Still hungry post surgery?

[Neecey]

I just spoke with a friend who is almost 3 months post sleeve. Her surgery went fine but she’s a little disappointed because she said she’s still hungry post surgery. Also, her taste buds changed post surgery and the foods she liked before—including the protein shakes—make her gag now, so she’s having a hard time finding protein foods she likes.
Is this common? It makes me wonder, if I’m going to be hungry after surgery, if I shouldnt just go back to WW and starve myself. My friend has been eating some foods that I don’t think I would eat at this point (pizza, bread, etc.) and has still lost, but not as fast as she had hoped.

 

[missyinacage]

I am sure that your weight loss program has told you this but I'll say it again. Weight loss surgery is a tool. I'll be honest, pre-surgery I thought that was probably BS. I mean, they take almost all your stomach and (I had the RNY) bypass part of your digestive tract so you don't absorb as many calories. As it turns out, they were 100% correct. It helps you by giving you a smaller stomach, yes. But the biggest benefit is it gives you a chance to change.

The reason WW and other diets usually do not work long term is the exact word you used. STARVE! Your hormones send signals to your brain that you are hungry and full. When you are overweight, they do not function properly. When you get weight loss surgery, it basically resets them for a short period of time. Usually enough time to lose a lot of weight AND develop a healthy eating plan. If you diet, either using WW or keto or whatever, your hormones are still screaming "I'm STARVING!!". Every day. Forever. The surgery gives you an opportunity to reset those hormones so they work normally. You're hungry instead of starving. And best of all, you feel full when you should. If you choose to keep eating, well ...that's on you.

Even with the best weapon available, no one has ever maximized their weight loss by regularly eating pizza and white bread. WLS is not a magic cure. You still have to do the work. You still have to make the right choices. I had someone tell me (who was failing to lose with the sleeve) that "all" foods made her throw up except "ice cream". That is complete BS. If you can stomach ice cream, you can stomach a protein shake. If you can eat pizza, you can eat lean chicken. In the end, as with everything, you have to make a choice. And live with the consequences.

 

[3momchaos]

Every person is different and their journey is very personal. What happened to your friend might not happen to you. It’s good to try a variety of protein drinks before hand, so you know what’s out there. Please don’t let someone else experience deter you.

 

[WazzuCoug]

Hunger is a natural thing. It doesn't just vanish after surgery. Some people experience different levels of hunger after surgery, but in the grand scheme of things, it won't be as significant. The thing to remember is for the first few months you will probably be eating less than 800 calories a day, and that is next to nothing. The fact that eat that few calories and not be absolutely ravenous and crazy is one of the amazing things about the surgery. You still get hungry because your body wants to eat, but compared to how you would feel trying to restrict yourself to 800 calories before surgery, you usually can't even compare it.

The surgery still requires a commitment to changing your relationship with food and making healthy choices for live. That doesn't mean you have to exclude all foods all the time, but a great majority of the time, to sustain this long term, we've got to eat differently and move differenting, and think a bit differently. It's not always easy, but the surgery provides an incredible avenue and opportunity to make huge changes in your life and drastically improve your overall health and quality of life. Don't lose site of that. It is something that people who try to diet almost never achieve.

The surgery isn't successful because you have a smaller stomach and eat less. It is successful because the side effects of the surgery cause changes to how our biology reacts to certain hormonal signals in the brain and other tissues throughout the body. This change in signal reception allows your body to lose fat without your brain trying to fight against like it did prior to surgery. Our bodies are not designed for weight loss, they are designed to protect it, and when we are obese, the negative effects are compounded.

Regardless of what you eat, your body will lose some weight after surgery because your body wants to get to a lower weight. It will actually burn more fat than normal to get there in many cases, but at some point, that will turn and bad food choices can send a person back to the beginning, but don't be too judgemental of your friend. She may not be eating those foods all the time. I have pizza every now and then, albeit not the same sort of pizza I had my by previous life. Still, her experience and choices will be very different than yours.

If you are interested, here are some posts on reddit that dive a bit deeper into why diets fail, why the surgery works, some info about stalls and why WLS sometimes fails: Why Diets Don't Work and Why WLS Does & More …