I'm here to tell you all how to cheat Not that you need to know this.

I had a family dinner last weekend in a fancy restaurant that only does a 7 course set tasting menu. I have panicked for weeks about this because none of my family know I've had surgery and I don't want them to (long story featuring lifelong judgementalness, LOL - I know that's not an actual word). I had hatched all sorts of plans where I hid food under other overhanging food, dropped it on the floor, and put it onto other people's plates when they weren't looking.

Anyway - turns out I worried for no reason - all you have to do to cheat on your pouch is to reverse the rules you were given. So - if you drink before, during and immediately after a meal, and start with carbs and finish with protein (and leave some of that if you need to) you can virtually clear 7 small plates. Served me very well on Saturday night. I hope not to need that wisdom again for some considerable time.

I’m sure it helped your your situation that the courses are spaced out a bit too cause your entire meal probably lasted at least a little longer than it usually does giving you some time to digest and make room for more. I know that about 30 minutes after I eat, I could eat again if I wanted to. I am over a year out now and I often feel hungry that soon but it’s got to be head hunger. It’s unfortunately not difficult to eat around the sleeve if you choose to.

Yes! Kind of reinforced that how I am now eating is something I need to work at AND keep going with - would be so easy to slip and reverse it. I suppose that's how people regain.

Anyway - not meant for daily use, just feels like a superpower I can pull out from time to time when absolutely necessary to obfuscate, so I thought I should share.

1 minute ago, Spinoza said:

Yes! Kind of reinforced that how I am now eating is something I need to work at AND keep going with - would be so easy to slip and reverse it. I suppose that's how people regain.

Anyway - not meant for daily use, just feels like a superpower I can pull out from time to time when absolutely necessary to obfuscate, so I thought I should share.

Well at 16 months out I can eat about one serving of most things comfortably. And if I eat that much of higher calorie foods I would gain pretty quickly. By the time you can eat a full serving size you really can’t rely on portion control as your only tool. You have to eat reasonably healthy foods as well most of the time.

I was never faced with a multi course tasting menu until I was well into living with Gastric Bypass long-term. Pre-op it never appealed as my family was about volume over quality.

I've since faced down the multi-course tasting menu with style and aplomb, generally by not worrying about my rules. No matter what happened volume would sooner or later become an issue. Sipping during meals has always been something I was more than willing to do. I usually took a taste of most courses unless it simply did not appeal. Unless a course was just the bees knees I didn't take more than two or three bites, I'm not gonna waste that all important space on something that was not worthy of it. There was usually one or two courses that were just that good to merit in depth exploration.

Often it came down to "Let's make a deal"... Would you like to finish this course, or wait for the next course which has a cream sauce your sure to love, or this course that has lobster just the way you love it, or this later mystery dish later that will be something new?

At any rate, we all have our approaches and our deals with ourselves and the devil. I just don't dance with the devil that often.

Good luck,

Tek