So, a while back, I posted about slider foods and how they will make you fat again after you’ve had gastric bypass surgery. You can revisit that post here – https://www.beautygirlsmom.com/2008/02/10/slider-foods-will-make-me-fat/
And now you can see that my arse is living proof of how slider foods will cause you to regain and start checking Weight Watcher points and wearing stretch pants.
You can see from the explanation on the previous blog on slider foods that basically what happens with simple carbs is they “slide” right through. You can eat, eat, and eat without suffering any of the dumping, discomfort, or anxiety over dumping and discomfort.
Here’s the thing – for a lot of us, we really don’t know that full feeling. We don’t recognize that feeling at the Thanksgiving dinner table when people are pushing their chairs back and saying, “No more, no more – okay, well until dessert.” I know I certainly didn’t. I mean, I knew when to back away from the table because everyone else was doing it, and, well, someone had to do the dishes. But I often stood in the kitchen, snacking on the already carved turkey leftovers or nibbling on the sausage out of the stuffing while I put food away and put dishes in the dishwasher.
Eating slider foods is just like that. There is no feeling that you’re full. I can go to a movie theater and get a large popcorn, and even gastrically altered, I can down the whole thing by myself. I can buy a bag of pretzels for the family to snack on, and before I know it, I’m reaching for the last one before the kids even know the bag is in the house. The funny thing is when I first realized I could eat pretzels, I would dip them in cream cheese, figuring I’d get a wee bit of extra protein while I was eating them; but after a few pretzels with cream cheese, I’d start to get an uncomfortable feeling and stop eating the cream cheese. That lets way more pretzels go down!
I think the key to the slider food issue is not to start eating them. There is virtually no nutritional value to you in pretzels, popcorn, and crackers. You’re consuming calorie after calorie with none of the risk you have with protein of feeling full.
Slider foods have almost become an addiction. I keep saying I won’t buy them, but when I’m standing in the grocery store thinking of what I should pick up to snack on (because you are still going to want SOMETHING to snack on), I never think something good for me like Greek yogurt, light cheese, grilled chicken strips. I always think of something I know won’t give me that uncomfortable feeling. But THAT’s the feeling I NEED.
There’s a lot of head stuff involved with being gastrically altered. You think that once the issue of your plumbing is sorted out, you are in the clear, but you’re not. I think I am a compulsive eater, and while gastric bypass surgery certainly helped make it harder for me to eat to my heart’s content, the objects of my desire have changed so I have the freedom to put more food into my mouth without worrying about uncomfortable consequences.
This is so not the fun part of gastric bypass surgery.