Today I am 17 days post surgery and have went from a liquid diet to a soft diet (cottage cheese, etc). I have had about 3 bites of baked macaroni as I chewed each bite 30+ times. I also had recently just the inside meat of a boneless chicken wing chewed to mush. Yesterday my husband and I went shopping to finish up Christmas gifts and we ate at Applebee's. Well, my husband did. I ordered their macaroni as I knew it would be soft and mushy to eat. I had one bite of a 1 inch spiral noodle with cheese on it, chewed 30+ times and I was VERY full. I'm thinking my band disliked the sodium!! Lesson learned!!! That noodle was bloating me from 3pm until 7pm. This morning, back to liquids and mushy things. Protein shake, etc. Learning as I go! No fills yet and slowly getting more hunger pains and less restriction.

Hi Coach. Good lesson learned. Take a few minutes and look up the nutritional information for many of the big chain restaurants. It reads like a horror story...the amount of calories, fats and sodium in those meals. Now...I'm not saying don't ever eat at Applebee's but know that you should try to eat as smart as possible when heading to those types of restaurants. I don't know if you are allowed it yet, but a good alternative for 'soft' foods is fish. It goes down real easy and is a much better choice than carbs. Good luck on your journey!

Most bands have very little saline injected during surgery. Your surgery swelling may be dwindling so you will experience less restriction and more hunger. Bandster Hell can last for weeks or months depending on how aggressive your doctor is with fills and how well you adapt to eating properly.