Is it common to dislike eating breakfast after WLS?

I am finding that I don't like to eat in the mornings anymore. I never missed breakfast before surgery, and my plan is insistent that I never skip breakfast now. But eating in the morning typically ends with me giving up because I run out of time or just not feeling well, especially if I am rushing. It seems like I do better if I spend my morning drinking 4 oz of kefir followed by a sugar free tea or latte and 1/2 of a premier protein. It doesn't bother me at all to wait until lunch to eat solid food. Do a lot of people feel this way after surgery? Is this likely to change once I am further out?

I have never been a big breakfast person.  When I was early out, I would drink a Premier Protein Shake on my way to work.  Now, I usually don't eat anything until around 10, and it's a snack.  I do use my morning time to get vitamins in and get started on my water intake.  I am a night person and save my calories for my night snack instead of breakfast.  I know this goes against what nutritionists say about starting your metabolism by eating a good breakfast, but this works for me.  I am 29 months and maintaining well below goal.

I cannot speak for everyone -- but I will say that I am the same way!  Indeed, before surgery, breakfast was my favorite meal!!  I loved all things breakfast: waffles, pancakes, omelets, hash browns, sausages, bacon, muffins... it's so hard to imagine how I got to 344 pounds!!

Now, I prefer not to eat solid food until lunch.  For the longest time, I had protein shake and my vitamins for breakfast -- now, truthfully, I drink about 30 oz of water with Mio and a 16 oz coffee with 2 T whole milk with my vitamins until lunch.  It really works for me.  

Good question.  I am curious to see how others will answer.  I am only 16 months out -- so it will be interesting to see if some of the vets felt this way, too and if they remained or went back to enjoying breakfast.

I am with you about loving all things breakfast before surgery. It is probably for the best that I don't like to eat in the morning anymore because breakfast sandwiches would probably be a trigger food for me. I used to be obsessed with swinging by McDonald's or Caribou coffee for one on my way to work, and I would totally screw up my whole day by eating too many calories for breakfast. Then, I would spend the rest of the day starving so that I could stay under my calorie goal, which was usually impossible.

I simply don't eat until I'm hungry, which can be anywhere from 0-6 hours after I get up. If I'm very hungry when I first get up, it generally means I didn't eat enough the day before :) That's just me though.

Ditto.

I am not a big fan of solid food before lunch, I never have been. I was always fine skipping breakfast before surgery-unless it was donuts. I'd get up at 5 am if I had to so I could go get fresh donuts. Coffee got me through to lunch with no problems. 

I make sure to start my day with some form of protein, even if it's just a shake in my coffee, or directly following it. I'd started skipping my shake until later in the day, but recently started experiencing what felt like low blood sugar in the mornings. Having a shake first thing works for me. I usually have yogurt about 9. I get up at 6 during the week. I still can't stomach the thought of anything solid right off the bat. 

My surgeon is insistent that I don't eat until I feel that low blood sugar feeling, which means I usually forget to eat until late morning or even afternoon. Once I remember that I need to fuel my body, I start on my protein for the day. It seems that my doctor is very different from most others, I am only supposed to eat solid food once, maybe twice a day if I really need to, and supplement with shakes. I hate shakes, so I usually eat twice. She is more concerned with me not eating than worrying about getting in those last few grams of protein, because my blood protein is still perfect. Again, this is my program, everyone is slightly different. My point is, she has a good success rate, so I follow what she says. I don't think not eating breakfast is a problem at this stage, it might change at a later point. I know that she is most concerned about the habits being formed, eating when not hungry, not snacking, etc. Having a shake in the morning is nutrition, so I also don't think not eating solid food would be an issue since you are probably getting more out of that shake than any tiny amount of food you could fit in there at this point. 

Interesting plan. It's definitely not one I would ever follow. I can see that it could be effective to get to goal, but long-term I would love to see her patients' stats. If you do not learn how to eat real foods, how on Earth can you maintain? It's like the crazy old fad diets I used before WLS. All were excellent to help me lose weight, but none helped me keep it off.

My surgeon's own words...

http://www.empowher.com/bariatric-surgery/content/what-are-habits-successful-weight-loss-patients-dr-ellner-video

Dr. Ellner:
The typical habits that I see in my very successful bariatric patients are number one, eating behaviors. Knowing when to start eating and when to stop eating. Sometimes this is the hardest part for any human being to figure out when they are using either a gastric banding or a gastric bypass or a sleeve operation.

Patients need to learn what their first signal is of a low blood sugar feeling, which is hypoglycemia. That is a solid black and white signal that each of our bodies send to us when we need food in the system. A patient can’t be led astray by cravings or emotional eating if they are just following their low blood sugar signal as their only indication to start eating.

The second part of that comes with knowing when to stop eating. I tell my patients that they need to eat every bite, let every bite settle nice and slow in their system, and then they need to ask themselves after every single bite, “Did my low blood sugar feeling go away?” In most cases it’s a sense of dizziness or maybe a headache, and if with that bite, the headache went away, that’s the body saying, “You’ve just filled my tank; I don’t need anymore food.” And that’s a good black and white signal so patients know when to start and when to stop eating.

One of the most common mistakes that I see people making sometimes two or three years out of the gastric bypass is that they are still relying on their stomach to make them feel ill if they eat too much. Over time, the stomach muscles and nerves re-coordinate and they start to move food through faster over the second half of the first year than they did during the first half of the first year.

So the people that have the surgery will naturally be able to eat more food in the second six months and into the second year. So, that stomach will not necessarily make that person feel sick or vomit if they eat too much. Over time, this chronic overfilling can lead to pouch or stoma stretch. That leads to less satiety, which is a decreased sense of fullness with a given amount of food. That leads to increased volumes of food being eaten in a given period of time. That leads to weight regain, and that’s what brings patients in wanting a revision.

About Dr. Ellner, M.D.:
Dr. Julie Ellner, M.D., is a bariatric surgeon and medical director of Alvarado's Surgical Weight-Loss Program at Alvarado Hospital.

I definitely eat real foods, just only when necessary and not because I need to hit a number, but because my body is telling me when to eat. It is not waiting for my blood sugar to "bottom out", but to know when your body is physically telling you, you need food, not because of any other reason. As time goes on, and your body adjusts to surgery and eventually things stretch out, I know I will be eating more and more often, but she definitely is more concerned with developing habits for the long term, and taking advantage of the newness of surgery as long as I can. I have no doubt that I have learned so much more about eating properly than I did before. I believe she is setting me up for long term success, not long term failure.