What changes do you find difficult? For me, it’s not drinking with food and not drinking from straws. My mouth feels so dry and gross if I don’t was down my food and I always used a straw at work. ?

Try to keep your food moist & tender. Don’t be afraid to use gravies, sauces, etc. to help make swallowing easier & you won’t miss drinking while eating as much.

In time you’ll be able to reduce the amount of time between eating & drinking & many can even drink to varying degrees while eating. If your mouth feels super dry, try some biotene mouth spray.

The straw thing is one of those things that some surgeons say no & others don’t have position. Still can’t understand why some are told not to use a straw but can use sippy cups & water bottles with those sucky tube nozzles. But … ??‍♀️ I used them initially until I realised I could drink more easily from a glass or mug.

Sugar free popsicles helped me get through the dry mouth stage early after surgery.

Tiny sips of water while eating may help you. Tiny sips are not the same as "drinking while eating". The reason for the rule is to prevent washing the food through the pouch faster than it should be moving thus preventing you from feeling satisfied.

I usually swish and spit water in my mouth after I eat.
At 1st I found it hard to convince a waiter that I didn’t need anything to drink with my meal. My husband told me to just get water, it’s easier then telling them I don’t want anything to drink.
I just feel bad about being wasteful with water.

I'm six months out and still struggle with eating slow enough when I'm on my own. I find the social aspect of eating with others helpful for pacing, or even if I'm alone at my desk at work I take pauses to do things (ie I'm eating lunch right now) but my last meal of the day in the evening when I'm alone I tend to just go too fast and make myself sick. Trying to work on being more mindful though.

If you struggle with how fast you eat, put your fork down between each bite. It really does slow you down. When we have our fork in our hand most of the meal with tend to shovel the food into our mouths.
I have had waiters ask me if I was done eating because my fork was on my plate & not in my hand. Dude! Don’t you know that the international sign for being done eating is a knife with the fork wrong side up in the middle of the plate with the handles resting on the edge. This makes it easy for the wait staff to put their thumb on the silverware so that they don’t drop it. “I’m done now, you can take my plate!”

I’m doing better but was having a hard time noticing and stopping when I just became full and not overly full and nauseous. Proud of myself yesterday for not eating to much on national binge eating day