I know that everyone (dr's etc. ) mention that you should chew, chew, chew your food, and eat very slowly, etc. However, I'm just wondering, do you need to do this even before you really feel restriction?

I try to chew, chew, just to get into the habit, but I don't feel that I MUST in order for my food to pass through the band.

I've only had one fill, so I'm wondering if that is why, or if I missed something here? Will chewing become more and more natural/required for me?

I also try to eat slowly, but don't really feel like it makes much difference if I eat slowly or moderately. . .

Please advise- thanks!

The reason for chewing well is to avoid getting stuck. As you get fills you should be more mindful of how you are eating and eventually you will get accustomed to how well you need to chew. I am at restriction and have been aggressive at keeping good restriction and I personally have not needed to chew all my food to liquid in order to get it to go down but I do have to eat slower and chew more than I used to. There are also certain foods that require more chewing than others and there are certain days where I need to take it easier because I am suddenlty tighter.Like I said, you will get accustomed to it as you go.

Smaller bites and chewing like crazy are something I struggle with. After surgery I slowly eased back to bigger bites and less chewing because I didn't have that much restriction. However, now that I have good restriction it has come back to haunt me that I didn't work harder at it and make it a habit. Even though you can take bigger bites and chew less than you will need to once you have good restriction, my advice would be to eat like you already have good restriction, just so you get in the habit of it. I wish I had been better about that - it may have kept me from havingf a few painful experiences!!

I could not agree more with Bambam.

Get into good band habits before you have restriction. It's a challenge to eat slowly, take small bites, and chew well - but getting stuck is even more of a challenge.

xoxo

Thanks for the responses, I will certainly work on this.

Lisa

I think once you get restriction you learn pretty quickly that you'd better pay attention and chew. It happened for me that way, anyway! :scared2:

I too have struggled with chewing.... I have 45 years of shoveling food in and eating as fast as I can. That is most likely one of the major reason for being in this position today.

Like many of the previous posters, I urge you to work on the chewing smaller and slower bite now. I count it a victory if I eat a meal without getting stuck or eating so fast, that I don't realize until it too late that I've eaten too much.

Keep up the good work and it will payoff!

p