The moaning thread veterans will remember me: baker, sleeved on the 16th of June, liver duly shrunk. Well, I'm out the other side and I have a new nemesis, and it's a number: 60.
My team's sheet says aim for 60g of protein a day minimum. I am on full liquids moving into purées, I am logging everything honestly like the reformed man I am, and on a GOOD day I hit 38g. Most days it's low thirties. The maths is brutal: my stomach holds about six mouthfuls, and apparently all six need to be protein, forever. Also, and I say this as a man who once loved food, I am developing a personal grudge against vanilla protein shakes. The smell alone.
So, sleeved people of the forum: how do you PHYSICALLY do it? Do shakes count or is that cheating? Does it get easier when actual food comes back? And what genuinely happens if I keep undershooting for a few weeks, because the sheet says the number but not the consequences, and 3am me (I gather he visits everyone) has some theories.
bakerpete said:
Do shakes count or is that cheating?
Not cheating, Pete, they ARE the plan at your stage. Nobody three weeks out is getting 60g from food, your sleeve is healing and the textures you're allowed are the least protein-dense ones. The shakes are the bridge. At week 3 I was managing about 40g and my team told me that was normal for the stage, so you're not failing, you're on schedule.
Now, the vanilla grudge, this is the tip that saved me: unflavoured protein powder. It exists, it tastes of almost nothing, and it stirs into things that have no business being milkshakes. Warm (not boiling) soup, plain yoghurt, even runny porridge when you get there. Suddenly protein stops being a beverage and goes back to being food, and my numbers jumped about 15g the week I worked that out.
The other two habits that did the heavy lifting: six tiny protein-first "meals" instead of trying to make three normal ones happen, and keeping drinks away from meals, about half an hour either side, so fluid isn't renting the space the protein needs. By week 8, on soft foods, I was hitting 65 to 70g with greek yoghurt, eggs, flaked fish, and cottage cheese doing most of the work. It genuinely does get easier when food comes back. Hold the line, shake by shake.
I tracked mine the whole way so I can give you the actual curve: week 3 I averaged 42g, week 6 was 58g, week 10 I was clearing 70g without heroics. The target doesn't shrink, YOU grow into it as the textures come back. A tracking app took all the guesswork out for me, ten seconds a meal, and watching the weekly average climb was weirdly motivating. The daily number lies, the weekly trend tells the truth.
Tinned fish, Pete. The minute your sheet allows soft food, a tin of sardines or mackerel is a protein jackpot that needs no cooking and survives a riverbank. Cottage cheese too.
Related question while the experts are in: bloke at the fishing club had the sleeve two years back and reckons I should be aiming 120g because "the more protein, the faster it drops off". That never smelled right to me, but he's lost a lot of weight and says it with tremendous confidence. What's the actual answer?
Good thread, and Donna and Tracey have described the mechanics exactly as bariatric dietitians teach them. Let me put numbers and reasons behind it, and then deal with Alan's confident friend.
The common target is about 60 to 80g of protein a day, with your own team setting your exact figure. It matters for three reasons: protein preserves muscle while you lose weight rapidly (without it, an uncomfortable share of what the scale celebrates is muscle), it supports the healing staple line in these early weeks, and it is one of the two levers most within your control when the month 3 to 4 hair shed arrives, which it politely tends to. Week 3 is the hardest week of the entire project to hit any target: the sleeve holds a few mouthfuls and the permitted textures are the least protein-dense you will ever be on. Teams know this, which is why shakes are built into the early stages rather than being a workaround, and why food gradually takes over as textures return at around 6 to 8 weeks. Tracey's curve, low forties to seventy-plus across seven weeks, is close to what I would sketch on paper for a typical patient. The full progression, stage by stage with the targets in context, is in the site's guide to the diet stages.
Alan, your instinct is right and your clubmate is wrong, cheerfully and commonly wrong. There is no evidence that pushing protein far beyond target speeds weight loss, and in a stomach that holds six mouthfuls, chasing 120g mostly displaces the fluids you need at least as much. The target is a floor to reach, not a scoreboard to beat. His results came from the sleeve and consistency, not the surplus.
Two boundaries for the thread: your exact target comes from your own team, who set it from your bloods, your build, and your operation, not from a forum average. And undershooting the trend for a stretch is expected at week 3, but if you cannot keep protein OR fluids down, that is a phone call to your bariatric team today, not a thing to white-knuckle.
Reporting in: unflavoured powder acquired and stirred into leek and potato soup, and I am not exaggerating when I say it changed my relationship with lunch. 51g yesterday, a personal best, and not a drop of vanilla involved.
My apprentice, who has apparently forgiven me for the liver shrink fortnight, has built me a tracking spreadsheet with a little rising graph. Week 3 of the rest of my life: cautiously optimistic.
