How soon did you start eating real food?
I am one week and a few days out of having my Gastric Sleeve. I feel good, no actually I feel pretty great except for the obvious food cravings. I have never take a pain med since I got home from surgery which was on February 25th and my surgery was on the 24th.
Here however is my problem. I can not for the life of me gag down the pureed food. I just can't, I see it and I gag so then I don't eat at all which I know is bad. So I started taking matters into my own hands. I had 2 days ago some Tortilla chicken soup, without the tortillas of course, but I just chewed and chewed and chewed. After 10 bites I was full and stopped, but finally after eating did not feel weak in the knees and stopped being shaky. Yesterday I had the inards of a chicken soft taco, so just the chicken and the lettuce and today was the first day I eneded up not waking up weak.
My papers I have that I am suppoes to follower from Kaiser Permnante are the exact same that they would give someone for the Gastric Bypass surgery, which I feel is much more complicated that the sleeve. I mean I still have my upper intestine.
So my question to all of you, is when did you start chewing and eating food? Did any of you do it as soon as I am finding I have to in order to get anything down? I do not feel sick, my stomach has never hurt so far from the food. This morning I had one egg. I feel good.
I am eating real food in very small portions and only once a day. I wonder if it will slow my weight loss down? Though I am not sure what is the difference in caloric intake if I am chewing or blending.
What have your Dr.s recommended. My papers say I am to wait 45 days before chewing food.... NO WAY!
I really would like your input as obviously I do not want to be hurting or sabatoging myself, but then starvation is no good either.
:) Lisa
How soon did you start eating real food?
I am one week and a few days out of having my Gastric Sleeve. I feel good, no actually I feel pretty great except for the obvious food cravings. I have never take a pain med since I got home from surgery which was on February 25th and my surgery was on the 24th.
Here however is my problem. I can not for the life of me gag down the pureed food. I just can't, I see it and I gag so then I don't eat at all which I know is bad. So I started taking matters into my own hands. I had 2 days ago some Tortilla chicken soup, without the tortillas of course, but I just chewed and chewed and chewed. After 10 bites I was full and stopped, but finally after eating did not feel weak in the knees and stopped being shaky. Yesterday I had the inards of a chicken soft taco, so just the chicken and the lettuce and today was the first day I eneded up not waking up weak.
My papers I have that I am suppoes to follower from Kaiser Permnante are the exact same that they would give someone for the Gastric Bypass surgery, which I feel is much more complicated that the sleeve. I mean I still have my upper intestine.
So my question to all of you, is when did you start chewing and eating food? Did any of you do it as soon as I am finding I have to in order to get anything down? I do not feel sick, my stomach has never hurt so far from the food. This morning I had one egg. I feel good.
I am eating real food in very small portions and only once a day. I wonder if it will slow my weight loss down? Though I am not sure what is the difference in caloric intake if I am chewing or blending.
What have your Dr.s recommended. My papers say I am to wait 45 days before chewing food.... NO WAY!
I really would like your input as obviously I do not want to be hurting or sabatoging myself, but then starvation is no good either.
:) Lisa
11 lbs lost prior to surgery and 12 lbs lost since
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Hi Lisa,
I had my sleeve on Feb 8 and I will be able to start chewing some food next week. My Dr explained to me that I need to blend everything until my pouch heals in order to reduce the risk of a leak. I have lost 27 pounds already.
Not sure what your Dr. said to you. Did he give you a diet plan??
Be patient and follow his instructions.
Take care:)
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Hello Candy...good question because I see some people are on different post op diets.....I was sleeved 2~14 and my puree diet was for 4 weeks...but I would wake up feeling very light headed and weak....I had a few bites of food the 1st week out and like you said a few chews and I was full....no more feeling weak and lightheaded.
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Every doctor has different guidelines. My doctor, Dr. Alvarez, was very strict. I could not have pureed foods until Week4 and real foods until Week 5. I did not want to risk rupturing my stitches on my new stomach, getting an infection and then having complications. So many people on here have written about complications that I did not want to chance it. Please be careful.
