What should i tell my partner?

My partner and I live apart (she takes care of her mother) but we see each other rather frequently (as one would expect) she loves food. but is thin as a rail. very active. I have horribly painful arthritis in my knees which i am having surgery for 6 months after my bariatric. so not as active and cant eat the ridiculously tasty food she prepares. or at least i wont be able to.

the point is, she loves to cook. and has some "notions" about what i will be able to eat. they are not entirely accurate.  she is severely dyslexic and it is hard for her to read long tracts of words. so I cant even show her the books i am looking at. it would just cause her grief. does anyone have a simple solution's for explaining the ins and outs of future eating. 

i should clarify we have been together a super long time. 18 years. (yep end of high school romance) and she has never been anything short of fully supportive of every thing EVERYTHING in my life. I love her but want to know what to tell her about the changes i will go through. i need her support if I am to get through this. please any spouses of people who have had the surgery, what helped you understand what was needed to support them?

Any advice would be super and if i could have your permission to print it out and show it to her. (also not exactly computer literate.)  still love her though. 

anyway thanks in advance

So this is something you might just need to be in person to show her.  Or find pictures online and show her what a normal plate of food only holding 4oz will look like.  I myself am dyslectic so I can understand some of her issues with being frustrated with books of text, I do however love pictures, and doing the measuring myself.  

She might do well with you asking her to get out the measuring cups and a food scale.  She can for example on her own measure out 4oz of chicken, a casserole, vegetables, and so on. She can play with what types of foods weight more per volume vs things that are larger and more airy.  It'll be important that you keep track of where you are with eating and give her that information.  

When I first came home after VSG I could only drink fluids.  So my partner or myself would prep liquids for me during "meal" times and I'd sit with him while he ate dinner.  This was important because he didn't want to eat because I couldn't.  This also happened with my previous partner.  She didn't eat for days after my lapland, she also would eat far less than normal because she felt bad that I was unable to eat.  So do yourself and her a favor and sit down and have what you can and establish that you do feel full, that their food should be eaten because they need to eat.  I found with both of them it was important that they felt like I was ok that they were eating, and that I was feeling good about my 2oz of soup and that I did feel full.

Once the first 3-4 weeks pass you'll be able to have 2-4oz of soft foods and this makes things feel a lot more normal when sitting down to dinner.  You can even make things like Egg Face's ricotta bake and you can both enjoy things like this together.

I'm now 7 months out and can eat anything I'd want to eat.  I do sometimes have to remind my partner that I can only have 5oz total of whatever it is or I get too full and it's not comfortable.  We have a scale in the kitchen and I also weight my plate so that I know I won't over eat.  If she's serving just make sure she knows to weight your plate before giving it to you.  It was hard at first for my current partner to not give me more because he loves to cook and giving me the best parts of the dish was something nice he was doing.  Except we both know that was also not helping me loose weight.  So he's sometimes tempted to serve me more but always measures the plate and knows to just not put more than 5oz on there for me.

I'm sure you two will get it.  I've done this with two different people and both of their reactions were similar.  Its hard for them like it will be for you at first to adjust to the portions and what types of foods you can have.  Don't let her lack of enjoyment of books bother you.  Have fun measuring and weighting food before your WLS so you can both see how much 3-5oz is.  At fist it seems shockingly small but after a couple months it's totally normal and you'll go to lunch with a friend and be appalled with how much they can eat :-)

That was so helpful!! Thank you so much!   

I will ill implement those changes starting this weekend thank you again. 

Print out the 'Batratric Eating Food Pyramid' that is the featured article from Monday Oct. 3. The timing is perfect for her use, it gives us all a visual on how to eat.  If she is a terrfic cook, she will love the challenge of coming up with delicious dishes for her honey.

Read it and printed it out. that was perfect timing!

Thanks for pointing me in the right way!

After the first 4-6 weeks, post-WLS eating is very easy and I found l liked the same things alot. Esp if you see each other on the weekends, you will be able to find a few things that you really like and she can make those. For me, seafood - shrimp, scallops, homemade crab cakes were go-to sure to make me smile favorites that kept monotony at bay.

A kitchen scale might also help with portion control at first. You can also control your own portion size - put a plate (paper or small) on the scale and weigh until you have 2-4 ounces. Save the rest for leftovers.

Two things I learned:

1-There is a small difference between being not full and being full. There are still times when I am chewing a bite (I now chew for a much longer time that I used to) and I go from not full to full. I spit the food out - because I will be over-full if I swallow it. OK, not the classiest thing, but it is important to respect when you are full.

2-Try to control what comes into your house - if it's not there, you can't eat it at 1am. Pack up any risky foods as a care-package for your partner's trip home or find someone with a bunch of hungry teenagers - they will eat it up.

Good luck - your seems like not such a bad problem to have.