Christmas eating with a vertical gastric sleeve is a challenge when the season is all about food and social eating. After years of overeating and indulging into rich heavy food over the festive season, you are now faced with small portions and a need and want for the food to go down into your small stomach comfortably.
As you sit at the table with your family, whose plates are overloaded with roast potatoes, turkey and all the trimmings, your plate is small but still probably has too much food on it. You eat quickly as the conversations and chatter distract you from your food, you find yourself eating too quickly and not chewing enough.
You get your first sign of discomfort after 7 mins, you slow down a bit, but the food is still trying to reach your small stomach and hasn’t yet realised that it’s full. Basically, the gates have shut, but the food is still coming in. Once that feeling of overeating hits, you then quickly calculate what else you have swallowed, and panic can set in.
We have all been there and suffered dreadfully at the expense of eating two additional mouthfuls of food, but to avoid getting to this point you need to slow down before you even sit at the Christmas dinner table. No doubt you have been nibbling at food most of the day, and nibbling food works for VSG lifers, but to eat the main dinner as well? This is asking for trouble.
Rewind. Let’s pretend Christmas dinner is at 2pm, and everything is cooking away in the kitchen. The smell is delicious, and it makes you feel like eating something. It’s Christmas Day, it’s one of the only days I can eat what I want. Correct, you can but only little portions. Don’t drink anything fizzy or cold. You must get your stomach ready to receive food. This is my opinion only, but I believe cold drinks chill my tubes to my stomach making them contract and go hard, not the environment I want to create. Fizzy drink blows up in my stomach and if there is some food in there this can be uncomfortable. Have a small cup of warm tea or coffee about one hour before dinner to soften the tubes, thus allowing food to fit down and through, and to curb that hunger.
Check that enough gravy is being made for everyone plus more. This will be your best friend on the plate.
Crispy roast potatoes are crunchy and delicious but today it’s about avoiding and preventing issues which means today you need to stick to one roast potato, and it needs to be that roast potato that the oven forgot to roast because it was under a mountain of other potatoes.
Your vegetables need to be well-cooked and soft, so ensure that the carrots and Brussels sprouts go on a tad early than normal.
Meat should be carved thinly enough for you not to worry about large amounts.
For all additional trimmings just have teaspoon servings of these on the plate. Anyone reading this who doesn’t know or understand the workings of a vertical gastric sleeve might laugh at the suggestion of a teaspoon of stuffing but quite honestly with everything else on the plate this marble-sized stuffing portion will be a mammoth task to eat for someone who has had the sleeve.
We all know that full-up feeling after a large meal where one sits back and can barely move as your stomach is stretched beyond belief and the enormous meal one has just consumed - well after a gastric sleeve operation those days are gone and will not return.
Back to Christmas Day dinner, it’s time to serve up and put into serving bowls. The family are ravenous and like hungry lions at the zoo about to tuck in, but this cannot be you. You need to slow down, compose yourself, take stock of what everyone else is doing. This could be the first time you observe you family as before you were one of them tucking in like you have not eaten for over a month, so enjoy being in a slow mode for a while whilst they fill their plates.
Now it’s your time to get your meal. One roast potato, a thin slice of turkey, a couple of sprouts and carrots. A few teaspoons of various trimmings, then pour on the gravy.
I promise you there will be enough for you; you don’t need very much at all. My personal trick that I have mastered well is to keep talking during this process, chat away to everyone, make your own positive comments about the delights of food in front of you. If crackers have been pulled, then work around the table to see what was inside and read the jokes.
Here is the hard part. Slow down. Eating is not a race. Chew and suck every mouthful. The flavours won’t disappear, so no need to rush. Keep chewing. This will help the food on your plate last longer, this will help your tummy prepare for the food and allow each mouthful to take the time it needs to go down the ready warmed tubes and enter your small stomach. Chat between mouthfuls. Slow down. Please do not drink anything whilst eating, this can cause a build-up of food inside and can make you feel fuller too fast. Slow down. Savour the flavours.
Christmas pudding time, now be honest can you really manage it really get now or should you wait an hour? Whatever you want to do, make sure it’s a small portion, and ensure it’s warm and, here is the best part, swamp it with cream or custard, not just because you can but it will help it go down smoothly. Now I used the term ‘swamp it’ you can’t really go wild here as the size of the serving should only be a dessert spoon as pudding is fairly heavy.
As treat to yourself on Christmas Day you could plan now and go shopping for a new small side plate and a matching small dessert bowl, make your eating experience feel special. Do not use the plates and bowls that the rest of the family are using, that would just be asking for internal trouble. If you are a guest at someone’s house, inform them beforehand that you will need to bring your plates and bowls as this helps you to control your portions successfully, again for a host this should not be such an issue. But it’s important.
Remember why you had the operation, and for whatever reason you did. It’s working, isn’t it? Food is always around, and you will not go hungry. Just take your time. No one around you wants to see you when you have overeaten and in pain. You may receive comments like you are missing out or why would you have an operation that makes you not enjoy food, if this happens then look at your plate, it has the same food on it as theirs! And yes, you are enjoying it and probably more than they are as you are chewing correctly and savouring the flavours whilst they are eating without the food touching their tongue. Sit back and smile, feel your smaller figure and smile some more. Don’t defend yourself verbally just relax and enjoy the festive meal with those you love.
If you want to chat through your Christmas Day strategy with me, please book a session.
Merry Christmas!