miss chewing food

[Cheree 2]

Im 3 weeks out and I miss food. I miss chewing. I miss crunchy food. Has anyone chewed food in their mouth and spit it out just to get the flavor? I dont know if Im brave enough to do it but it sure sounds good!

[Bufflehead 6,358]

This is a direct copy and paste from Laura-Ven. Laura-Ven, my apologies for copying your work here without getting permission first, I hope this is okay:

Not good, not good at all.... Please people don't do it, and please stop suggesting for other people to do it.

First, this behavior is the first steps of bulemia and getting into the habit of chewing food and spitting it out can lead to a very serious eating disorder. After WLS we are already dealing with changing the way we relate to food, so we want to instill good habits all along the way and avoid the bad ones as much as possible.

Second, there's a biological reason not to do this too. When you smell food and when it enters your mouth and you begin to chew, the body goes into Prep Mode to receive food. Your salivary glands produce saliva, your pancreas produces insulin, your liver produces gastric acid and your brain begins to calculate how much nutrition you're about to receive from the food you eat so it can keep track of it's daily needs/calories --- the body is a well tuned machine and it knows how to deal with food when it knows it's coming. But then you spit out the food. Your body still has excess saliva, insulin, gastric acid and it can't figure out why it didn't get the nutrition it thought it was going to get so the brain accountants go nuts.

Excess insulin in your body causes your appetite to increase so you'll eat more food to soak up all that extra hormone. Excess gastric acid in the stomach -- now released at the Y of your common channel -- can cause indigestion or heartburn or ulcers. and those brain accountants are now doing some creative math to recalculate the nutritional value of food because it thought it was going to get a certain number of calories, but none came, so next time you try to eat that same food the brain thinks you need twice as much to get the same nutrition as it thought it should have gotten last time.

So not only is the whole "chew and spit" habit a training ground for bulemia, it's also a way to tease your body into thinking it's getting food when it really isn't. Bulemia is a very serious illness and not something you want to play around with.

[Cheree 2]

Wow, none of this came to mind. Thanks for your response. Definitely dont want any eating disorders. This process is the hardest thing Ive gone threw. I guess you could say Im in the " What the heck did I do to myself " stage. Hope it goes away soon because there's nothing I can do about it now.

[marfar7 1,528]

Absolutely I missed chewing and crunching. I was on liquids for 4 wks then soft foods for 4 weeks. That first bite of salad was heaven. I never even thought of chewing/spitting. Good thing I didn't. I'm already trying to break the eating/vomiting cycle the lapband brought to me, really don't need another eating problem

[ccm2n 28]

I missed chewing as well. Try ice and gum

[SuperFab 689]

Hey guys, I haven't had my sleeve yet, but my best friend has. She always chewed on a straw for the first bit. One day I asked her why, she said "I miss chewing and this is just as crunchy". Just an option.