What are you eating today (Monday) or yesterday?

Good morning.

I have to admit to another eating mistake. I was so hungry when I got home from work last night that I ate almost half of an 8" pizza. I didn't get stuck, but overeating triggered a dumping episode. So I think I need to go back to something I did in my band days: measure my food and put half of it on my plate so I won't be so tempted by the sight of it to eat the whole thing whether or not I'm getting "stop" (satiety) signals. Wish me luck.

Today's food plan:
B: protein latte
S: baked oatmeal w/ blueberries & raspberries
S: scrambled egg beaters w/ cheese
L: Morningstar Farms chik'n patty, sliced tomato
S: raw baby carrots
D: leftover pizza (1/4 of an 8" pizza)
S: trail mix
S: almond, craisin & sesame seed snack mix

This morning is step aerobics class - yeah!

Have a wonderful day!

Jean

I have the tendency to pick. Even when I know I'm not hungry, if it's on a plate in front of me, I'll keep nibbling at it until it's gone if I see it. I don't know if that is still a holdover from the whole garbage of "clean your plate, there are starving kids in Africa" I dealt with growing up, or just my inability to leave food on a plate. I've gotten to the habit where I just give my plate to my husband so he can keep it out of my sight, then I promptly forget about it.

B: protein fruit smoothie

S: egg beater and cheese burrito, milk

L: chicken salad with dried apricots and almonds, milk

S: hummus and baby carrots

D: leftover turkey stirfry/leftover shrimp and peanut butter noodles, milk

S: hot chocolate with fluff or fat free vanilla yogurt milkshake (haven't decided yet)

 

Exercise: The vitamins seem to be doing well in combating the nausea, so today I shall be running around doing errands that I've not been able to get to last week because I was mostly down for the count. Plus, I need to pick up my newly fitted night guard so I stop grinding my teeth and/or clenching my jaw together tightly. I thought the first time I was being fitted for that was rough. When they did it the second time, I was pregnant, trying not to puke on myself because the smell was so strong. :/ Hopefully this one will fit right and I won't need to be tortured a third time. :)

I won't tell anyone that you're depriving those starving kids in Africa by leaving food on your plate. That food wouldn't be very palatable by the time it got to Africa anyway.

You have my sympathy with the night guard fitting. I gagged my way through 3 years of orthodonture as a preteen.

well as a bonus she gave me my teeth molds :) i make them talk and it makes people laugh :)

Um, I fit all that in there by chewing and swallowing.

I've gotten widely varying feedback about how much I should be eating at one sitting since being sleeved. My surgeon refused to give me an amount because she wants me to pay attention to and learn my new "stop" signals (which so far are mostly invisible to me). My dietitian wants me to eat 1/2 cup of food at a time (which was impossible for the first 6-8 weeks) and says that my constant hunger is due to not eating enough at each meal. My endocrinologist also says I'm not eating enough at each meal. Some OH members who are sleeved say they can only eat 1/4 cup of food at a time. I know another person who was sleeved at the same time as me and he's eating 1 cup of food at a time (and has lot 80 lbs in 3 months). Also, how much I can eat also depends on the food - I can eat more cottage cheese than dense animal protein, for example. If you can make any sense of all that, let me know. I'm confused and distressed about all of that much of the time and welcome your suggestions.

Thanks!

Jean

My stomach is smaller than a small apple? Not a baby banana (sleeve shape)? Does the sleeve size and food capacity not depend on the size of the bougie used? Mine was done with a 34fr bougie.

I had mentioned 3 food amounts - 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, 1 cup. Which of those are you saying is too much food to eat at one time?

The dietitian I had when I was first banded said that 1/2 cup is about the size of a baseball. Is that what you're thinking of as the size of a small apple?

My surgeon says I should be having satiety signals now. Actually, within 2 weeks of my surgery. I'm glad to hear that those signals will eventually come back. But in the meantime, one of my big problems is that I am ferociously hungry - physical hunger - only an hour or so after I eat, no matter what I eat or how much I eat. My surgeon and dietitian say it's very unusual for a sleeve patient to feel physical hunger, but that's my reality. My surgeon is the one who encouraged me to eat more - she said the hunger was because I wasn't eating enough at one time.

Part of the problem is that my blood sugar has gone crazy since my surgery (after 7 years of management with diet and exercise). When I eat , my blood sugar spikes up (again, no matter what I eat, though it's worse if I eat white carbs, like white potatoes), then quickly crashes. My endocrinologist put me on metformin 3 weeks ago in the hope of evening things out, but haven't noticed an improvement in symptoms yet.

Other sleevers have told me that my hunger might just be from excess acid. A blood test showed that I'm producing just a bit more than normal acid. I take omeprazole twice a day and have also tried dexilant, but neither has any effect on the hunger.

Thanks for your help - I really appreciate it!

 

I don't think either of us are medically qualified to judge my surgeon's competence. I don't know where you live but I live in rural Tennessee and have very few choices of bariatric surgeons for reasons too lengthy to list here, but if you want to hear them, let me know and I'll send you a PM about it.

I got the 1/2 cup = baseball thing from a dietitian. I took her word for it because she's the professional and I haven't laid eyes on a baseball in about 30 years. I do measure my food when it can be put into a cup. Thanks for reminding me about the measure & eat half of it approach. That worked well for me as a bandster and I had just posted a few days ago that I was going to go back to doing that.

I do realize that my hunger is affected by my blood sugar. And as I already stated, my blood sugar has gone crazy since my surgery. In the 7 years before I was sleeved, eating carbs had a minimal effect on my blood sugar. Now I'm far more sensitive to carbs, and learning how to deal with that. I don't in fact eat a lot of starchy carbs and not much fruit because it makes me dump. The carbs I eat are high-fiber, slower-digesting ones like oats, barley, veggies.

I don't post on the sleeve forum here on OH or on another support site because in the past, about 80% of the responses I got were condescending, combative, and generally unhelpful. Instead, I communicate by PM with 4-5 OH sleevers who have been very helpful. Even the helpful ones have give me greatly varying advice about how much food to eat at one time, because their own surgeons' and dietitians' instructions vary so much. I did in fact research the sleeve prior to my revision. Interestingly, none of the problems I've had with my sleeve were ever mentioned by anyone here on OH.

I hope you and I can continue to dialog so we can get to know each other better. I've belonged to OH for 5 years and since you just joined in October 2012 and have no information on your OH profile, I'd have to say that you may be jumping to some inaccurate conclusions about me. And I can only assess you by what you've said (which to be perfectly frank has sounded impatient and patronizing) in 3 posts on a single thread . Clearly we have more to learn about each other.

Thanks again for your input.

Jean

 

I'm flattered that you've been monitoring me so assiduously in the short time you've belonged to OH, but as much as I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my posts in detail, I'll go on taking advice from my own doctor.

I started this thread by admitting to an eating mistake. I already know that overeating causes dumping, but it's not fair to assume that I overeat at every meal or every day. I eat 7-8 times a day because of the ferocious hunger I'm dealing with, but most of the time those meals and snacks consist of just a few bites of protein, then a few of a vegetable, then one or two of a starch.

In other words, you're beating a dead horse.

I was taking my PPI improperly (but according to the directions on the prescription bottle) and it was aggravating my reflux, not making it better. An advisor on another board suggested that I take it on a completely empty stomach and not eat for at least an hour. Also, take it at least 4 hours before bed...for me this means I have to take it mid afternoon, since dinner is at 6 and bedtime is usually by 10pm. It has helped a lot.