Coming Back After Nine Months of Silence
Well, that was an unplanned nine-month radio silence. If you read our September Struggles post, you will know that life turned into a game of medical Whac-A-Mole for both of us. This post was originally written when we finally came back to the blog – a check-in after one of the harder stretches of the journey. We are sharing it here, updated, because we think the honesty in it is worth preserving.
Where James Was
Insomnia hit James hard around month ten post-op. Not the mild can’t-drift-off kind – the kind where 2am becomes a regular companion and you spend the day in a fog you cannot shake. He was also dealing with the tail end of his nutritional deficiency crisis: fatigue, cold intolerance, and a brain fog that made writing anything feel like wading through wet cement.
Sleep and weight are connected in ways that are easy to underestimate. The ghrelin and leptin disruption that follows rapid weight loss affects sleep architecture. James’s liver function had returned to normal within three weeks of surgery after ten years of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – and by three months his blood pressure and pre-diabetic markers had also cleared – but the insomnia that arrived later was a different animal. It was linked to the deficiency crash rather than to breathing, and it cleared once his levels were properly corrected and his nutrition stabilised.
The honest version of that period is: it was hard. He was losing weight faster than his body could adjust, exercising seriously, and not supporting it adequately with nutrition. Something had to give, and it did.
Where Kirsten Was
Kirsten was managing a Crohn’s flare at the same time. Crohn’s and weight loss surgery interact in complicated ways. The dietary restrictions that apply after a sleeve – small portions, protein first, no large amounts of fibre in early stages – overlap awkwardly with the dietary management of Crohn’s. She was navigating both simultaneously, which required a degree of attention and planning that left little space for anything else.
Her energy came back before James’s, but not quickly. There were weeks where a good day meant getting through the necessary tasks and not much more.
What Got Us Through
Having the bariatric community around us made a tangible difference. People who had been through similar low points – the deficiency crashes, the unexpected health complications, the quiet disappearance from social media that people who follow weight loss journeys sometimes go through – those connections provided a context that helped. You are not failing. You are having a hard patch. There is a difference.
We also had each other. The advantage of going through surgery together is that you cannot hide how you are doing from the other person. James could not pretend to Kirsten that he was fine when she could see exactly how depleted he was. That honesty, which might have been harder with a partner who had not been through the same journey, kept us both from sliding into denial about how bad things had got.
Where We Are Now, Two Years On
Looking back on that period from June 2026 – two years and a few months post-op, in maintenance and genuinely well – it reads differently than it felt at the time. The insomnia resolved. The deficiency corrected. James entered a bodybuilding competition. Kirsten’s Crohn’s is managed. We both feel better than we have at any point in our adult lives.
The hard patches are part of the journey. Not the whole story. If you are in one of those patches right now – the ones where the blog goes quiet and you wonder if the people who wrote about their progress are actually okay – know that they might be. They might just be putting their heads down and getting through it. That is allowed.
Sources
NHS – Feeling cold: when to see a GP
BOMSS – Guidelines on perioperative and postoperative biochemical monitoring and micronutrient replacement for bariatric patients
NHS – Insomnia
NICE CG189 – Obesity: identification, assessment and management
About this content
This blog is written by James and Kirsten, a couple from the UK who had gastric sleeve surgery together in March 2024.
We started this blog because we couldn't find any sources of content that details before surgery, the surgery and then life post surgery - so we decided to write one ourselves.
Everything on this site is based on our own experience and the research we have done along the way. It is not medical advice. Gastric sleeve surgery is a serious procedure and every patient's journey is different. Please always consult your own bariatric team or GP before making any decisions about your health or treatment.
Some posts on this site may contain featured or sponsored content, or affiliate links. Where this is the case, it will always be clearly stated at the top of the article. Our opinions are always our own.
Publish Date: 2 July 2025 | Last Reviewed: 27 June 2026 | Next Planned Review: 27 December 2027