janedoe92

My NUT said iceberg lettuce is a waste of space (the little we have been) because there's no nutritional value.

Try and break the association of salad with lettuce. If you are going to enjoy salads, at least make them nutritionally worthwhile. I guarantee once you get used to dark hearty leafy salads you will wonder why anyone eats lettuce. It is so bland and banal to me that I spat it out last time I was given a salad by my mother in law.
As it is now, I eat salad at least 3 times a week. Helps keep me regular and I still very much enjoy eating them. I buy a couple bags of Sweet Kale salad kit from Costco. Just go light on the cranberries and use your own dressing.

I have migrated to different meat and vegetable combinations. I think a hot meal is emotionally more filling, so I've created a bunch of dishes that are dietetically more like hot salads without lettuce.

Kung Poa - I found this Panda Express Kung Poa sauce that's only about 25 calories per tablespoon. If you cut it with soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, you can create a very tasty Chinese dish. I stir fry celery, carrots, and peppers. Add some peanuts and beef, chicken, or shrimp and I have a great 250 calorie, protein rich dinner.

Broccoli "Pasta" - Create Classic protein oriented pasta dishes using broccoli instead of pasta. Chicken with garlic, capers, tomatoes in evoo tossed with a little Parmesan. Again, a great protein rich 250 hot dinner.

Chicken Sausage, Pepper, and Onions - Grill them like a street sub, but leave out the roll. Melt a little provolone on top and voila.

I still eat salads, but only as a garnish with my hot meal...

My NUT said iceberg lettuce is a waste of space (the little we have been) because there's no nutritional value.

Excellent follow up question! They are difficult to digest in the fact that they take longer to break down than something as insubstantial as regular lettuce. If something like kale, mustard greens, collards and/or turnip greens are not chewed thoroughly enough to break the fibrous portions down to a more easily digestible consistency, you will pass undigested foods through your intestines and bowel.
So while the food took up precious real estate in your stomach (or pouch depending on the surgery), you will reap no benefit to the consumption. I do not believe any sort of discomfort is associated with it. I do know that they will not cause constipation. As a matter of fact, they would help with keeping one regular. Regular lettuce could cause the explosive watery stool that leaves us unable to leave the house with any confidence. No joke!

Iceberg lettuce literally has so little nutritional value that it is a waste of space. They only time that eating it is a good idea is when you are constipated. For some reason, iceberg lettuce goes through most of us like fat through a goose.
If you really miss salads, learn to love kale, spinach and other dark hearty greens. Even then they will be in very small portions. They are very fibrous and can be difficult to digest in the beginning. But they are at least nutritionally dense and worth the space they take up.

Yeah I'd say that too..

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Surgery October 18th
Surgery weight 238
Current weight 187

I love seeing the boys!!! You guys tend to hold back on pics!!! Congratulations!!
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My updated comparison pics!!!❤️
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Today-- trying on a pair of size 6 pants...down from 24's exactly 8 months post op today.
Here is the funny thing... I knew I'd fit into a 6- and the only pair that they had was on a mannequin. Asked the sales clerk to take them off so I could try them on. She looked at me and tried to talk me out of it- saying they run very small. I repeated to her that I wanted to try them on and she obliged but kept repeating that they wouldn't fit, they run small.
Boom.
(I should add that I WAS wearing baggy clothes when I walked in...but STILL!!!)
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