I'm one week post op so I am on pureed foods. I have having a lot of trouble eating and drinking slowly. My dietitian says that we should be sipping 4 oz over 30 minutes and 1/4 cup of pureed foods over 30 minutes. I have baby spoons, but I still can't eat/drink THAT slow. Any suggestions?

Hi:

I had issues with eating too fast too. I finally bought a bunch of one-minute timers from www.unclesgames.com They did the trick and they were cheap. I would take a bit, tip the timer, and not take another bite until the sand was all in on the end. This did the trick for me.

Best wishes to you newbie.

I love my band and my new flat tummy!

Sue

Put your fork / spoon / cup down between bites. If other people are in your household, engage in conversation. If no one else is in the house, you might try taking a bite and then reading a few sentences in a book before your next bite.

It will become habit to eat more slowly soon.

At this stage it doesn't reall make a huge difference as you have no restriction. It is only once you have restriction that you will understand the need to eat small bites/slowly because if you don't it hurts like hell!

It is good to practice eating slower but reallistically I don't believe that most of us get it quite right until we have had some fills.

In the meantime eat as slowly as you can but don't stress about it too much.

PS. To take 30min to eat 1/4 cup of pureed food seems ridiculously slow. My Dr's recommend that eating a meal should take 20 - 30 min but that is real food not puree and I am allowed far more than 1/4 cup. I know all Dr's have different requirements but this seems crazy!

My doc has us on 2 weeks of liquids, so we didn't "graduate" to purees till week 3, and by then it was easier after 2 weeks practice (though the food was cold by 30 min).