The "honeymoon" period

[RobertM2022 23]

So I'm 5 months post op and couldn't be happier with my surgery, the results, and my subsequent lifestyle. I've read a lot since the surgery about everything and one of the constants that keeps showing up is that the "honeymoon" phase will end...which I knew prior to surgery and expected. My question has more to do with the mechanism. Do you just wake up one day and suddenly feel much hungrier than usual? Does it gradually happen over 30-60 days? Does it just happen that your "normal" portions no longer satiate you? Is it a combination of mental and physiological, i.e. if you were to continue to eat the normal quantities of food that you had been eating prior to the honeymoon phase ending, would everything be ok physiologically, but mentally it just doesn't seem to be working or is it more a constant struggle to maintain your new eating habits?

Sorry for all the questions. I know this probably differs from person to person and I know there are probably no exact answers. I just tend to be very analytical about most things and I feel like the more information I know about this subject, the better chance I have of dealing with it.

Thank you!

[BrandiBird 21]

4 minutes ago, RobertM2022 said:

So I'm 5 months post op and couldn't be happier with my surgery, the results, and my subsequent lifestyle. I've read a lot since the surgery about everything and one of the constants that keeps showing up is that the "honeymoon" phase will end...which I knew prior to surgery and expected. My question has more to do with the mechanism. Do you just wake up one day and suddenly feel much hungrier than usual? Does it gradually happen over 30-60 days? Does it just happen that your "normal" portions no longer satiate you? Is it a combination of mental and physiological, i.e. if you were to continue to eat the normal quantities of food that you had been eating prior to the honeymoon phase ending, would everything be ok physiologically, but mentally it just doesn't seem to be working or is it more a constant struggle to maintain your new eating habits?

Sorry for all the questions. I know this probably differs from person to person and I know there are probably no exact answers. I just tend to be very analytical about most things and I feel like the more information I know about this subject, the better chance I have of dealing with it.

Thank you!

These are great questions, and ones I'd love to know answers to, as well.

I'm a week away from being 3 months post-op, and just recently (within the last week or so), I've been having a bare minimum of an appetite. It's kind of nice to not be hungry, but I'm not looking forward to this part of the journey, either. 😅

[Spinoza 1,172]

You're absolutely right - it seems to be very different for different people. I had a gradual return of hunger at around 9 or 10 months. Probably over the course of a couple of weeks. If I ate my Protein first I still felt full with around the same size of meal, I just wanted to eat again sooner afterwards. Then on top of that as the months progressed I could eat greater volumes - that continued AND I was hungry too. I learned here that head hunger is often craving a specific food or taste or texture, but real hunger can be addressed by eating most anything. So I started to have fruit and veg for Snacks and that seems to have worked for me. My 3 main meals are protein first always. I could have just added another meal, but I had been concerned all along that I wasn't getting anything like the recommended fruit and veg intake.

My weight loss had slowed when my hunger returned and I stopped losing more or less completely around 15 months post op. I'm 18 months out now and so far maintaining. Everything crossed.

[BrandiBird 21]

11 minutes ago, Spinoza said:

You're absolutely right - it seems to be very different for different people. I had a gradual return of hunger at around 9 or 10 months. Probably over the course of a couple of weeks. If I ate my Protein first I still felt full with around the same size of meal, I just wanted to eat again sooner afterwards. Then on top of that as the months progressed I could eat greater volumes - that continued AND I was hungry too. I learned here that head hunger is often craving a specific food or taste or texture, but real hunger can be addressed by eating most anything. So I started to have fruit and veg for Snacks and that seems to have worked for me. My 3 main meals are Protein first always. I could have just added another meal, but I had been concerned all along that I wasn't getting anything like the recommended fruit and veg intake.

My weight loss had slowed when my hunger returned and I stopped losing more or less completely around 15 months post op. I'm 18 months out now and so far maintaining. Everything crossed.

Did you have a goal weight that you got to before your hunger returned, or was it later?

[Spinoza 1,172]

No I only had a final goal weight and to be honest that was purely aspirational - I had no idea whether or when I would reach it! It was a weight I had reached previously by diet and exercise and felt good at. Hunger returned when I had lost approx 100lbs - probably a quarter of that on my long pre-op diet and three quarters in the 9 or 10 months post op. I went on to lose about another 40lbs. But honestly it is so different for different people. That's just how it went for me. Very best of luck to both of you.

[RobertM2022 23]

Thank you for the reply Spinoza.

I'm sort of gathering from your comments and other things I have read that the best hope for success is to use the honeymoon phase to learn and adapt new eating habits...obviously better ones than we all had pre-surgery...and then carry those habits forward for the rest of our lives.

I think the crux of my question/concerns is, once the honeymoon phase ends, did you find that your hunger levels returned to pre-surgery levels and that the work and day-to-day stress of just dealing with food/eating/quantity to be as difficult as it was pre-surgery?

I've run into quite a few people who have had gastric surgery, lost weight and then regained very large amounts of it back and I am quite perplexed as to how this happens....and I don't mean that in a rude way at all....simply because I would like to avoid that issue/problem.

Thanks again to anyone who can share their insight.

