THE SLOW DOWN



One of my favorite snacks. Even better than on bread or crackers!!

 My weight loss has really slowed down in the past month.  I went from losing 5 pounds a week, to 3 pounds and now I am at 2 pounds which is pretty much what I managed pre-op on a good diet with lots of exercise.  This brings me to the point where I need to be much more mindful of all of my food choices.

For those who think that weight loss surgery is a magic bullet and you can eat whatever you want afterwards - forget that!!  It is a tool.  A really big, helpful tool, but only that.  The human element still factors in every single day.  (Something my co-worker can't understand because he is always trying to get me to eat stuff like donuts he brings in.  Friday he brought me a croissant thinking that was a better choice than a donut.  Sigh.)

Now I need to stop adding that little spoonful of brown rice to my dinner, and skip the potato in the pot roast, add Splenda to the coleslaw dressing instead of sugar.  The carbs need to be monitored much more closely.  The big plus for me to giving up bread and sugar is that I don't have to be concerned with fat* - so I picked up some brie to add to my lunch and used full fat mayo when I made deviled eggs yesterday!

In fact, a tip I learned onone of the DS forums was to add whipped cream to greek yogurt to cut the aftertaste and up the fat. I find it impossible to find full fat yogurt anywhere and I feel lucky when I find 2% instead of non-fat. 

The thing people don't realize in all their fat fearing frenzy is that the food companies fill in the flavor lost by taking the fat out by adding sugar.  So the non-fat Fage I just bought has 38g of carbs!!  This is simple vanilla yogurt - no fruit added to up the carbs. Sugar is a MUCH bigger problem in our diets than fat and it is added in everywhere, especially where the fat has been reduced out. 


*Actually, I really need the fat to help with my dry skin and hair.

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.

DS POST-OP DAY 11

As I mentioned in my last post, there is very little to be found online about these first post-op weeks - and now I know why. 

First of all, please believe me when I say I have got all the information and support I could possibly use.  A nutritionist, support groups and literature.  The reality is:  this is a battle each post-op person has to go through.  I know that, I just don't like it.  I am used to sailing through things that are difficult for others. The surgeon said lose 20 pounds in a month - I did it.  I was the post-op champ in the hospital, cheering on the patients who were struggling. I simply just did not expect this starting to eat thing would be so hard.

The one thing that goes down easily and feels ok in my stomach is Malt-O-Meal cereal. Oh, and Bean with Bacon soup is good, too.  Just can't puree it - nope.  Gag city.  Just chew, chew, chew. The whole - just make tasty food and put it in the blender thing - nope. Not working for me.

Every variation of protein drink I have tried has disagreed with me.  Too sweet or weird taste and stomach upset. Everything I have tried adding the unflavored protein powder to has turned out awful.  Now clearly, this is an issue with my taste buds because some of these things tasted fine before surgery.  That's why I tried so many things - to be prepared.

The number one thing I am concerned about is that I am not getting my protein needs met.  I'm about ready to snort lines of protein powder. Since that is probably not the answer, I am just going to have to gag down the protein drinks.  I am going to stick with the non-dairy stuff again and see if my stomach settles down.  I keep reading that lactose becomes problematic for people and maybe that is one of the issues. I hope that changes on the log run because of the predominance of whey protein on the market, not to mention in my pantry.