I had a couple of complications due to a previous surgery (gallbladder removal) and the fact I struggled to drink enough, something you have to force yourself to do post surgery as dehydration can happen very easily. This made my recovery time a little longer than usual but I would say that pain and tiredness from the surgery is gone by about 2 weeks post op. You can then go back to work as long as you don't have to do any heavy lifting, then it just takes some time to adjust to your new tummy. Some people feel 100% within 2-3 weeks, some a little longer. It took me a bit longer because of the reasons above but I felt almost normal after 6 weeks and I felt feeling good after 8 weeks. 8 weeks didn't feel too much of an exchange consider how rubbish I'd felt physically before because of my weight for years.
Food wise you go through stages post op, usually starting with a couple days on clear fluid, then free fluid (tea, nas juice/squash, smooth soups, protein shakes or slimfast etc.) and then you will move to purée food. At around 4 weeks you can have mashed food like cottage cheese, mash potato, beans etc. and then by 8 weeks you can eat normally again but of course much healthier and smaller portions. At the moment on average I will have branflakes and fruit or scramble egg for breakfast, Crispbreads with low fat pate or feta cheese or half a small jack potato with low fat cheese and beans for lunch, then meat/fish and veg for dinner. I tend to have 1 or 2 snacks a day too, usually something like a mini babybel light or couple of crab sticks. Portions are small, for example dinner will be around 60 grams of chicken with 4 sprouts and 2 tea spoons of gravy but you can't physically eat more than that. In fact most days I wont finish the veg. I drink around 2 litres a day to prevent dehydration too. I'm satisfied with my diet and never really get hungry now, more a niggle type feeling like I think I should eat. Anyway I hope that gives you some ideas of what it's like in the early days. As time goes on I will still have to stick to small portions and a high protein low carb, nutritious diet but probably manage just slightly larger portions and tolerate a larger range of food like salad for example. It's a big adjustment but I've found it very worth while so far
Thanks again everyone for the comments and encouragement. Feels good to know I'm on my way
xx
