TYPICAL DAYS

 I mentioned in my last post that I would list a typical day or two of eating at 4 months post op.

I start each day with about 1/4 cup of grape juice with my potassium supplement mixed in.  Then I usually have a protein hot chocolate and a protein bar.  I make my own and I have an assortment of them from different companies. I try to make sure they are at least 10 g of protein. So usually my breakfast is between 20-30 g protein.

This is what the taro one looked like!

Mid-morning I have a snack, right now I am enjoying Trader Joes Protein Banana Muffins - 7 g protein but 22 g carbs, so I don't eat them too often! Otherwise I might have some sunflower seeds, nuts or finish my protein bar from breakfast.

Lunch is when I get the most variety and opportunity to experiment.  Costco had a good price on Bay Shrimp so I bought a few pounds and portioned them into baggies and put them in the freezer.  If I take one out the night before, it is thawed enough to add some chopped celery, mayo and seasonings.  I have been putting it in a container with 1/2 avocado and it makes a great lunch with some Wonderslim crackers - 19 g protein. I also look for soups with higher protein and add the protein pretzels or crackers to up my intake.

The other day my boss took me to lunch at a Dim Sum place (I managed to get a customer to finally pay off a $10,000. bill he had owned since last April!) I had almost 4 pieces of Dim Sum.  I am terrible about the names, but one was shrimp in a translucent wrapper, two were minced shrimp and pork dumplings and one was taro with something in the middle.  It was great and I was thrilled that I could eat so much.  I suspect the "wrappers" added up carb wise - but what the heck.  It was a treat!

In the afternoon I sometimes have a protein bar/chips depending on how much I ate for lunch and when I managed to take a lunch break.

Dinner, for some reason, is the meal that I have trouble with.  By the end of the day I am hungry but my stomach is easily upset.  I usually have a small portion of chicken and few bites of veggies.  One recent dinner I added about 1/4 of a potato skin (potatoes scooped out but with butter and salt!)  I have been trying out a lot of recipes from low carb cookbooks to expand my dinner menus. If my protein isn't adding up to 90-120 g for the day, I have a protein drink or another protein hot chocolate.

For a treat, I love to have my red grapefruit sections.  The other night I was wanting something different so I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips and put roasted almonds in the melted chocolate, spread them out on wax paper to harden and broke them into pieces.  A few of these nuts is a nice treat with hot tea at the end of the day.