Robert

[Tomo 1,136]

Thank you for the reply Spinoza.

I'm sort of gathering from your comments and other things I have read that the best hope for success is to use the honeymoon phase to learn and adapt new eating habits...obviously better ones than we all had pre-surgery...and then carry those habits forward for the rest of our lives.

I think the crux of my question/concerns is, once the honeymoon phase ends, did you find that your hunger levels returned to pre-surgery levels and that the work and day-to-day stress of just dealing with food/eating/quantity to be as difficult as it was pre-surgery?

I've run into quite a few people who have had gastric surgery, lost weight and then regained very large amounts of it back and I am quite perplexed as to how this happens....and I don't mean that in a rude way at all....simply because I would like to avoid that issue/problem.

Thanks again to anyone who can share their insight.

Robert

For me, hunger came back gradually. At first 800 cal was hard to get to, then it became easier, then 1200 seemed impossible, then it became harder to stay at 1200 calories... Etc. It's natural for our capacity and hunger to expand a little overtime but never close to what it was pre-surgery. The honeymoon period is the best time to reinforce the right way to eat and how to deal with life's problems without food.

I think one of the reasons people gain lots of weight later is because they just aren't committed to the life-long changes needed to keep the weight off. Many use life's problems as an excuse to eat around their sleeve, like snacking on slider foods. Some blame the surgery itself when it isn't the surgery but their unwillingness to stay on plan from day one.

If you stick to the basic rules of your program, and stay focused you will be successful. Many gain a small amount weight after reaching it's lowest weight, but that is just the body adjusting to get to a healthy weight for you and that is natural too.

[Smanky 743]

Hunger also came back gradually for me, along with my sweet-tooth - so gradually that I can't even pinpoint the time when I really noticed. I was just very slowly and steadily able to eat a little more. My weightloss was also a steady, slow thing, so I didn't have the big-loss numbers in the first five months others can have, I had constant stalls and a rate of loss no different to pre-surgery diet efforts. My loss did slow down closer I got to goal, but reaching goal also snuck up on me because the slow weightloss had me take my focus off the scale for a month or so because I just assumed it was going to take ages. That whole a-watched-pot-doesn't-boil thing.

These days I try to keep my calories around 1500, which I'll always have to be super mindful of because it takes so little to go over. Grazing is the enemy. Protein keeps me satisfied the longest, so that's always got to be the priority. The plan is for life.

[Arabesque 6,474]

My hunger came back gradually too into my second year. I had my first experience of real hunger at about 8 months after a busy day when I hadn’t really eaten but not again for months. I still have times when I’m not really hungry or don’t eat all my usual portion & I’m 4 years out now. Because I eat regularly throughout the day I don’t really feel HUNGRY just yep must be time for my meal/snack.

Your portion sizes slowly increase as your losing until you get to a point where you are consuming the calories & nutrients your body needs to work effectively & your weight stabilises. It’s then up to you to manage your portions & calories by permanently adopting the changes & things you’ve learnt within your lifestyle (what you need & how you want to live & enjoy your life).

I eventually I reached a point where I was I eating about the accepted portion size of the Protein, vegetables, fruit, dairy, etc. for my meals & Snacks & to get in my daily calorie needs to maintain. It’s plenty of food & I don’t need or want more. I consume about 1500 calories which is appropriate for someone my height, age, weight & activity levels. (Interestingly I consumed about 1300 when I first stabilised & though I eat more now I’ve pretty much maintained my weigh. I presume to do with my body settling & adjusting.) I choose to rarely eat sweet foods or drinks. I don’t eat bread, rice, Pasta or potatoes but then they tend to sit heavily so an easy choice. I tend to eat whole or low processed foods most of the time.

Do I experience head hunger at times? Yes. But I recognise now that it’s not real hunger.Of course there are times I give in to it but I make better choices - like a few nuts, a little fruit or am trying beef Jerky at the moment. It’s funny but I rarely specifically crave salt, sugar or a specific food anymore except sometimes after I eat yoghurt I will crave salt. Don’t know why though.

This is how I am. You may be totally different & that’s okay. It comes down to how you manage it.

[maintenanceman 280]

I found that I needed more and more calories to be satiated as the months passed. By 6 mo post-op, I just couldn't maintain a very low calorie diet without becoming ravenously hungry.

And, my weight loss progressively slowed down each month until the weight loss petered out at 9 months post-op. I reached my goal weight, losing 100% of my excess weight. I currently eat 1800-2000 calories a day and have maintained my final weight for five months so far.

While my hunger has returned, it is nothing like it was pre-op. I feel very much in control of my hunger, and I find it difficult to overeat... even when I want to. And my body generally craves healthier, cleaner foods vs. the garbage fast/junk food that was the staple of my diet pre-op.

I suspect the reason people regain is they increasingly indulge in slider foods... crackers, chips, Cookies, etc... and start drinking their calories... sugary drinks, alcohol, ice cream and such. I think it would be very hard for me to eat enough "real" food to regain. My restriction is still very present, but it's easy to defeat it by "eating around" my sleeve.

Edited May 31, 2023 by losinglosinglosing