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Listen to your body



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Hello all, I just had a band to sleeve revision around a week ago. I'm doing great, down 17 pounds my first week..yay me!

I wanted to talk about something I learned awhile ago about generally listening your body.

I had the lap band for 3 years prior and I learned to listen to my body over the years.

1. Head Hunger CAN be controlled.

2. When you take a bite, not only should you chew, but visualize the food going through. Put your fork down. Think about when you have a flouro and drink the barium...it takes seconds to slide down, solid food takes longer. This helped me so much and is helping me now, I learned how to 'NOTICE' my food going through, slight signals.

3. If you feel bad or have a bad day...forgive yourself..and THANK YOUR BODY for letting you know...

Hope these few things help!

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Great post Shontel - thank you for sharing - Dr. Aceves tells everyone to put your fork down in between each bite - I am pretty good at doing that - it generallly takes me about 45 minutes to eat about 4 oz. I have learned to listen to my body and haven't had any problems in quite some time.

Hopefully your suggestions will help newbies and those who are still have issues with eating further out from their surgeries.

Congrats on your revision and your weight loss. I look forward to following your progress!

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sheesh...I can sure tell I had tea instead of coffee this morning.....

What I meant to say was ........I like that imagery of feeling your food going through your system.

Tracy

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You know, you're right. The band has some serious downsides although touch wood, mine functions perfectly. Some people simply cant cope with the sensations it causes whilst eating either. But one thing it DOES do is make you listen to your body.

Even eating when you're not particularly hungry is not pleasurable, even if its not painful, so head hunger can indeed be controlled.

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Thank you for the reminder... I have noticed I can eat like a 5oz yogurt in 10 min.. I do feel full/ satisfied but I wondered if I was eating too fast.. it's so much slower than before but maybe not slow enough... I don't like that my warm "egg" is cold by the time I eat 1/4 of it and if I reheat.. things dry out... it is HARD to eat that slow for food enjoyment reasons as well....

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Am I glad I read this post! I am definately eating too fast so it is no wonder that eating has become an unpleasurable experience. I count my chews to 25 or more but still I'm most times getting the whole "meal" in in under 20 minutes. I hope I can do this visualization thing. Thanks Shontel.

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. LeighaTR

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

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        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

    • CaseyP1011

      Officially here for a long time, not just a good time💪
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