I am about 11mos out from surgery. I know I can eat more but not when I eat protein first. I am about 30-50lb from goal and still lose 1-2lb weekly eating "normally". For a reference, I can now eat 75% of a Sonic Single w/ cheese but I find that when I do I unknowingly eat LESS calories daily (around 1000-1200). When I try to eat more sensible I eat around 1500-1800 calories daily. On those days I eat the "hospital-portioned" cereal for breakfast with 2% milk, lunch comprises of a chicken breast with whatever vegetable is in the cafe at work, dinner is random as it can be nothing or up to one chicken satay (for example). Interspersed throughout my day I drink water and Honest Tea and eat a Smuckers Uncrustable and maybe a light & fit yogurt. As a Nurse Aide I move around quite a bit on a twelve hour shift so getting to a meal isn't always easy or possible. In those instances I go with the cereal, yogurt and uncrustable at work and have a form of protein at home. Is there any way that I could get my doctor or anyone to measure my stomach capacity?

This is what I came across a few weeks ago.....

The Cottage cheese Test:

The cottage cheese test is a technique that was presented at the June 2000

meeting of the ASBS (and many times before that) by Latham Flanagan, MD

(website is at The Oregon Center for Bariatric Surgery). It is meant to be

a standardized, reproducible measurement of the physical size of the stomach

pouch in a person who has undergone a gastric bypass procedure.

Purchase a container of small curd low-fat cottage cheese. Begin the test

with a full container, and perform the test in the morning before eating

anything else (this will be your breakfast on that day). Eat fairly quickly

until you feel full (less than five minutes). Note that the small soft curds

do not require much chewing. The idea with the rapid eating is to fill the

pouch before there is much time for food to flow out of it.

After eating your "fill" of cottage cheese, you will be left with a

partially eaten container that has empty space where cottage cheese used to

be.

Start with a measured amount of Water (16 ounces, for example), and pour

water into the container of cottage cheese until the water is level with the

original top level of the cottage cheese.

Voila - the amount of water poured into the container is the functional size

of the pouch.

If this is your first time doing the test - DON'T PANIC. You are likely to

find that the "cottage cheese" size of your pouch is way bigger than your

surgeon told you he/she made it at the time of surgery. Dr. Flanagan's data

indicates that the average size of the mature pouch by cottage cheese test

is 5.5 ounces. He has also found that sizes ranging from 3 to 9 ounces have

NO IMPACT on the person's success in weight loss."