Still Eating Sweets After a Gastric Sleeve I Thought They Took the Chemical out of Your Stomach?

Thank you for reaching out with your concerns about your weight following your gastric sleeve surgery. I understand that you may have questions and confusion about the surgery's effects on your ability to consume sweets. The gastric sleeve is indeed a powerful tool for weight loss, but it's important to clarify a few points.Gastric sleeve surgery primarily reduces the size of your stomach, limiting the amount of food you can consume at one time. While it does help in curbing your appetite and promoting weight loss, it does not remove the ability to digest sweets or any other type of food. The change is more about portion control and the feeling of fullness you experience after consuming even small amounts of food.It's great to hear that you're still incorporating fruits and vegetables into your diet, as these are essential for your overall health and nutrition. However, it's also important to recognize that the sleeve is not the sole answer to long-term success. Weight loss after bariatric surgery involves a comprehensive approach that includes not only dietary changes but also lifestyle adjustments and emotional connections with food.We strongly encourage you to continue with your follow-up visits with your bariatric surgery team.

With a gastric sleeve where around 70% of the stomach is removed, the capacity decreases making you feel satisfied with a lot less amount of food, also a lot of the cells that secrete Ghrelin are removed so the secretion of this hormone also decreases making you feel less hungry, but this hormone does not determine the type of craving.Cravings for specific macronutrients, such as carbohydrate, have been postulated to result from a physiological need to alter neurotransmitters, usually endogenous opioids.Just as a “fun fact”, our desire for sweets is an evolutionary trait to ensure we as humans accepted sweet-tasting foods, like vitamin-rich fruits. There is scientific data has shown a genetic predisposition due to mutations in some genes (TAS1R2, SLC2A2, CPTP) making some individuals may be more prone to sweetness than others (sweet tooth). Anyways when you eat a lot of sweets, you will feel the instant gratification immediately, your blood sugar levels spike and later you experience a sugar “crash” making you feel sluggish and tired. So, you have to break the cycle. Try to change the chocolate and biscuits for things that taste sweet but don’t have that much sugar and also gives you healthy nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fiber, like: • Fruits (berries)• Dark chocolate (that contains more than 70%)• Chia seeds• Greek yogurt• Snack that contains dried fruit and nuts (trail mix)

Hello,
Thanks for your question.
With tube stomach surgery, both the capacity of the stomach is reduced and the part where the hunger hormone is secreted is removed. After the operation, the body gradually gets used to the new stomach, and small increases in the person's eating capacity appear. The patient should adapt to this new diet and maintain this situation. If the patient continues his pre-operative diet, sweet craving is observed with the self-renewal of the stomach.
I hope this answer helps you
Have a healthy day
Dr HE

The chemical you are referring to  is  the Ghrelin  hormone (secreted when the stomach is empty  and signals  your brain to create hunger), although  most of the capacity to produce this hormone is stopped with the sleeve,  it’s just one of many mechanisms we have  to generate hunger.  Eating sweets has several negative effects  including  a spike in insulin  that can  affect  craving for more sweets. You need to  stop all carbohydrates and go on a Keto-diet or Therapeutic Carbohydrate Restriction for at least a couple of months  to break the cycle  you're in right now, otherwise it will be very hard  to manage. You need to contact  your nutritionist and get started with the plan. You are not in this alone, talk to the Nutritionist associated with your bariatric surgeon for follow up Very important to get ahead of this and start eating healthy.

Hi, the gastric sleeve reduces the stomach size (therefore limiting meal portion size) and reduces hunger-hormone production. However, there are always ways of consuming excess calories depending on what you consume. Furthermore, surgery is only one aspect of weight loss solution. There are other lifestyle factors that need to be addressed also. This holistic approach helps to create the best outcome.