I had the same surgery as gabby. Granted, I now have no stomach at all because of complications but details.
I personally have no idea how she manages to eat an entire 2 slices of bread sandwich and a packet of skips in one sitting. That would take me 2 sittings to eat before the old stomach was chucked in bio waste bin (half a sandwich, 2 hours later the other half). But I do know that once you are fully recovered the measure for how much you can eat is gauged by a THIN sandwich, with butter and a thin layer of filling.
Also, they always advised staying away from white loaf style bread, it takes up bulk with little nutritional value. Tortillas are abit better (more filling, less bread).
It’s quite hard to stretch your stomach out. But the issue with the surgery is for the first year or so you don’t feel hunger, because the part of the stomach that produces the hormone is removed. But it starts to reform in other areas of the stomach and the hunger hits you like a brick wall.
If you are like me, and probably gabby, and have had the surgery due to over eating but expect the surgery to do 100 percent of the work, your gonna have a bad time. You can eat every 2 hours, it’s very easy to eat large amounts of calories through the day this way. Especially if you eat junk food/crap.
Also, liquid calories.
A lot of people who have the surgery regain weight. More so if you have a bypass however. The typical average loss of a gastric sleeve is 53 percent of your excess body weight, 18 months after surgery (most drop low then regain). Most do not go below ‘overweight’ on the bmi scale after 18 months. I lost a lot more than the average, largely due to the complications.
It’s all a bit different for me now since I’m a total gastrectomy (and I was ‘lucky’ that I had chronic sepsis for 3 years that burnt through calories
), but I’m now having to be very active on managing my weight. I have to track what I eat (mainly for nutrition information because I don’t absorb as much) and exercise. But, I have that demon still there that just says Eat. Eat. Eat. Self control is still needed.