old wives tales??Vets can i kindly get ur attention plz

I'd say I can eat, at four years, maybe a bit less than Kayla, but a very respectable amount.   Like her, I'm SUPER glad for malabsorption!  I would have gained the weight back years ago.   I can usually just fit down a hamburger - four oz. cooked weight - with half of the bun removed and half a small order of fries.   Tonight I ate two decent walleye fillets, one ear of corn and one slice of tomato and was stuffed.   I did come back later on to eat another ear of corn, then *cringe* another piece about an hour after that!   I love fresh corn only during corn season and get my fill.   I can eat three scrambled eggs and bacon.    Other days, I can eat far less.  I get some kind of mental block when I go out to eat and can eat far less than at home.   My tastes are very finicky nowadays, and I think that must have something to do with the gherelin.   If something doesn't taste just perfect to me, I will push my plate away and not eat it.   I get hungry every two-three hours, and actually get nauseated and ill feeling if I go too long without eating.

I was given a 3 oz. sleeve, and like everyone here, at first I could eat hardly anything.  Liquids weren't a problem, but the denser it was, the less I could eat.  I very well remember eating one and half mini raviolis, being stuffed, and thinking how damn wierd that was.  I can eat the whole can now.  I would estimate my sleeve at seven and a half years at roughly ten, maybe twelve ounces.  I can eat a normal meal most of the time.  A lot of the times I take some of it with me.  It seems when I'm starving I'm unable to eat as much as when I've munched all day.  Very strange.

One good example of my eating is one night for dinner last week I had the taco plate from the hospital next door.  Two tacos with a good amount of steak, cilantro rice and refried black beans.  I ate EVERYTHING at one sitting, along with a 20 drink.  Now....Over the weekend I was in Houston and had looked up this interesting looking place called Bodegas Taco Shop.  We went and I again got the taco plate, this one coming with three tacos, cilantro rice and refried beans.  I was only able to eat one taco, about a third of the rice and about half of the beans.  Everything was basically the same size, so go figure.  I did snack on the rest of it throughout the night.  I work nights so I'm awake all night long.

A double cheeseburger does not faze me.  I eat the bun and all, I know a lot don't.  I haven't had more than a dozen fries though in seven years.  I agree with the post stating it's the malabsorption that is our saving grace, not so much the restriction, though that is part of it.

Hope this helps.  Good luck.

Wenda

As others have said, you won't find results on long-term VSG results.
My experience with the DS:
-  First 6 months I could eat very little at a time and it would depend on what I was eating. At that time I couldn't eat 3 oz chicken breast without getting the foamies.
-  By 1 year I could eat about half of what I usually ate. Except for good steaks - I could eat a good 4-6 oz at that time
-  Now, at 3.5 years, I can eat a "normal" sized meal.

Today's food: 
     Breakfast - large coffee/protein latte, 2 slices thick whole wheat/flax toast with peanut butter and jam
     Snac****d double espresso with cream
     Lunch  - 4 oz left over steak, 2 slices whole wheat bread;
     Snack - 2 cups fresh cherries;
     Dinner - 8 oz rib eye steak, baked potato with butter and sour cream, 2 cobs corn with butter, coleslaw, iced cream for dessert. I spread my dinner over 1.5 hours.
     Snack - bowl of corn bran cereal with raspberries, blueberries, milk and cream. 

Some days I don't eat quite as much, but I eat at least 4 times.  My favorite snack is 2 slices whole wheat bread with melted cheese and sliced tomato. I feel hungry if 4 hours have passed and I haven't eaten. I don't eat junk the way I did before surgery, though.

I have maintained a 120 lb weight loss. I was a light weight (260 lbs, 5'8") when I started with a BMI of 41. From my perspective, it is the malabsorption that is helping me keep the weight off.

Good luck with your surgery choice.
SherryB

Yes, it does stretch over time. However, at 9 1/2 years out, I still routinely take home 1/2 of my meal from a restaurant. Before surgery I could eat 1/2 a pizza. Now I can barely eat two pieces. I ate out for lunch a couple of days ago and was pleasantly full from a 1/2 bacon, tomato, avocado and sprouts sandwich on whole wheat and 1/2 of a cup of black bean soup.

One thing I do notice is there is not a lot of give in the stomach anymore. Once you are full, you are really full and if I try to take one more bite, I really regret it.

And I do indeed feel hunger. 

I'm not sure what you may find but you might try researching VBG w/sleeve. My surgeon does quite a few of those and there may be some stats on long term results. He doesn't do the tiny VSG sleeve but a sleeve with around 3-5oz capacity (60f bougie) with a permanent or adjustable band around it. He doesn't believe there will be good long term results with the sleeve only and he doesn't think the really tiny VSG sleeve is good for people. He called it an unnatural diameter for the human anatomy. That's just his take on things, I don't really have an opinion.

