ShoppGirl

Oh, perfect timing. I’m picking up my ground turkey today to make turkey meatballs one day this week. I plan to double the recipe this time because my hubby likes them too and I intend to freeze a bunch. I think I’m going to make half with seeds and half without just in case we don’t love the crunch. Sounds good though.

I found this freezer burrito recipe that if I budget will fit Into my plan but I am having a really hard time with the brown rice. I have never cooked it before but I got the box of minute rice and wen5 through the entire box trying to make it and it was chewy. I went to the store just now and got the boil in the bag stuff and that’s chewy too. I mean I promise you guys I can read and I am following the directions but this is not working for me. 🤦‍♀️ is it just supposed to be a little chewy.

Not sure why that posted three times but it won’t let me delete it. Gotta love technology.

Oh so you use oats??

Oh so you use oats??

Oh so you use oats??

Oh google said that grits are actually a type of porridge so I guess I have had it. Apparently It can be made with any grains and grits are made with cornmeal. Honestly I didn’t know it iwas made with cornmeal either. I just tried it and never asked I guess. I like my grits on the thicker side too. Maybe not quite paste but not runny either.

Oh google said that grits are actually a type of porridge so I guess I have had it. Apparently It can be made with any grains and grits are made with cornmeal. Honestly I didn’t know it iwas made with cornmeal either. I just tried it and never asked I guess. I like my grits on the thicker side too. Maybe not quite paste but not runny either.

That sounds like an excellent plan you know not every dietitians ideas will work for everyone anyways. That’s why they all have a different version of what they think you should do because that’s what works for most of the people that they’ve helped but there is no one size fits all approach. I probably could increase my calories a little bit, but I’m just scared to. I know I need to at some point so I don’t ruin my Matabolism Because I’m burning more with just my active calories than I am consuming right now. I actually think that may be bad. The good news is I see the nurse practitioner tomorrow so I will get to ask. Honestly, though. I feel like I eat all day. Some things are just off plan. But really if I increased my calories too much more I would be over on the carbs or fat maximums that she gave me I think.

Haven’t heard that one. I thought steel cut was good. I mean you have to budget for it macro wise, but I thought it was healthy. I bought those mush overnight oats and some of them have a lot of sugar. It’s all natural sugar like maple syrup or fruit but it is a lot for me at this stage. I may try to make my own. I’m trying to add a variety of things for different vitamins I may be missing with eating so little.

So a green smoothie I assume uses kale or spinach?? You add fruit too roght?? I used to make strawberry bananas for strawberry and blueberries smoothies with a bit of Splenda. I never did try the green ones

I don’t even know what it is exactly. Im about to look it up now, though. 😂

Reminds me of that “Nothing tastes as good as Skinny feels”.

Well, I will tell you that after my sleeve, there was nothing that I could not tolerate. I’m pretty early out post revision so I haven’t tried many of those foods with the exception of tacos but I haven’t had any issues with anything so far. I make tacos with ground turkey meat, 2% cheese, and just eat the filling or I have it with low-carb tortillas. Surprisingly the turkey meat and the 2% cheese do not taste much different at all by the time you add the seasoning and them little low-carb tortilla aren’t bad either. Sometimes I just do it as a salad too. You may be surprised to find that you don’t crave those same foods, though. The surgery does some metabolic changes and can change the foods that you enjoy. I mean, don’t get me wrong, pizzas still sounds good to me but all of a sudden grilled fish doesn’t sound bad either so it’s a lot easier to make the healthier choice. It really depends on what your purpose is for the surgery. If you’re only goal was to get rid of your Gerd, then you may not care about getting into a super skinny size in which case eating smaller portions of the foods you enjoyed before shouldn’t be an issue at all. But if your goal is also weight loss and you want to be able to maintain a very low BMI, then you’re going to have to make some sacrifices. In which case, my suggestion would be to search the bariatric websites and even the thread on here for recipes and try some things once you get to soft foods and regular foods. You may be surprised at things that you will enjoy. I make turkey meatballs, and I have those with peppers and onions and sauce which are delicious, turkey tacos are good too, chili with lean meat is pretty reasonable macro wise, white chicken chili is a favorite, I made a Mexican skillet that wasn’t bad macro wise you may enjoy if you like Mexican, I sometimes do the zucchini noodles if I want pasta. They are pretty bland and just pick up the flavor of whatever sauce you use and of course you will want to add some protein. I also found a recipe for spring rolls which some people call summer rolls that are so yummy. They’re not the fried ones but still really good. It’s chicken, avocado and veggies with peanut sauce to dip. These are all in the weight loss phase once I get to maintenance I can add things to jazz them up a bit You can also do chicken or cauliflower crust pizza with chicken and veggies so it has more protein Or cauliflower mac & cheese. Lean beef cheeseburger without the bun, a cheeseburger salad or low carb cheeseburger wrap. There are ways to tweak your favorites. Basically anything I am craving. I just type it in Google with the word healthy in front of it and I try some recipes until I find one I like. Some of it is bland but many things are surprisingly good. One that I still want to try is zucchini lasagna. After doing the ricotta bake on purée stage and loving it, my guess it that it’s good I still make the ricotta bake I just add Turkey sausage and veggies. Ooh and quest protein chips are really good once you can do crunchy. Also, they have an “ice cream” maker that you can control the ingredients I have heard some people talking about on here But the short answer is No, unless you have a specific intolerance, allergy or sensitivity you will not have to give up your favorite foods forever. You will just have to make tradeoffs. How often you can have them will be based on what weight you are looking to maintain. If you are willing to exercise, for instance, you will be able to eat more carbs and maintain at a lower weight.

