full but always feeling hungry

I totally agree with the therapy. It does help. 

Look at why you had surgery. Look at what you want to accomplish in life. I am not being mean. I am just saying that WLS has really made me take a hard look at myself.

In the beginning it was a lot easier than it is now. People here really want to help.

Get on a menu thread and read what others are eating. It does help.

Good luck to you. 

Have you looked into therapy? Eating till you're full & hurt a little is a problem in itself. Stop chasing the full feeling it won't help you, add to that you're eating food your Dr doesn't want you to eat right now & you'll quickly start regaining. Head hunger is a pain in the ass to work through but you must find ways to get past this. Therapy/support group can help.

You've got a lot of red flags here and you need to get your brain sorted out.  Are you seeing a therapist?  If you're not, make that your primary 2017 goal.  Find a therapist.  Talk with your PCP about your self-sabotage.  Talk with your surgeon.  

VSG is awesome to reduce your stomach size, but the only way you will have success short and long-term is if you sort your brain out.  Do this for yourself and take advantage of every mental health and medical professional you have access to.  

So I'll lay out a few things for you to consider.  I had a lapband for 8 years.  IMO that was a bad choice from the start and me and it were never going to reach success.  I'll also tell you what I had to change when I moved to VSG.

First we'll start with it's problems: the band didn't change the size of my stomach, therefore I could and did find ways to eat whatever I wanted to.  I could eat for instance a small portion of dense protein as I should have without drinking and it would have sat there on top of the band as it should have BUT that is not what I did.  I learned over time that if I ate soft foods those would pass right through and I could eat nearly the amount I could without the band.  I also found that drinking with meals helped me move food past the band and I again could eat "normally".  Why would I do this?  So many reasons but here are just a few for you to think about: I wanted to feel normal when out with my friends, with co-workers, while on a date, or at a family gathering, and so on.  No one likes to feel out of place, and sometimes I'd feel like if I didn't eat a "normal" portion that people were watching.  Also I liked eating, let's be honest most of us on here got here because we LOVE eating food, be that to celebrate, to cure being sad, or to stop boredom.  Most of us all just like eating and we weren't eating carrot sticks.  I loved cookies, and cokes, and all kinds of high calorie things.  That band had no chance of stopping my morning latte and scones addiction.  So think about the things that you were doing with your lapband that are proven to not help you loose weight and be honest with yourself.  

So this is where I have to get real with people.  I realized that my habits with the band had taken me from 285 to 235 and then delivered me right back to 282.... that was a sad feeling.  I'd lost weight and felt good about it, but I still had unrealistic ideas of what the band should be doing, I had a totally warped view about what I was actually eating, I over looked my bad habit's and flat ignored good sense and kept right on going back to my highest weight.

So back to your list of why the band didn't work for you.  Think about all the reasons it failed you like it was tight or loose or choked you or whatever that might be.  Now slide all those reasons to the side and think about why you failed.  Let that sink in... why did you fail.  It might be because of some of the reasons above and you might have some of your own.

Now take that list of why you failed before and now apply that to why your failing now... I'm going to suspect that list might be similar.  VSG is similar to the band in several ways.  It will totally allow you to fail in very similar ways.  

• If I choose a plate with chicken and mashed potatoes on it and choose to eat the mashed potatoes first then I can eat a fair amount and they slide through my stomach and into my intestines fairly quickly and then I can eat a good amount of that chicken too.  Very similar to the way the band worked.  In this case you probably shouldn't choose mashed potatoes in the first place but if you did you need to eat the chicken first.  Eat dense proteins first and if you have a little room then eat a small amount of your side which is hopefully also dense and not high calorie.
• If you choose to eat cookies, you can totally eat cookies, and you can drink lattes and cokes too.  The band nor VSG will save you from this.  You must choose to not eat things which are high in calories.  If your keeping to just about any recommended VSG plan there's really no room in there for things like that.  When I was at 4 months almost all of my meals or snacks were only 2-4oz, and that's pretty darn small when your trying to get in 80 grams of protein and stay under 1000 calories.  So if you're following a typical VSG plan you'll find out quickly through tracking your food that junk food isn't going to fit into the plan.  Can you eat it, oh heck yes you can, should you though is the part you have to work on.
• You can eat all day long.  Both VSG and the lapband will not make you eat one bite less that you were before either surgery as long as you have enough time.  So if you wanted to eat an entire pizza which you may have been able to do before either surgery, you can still totally do that today.  It just takes patience and time.  You can't eat the whole thing right away but you can eat it one slice at a time for example.  VSG has only limited the total sum of food you can eat at that sitting. However if you wait 30mins to an hour I bet your going to find that you can have another slice, and then another, and before the day is over you can eat that whole darn pizza.  Again here VSG isn't failiing, the person in control isn't in control.