--gina

All I can say is thank goodness for malabsporption. WIthout it I KNOW I would be bigger now. In the early days I couldnt eat a small egg. Now I can really pack it away.

BUT- with that said-
If you arent ready for a SERIOUS vitamin routine- malabsorption is NOT the way to go.

My stomach was sized at 100cc's 5 years ago.  I believe that measures out to around 2.5 ounces.  I wasn't hungry much at all my first year.  Today I can eat a pretty normal size meal, although my eyes are often larger than my stomach.  For instance, I recently had dinner at the Outback.  I ate two slices of bread from the little loaf they bring to the table, caesar salad, about 4 of the 6 oz of steak with some sauteed mushrooms and half of a loaded baked potato.  I didn't get my ticket to the clean plate club, but I didn't get any funny looks for not touching my dinner either.  Yes, the stomach stretches, not to the full size, but considerably much compared to the first year, and yes, the body finds new ways to tell you you're hungry.  We have a handful of VSG's that come here every year to revise to a DS when they start gaining weight again.

The DS not only helps you malabsorb many different types of foods, but also alters the metabolism, which is the key to much of our success around here.  If you've lost weight dieting in your past, then maybe the VSG will work for you, but if eating less never helped you before, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in it.

I'm nearly four years out.

Early out? Uh, say a month out? Half a cup of food absolutely max.

Now? Depends on the day. I have small belly days where I basically nibble, and other days where I eat like a person of normal weight and appetite. On one of those days recently, in one meal I ate all but a few bites of an 8-oz. piece of filet mignon, the marvelously done skin of half a twice baked potato, a small dinner salad and a number of pieces of raw veggies. That's pushing my outer limits.

Well, I have not heard the antacid thing before. That's odd.

But I have heard the VSGers on their board say some pretty odd stuff, particularly "Old Medic," stuff that is not even supported by science a little bit. I figure they NEED to believe that stuff. Like wishing on shotting stars. I cannot blame them, as it's all they have, given there is no long-term data and the early data on regain is poor, so far. (That's why some VSG docs are now making the stomachs--in my opinion--so dangerously small.)

But wishful thinking got me up to 344 pounds. Every day, I wished that my current diet plan would work. And it didn't, not in the long-term. So I got fatter and sicker and kept wishing for a solution to my metabolic problem. Then I found the DS and it seems that some wishes come true. I lost to goal effortlessly and still get to eat the foods I love, with no ill effects, (so far, at 2.5 years out).

My DS stomach (sleeve) was made to be have a volume of about 2.7 ounces. It as small or smaller than a lot of VSGer stomachs are made, according to what they all report out over on that board.

After 1 month, I could eat a teeny bit of meat or cheese (2 ounces) and a couple of crackers. At about 1 year, I still had good restriction, 1/2 to one cup of food at a time kind of thing, several times a day, but I was HUNGRY. At about the year 2 mark, it changed. Now I eat what a "normal" woman eats. Half of a big steak, some side dish stuff, some bread. At McDonald's, I eat a Big Mac, minus the top bun with some fries and a Diet Coke.

This morning, I ate:

4 pieces of bacon, 2 pieces of cheese on an English muffin
Diet Coke

For lunch today, I ate at Baker's Square:

Chicken salad on a big croissant
1/2 order of fries
piece of french silk pie
Diet Coke

I will snarf down some cheese and crackers soon, as I am getting hungry.

Tonight, I have no idea, but dinner probably will involve some meat and veggies. Then I will wa**** down with some full-fat ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream and some wafer cookies.

I would guess that I eat about 3,000 calories a day. (I really should count one day, since it comes up often here.) If I absorbed all of that, I know I would be in trouble and on my way to some regain.

I think every type of weight loss surgery can help people get to goal weight, through limiting the amount of food able to be consumed. However, our bodies are extremely adaptive. Things stretch, grow longer, become more absorptive to deal with the trauma to which it was subjected via surgery and its aftermath.

While the stomach is highly unlikely to get back to its ORIGINAL size (in my case, massive size) with RNY, DS or VSG, it does NOT need to, in order for us to regain, so I think that is a fake argument. For example, I am hungry every 2-3 hours and put about 2-3 ounces of food in at snack time and more at meals to feel sated. Those calories add up. If I did not have malabsoprtion, I would be dieting and hungry much of the time and feeling like crap, like when I dieted my way up to 344 pounds.

Lots of lightweights get the DS and do great. If you have subjected your body to lots of diets and now you find you cannot diet or exercise this excess weight off and keep it off, your metabolism may need the boost of the DS.

On the other hand, if you are good at dieting, I'd say skip the VSG and just diet the weight off. Same difference in the long run (calorie-counting, huffing and puffing exercise, same deprivation), just less surgery.

Hope this helps.

Nicolle