Working the (digestive) kinks out

You don't just cut the volume of the stomach in half, widen the pyloric sphincter, and expect life to go on as before. I read about that in advance and intellectually understood it: smaller and more frequent meals. If only it were that simple.

I am now experiencing a fairly mild form of dumping syndrome, or rapid gastric emptying. This is caused when undigested food is pushed into the jejunum of the small intestine. "Early dumping" happens almost immediately and results in bloating and a shortness of breath with me; more serious cases can include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Several hours later you get "late dumping" with sweating, dizziness and weakness. Incidentally, dumping syndrome is one of those dark little secrets of gastric bypass surgery: you don't just sit back as the pounds fade away!

Today I made the mistake of eating two pieces of french toast: about two-thirds of what I would normally eat and I knew I was being a bad boy. The good news is that my appetite has returned, the bad news is that that was probably double what I should have eaten, especially since it was almost pure carbohydrate.

I realize now that even though I'm eating much less than before, I've still been eating more in a sitting that I probably should and still need to spread that out more. I'll have to be more careful as I work these kinks out!