Concern about Intake

Hi everyone, I hope everybody is doing well on their journey. I am doing very well and I am very proud of what I have accomplished so far. I have far exceeded my expectations. I have lost 225 pounds so far. Surgery date of 4/25. I am having some concerns about intaking to much. I eat an average of 7 oz at a clip. Depending on what it is I can do a 16oz soup. Is this right ? I feel it is a bit much. But please let me know how you all are doing. Looking for help. Thanks guys !! Julian

Julian, Your loss is amazing, and I am happy for you! As for your concern about your intake, I would really suggest talking to your surgeon and/or nutritionist. The reason for that is that most surgeons do not do more than a 3-4oz pouch, so if you can do 7oz on average, either your surgeon did a larger pouch for your or something is going on, and you should find out about it. As for soups, if you can do 7oz of solids, it stands to reason you could 16oz of soups -- soups go straight through, so you can do more of them. For example, I only have a 1/2 - 1 oz pouch, so if I chew really well, I can get in around 1 oz of something solid (like meat) but I can do around 4-6 oz of yogurt ok (usually). I know this reply isn't particularly useful to you, as our pouches obviously differ in size so much, but I hate to see a question without a reply of some kind. Definitely call your surgeon and talk to someone about your concern. I would imagine that as long as you are exercising enough to be continuing to burn more calories than you are eating, and you are continuing to lose, you are probably fine with the amount that you are eating. --joanna 325/175/125(someday, I hope!)

Everyone's pouches are different. Also, there's no proven way to find out exactly how big your pouch really is. There's some tried methods that are better than others, but none of them have really been proven. The best method so far, is the infamous cottage cheese test. Pack in all you can in about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the cottage cheese has already started to move through, so you can't really accurately gage after that, but all you can within 5 minutes is supposed to be the best meter (so far) for how big your pouch really is (in ounces). My PS said, that even if they did a barium flush to see what the pouch looked like, it wouldn't be enough to inflate the pouch to its maximum, and all we'd be able to see is if there were leaks or not. No one can give you a garantee on how big your pouch will or should be after surgery, because everyone has different bodies, and garanteeing something like that would be impossible. That being said, at this point in the game, it may be easier and more efficient to start counting calories other than ounces. Talk to your nutritionist, and find out how many calories you should be taking in on a daily basis at this point, and then go from there. Counting ounces may have been successful right after surgery, but now it's too tedious, especially seeing as though you may be getting too much or too little nutrition by doing it that way. If I were you, I'd talk to your nutritionist, and get some of their professional advice.