Thank you, I ended up just adding it to the burrito and it was fine, but I was starting to really question why I was not able to figure this out after going through two boxes!! I used the instapot, three different kitchen pots, made a larger portion, cooked it longer, added more water, and anything’s else I could think of. Finally I was like maybe it’s just supposed to be like this. The one good thing that did come from that experience is that now I know the Insta pot has a rice setting. I may try it with the regular rice which I’m sure is less chemicals.

Well I had a revision (no surgery on my stomach) so I won’t even talk about portion. Also, I’m pretty active (2-3 hours of at least walking) so take this with a grain of salt but my calories are around 900-1000, protein is 90 plus, net carbs are 60-70, sugar is usually under 20 but my max is 30, fiber is still too low but around 10-15 with the fiber powder, fat is 20-30, water is about 80, and calcium is usually around 1800 or above. I was told that calories alone don’t mean much at all and carbs and fat depend significantly on what kinds of carbs and fat. Carbs from fruit and veggies are usually fine in our portions and healthy fats like olive oil, avocado and nuts or low fat dairy are okay too but you do have to measure of course and not have them multiple times. It’s when you get into the processed stuff that you have to watch them numbers so much closer. They sneak things in. I have noticed that the low carb stuff is usually really high in fat. My goal is to keep it to Whole Foods as much as I can. So far I have had the occasional low carb wrap, Turkey jerky, yogurt drinks, and quest potato chips in terms of packaged food. Ooh and that burrito wrap I had to seriously budget for. But I mean like twice or three times a month. Your team will have the best info for what’s right for you though. So many things make these numbers different for everyone. Did you ever find an app that you can access to log your food?. It has really helped me. Usually when I sit down to have lunch, I enter my breakfast, my lunch and play around with ideas for dinner and snack and see how that works out in terms of macros. I always have fish and frozen low carb veggies that I can pull out of the freezer if I am too high for the day. I found these burritos that supposedly freeze well I wanted to make but they used a real tortilla. They do not have the big ones in the low-carb version. I looked everywhere but I needed the bigger one and order get enough protein. I wanted to make those four nights in a row but every time I entered them I was going over on something. I finally was able to have them last night but all I had was my morning proffee and five egg whites with pico de gallo for lunch. Then I added a little bit more cheese because I was 2 g low on protein. Anyways, it makes it so much easier to be able to plug these things in and you can delete and try something else if it doesn’t work or add or subtract snacks. The only thing that I do not enter, but I always allow myself to have. I kind of learned on the preop diet was the sugar-free popsicles they’re actually 15 cal I believe but they were free foods on my preop diet and I keep them that way in my mind. It keeps me thinking that I’m never going to be not allowed to have food. Mentally it somehow makes me think that I don’t have to starve. I can always have something.. I actually really enjoyed them the tropical flavor ones on my preop but I haven’t wanted sweets very often since. I have had them a couple of times when I wake up late wanting something though.