So if you choose to eat soft foods you can eat more of those than dense foods so stick to dense foods.  Next really consider your choices and if things junk food have entered your home you must get rid of them.  I never could resist cookies if they were in the house, so I have never let cookies back in the house after VSG.  I had to identify my weaknesses and I had to take control and the way I chose to do that was to just not allow those things back into the house.  Now if I want to have ice cream for example I must go out and have some at the place and often I just don't feel like going through all that so I just don't very often.  Next consider your whole day and think about things like snacks and things.  If you've not signed up for Myfitness pal or another calorie tracker you need to.  Get a food scale and measure your food.  It sounds like your eating until your full.  That is really not the way to work this VSG system.  I can be full between 4-6oz and there is no reason for me to put any more on a plate.  If I let myself eat until I'm full I can eat more than that.  I know this because if I go to a restaurant where I can't weigh my food I can approximate my intake to be more especially if I eat what I want and then sit and talk with my plate still in front of me.  I can poke in a few more bites easily after chatting for 5-10mins.  In this case you must get rid of that plate in front of you BTW.  

The short of it: my bad habits followed me from the labband to VSG.  I had to get real about those issues and stop them before I had VSG.  I have been successful but it's only because I clearly identified my personal issues, took ownership of them and did something about them.  I'm fairly sure what you're experiencing isn't weird at all, I bet it happens to a lot of people to be honest.  I know a several VSG people who feel hungry all the time.  Some of that is mental and some of that might have something to do with if youryou are taking something like pepside every day.  Ask if you want more info about that.  As far as you not loosing weight though I'll put money on that you've carried over some food issues and they are still lingering and holding you back from your weight loss goals.  Try to be honest with yourself and try to find ways to work on one issue at a time.  If you can get help from the people you live with that will be a huge help, if you want or think it'd help go see a theripist to talk out some of these issues.  Also do keep in touch with this forumn.  It will help you to read everyone's experinces.  Try to have a thick skin and if you ever feel mad about something ask yourself if you feel mad or maybe it just hit home a little too hard and your not actually mad but more uncomfortable with the thing they've suggested. 

i know i have gone back to bad habits, i am now back to eating proteins only but i can stiull eat alot. i am gonna do a pouch reset, go back to protein shakes for 3 days and then straight to the solid proteins hopefully that will help. thanks for sharing your story with me.

My problem with the band was the first year i bounce a few pounds either way until we finally got it set and i lost 148 pounds, then i started throwing up for no reason, most times it was 30 min to an hour after i ate i would bend over to pick something up off the floor and throw up, and they took the fluid out of the band to which i gained 60 pounds. We started adding the fluid back but couldn't seem to get it back to where i would lose weight. so we decide to do the revision. i will post if the pouch reset works or not. sseing the nutritiolnist and drs on the 16th.

hate to tell you but the pouch reset is a bunch of bull.  try eating dense protein measured out instead.  drinking protein shakes isn't going to do much of anything but make you hungry.  

I wish you all the best.  Also good on you for admitting bad habit creep.  It was the hardest conversation I had to have with myself.  However it's giving me a lot of success this past year and as long as I keep those demons in check I expect to have continued success.

If the liquid pouch reset doesn't work try doing an all meat reset.  Several members on here have good results from removing everything except lean solid protein and only eating that for several days.  Definitely weight your food and see how much your eating.  Maybe have someone help you do some blind studies.  Some nights if I feel hungry just because I ate less.  It's all mental for the most part.  If I normally have a 6oz portion of salmon but came up short and only had 4oz, sometimes my brain makes it so in an hour or sometimes even less... I'm hungry feeling.  If you have a partner who can have you load up your plate and weight it for you a couple night they can give you the average.  You can then see where you're at.  If you determine that your eating too much once that's done you can then work towards finding that sweet spot of feeling full yet still being within the calories you'd like to stay within.

On a side note, the best bang for the buck I've found protein to calories wise is chicken, breast if you like um but thighs are also very reasonable. 

our local support group this week is going a "get back on track". we have that this coming Thursday the 19th. I also have an appt with the nutritionist and the NP with my surgeons office 2 days the 16th. I will try the all protein this weekend and see what happens. I would love to weigh my food again unfortunately my food scale has disappeared. trying to save to get another one.

I will try to remember to post again after drs appt and support group. thanks everyone for all your help

HI, I don't think I ever really knew the difference between being hungry or not.  I've always just ate when I felt like it. If I didn't feel full I figure I must be hungry.  I've regained about 40lbs and it's so frustrating.  I need to get some structure and advice.  Time to see a nutritionist.  Good luck.  Let me know if you figure anything out.

Nicolle