Just saying hello. New "old" vsg.

Morning!

Just saying hello and introducing myself. I'm returning to share and chat and read and listen, looking for support and to support others.

I had my VSG ~four years ago to great success (lost over 150 lbs) but the weight has crept back on and I find myself starting over.

Not a sob story, but rather just the state of my world. I'm generally happy and find reading these forums motivating, so please keep posting and sharing and thank you for your time.

- S

Welcome back!!! :) I had my VSG 3 1/2 years ago and just came back here a few days ago for support and motivation also. I lost 100 lbs and regained 37 back. I feel like a failure but the way I understand it .... we still have our tool... our new stomach. We need to go back to the basics. Talking to myself also here. No more bread, sweets and measure out our foods again and start back exercising and drink 64 oz of water daily. "We" can do this! Don't be so hard on yourself... take ONE day at a time. :)

Thank you!

I can say this about our pouch/stomachs - yes you can stretch them out - but YES also they can shrink right back up.

I have been intermittent-fasting for two weeks now and my stomach feels like it is back to it's post-surgery tiny size. Half a chicken breast and I'm stuffed.

We can do it.

- S

That's good to know....my fear was that once the pouch was stretched that it couldn't be shrinked again.

The bigger problem for RNYers is stretching the stoma. If you stretch it out, it does NOT shrink back... and if it is seriously stretched, your intestine basically becomes an extension of your pouch and you will be able to eat a LOT of food.

Hat is why the rules to eat slowly and to chew your food well (and, to a lesser extent, no drinking with meals) exist.

Lora

Felt so encouraged after reading this.... thanks for sharing! Curious thought... what did you eat or drink during your 2 weeks of fasting to reset your pouch? :)

I fasted from 7pm till 5pm the next day. While fasting I drank only water, tea without milk or sugar, one diet soda per day. About 100oz total. When I ate it was anything we had dinner on hand but as few carbs as possible. I ate intentionally slowly and waited every few minutes to see if the pouch would feel full.

During the the first week I ate too much each night and felt sick but each day I got full sooner. By the second week I could feel the signals more clearly and started preparing about half my usual meal and still felt over-full.

That's where I'm at now. Tonight I stopped when my stomach said stop. Feels good. ;) Weight's going down but it mostly water right now.

You can't reset a pouch. You can reset a brain, but only a surgeon can shrink a stomach.

You can certainly eat in a way that increases the ability of your stomach to distend. Training for competitive eating for example. That may not be stretching, but it happens.

Sure. If you had your original, pre-WLS stomach, you could stretch it -- all of us did, in fact.

But our new stomachs? There is extremely little to stretch. The only danger for stretching is an RNYer's stoma.