First year: Do you get hungry?

Hello everyone!

It's been almost two months since my surgery (roux-en-Y). I was told one of the benefits of it was that I would feel no hunger for the entire first year.  Unfortunately that's not the case -- I felt hunger starting the second day after surgery, and most days I'm ravenously hungry for at least part of every day. (I'm eating around 600 calories a day, which is what my NUT recommends.) It's definitely not in my head, I just feel very, very hungry.

Was anyone else told the same thing? Do other people feel hunger the first year or not?

Unfortunately this isn't the first inaccurate thing they told me. I was told I'd lose 50 pounds before I returned to work post-surgery, and I haven't even lost 50 pounds almost two months out... :/

I am 5.5 years out and have little to no hunger. Are you drinking 64+ oz of liquid a day? Sometimes thirst masquerades as hunger. 

Are you taking a PPI like Nexium? Acid,sometimes you have no symptoms of burning,just hunger, can make you feel hungry.

what is a days menu like for you?  Often,Eating carby things will cause you to be hungry.

Thanks for the reply!  I'm getting just under 64 ounces, usually 50-55 per day. The only carbs I get is from a little fruit with one meal a day. Rarely I have crackers (2-3 Ritz), but that's maybe once or twice a week. No bread or sweets!  I haven't had any problems with acid (that I know of), and I'm not taking Nexium. 

Breakfast is a shake (homemade, 0% milk with whey protein powder), lunch is some grilled chicken and/or cheese, dinner is whatever I didn't have for lunch (chicken or cheese). Rarely ham.  Snacks are sugar free ice pops. I believe I'm still supposed to be eating about four tablespoons of food per meal, so that's what I aim for. (Sometimes I can't eat that much though.)

Consider changing the ice pops to cottage cheese or a cheese stick, protein for sugar or artificial sugar.

That protein might make you feel less hungry.

Some programs are strict on 3 meals a day but I found that 5-6 small meals worked better to squash hunger.

If you start the day with some water, then your shake or even 1/2 of your shake, then about 2 hours later a small snack or the rest of your shake.  Followed by more water, then lunch 2 hours later, more water after that settles, another small snack, more water, dinner, more water, small evening snack.

I definitely ate on a schedule ..typically my meals were around 150 calories at a time and the snacks were 50 calories or so.  Total of about 600-700 calories a day but since I was spreading it out all day, I was not hungry.

I tried something like that yesterday and I think it's working better. I noticed that I really only eat a couple bites (nibbles) of my meals and then throw the rest out (nothing tastes good/right anymore except fruit), so it makes sense I was getting hungry again soon. I ate three nibbles of yesterday's lunch and was hungry two hours later -- once I realized what I was doing, it made sense. I think three meals (shake + two meals) doesn't work for me, the more frequent smaller ones might.

Thanks!

I'm sorry that you are getting bad information.  MOST people get their hunger back by just a couple of months out, and certainly well before a year out (unless they are part of the minority who never get it back).

As far as losing 50 pounds before you even went back to work, well that was just ridiculous of them to say. Unless you started out at 400+ pounds that wasn't going to happen. Even at a starting BMI of 57 (330+ pounds at only 5'3") with 200 pounds to lose, it took me more than two months to lose 50 pounds (and 6 months to lose 100). 

Try to focus on dense foods as much as possible because they stay in your pouch longer and keep you from getting hungry.

Lora

 

I really wish I had realized how ridiculous the '50 pounds before returning to work' claim was, because that set my expectations. :/ It was the surgeon's nurse who told me that, too!

Never getting hunger back would be the best thing ever. I can hardly imagine how much that would help.

It actually doesn't help as much as you think it might.  For most people who are MO or SMO, the majority of our eating has nothing (or very little) to do with physical hunger.  

There have been a couple of studies about how overweight people interpret all sorts of things as physical hunger that really aren't the body telling them that they need to eat. We mistake head hunger (cravings), thirst, physical stomach emptiness (just becaus the last food you ate is no longer in your stomach doesn't mean you need to eat again), as well as various emotional states for physical hunger.

I don't ever get physically hungry (my surgery was seven years ago).  I can only feel my blood sugar drop if I wait too long to eat (I have mild hypoglycemia).  That doesn't keep me from wanting to snack on sweets, or salty, high carb things, or from simply wanting to eat something unhealthy at meal time.  Those things are simply choices and have nothing to do with hunger, and those are the things that trip people up, not eating too often because they are "hungry". 

Lora

Oh, that makes sense! Thanks for the comment.

Looks like I am in the minority, but even at 7 years out, I never experience true hunger.  Of course, that may be because I do eat 6 times a day, with some sort of protein at almost every meal, including denser proteins (like meat) 2 or 3 times a day.  Of course, at 2 months out, your body is still adjusting and it's impossible to eat the way one does at a year out.  You shouldn't feel hunger if you are sipping throughout the day.  I'd be wondering if something wasn't quite right, and I'd contact my surgeon's office with my concerns.  Oh, and I wanted to say that 50 pounds at 2 months would be a lot of weight to lose.  I had a goal of 2 pounds per week, so at 2 months that would be 16 pounds.  Anything above that would be awesome.  See how it depends on your perspective?