Well let me tell you, as we grow up, we have mostly an automatic brain response on how to learn to eat, we from birth have a big initiative to eat, we learn and for most of us it's rather easy.
But what is for 32 years you have eaten the same way, but now you need to go back to step 1, learn again from the basics? welcome to the life of a gastric patient.
Now there is multiple types of surgery (Band / Bypass and my surgery sleeve) and I can only personally speak on my experience so far based on sleeve.
I am 5 days post operation and I feel like I am having to re-learn to eat again.
From day 1, I was able to have just ice chips, something so simple, but so complex for someone post surgery. I could only have 1 chip at a time, suck, swallow (Mind out the gutter) and I can't just sit there and eat what I want (But I mean that makes sense)
Now the tray comes in, there's soup, jelly and a Apple juice on the tray, sounds like a brilliant meal right? well the old eyes too big for your belly certainly kicks in.
A few spoonfuls of soup, a few tiny spoonfuls of jelly and the Apple Juice doesn't get a look, a few hours later another tray comes in, different flavours, similar result.
All of a sudden you learn that life isn't going to be the same again.
Now, flash forward to day 4, I am home, having a thicker soup for dinner (Something that must fit through a Mcdonald's size straw) and there's this sad little plop of soup in a bowl, you get a few mouthfuls in and realise it was so good, so you keep going, and then boom you've eaten so quick it hurts!
Eating with a sleeve you have to take it slow, but 32 years of liking something and being able to woof it down like a rabbid dog who hasn't eaten in a week, it now hurts to eat too fast, I can feel the soup sitting in a part of my chest waiting to go down, and I can go and purge it out (Which I don't want to do, or I can sit there and patiently wait for it to go down.)
I wait and after a few mins it goes down and all is good, but by then I am tired (still recovering from surgery) stop, eating about 150ml of food.
later that night I decide to have some more food, I get very little into it and abandon hope for this evening (my body is telling me to reset and try again tomorrow, I manage to have a small sugar free hot chocolate and call it a night)
It's interesting for someone obese who can previously smash a large thick crust pizza, to having less then 100-150ml of food and being full, it's also hard as you can't drink and eat at the same time, you can't wash down that last bit of food, you have to wait or it hurts.
It's good tho, eating some high quality fresh soup, made packed with veggies made by my mother in law (Blitzed so there's no lumps as I can't eat anything lumpy)
Even drinking it currently something I have to re-learn, thirsty? take a few big gulps and you are quenched... not with a sleeve.. take a big gulp and... you guessed it.. IS GON HURT!!! MAJOR PAIN!!!!!!
Gotta have small sips, let it process through your body and then take small sips, but at first that's hard and you learn because you take a big gulp, swallow and then about 10-15 seconds later you feel the pain of the drink sitting there waiting to pass through.
Now the important question, would I change anything? no way, not for the world, a new life awaits !!!
Stay Awesome
Paul