Do you ever eat normal again????

I'm 17 months out and just last night I was telling my husband, for the millionth time, how much MORE NORMAL I feel now than I ever did before surgery.  And by that I mean I can eat a small meal of normal food and feel perfectly happy and satisfied.  Yesterday I ate a carton of Greek yogurt for breakfast.  Went out to lunch at P.F. Chang's and ate a few spoonfuls of egg drop soup and about half the chicken and a few bites of rice from one of their special lunch bowls.  Came home and had half a grilled cheese sandwich and a very small bowl of homemade soup.  After dinner I split a large ice cream sandwich with my hubby.  Oh, and I had a couple glasses of wine with dinner!

Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy, no angst, no guilt.  And this morning my scale was down .2 pounds to a new low weight.  Gotta love it!

What I ate before surgery was absolutely NOT normal, so for me 'normal' is a new thing. At 5 months out, I eat regular foods--I am mindful of what I eat, but eat all food groups. I do eat protein first, but i do eat fruit, some whole grains, veggies, and even a treat a time or two a week (but only a Tablespoon or so, except one time when i ate 1/4 c ce cream instead of a meal). I have been thru a drive thru maybe twice, in an emergency--got chick-fil-a nuggets, small once, and one of those 99 cent KFC sandwiches the other, but threw away the bread. I used to be crazy about fries but for some reason they don't appeal to me any more, so they aren't an issue. I've eaten in restaurants a lot when i've gone out of town, just usually order off the apetizer menu or save most of what I get for the next day (don't even end up eating it half the time!~)

Thanks everyone... What have your experiences been with the size of your bites? Do you all feel that the further out you get the "bigger" bites you can take and the less you have to chew?

I eat normal every day.  I don't eat fast food, but that is a choice that I make for myself based on several things.  If I wanted to eat it I'm sure that I could.  I think the way I used to eat was not normal.  This is normal.  Healthy is normal.  When I was as early out as you are eating was more of a chore.  That will pass and you will enjoy food in small portions again.  Good luck! 

This threw me for a loop until I realized it was a TWO year old thread Bagel! Janelle must have been digging deep.

I did not notice that at all!  I hate it when people resurrect dead threads!  But typically it's all about the drama when they do.  :) 

I just want to say what it is.  In my resear*****luding my surgeon I have found that a lot of dietitians have a different story than the surgeons do.  My surgeon for instance has told me to stick to the diet and walk walk and walk.  While my dietitian told me to stick to the diet and do any of these certain exercise.  Whi*****luded walking.  My surgeon has told me that I have about a year to two year window to loose most of the weight.  He said that your stomach will grow back to normal or close to it.  It depends on the person.  He did say that in a couple of years I would definitely be able to have a soda and eat pretty much anything I had in the past and may have stretched my stomach to almost of what it was, but his hope is that I would have picked up some good healthy habits were I would not go to an extreme anymore and wouldn't gain any of the weight back.  Even though the data says that many do gain it back  and some even waste the results by gaining all or most of the weight back.  The edge of this surgery is to teach us new good eating habits. 

I say all of this truth because I know that as a fat person if I am told that I will never be able to eat normal again, you know that if you find out that to be a lie, which many do, you would over eat out of spite or desperation.  These dietitian's don't know what we are going through. 

I saw one post were this poor woman asked once how she can loose more weight, then in another post she asked when she can have pizza.  The expert was blown away how she could go to such an extreme.  It wasn't an extreme and this poor woman asked a good question.  She didn't want to eat a whole pie, probably not even a whole slice.  She just wanted "the right" to have a slice.  She probably would only eat a bite or two then eat the cheese.  She probably wouldn't even make a habit of it.  The expert couldn't see that because "the expert" was never in her shoes before.

So just give us a break.  This is a drastic step we made in our lives.  We removed three quarters of our stomach and probably won't be able to eat normal for a couple or a few years.  We will probably loose most if not all of our excess weight and will probably look awful without our shirts and in many cases pants on.  Just give us a break.  Tell us the truth.  How would you like it if someone told you that you couldn't lie for the rest of your life?