Tomorrow I get to begin the stabilization phase of my post-op diet. I cannot wait to eat a salad! But I don't know how to measure fresh leafy veges. They chew down to nothing right?

Help please?

I don't, because, I can't eat them. They get stuck on me. I can only eat salad that is finely cut up, such as taco salad from Taco Bell. There's happens to be :wub:the only salad that I can eat, had 1/4 of one tonight.

Today is stabilization phase!! I am CRAVING a salad. But I still don't know how to measure it.

Please .. how do you measure your lettuce?

kll724 I'm sorry to hear that you have so much trouble with lettuce. That's a sad thing in my book. Thanks for posting!

I have a set of Mario Batali measuring bowls. I got them from Entertaining at Home, but they carry them at Target.

I use those to measure foods I don't weigh. Then I can eat directly from the same bowl.

I am NOT super-careful when measuring green leafies---their nutritional contribution is near-nil, and while I don't want to overdo (I mean, the pouch only holds so much---and the veggies are served alongside protein), I know that if I err by a leaf or two, it really won't make any difference in terms of calories or carbs or anything like that. So, I toss 'em in the right size bowl loosely, and stop eating when I'm full.

DO be careful with leafies at first. It's easy to swallow them before you've chewed enough, and if too big, little leaf fragments can kind of lie across the stoma and make it difficult for other things to move through.

Shredding, at first, isn't a bad idea. But you'll learn to chew the daylights out of it!

(I was like you--I couldn't wait to have salad--I was dreaming about it on my preop diet, and had to wait for 2 months postop to add it back in....let me tell you, it was the BEST thing I ever tasted!)

Thank you Betsy!

I had a salad for lunch and for dinner today! I was in heaven. And you're right, it was like the best thing I ever tasted!

I didn't know how much of it to eat. But it worked out most excellently. I concentrated on eating my Protein first and then the salad.

My lapband told me when I was full. I'm still always so amazed by that. When I stopped eating, I looked at how much I'd eaten and it was about the equivalence of 1 cup. Awesome!

I chewed the heck out of it, cause I'd read that lettuce could be difficult in another thread, and it worked very well for me.

Thanks again! Salads rule!

I think its way more important to listen to your body and stop when it tells you its satisfied.

But they do chew down to nothing, so a cup of leafy salad would be an OK serving I would think.

I don't measure salads. I eat until I am full. Of course that is a salad with no croutons/cheese, and an appropriate dressing. I will sometimes use a regular dressing, but a measured amt.

I don't measure anything. My pouch does it for me. That is one of the great things about this band! (after restriction)

When I eat salad I like spinach instead of lettuce. It has more flavor and more nutrition. I do have to cut it up and chew it well.