With the bypass surgery, your pouch will be about the size of a golf ball. Eventually, it will stretch out enough to hold about 3 oz or so. It is meant to stretch out that much. Physically, it is possible to stretch it out to probably twice as much, but no more than. It will never go back to the original size.
But, this does not mean that you will never be able to overeat, or that you will never be able to eat enough to get you back to where you started.
With the normal stomach, the exit closes while the stomach is moving around and mixing the food that is in it, so if you have normal sensation, you feel that your stomach is full because the exit is closed, and you can't stuff anymore.
With GBS, the stoma, the opening where your pouch is connected to your bypassed small intestine, is always open, since there is no muscle structured into it that will close the opening. Unless you learn the "full" sensation, where your pouch is full, and the food not yet passed through the stoma and into the intestine, you can find yourself having a hard time. Since the stoma is always open, if you get into the habit of grazing, you are going to be in danger of regaining your weight, because you will be constantly eating, even if each are small portions, the total is going to add up. This is where you have to learn
the pouch rules. You need to keep track of how many times you eat, how much, (in other words,
the total number of calories you get in not go up and above the total number of calories you need daily to maintain) and what types of food to get the best effect.
Keep in mind, the portions you ate before your surgery were never normal or appropriate portions to keep your weight under control, and within the range that is healthy and good for you. You need to learn now what the normal and appropriate portion is for your body to be on good maintenance, and that is actually the whole point of WLS. To enable you to control your portions. This is the most important habit you have to aquire, and it has to be lifelong.
In other words, the final and life long success of the surgery is up to you. That is why the surgery is a tool, and only a tool, the means to the end, and CraigT, the host of this site and board says, your
weightloss journey itself is the destination.
May your journey go well, (((((((HUGS)))))))
PS: As for your head catching up with seeing your weightloss, it seems to vary with person to person, but if you read everyone's posts, I think you'll see that it takes at least 50lb or so before you can see it yourself, when others will notice with even 10-20lb change. But also, even though you're at goal, you will sometimes go back into the "fat" mindset. Everyone does.
Here's a thread on the Q&A session I had with CraigT on this subject. Hope it helps.
Ok this may be stupid 
Kristy
So long as you are putting your best foot forward, then, 
Thanks.... 
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