I am having surgery in 22 days. Just for kicks, I tried to "chew chew chew" my dinner last night. I had a salad with lots of fun stuff on it like dried cranberries, cashews, cheese, eggs, carrot shreds, yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes - you get the picture.

Well, I chew chew chewed my way to lots of gagging and nausea trying to swallow each bite. Now I'm really starting to freak myself out!! What if I can't do this? Do you really have to chew your food to mush before you swallow it? I am scared to death I'll get this band and underchew everything and wind up in pain all the time!!! :laugh:

Jaime,

I can't even venture a guess why chewing salad would make you gag. BUT, do not let this one episode dissuade you. Try the chewing thing on more normal after band food (protein!) and see if you still have a problem. If you do, it could very well be in your mind. Chewing your food properly should not make you gag. My only thought is that maybe the shreds of carrots or lettuce were the problem.

Good luck!

sj

I guess it's possible that I chewed too much? How many chews are normal? Maybe I was taking too big of bites, so I had lots of chewing to do and by the end of each bite it was so mushy and soggy that it just made me gag?

Perhaps I should have concentrated more on smaller bites in addition to all that chewing. I do have a sensitive gag reflex though, so all that food chewed practically to paste just made me heave. :laugh:

Tonight - baked chicken and brocolli. Let's see how that works out for me!

The first thought I had when I read your original post was that your bites were too big. I was told that the bites you take should be about the size of the fingernail on your pinky finger, although mine are slightly bigger than that. Once you are banded you will get the hang of it. You won't really need to chew salad greens, as much as you will the denser foods like meats.

I guess I'm just really scared about this whole chewing thing. I'm paranoid I'll forget I have the band and swallow something without properly chewing it, and then I'll be stuck and in agony for hours or I'll PB. I'm sure once I've got the band I'll be crazy about chewing and I'll think about every single bite, but right now I'm just worried. I'm getting close to surgery, so now the idea of a lap band is becoming more of a reality and I'm probably just trying to find things to freak out about. I'm sure next week I'll be freaking about something else! :laugh:

That is perfectly normal Jaime. But it won't be so bad. After surgery, you will have to take baby steps while introducing the food back into your diet and it is not likely that you'll forget...not in the beginning anyway. But there probably will come a day when you are in a rush and swallow something too quickly and get an excellent reminder not to do it again.

It is a learning process and it sounds like you will do just fine.