It is important to think about your Lap Band and visualize what it is doing as you are eating your meals. A great piece of advice is to think about your Lap Band as being like an hourglass.
Just like an hourglass slows down what goes through it, the gastric band slows down the food that goes through it. That’s why you fell more satisfied after a solid meal than after drinking liquids. The food “stays with you” by slowly going through your stomach. When it slows down, it fills up the small part of your stomach above the Band. The makes you feel satisfied and gets rid of your hunger.
This lets you think about what you should eat. Eat solid foods that will go through the Lap Band slowly. That will make the food stay in the top part of your stomach and make you feel satisfied.
At the same time, that means watch out if you are eating food that goes through the Lap Band quickly. That means things that are liquid in nature like juice, shakes, soups, chili, yogurt, ice cream, etc. If the meals that you consume are liquid, instead of solid food, it goes right through the Band, you won’t feel that fullness, and you will feel hungry sooner than you would like. The same holds food for very crispy food. Things such as potato chips or tortilla chips will go right through the Band. Why is that? What happens if you drop a tortilla chip on the floor and step on it? It will break into a lot of little pieces. The same thing happens in your mouth. When you chew a crispy food it breaks up into a lot of tiny pieces and these go right through your Band and the top of your stomach.
So if you eat crunchy and crispy food, or drink “liquid food” you are less likely to get that fullness of a satisfied feeling and freedom from hunger.
Think of your Lap Band as an hourglass. Let solid food slowly move through the Band and gain freedom from hunger.
