Sunday, October 10, 2010

Seeking a little advice about restriction.

To get a fill or not...  So I need some advice about restriction.  I seem to feel tons of restriction one minute and none at all the next and while I still have two weeks to go before my next doctor's appointment it's on my mind what I'm going to want to do.  I think I want another fill, in fact I'm almost positive, but I'm conflicted and this weekend was a perfect example of why.  I've laid out 4 separate times I ate this weekend and there was, to my mind, wildly different amounts of restriction that just didn't make any sense to me. 

Example 1 - Saturday I had to fast until 1:15pm for a blood test.  I was out of the house at 9am heading to Teddy's soccer game and running other errands.  So while I hadn't eaten, it wasn't anything like first thing in the morning, when I'm normally a little tighter.  So I had the blood test and grabbed a Luna bar to eat on the way to Jackson's flag football game.  That Luna bar did go down, but it was very difficult.  I chewed every single bite extremely carefully but still could feel every single bite every mm of its path downward and not a bit of it was comfortable. - I am plenty tight enough??

Example 2 - That same night I made a warm spinach salad with Gorgonzola and shrimp.  This is one of my very favorite meals and I made myself a big plate of it.  I started with 1.25lbs of shrimp with shells and ate not much less then half of them. (only Brad and I were eating this meal).  When I filled my plate with all that food I thought, there's no way I'll be able to eat all this and I just took it one bite at a time, eating most of the shrimp first to get the protein in, but I ended up eating every single bite and never once feeling a thing.  And then.... I had some soup.  I had made some butternut squash soup (my first attempt at soup making and yummmm).  I thought after I made the soup that I wasn't going to be able to eat it because of the salad - but nope.  No problem at all.  I didn't eat a whole bowl or anything, but still I had no issues what so ever. - do I even have a band in there?

Example 3 - Sunday morning I made a 3 egg sausage and cheese omelet.  I only used 3 eggs because I don't have a pan small enough to handle fewer eggs and I didn't really expect to be able to eat much of it as it was made not that long after I got up and I'm usually tighter in the morning.  But I ate about 3/4 of it before there was any kind of physical hint that I should stop, and even that was an ever so slight, tiny bit of pressure.  (I was sort of testing out where my band would say something).  I stopped right away, but was surprised I'd gotten that much down. I definitely need a fill.

Example 4 - Sunday evening I had a two very small pieces of cheese on two little Special K crackers (which are really good if you haven't tried them) and I thought I was going to die.  I even took a couple of sips of water after wards without thinking about it, I guess I wasn't really thinking of eating these particular cheese & cracker as a meal or anything but I could not swallow the water, I had to go spit it out.  Man - I definitely don't need a fill.

Example 5 - About an hour later I had dinner of stuffed pork roast (with spinach and feta) and more butternut squash soup.  I just had one not too big slice of pork and a pretty good sized bowl of soup - but nothing - no problems what so ever - a fill is in order...

I am wildly anal retentive about chewing everything so I don't think it was a difference in the size of a bite going down - but what's the deal?  It just seems like sometimes I feel super restricted and the very next meal there's no restriction at all.

Yesterday I ordered leg weights that I might decide to wear to my doctor's appointment that's at the end of the month to reduce my weight loss to help encourage him to give me another fill... I feel very conflicted about that, but ordering will make it an option, so we'll see.

Anyway, if any of you have any thoughts about either why my restriction level may vary so wildly or opinions about fills in general they would be much appreciated.  Thanks so much in advance.

4 comments:

Bonnie said...

From what I've read, most people struggle with some variances with restriction, so don't think you are crazy. My surgeon asks me 2 questions - can I eat more than 1 cup of food and then how long before I am hungry after eating. Maybe you have problems getting dryer/harder things down, ie, Luna bar, crackers, while soft eggs and shrimp go down easier? Sorry I can't be more help.

Linda said...

It's true that everyone's restriction varies. I would try eating the same types of food for each meal for a couple days and see how it goes (ie solid protein). For me it's always easier to tell if I stice to solid protein and see how much I can eat and how long it stays with me. Things like soups, salad are really hard to tell with.
It's always a guessing game but as you get closer you have a better idea what foods will and won't work for you.

Fluffy said...

Hi - you might want to take a quick read of this on my blog...

http://fluffy68.blogspot.com/2010/07/restriction-tight-not-tight-oh-my.html

Good luck,
Fluffy

Sam said...

I can't tell you anything new. I have the same problem. The difference is that the food you don't have problems with does seem to be softer foods, also if I don't drink enough water, I get tighter as well.

I hope this helps :)