Frustrated

I know some of how you feel. BUT I will tell you that it will get better as the time goes on. Keep trying new and old foods, what you can handle today you will not be able to handle tomorrow. You taste buds, sense of smell (to everything) changes you are normal. Keep up the awesome work. Great job on the weight loss!! I promise you it is a struggle, but you have done great so far and will continue to do great.

Since you have started eating something, you will go through this dry spell and have plateaus of weight loss. Try and eat a snack between your meals, some peanut butter something. Because you eat after you haven't for a while your body was in ketosis (thinking it's starving) so when you do eat something it's going to hoard it and think this is the last meal it's going to get. So as your body is getting use to eating again you will loose weight, but in the mean time you may loose inches instead of pounds. Maybe try and increase your physical activity during the day. The protein drinks were hard for me too, but I made the mistake of trying to drink it as fast as i could which ended up making me go to the bathroom just as fast as I drank it, I had to sip it. Keep up drinking your water, eating small snacks between your meals and your body will regulate. 

I am 7 years out. I gave up eating in the morning.  My pouch hates it.  I start eating around noon. But if I wake up at3 and feel like starving and i know I did not have enough "food" during the day - I eat at 3, brush my teeth and go back to bed...

pouch rules... not me... 

I was in the same boat when I had issues with strictures. I even went a whole week with only able to sip a protein shake. Basically what is happening is you went into starvation mode and now your body has to reset itself. It's going to take some time. You might want to even increase your calories a bit to 700-800. That's how I started losing weight again. If your body thinks it's starving it won't let go of the extra weight. I'm actually at 900-1000 calories a day and still losing 1-2 pounds a week which is fine by me. I know it's frustrating and it makes no sense how you can't be losing with only 500 calories. But hang in there...your metabolism will reset and things will start moving again. Take care

Ok so I'm just going to address the questions you asked. I'm sure others will kick in with their new post-op experiences. I'm 8 years post-op and, frankly, I barely remember that life some days! But I do know a good bit about the biological process of weight loss.

1. Yes, many folks get the "loose vs. tight." It can have to do with several factors. It can be the composition of the foods or it can just be how your system is feeling that day. Even as far out as I am I can eat a 4 oz. chicken breast just fine but two bites of steak and I'm down for the count! That will become your new normal eventually. You get used to and start to find patterns of when/what you can eat and how much.
2. Weight stall. If only weight loss were simply a function of your caloric intake! The metabolic system is complex but here's the simplest way I know how to explain what you may be experiencing. Think of your bank accounts. When you are earning money steadily, you put money in savings for a rainy day. Well when hard times first come, you don't just rush into your savings account. (or at least hopefully not), but you wait a bit to see if things get better. If they do, the money remains untouched. If they don't you have to dip into your savings. Think of fat like your savings. The body stores it for lean times. When something radically changes (like caloric intake) the body doens't automatically want to dip into the fat stores so it slows things down (burns calories more slowly) in hopes that things will go back to normal. It's a waiting game. When your body sees that lower calories are your new norm, things will pick back up. But equally confusing is the fact that the body will slow the metabolism down if you aren't eating enough. So it takes a while to find that sweet spot. You also have to factor activity in there. Stalling can also mean it's time to kick your fitness to the next level. The body is good at anticipating how many calories it needs to carry out certain activities. If you've been exercising the same way for a long time, your body may have figured out how to support that exercise without having to burn quite so many calories. (Survival mechanism) So just a few things to think about.

Stalling at your phase is completely normal. Continue to follow your bariatric plan and get your exercise. The weight will come off!