I'm 3 days out of surgery and on protein liquids. I can't figure out how fast or slow to be eating in order to satisfy my hunger and make sure I don't stretch out my new pouch. I ate a 1/4 cup of pudding in about 10 minutes and am feeling guilty that it was too fast. My stomach gurgled and I felt it stretch. Am I damaging the pouch? How do you all eat slowly and satisfy the hunger?

You have a staple line or stitches across your new tiny stomach, this early in your new life , you need to be careful of them. You have a way to go to heal properly. Learning how to eat again is tough. Eat with a small spoon. Slowly. Wait for the full signals. It gets easier as you go through the food stages. Then you will feel a proper restriction.

I never got hungry signals just acid gurgling and churning. Some people do though. If you can manage a 1/4 cup then that sounds ok. It is only very soft food after all. It might take longer to eat fish and meats. Everyone is different, I could only manage 2 teaspoons of yogurt but I enjoyed them. It gets easier after the first week or so

I'm 3 days out of surgery and on Protein liquids. I can't figure out how fast or slow to be eating in order to satisfy my hunger and make sure I don't stretch out my new pouch. I ate a 1/4 cup of pudding in about 10 minutes and am feeling guilty that it was too fast. My stomach gurgled and I felt it stretch. Am I damaging the pouch? How do you all eat slowly and satisfy the hunger?

30mins

You won’t stretch your tummy. It takes a prolonged length of time eating excessive volumes of food to do that (think how long you were working on stretching your tummy before surgery). What you may do at this stage is stress or strain your healing tummy & delay your recovery.

Though some do continue to feel hunger after surgery it is not common as most/all of the section of your tummy that produces the hunger hormone is removed. You could be experiencing head hunger - eating for comfort after the stress of the surgery, etc., eating out of habit, craving a texture, food or flavour, etc. At the moment your body is still producing the amount of stomach acid you needed to digest larger volumes of food in your old larger tummy & in reaction to the surgery. Stomach acid can make you think your hungry (hunger pangs). A PPI will reduce the amount of acid in your tummy (via a prescription or over the counter like Pepcid or similar). Also a growling rumbling tummy is usually a sign not of hunger but of your body digesting food. The stretch you felt possibly was just a muscle spasm (your tummy is a muscle).

Usually we aren’t able to eat pudding until we’re on the purée stage about two weeks post surgery & after the liquid only stage. Plans can be very different but check to ensure you can have it. When eating purées, like pudding, I was a teaspoon dipper so only putting food on the tip of the spoon. That way I stretched out the time it took it eat the portion to more like 30minutes & was much like the 5 minutes between sips advice. Also this is when I started, what is still a habit, of asking myself if I really need the next bite or just want it. Listen to your body & go slowly.

Edited April 10, 20233 yr by Arabesque

1 hour ago, Arabesque said:

You won’t stretch your tummy. It takes a prolonged length of time eating excessive volumes of food to do that (think how long you were working on stretching your tummy before surgery). What you may do at this stage is stress or strain your healing tummy & delay your recovery.

Though some do continue to feel hunger after surgery it is not common as most/all of the section of your tummy that produces the hunger hormone is removed. You could be experiencing head hunger - eating for comfort after the stress of the surgery, etc., eating out of habit, craving a texture, food or flavour, etc. At the moment your body is still producing the amount of stomach acid you needed to digest larger volumes of food in your old larger tummy & in reaction to the surgery. Stomach acid can make you think your hungry (hunger pangs). A PPI will reduce the amount of acid in your tummy (via a prescription or over the counter like Pepcid or similar). Also a growling rumbling tummy is usually a sign not of hunger but of your body digesting food. The stretch you felt possibly was just a muscle spasm (your tummy is a muscle).

Usually we aren’t able to eat pudding until we’re on the purée stage about two weeks post surgery & after the liquid only stage. Plans can be very different but check to ensure you can have it. When eating purées, like pudding, I was a teaspoon dipper so only putting food on the tip of the spoon. That way I stretched out the time it took it eat the portion to more like 30minutes & was much like the 5 minutes between sips advice. Also this is when I started, what is still a habit, of asking myself if I really need the next bite or just want it. Listen to your body & go slowly.

Thank you for all the information, the tips and especially the reassurance. I'll be coming back to this post from time to time to remind myself these things. I think I have been having a lot of head hunger and that's a great point. Does the head hunger pass? I've seriously been craving pizza and Cheetos and lasagna. Maybe that's because I am already tired of sweet protein shakes.

On 4/10/2023 at 3:21 PM, dskg said:

… I think I have been having a lot of head hunger and that's a great point. Does the head hunger pass? I've seriously been craving pizza and Cheetos and lasagna. Maybe that's because I am already tired of sweet Protein Shakes.

Unfortunately no, you never lose your head hunger. What does happen is you learn to better identify head hunger versus real hunger & learn strategies to manage those time you experience it. So you take away some of its power over your desire to eat. Distraction can be a a helpful strategy because often head hunger doesn’t last. Go for a walk, water your plants, clean out a drawer in your wardrobe or shelf in the pantry, read, play a game, craft, check social media or this forum, ring a friend, etc. Often a warm drink can be helpful too.

Oh yeah the shakes can become super sweet after surgery as we can become more sensitive to certain flavours. I’d force down a shake in the morning & then had soup. So glad never to have another one once I started purées. (Used high protein yoghurt & yoghurt drinks to boost my protein intake instead.)