I felt the same way about my weight but you’ve gotta try really hard to get over that. I wasted a lot of years ashamed and in hiding. Don’t wait to start living until you reach that magic number in your head. Your taking the necessary steps to get there and your friend may be your biggest cheerleader when they know that you are doing something to change things. I hadn’t seen one of my friends in years either. We texted or sent cards and exchanged phone calls on birthdays and Christmas but that was about it. I always had excuses to avoid hanging out until she finally stopped asking. It was my new therapist that finally got me to reach out and make plans to meet her. She later said she could see that I had gained some weight but she didn’t pay much attention and all she really seen was her old friend that she missed dearly. She said she loved me the same and I hadn’t changed a bit. She has been one of my biggest supporters throughout all of this. And it’s not about my losing weight to her. It’s about my getting healthy and being able to do more things that I couldn’t before. I am happy that you should be getting a surgery date soon and wish you all of the best.

I think the alcohol may be one of your culprits. if you’re counting that in your 1200 that may seem OK but a lot of added sugars and stuff or mixed drinks if that’s what you’re having. When I had my sleeves, I only went by calories, and it didn’t go so well for me. I was able to lose a pretty big chunk of weight, but I ended up gaining it back because I didn’t understand the quality of food I was eating and when my hunger came back, my portion got bigger and started coming back on. Also be sure that you actually measure with measuring cups. I know it’s a pain but until you get used to it eyeballing things can be a bit tricky. And do not go by restaurants estimates because they are never accurate. I have gotten a few meals to go and take them home and measured everything and it was way off. I would ask to talk to your team again and then get back with your nutritionist and find out more about the individual macros that they expect for you. Start doing the log of your food and if you have a Fitness watch or something log your activity and then let them review that and make suggestions.

OK, we need recipes for those as well. 😂

Some other advice I was given was to only try new foods at home and try them one at a time so that if you do have an issue, you know exactly what caused it. Sometimes it’s not about texture at all. Some people just have issues with certain foods that can last a while. I think eggs is a pretty common one. And for future reference (when you back to normal food) lettuce is another one that tends to give people issues. The chopped lettuce is a little better. It actually is the food that gives some people issues who didn’t have surgery. The chopped lettuce is way easier on our digestive systems. I saved steak and lettuce for last.

I was definitely allowed tuna and egg salad on the purée stage BUT, I did not have those until near the end of the stage. Think about it as a continuum and think of all the stages between liquid and purée that they did not name. You have however, long you’re on purée phase to slowly work your way up to the thicker purées. So if the blended tuna does not go well, then try some thinner. 2 ounces doesn’t go well then try one ounce. I did at the opposite way and tried the 1 ounce really thin to start and then worked my way up instead of trying and going back. Honestly, honestly, after experiencing what you had, I would probably try one bite and wait a while but it’s up to you as long as you’re within your recommendations. Also, there were foods to avoid until way down the road such as fibrous veggies or fruits with seeds or stringy things like oranges. can’t remember all the others maybe other people will chime in if your boo didn’t give you the guidance I mean, they are puréed. They are not advised.

yea I think mine was like 1-2 oz. I didnt have my stomach operated on because it was a revision this time so I was able to do the top of the range right away which was 2 oz. I would call your team and ask to be sure but maybe start with just one tiny bite and wait and see how it goes and then SLOWLY go up. You should hear back from them before you get to 1 oumce. I think that was the lower end but you always want to hear it from your team anyways. Or check to see if it’s written in any or the papers they gave you.

Yea 4 oz is a bit much to start. I believe my guidance was 2oz to being puree stage. My team allowed me to eat more often but some programs frown upon that. Maybe ask about that at your follow up and just do even smaller portions to start.

I didn’t have band either, but I had the sleeve and gained it all back. My surgeon explained that obesity is very complex and for many people the sleeve is great and it’s less risk so they go with it when they think it is appropriate but it does not offer the same metabolic changes as the bypass or the SADI (which is what I revised to) that some people need in order to be successful. I believe the Lap band offers even less metabolic changes than the sleeve, if any. Basically with these surgeries mostly everyone will lose weight, it’s the keeping it off part that’s difficult. And that’s when you need a surgery with enough of a metabolic change to help you long term. I am 2.5 months out from my revision and I was so worried about the same thing, losing it only to regain again but I can already tell that there is more or a metabolic change. I mean I am exercising!! Me….everyday!! That never would’ve happened without this surgery. Healthy foods taste better and my mood has improved. I have tons of energy and motivation. I never got that with the sleeve. The bypass has been around for a very long time for good reason. For me the sleeve and SADI difference has been night and day. I think you will find a similar experience with your Bypass.

Going back a stage for a little while is never a bad thing. We are all different and heal at different rates. In a few days, maybe try a smaller portion, thinned out a bit like @Bypass2Freedom suggested. You can always supplement with protein shakes and just try new things when your home and don’t have a lot going on.