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
I did 1 week of liquids, 1 week of "heavy liquids" and 1 week of "soft foods" before I started eating normal food. the week of "heavy liquids" which is supposed to be the yogurt, cream based soups, etc - was really another week of liquids, as I am very lactose intolerant. In my "pureed foods" week, I pretty much lived on refried beans mixed with red sauce, scrambled eggs and chicken salad. I would put canned chicken and some "sandwich spread" into my magic bullet and blend. It wasn't bad. I also made yogurt / fruit smoothies during this phase as well. I used canned fruit for the smoothies - peaches, mango, pineapple, etc. Try to find something that you can handle, that isn't going to be too hard on your stomach. As for not chewing for 45 days....I personally did not have that restriction. My diet was supposed to look something like this: 1 week of liquids, 2 weeks of "heavy liquids", 1 week of "pureed", 1 week of "soft foods" (moist chicken, fish, mushy veggies, etc). Then, start adding in new "normal" foods. Everyone handles it differently, and every doctor seems to have their own special diet. Follow your doctors orders as closely as you can, but listen to your body at the same time.
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
'I am with you Glo, As I write this I am eating a passionfruit yogurt, and spitting out the seeds, would you believe? Paranoid? yeah Safe? yeah.:o:rolleyes::p;):)
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Hi Candy Cat,
I have to agree with the ladies above, you definitely want to take it easy. If you can't get the puree down I would suggest trying the greek yogarts and getting unflavored pure protien to mix with soups and things. You don't want to risk it. According to my nutritionist I can eat regular food this wedenesday as I will be exactly 3 weeks post op but I'm going to hold off one more week just to be safe. Hope this helped, take care.
Sol
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Thank you all so much for you responces. I guess I am jumping the gun a bit with chewing food. The soup is not such a biggie, but perhaps I should lay low on chicken and such.
And BTW congrats to all of you!
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Thank you so much for your ideas! I greatly appreciate them!
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
One thing I can attest to, though, is that by not following the exact diet, I didn't lost as much weight in that first month as I could have been. Try very hard to stay as close as you can to your diet for the best results!!
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
I was trying to stick to the diet that was given me, but I met with my Doctor Dietician yesterday and he said that being young like I am (I love when he called 37 young) that I should be able to get onto normal foods about now (4 weeks after). So I am starting to be more adventurous.
He said they were working up a formal diet for sleeves and it was at the printers, but really he said with the amount of weight loss I have had (about 30lbs pre-op diet + 4 weeks surgery) that I really needed more to worry about the quality of food and that I needed to focus on protein first and ensure I was getting enough calcium. While he didn't seem to fussed about the specific amount of calories, he said I should be aiming for around 1,200 and that was only after I pressed. He continued to stress "focus on protein" to me.
He said that one of the advantages of the sleeve is that you don't have to be overly careful about what you eat, but that people naturally gravitate to more protein. So I guess when you say "normal" food, you will probably never be back to "normal", but as far as having solid food 4-6 weeks.
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Being a bit of a daring boy, I have probably lived on the edge a bit more than I should. Not too dangerous, but maybe experimenting a bit more than one would normally do. I had some more solid food about 2 1/2 weeks into it. I chewed and chewed to make sure it went down ok, but while the first bites, I found out why dry solid food isn't such a hot idea.
Your stomach is a big muscle, and the consistency of the food can easily trigger your stomach to do its job, which is to squish up the food with digestive juices, which it will gladly do and cause you to be uncomfortable. I could actually eat significantly less with the solid food than I could fluids/puree and I was in agony for about 15-20 minutes until my stomach emptied.
In talking to my dietician doctor yesterday, he seemed unsurprised that I had experimented (maybe he just has me down as a naughty boy) and said that younger folks like me (37 young!!!!) should be able to progress faster and at about 4 weeks be ok with pretty much any type of food.
(Good thing I didn't get the band, I am really bad rule follower)
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
Hi all, just letting you know, 2 similar threads have been merged into this 1 thread. :)
Re: How soon did you start eating real food?
For me, it was 1 week clear liquids, 2 weeks creamed soups (some blended), 2 weeks soft foods. At week 6 I can eat anything I want and have had no issues. In the last week and a half I've had Blackened Tilapia, Fillet Mignon, 5 Guys Cheeseburger and movie popcorn - all small portions, of course, with the blessing of my nutritionist (even the glass of Cabernet). I easily stay under 800 calories/day. Over 50 lbs gone.