some reason now, I’m ALWAYS STARVING. I can only eat a few bites and I get full very fast. I could drink a shake or eat a few slices of meat and in 30 min I’m hungry.
Any advice or has anyone else experienced this?

[rjan 163]

I was starving during the liquid phase. Once I moved on to purees, I was able to get more Protein and the hunger stopped.

If you can only eat a few bites, it makes sense that you are getting hungry quickly. I was able to eat more like 3/8-1/2 cup at 3-4 weeks, so I didn't experience that.

How much are you actually eating? I mean I'd say go ahead and eat again in 30 minutes if you feel hungry. You're probably still not getting enough protein.

I believe in listening to your body; I think it's an essential thing to learn after WLS. Some people will come on here and tell you about how it's probably just all head hunger and you need to ignore it. If you tended towards emotional eating before, then that may be good advice. But I didn't have that bad of a problem with emotional eating - I was simply pre-diabetic. Once my metabolism healed (which happens before you lose the weight), I was able to listen to my body again and trust it.

[MissRhonda 0]

According to the app I’m using, my Protein intake is between 60-90. Obviously it varies day to day. The nurse said that it will seem like I’m eating a lot but the constant hunger just seems excessive.
When listening to other people’s journey so far, they said they could eat/ drink what ever they wanted by now. It takes me almost 2 hrs just to drink a premixed premier shake.

[rjan 163]

Since you're able to eat so little, it's likely that your stomach is particularly swollen. It takes something like 2 months for the incision on your stomach to heal. My stomach capacity was always a bit higher than others at the same stage - but I definitely remember hearing from others who couldn't eat that much at first. Personally, I remember how annoying it was in the first couple of months to go out for a walk and get really thirsty, but not be able to drink Water very fast - 1/2 cup of water doesn't do it when you're super thirsty. Plus I often had pain after eating, which was usually relieved by burping. Stomach capacity increases over those first few months as your stomach heals and the swelling goes down.

Keep checking in with your doctor regularly to make sure they aren't worried that it's something serious. But I think that as long as you stick to the diet and don't let the annoyance of your healing body give you a reason to get too off track, you'll probably find this issue gets better over the next month or two. Once you can eat more at once, I think you won't be hungry all the time, and you won't feel like you're so focused on food all the time either.