I am so so happy I am scheduled for Feb 18, 2009 for the gastric sleeve. But I am trying to decide if I need to get help the first few days after surgery. I have 4 kids and the oldest is 7 and youngest are 4. Am I naively thinking I will be okay the next day to get them up and send them to school? And just caring for them when they get home. Or should I expect my husband to take off work and help with that? And if so how long?

How do you know when you have eaten just the right amount of food? Is it trial and error, where if you vomit you have just learned that yep, that was too much? Or is it painful if you overeat? I am not planning on overeating but I would think that everyone needs to learn their own limit. So how does everyone learn that lesson?

My husband took a few days off but it was a "just in case" thing. I could have survived without him.

You won't be able to pick up your 4 year old for a while though. So that's something to consider.

How do you know when you have eaten just the right amount of food? Is it trial and error, where if you vomit you have just learned that yep, that was too much? Or is it painful if you overeat? I am not planning on overeating but I would think that everyone needs to learn their own limit. So how does everyone learn that lesson?

Thanks for your input. Sounds like the recovery won't be too bad. Is there anything you can tell me about the overeating?

Congrats on your upcoming surgery date.

I also have 4 children.. and scheduled for 02/03/09

Maybe your husband could help in the evening with getting everything set out for school and select easy Breakfast.

Congrats on your surgery as well! Are you having it done in Mexico or US? Would you mind letting me know how you manage your immediate post op recovery and how you are able to handle day to day things? Also, I guess you are following the dreaded preop diet. How is that going? Is it as hard as I think it will be? Are you following the Optifast diet or something else? I know it is a lot of questions but as I get closer to the surgery I am starting to get nervous. But definitely not cold feet!

How do you know when you have eaten just the right amount of food? Is it trial and error, where if you vomit you have just learned that yep, that was too much? Or is it painful if you overeat? I am not planning on overeating but I would think that everyone needs to learn their own limit. So how does everyone learn that lesson?

I realized no one answered this question.....

In the beginning, when your stomach is healing, it's really hard to judge -- at least it was for me. So I measured things out and I tried to eat really slowly. If you take 30 min. to eat your 1-2 oz. like you are supposed to, it would probably be okay. I had trouble doing that and so I would frequently take "one bite too many".

When that happens, you get a pain in your breastbone area. It's a pressure. Sometimes I would barf a bit back up, but sometimes I couldn't stop and I'd end up barfing it *all* back up. I thought this was not a good trend so I started working harder at eating slower and stopping sooner.

In the meantime, as my stomach healed, I started getting a much stronger sense of when I was full. So now if I eat to fullness (uncomfortable, but not painful pressure) instead of to satiety (comfortable and no pressure), it's usually knowingly... as in whatever is driving me to finish my plate or eat one more bite is just stronger than the voice that says I'm going to be sorry.

Which highlights an important point. You will hear this over and over "they operate on your stomach, not your head." I am not a big emotional eater, yet I still have times when I want to eat stuff my head is telling me is a bad idea. Mostly it's about finishing everything on my plate. It's just an ingrained habit. Sometimes it's about enjoying the food though. The food tastes good and I just. want. it.

So if you have emotional eating issues, be prepared to work on them pre- and post-op and, even if you don't really, be prepared to find out that -- like all humans -- you don't always eat just to satisfy hunger.