Eating tips with Gastroparesis

I just wanted to share some eating with Gastroparesis tips. I just really stumbled upon and I think are super helpful for me today. Maybe someone else can use them 😊 (all out of the book "Living (Well!) with Gastroparesis" by, Crystal Zarborowski Salterlli CHC) I love her books! She is a nutritionist who has Gastroparesis herself. Seriously she taught me to eat again with GP.... Now I have noticed a huge decrease in function lately. I am tired all the time, Sleeping 12 plus hours per day, I'm peeing more, I know I am incredibly moody, I keep having spells of feeling in a funky spaced out world, and it's like my brain isn't even working. So of course my first thought, "Why & when did I feel this way last?" When I was struggling with anemia back in January or so. (When I was weening off formula). Well I have been studying up on my GP nutrition and diet. I have a lot of things I notice now that I need to work on. I'm doing well but as most with GP it's a constant battle to get a balanced diet. I'm not so sure I'm anemic but I think I am not getting my good fatty omegas in. Aka your fatty acids. We need them! Signs of deficiency according to my handy dandy GP book is " excessive thirst, frequent urination, dry hair, & skin." -pg 85. (I have recently developed every single one of these symptoms. I mean I've been whinning over being so thirsty. I'm so glad I popped this book out today.) and I don't eat any of the foods that have the Omegas in them. (So I've got to fix this). I am always hungry even when I am full. Even sickly full! (Well I knew this one but forgot). You absorb your nutrition in the small intestine. So if you have GP and you are Starving even when eating or after eating.... Have a little bit of fruit juice! It will absorb faster and seep down in to give your blood sugar a kick up and make your body quit signaling that it is starving. (While the other food is taking its own sweet time as we know sitting in that tummy not absorbing at a normal pace. Which is why the body tells you to eat is the food isn't going down and being absorbed. This leaves me hungry and full at the same time. Stinking belly!) I definitely am dipping low blood sugar despite eating regularly.  Funny before I got this book out last week, I was up all night eating junky foods. I was just hungry as a hippo. And I ate crap food because it was late and I didn't care to be honest. Quick and easy. We know the double edge sword with GP... junk foods are the easiest to digest but are empty calories. They don't offer nutrition. (I also thought, "my nutrition must be great I gained a few pounds the past two weeks." But that's probably all empty junky food calories. So weight gain isn't a good nutritional measure in this case... Also I said it in the past. I will say it again. Weight does not measure your nutrition!) I started having juice since I was incredibly thristy and I quit eating late at night. So it goes to show how tricky eating and living with GP really can be. It's a mind game. I thought I was so stressed but now that I am putting the puzzle together... I was and am actually struggling to get a good rounded diet with a paralyzed stomach and it's effecting my body. Some thing all Gastroparesis sufferers live with. Even when we can eat by mouth there are complications. (See we are all #starvingforacure it's not just a catch phrase.)  So I am not calorie counting or freaking out but I will be monitoring my daily intake of omegas, proteins, & I realized my formula had vitamin K and my Orgain doesn't have vitamin K (only  big nutritional difference between them.) I also do not eat greens because use I can not break them down. I also started last week setting alarms because as I tend to get side tracked or busy. I forget to eat. That could be from being tube fed for so long... Just something I never had to think of I hooked up to feeds once a day and that was I. So even still I am constantly learning to stop and eat. And I think the alarms will help my body get a proper schedule. So I will just work on these goals and see. I know living with Gastroparesis is work and confusing. I know how stressful eating with GP is! But my advice is to listen to your body. It will tell you when something is wrong. (Mine has really been telling me that something is off.) Then think it through. Then simply do the best you can and seek medical help If needed. That's what they are for! (That's where I was headed before my studies.) I do highly suggest this book! It's full of information  and explains not just GP itself...  but how to eat, what is good trial foods, recipes, & it explains the nutritional end. Which seriously no one had ever explained these things to me like this book. And I had been living with GP for years and thought I knew all there was to know. Go check her out!http://livingwithgastroparesis.com/  It's been so helpful to me. And I loved being able to pull it out to check on a few things that I was suspicious of!  -Chelle