Sleeve of steel and no restriction?

 17 lbs in 24 days is like .71 lbs per day.  Thats not shabby!  My rate for my first month was .72.  I lost 15.3 lbs from October 25th through 11/30.  I was sleeved on 11/2.

Its a learning process, for sure.  Just when you feell you have something under control you will find a new thing to learm.  Early on, its all physiological - how do I know when I am full?  Then you start moving on to the head stuff - how do I know the difference between head hunger and real hunger?  How do I deal with Head Hunger?  How do I deal with a shifting body image?

Not having made it to maintenance yet, I am only imagining what I am going to learn there from listening to the vets on here and in my support groups.  I just know if I stop finding new things to learn that I am probably going to be doing something wrong.

"I just know if I stop finding new things to learn that I am probably going to be doing something wrong."

I just had to see that again. OMG, so true!

I did not feel restriction until I was off of soft foods.  Then I did, BUT rarely.  I weigh and measure and don't eat more than 2-3 oz of dense protein at a time.  Restriction will keep you from binging like you used to, but I find it is more the sense that I am satisfied with much less food, rather than "restriction" per se.  That almost uncomfortably full feeling is restriction.

I have a 34 bougie and it's not oversewn, so I don't have the smallest sleeve either.

About your cottage cheese experience - it might be that your stomach nerves are still healing, so all those feelings of saiety or fullness are unreliable right now.  The signals are probably still garbled, which is why it is so important not to try to find "full" right now.  You might be there and not know it.  I was very hungry early on (first 8-10 weeks) but now I think it was more healing-related than restriction- or food-related.

I had exactly your experience in that everything was easy for me.  Drinking 2 liters of water on my first day, hitting 60 g of protein as soon as they told me to start drinking shakes.  I have never had any problems whatsoever.  I think I had very little swelling.
 
It sounds like you are 3-1/2 weeks out - right?  I can only tell you what worked for me, but I did not push my sleeve, not once, not at all, faster than my doctor recommended and I really held off longer than my guidelines said.  Your stomach is still healing, and there's no reason to advance to denser foods or larger volumes early on.  You will have years to test your sleeve all you want to, but just this one chance to heal.  If you are hungry, eat less food more often.  Stay on the soft side.  Try to only eat 2 oz of food at a time, because your stomach signals aren't reliable.  Trust that restriction will be there!! 

Now, about calories and carbs.  There are many ideas, many plans and a lot of contention.  I don't think it is as important as some, I think the important thing is persistence and commitment to some plan.  But I will say you are in the period during which it is *easiest* to eat less, and if you are satisfied with 600-800 calories now, you probably will find that pretty skimpy at 6 months out.  That's why all the vets talk about the "honeymoon phase."  I don't think it's magic, but at 9 months out (shy one week), I would have to white-knuckle my way through a 500 to 600 cal/day food plan now.  Which is all I was eating at first.

I am also not a hard-core low-carb person, but I would cut them out wherever it is easy.  I didn't know almond milk existed until VSG, but it has been one of the BEST things I've learned about.  My goodness it is great in my coffee and on its own and it has very few carbs compared to fat-free milk.  I save my carbs for things that have no good substitute, like beans.

Finally (I know, I'm long-winded), I am not a fast loser.  I'm a decent loser, but I stall and even plateau and kick the scales in frustration.  BUT, I am persistent and commited and that will be enough, because this is all about the long-run.  So don't worry about how fast you're losing, and worry about babying that chopped up tiny tummy of yours!  You will do great!

"Satisfied with much less food."  Yes, THAT I identify with!  I was eating 2200 calories a day before! Here I am doing 600-800 and not feeling hungry.  A couple of ounces of beef brisket makes me feel satisfied.  [I am on solids, even though I'm not at 4 weeks yet.  I know that's bizarre, but my surgeon told me to, I tried, and everything is cool.  I even ate shrimp, which was fine, though I was more "aware" of it than anything else I've eaten.]

How many calories are you on now?

I tried almond milk and hated it in my shakes.  I can't imagine drinking it straight. It was like water that didn't taste good.  I went ahead and used up the whole carton but... maybe it's the brand.  Which brand do you like?  I wouldn't mind substituting if I could actually like it, but at this stage I don't feel like forcing myself to get used to something I don't like.  Although I have a feeling when the honeymoon is over and the weightloss is much slower (as I have less to lose) I may find myself making changes I'm not making right now!

Thank you so much.  This has been so incredibly useful to read.

I really like only 2 kinds.  The bestest of all is Blue Diamond Almond-Coconut milk, unsweetened, 45 cal per cup.  Followed by Blue Diamond Vanilla-flavored Almond Milk, unsweetened, 40 cal per cup.  Soy Slender is also good, 70 cal per cup, but flavored and sweetened with Splenda.

I am still going to caution you to go slowly.  There's no *requirement* to eat too many dense foods early out, easy does it! 

I was also told to keep my calories on the 600 end of that range early out.  I'm just saying, you will be surprised at how much your capacity and appetite change, and at least for me, the least I ever could eat or wanted to eat is where you are right now.  So take advantage of the easy part, because it will never be this easy again.

If you have a larger sleeve, like I do, you may be surprised by your capacity as you get further out.  We have to be more careful not to depend on restriction early on because I am here to tell you that I can eat a lot if I put my mind to it.  I could eat 2200 cal/day easily - right now, without sweets - if I wanted.  Restriction wouldn't save me, and I am only 9 months out.  I am only trying to give you the cautionary side here. 

As it is, I eat more calories than many right now.  From about 5-7 months I was doing 800 cal/day.  I let them go up on vacation, and have struggled to give the food back.  I am now usually between 900 and 1100.  I do about 40-50 g of carbs, but that's really because I take in more calories, not because I've shifted the percentage.  I stalled pretty bad because (I think) I had let my carbs creep up closer to 80 g a day and that was too high.  Shifted them back down and felt my hunger really diminish and weight loss pick up.

Thank you for this tough love. I understand what your'e saying. My NUT told me that my maintenance would be 1200-1400 calories a day, so I really can't let myself slide too much unless I want my weight loss journey to take a couple of years... which would be better than not losing it at all, but not what I want to happen!

The way you put it, I think I'm lucky that I'm not able to rely on the size of my sleeve to hold me back, and that I'm having to measure and be mindful of everything, and learn to stick with it.  This is far more important for my longterm success than anything else I can do, and you just drove that home for me!

Thank you!

I am three weeks out and have not tried to eat past 4 oz. As long as that is keeping me satisfied and I don't feel like I need more or less, I have no plans to try to eat past that amount.  I'm too afraid of stretching or vomiting and hutting my stomach.  Hope I always feel this way.

Yes!  Keeping satisfied is what it's all about!  I'm so happy with my sleeve I don't have words to express!

LOL! Yes, it was your link that took me to the CCT!  I didn't notice anything about when to do it, though!

I was... maybe concerned, but maybe concerned is too strong a word.  I was certainly aware that everything I seemed to read here on OH was about restrictions, about not being able to eat much early, etc., and so yeah, I was wondering, good grief, why don't I ever feel this stuff?   Is it just me?

But enough people now have said they don't feel a strong discomfort that I now can relax.  I do trust the process.  I'm so happy with my sleeve I can't find enough words to express it!

But I just couldn't figure out why my experience was so different from "everybody" else.

Only... it isn't.  Duh.

Thanks for explaining about the communications issues, too.  My brain probably gave up on my stomach ever sending the message "FULL" years ago!