Just saying hello. New "old" vsg.

If you have a sleeve, the part of the stomach that distends was largely removed, leaving only a smaller amount. What we usually see happen is that the esophagus stretches because the sleeve (and the pouch for that matter) cannot hold very much food. Anatomically it's quite different, actually.

Eating certain foods and fasting causes different hormones to be dominant in the body regardless of WLS or not, so the stomach "feels" smaller. In reality, it is not physically smaller.

Our new stomachs stretch a little over the first year or so. There is no way to avoid it, it's just a natural result of the surgery.

Other than that its really hard to stretch. Our new stomachs and pouches are made of the least stretchable part of our old stomachs.

It is absolutely impossible to shrink our stomachs. Just not possible.

We can eat a lot of certain low density foods. We just won't feel much restriction. We could eat crackers all day, for instance. Its why many people think thgey have stretched their stomachs. Nope. They're just eating slider foods.

But chicken, steak, or any similar dense protein? Those will let us know how small our stomachs are. It's why dense protein first is one of the fundamental post-WLS rules.

Getting back to basics with dense protein may make us think we shrunk our stomachs back to early post surgery. But the restriction was there all along. We just figured out how to eat around it.

Well sir, empirically...from a functional level my stomach appears to have a lower tendency to distend as far as it did 30 days ago. My eating patterns (timing and macronutrients) appear to effect that tendency.

I'm going to call it "shrinking."

Thank you for the information and congratulations on your success.

I wish my pouch were more consistent. One day I can have 3 oz of steak and be stuffed and the next day I eat my 5oz and feel nothing. I stop anyway but it sure would be nice if it was always the same. I'm not a fan of big pouch days!

This makes sense now to me. Thanks for explaining. :) I began to realize the other day I had not stretched my pouch when I sat down to eat with friends. I noticed after I ate my desired amount , that my friends were eating and eating and eating more! I thought,,, I use to be that way! I couldn't eat like that if I wanted to now. So, I realized my pouch is still working! You were talking about slider foods like crackers. That was my mistake in the past.... I could eat a lot of crackers in one sitting in front of the TV. Never realized these were slider foods. I don't do this anymore. :) Thanks again for sharing. I enjoy reading and learning. :)

A lot of folks here used to refer to them as CRACKers. We really can eat a billion of them. There are 800 calories in one sleeve of Ritz. And after eating a sleeve, I would just crave more.

...or garbage bags full of popcorn. ALL THE POPCORN.

^^^that

Mmm... Ritz crackers. The work of the debbil.

We have a great article on this exact subject. Resetting....

Does A Bariatric Surgery Stomach Reset Work To Lose Regain?