Starting my 3rd week and it's a bit of a struggle

Hello everyone, I'm starting my 3rd week of my journey. My surgeon wants me to add more protein shakes and I'm starting the soft stage and still wanting me to get 60+ ozs of fluids down. I'm having difficulty with getting all this down because I get full really fast. How did you get through your 3nd week?

Everyone does not heal at the same rate. Make sure you get your water in. If you can't finish the protein shakes, don't worry about it. You won't develop a protein deficiency in a few weeks. At week three, I started to add things like a teaspoon of applesauce or a small serving of vanilla pudding with protein powder added.

Your new pouch starts out very small. In six months, it will be almost a full adult sized pouch, not a new born baby pouch. Then you will be able to eat more. After 13 years I could eat almost as much at one time as I did before surgery. You will look back longingly on the days when one bite of food filled you up for hours.

So true. I think people (I definitely did) underestimate how shocking this is to your system. It was 3 months before I could consistently hit my protein number, and that included at least one protein shake a day until month 11. This is a hard journey.

If you are constantly doing the best you can, you'll see that your numbers creep up in slow bits steadily.

I am scared to stretch things out and really dont want to go to the point where I was before. I felt guilty for eating too much and now I feel guilty because I am feeling like I am not eating enough

I did not eat more than a few tablespoons of something like chili, tuna salad, or beans for the first six months. If you do not eat enough food, you body will burn stored fat. That is how we get rid of the excess weight. Don't ever feel bad about not eating enough. You will not starve to death or waste away. You will naturally eat more by the end of the second year. Most people gain in the third year after surgery.

protein shakes count as liquid so there is that.

I am thankful for that! I've read in other pages on Facebook that some don't count a protein shake as part of the liquids. happy that my surgeon is not that way

FYI, our experience here from what we have heard from others about Facebook pages, is you should take everything said there wit a huge grain of salt. So huge that it is impossible to swallow it. Just saying.

I don't think I got all my food/liquid down for the first 6 weeks. I just did the best I could knowing it would get better.

One thing that likely got my liquids better than it felt was SF Popsicles. I went through a lot of them, probably 2-3 big boxes a week. Flavor, fluid, and cool. Great combination.

Again, just do the best as you can. It will get better.

Good luck,

Tek

I am thankful it's a different kind of stress, but it's still stress. I just want to do well