Adventures in eating, post-Gastric Bypass..

It is a week an a half later, a full 10 days since I had my Gastric Bypass surgery, and I gotta say, it has been a piece of cake, well, at least compared to what I was expecting from the first month. As far as issues go, I'm still experiencing all the normal issues, like some stomach pain, and as a result still taking the pain meds, though after the first few days I began to DRASTICALLY reduce those. And I still get a bit tired during the day sometimes. Nothing out of the ordinary from what I can tell of other's experiences.

I'd say my biggest challenge has been learning how to eat with my new stomach. That has been an interesting process. I started last week(yes, I was a little naughty introducing some solids a few days before recommended.) Not much mind you, we're talking a few bites per "meal". The first attempt was about 3 half bites of mashed potatoes from KFC. That was easy enough. The second attempt was some cottage cheese. Yikes. That one didn't go so well. That was my first lesson in "Chewing my food to match my new stomach".

The only way I can describe it is that each curd of cottage cheese felt like a grenade going off in my stomach after I swallowed the first couple bites. I mean, I'd never really given much thought to chewing cottage cheese. Maybe one or two chews and then a swallow, its already at such a consistency that chewing seems unnecessary. Not for somebody who just had Gastric Bypass 5 days ago. According to my friend who had it 3 years ago, not for somebody who had Gastric Bypass, period, end of story, "get used to the new chewing regiment" was his advice to me. I must admit, my second encounter with cottage cheese was much more tolerable.

I'm still struggling with eating though. I seem to have the chewing down, but I haven't quite gotten the concept of slowing my eating down. I take a bite, and it is like I feel because I put in the effort to chew 25-30 times, that I can immediately take the next bite right after I've swallowed. Nope. And I pay, trust me. The stomach definitely hurts when I don't adjust my speed of eating. The same as it does if I don't chew right.

I'm certain that as I go, it will become second nature, but right now, it is still a challenge at every meal, and unfortunately I gotta say, it has deterred me from trying to eat 3 meals a day, it has been more like 2, and I don't think that is very healthy. I have to start working on that.

Other than the above mentioned problems with eating, I've been following all the rules. Well, okay, one more slight confession and that is it. When I've made mistakes with not chewing right or eating too fast, I tend to get up and get a glass of water to drink to ease the discomfort. That is a big no no too according to the rules, I'm supposed to wait 45 minutes to drink anything after eating. But, it's not causing me to eat any more, so I don't know how to feel about that. I know the right answer is to get that under control and not drink with meals, AT LEAST not this soon in the process. It's way too soon to be breaking rules.

So yeah, otherwise, everything else has been fine. Tonight I ventured onto a half slice of peanut butter toast! Was pretty good, though I ate it like I have always eaten toast... fast. And, I paid with about 5 minutes of stomach discomfort. I'm getting there though!