I am having my surgery Dec 1st. I know it will be awhile before I can eat some foods. I have not met with my nutritionist yet to go over my post op diet yet. I work crazy hours so I am a little concerned with eating healthy post op. What kind of meals do you eat for lunch? I do not have a lot of time to cook, so any suggestions would be great. How many times of day do you eat? I know Protein is first priority along with 64 oz of Water.

Lisa from St Louis

I am having my surgery Dec 1st. I know it will be awhile before I can eat some foods. I have not met with my nutritionist yet to go over my post op diet yet. I work crazy hours so I am a little concerned with eating healthy post op. What kind of meals do you eat for lunch? I do not have a lot of time to cook, so any suggestions would be great. How many times of day do you eat? I know Protein is first priority along with 64 oz of Water.

Lisa from St Louis

Lunch for me is usually the protein leftovers from dinner the night before. Some examples:

2 small turkey meatballs with marinara

2 oz chicken breast

2 oz turkey deli meat

tuna salad (in a dish, no bread)

egg salad (in a dish, no bread)

As an early post-op, I made a lot of things ahead of time like mini quiches from The World According to Egg Face and would freeze them and have them from Breakfast and/or lunch. She has A LOT of ideas there an fairly simple recipes and might also help you think about other options for foods that you didn't think about before.

Good luck!

I'll go to Wendys and get a chili. I will buy 1/2 tupperware cups with lids and split the chili into three of them and that will be three meals.

I also will have a slice of cheese and wrap it around turkey or ham. these are easy things to eat at my desk.

Well I am three weeks post op and I can east about five small bits and I am full. SHould I dare to take one more, it is all coming up. I am also from St. Louis, who is doing your surgery and where? As for the 64oz of Water, ha ha good luck. I am not sure what is going on but I am very lucky to get down 24 oz a day. Anyone have any suggestions because I only go to the bathroom may be one time a day two at the most.

Jovonia - St. Loius

At 3 weeks post-op, I was pretty much at the same place. It's amazing what a few more weeks will do for you.

Typical lunches are turkey or ham and cheese.. I get the hillshire farms deli selects or oscar meyer has a version of them too. Or egg salad, chicken salad or tuna salad, usually with a few triscuits. Those lunches are easy for me and quick, and I don't like to get too daring when I'm at work (with eating.)

It's getting a little easier to get my Water in too. At 3 weeks out, again... I still could only sip. I can take bigger sips now and get my water in.. try for 64 oz. a day put usually manage about 50 oz.

I'm lucky to get in 16 oz of Water. I know, I know. Terrible. But I think I'm afraid to drink more at a time for fear of explosion. LOL. Plus, I'm just not thirsty. I couldn't drink 64 oz pre-op. so trying to do it now is a real struggle.

I need to figure out an eating plan because I don't really have one. My nutritionist gave me an example of one to follow but there is SO MUCH food on it. And she did say she doesn't expect me to follow it yet but I should at least eat the first thing on it, which is Protein. I don't get super hungry and when I do, sometimes I ignore it and it goes away. Sigh. This is harder than when I had a big stomach. Worth it, but harder.

My diet's pretty varied from day to day as I'm a student who likes to scavenge for free food and I'm always eating leftovers from our couple dinner outings, but try to make sure most meals (except for fruit snacks) have Protein in it. I'm approaching 3 months out and I think yesterday I had:

bfast - Protein Bar

snack - about 1 cup grapes, 2 squares dark chocolate

lunch - leftover penne gorgonzola from a restaurant to which I added some grilled shrimp and scallops for protein (been taking this for lunch for 3 days in a row, lol)

snack: 1/2 large apple, about 10-12 mixed nuts

1 glass of juice before working out

Post-workout: protein bar

Dinner: 5-6 pieces of sashimi with a bit of rice

I eat out a lot so I have a lot of left overs that I eat for lunch.

I am with everyone else on this as far as tuna, egg salad, chicken salad or deli meat. I take deli meat and I smear on laughing cow cheese and wrap it around a cheese stick. Sometimes I buy those frozen meals and eat most of the meat and some of the veggies.

It's really not hard to eat with the sleeve. I basically eat anything I feel like eating. I rarely cook but occasionally I will cook up some ground turkey and put taco seasoning on it and mix in sour cream..

Well I am three weeks post op and I can east about five small bits and I am full. SHould I dare to take one more, it is all coming up. I am also from St. Louis, who is doing your surgery and where? As for the 64oz of Water, ha ha good luck. I am not sure what is going on but I am very lucky to get down 24 oz a day. Anyone have any suggestions because I only go to the bathroom may be one time a day two at the most.

I am going through Des Peres hospital. Dr Minkin

Jovonia - St. Loius

I echo the others - tuna or egg salad with no bread, chicken, deli meat, eggs, cheese, Eggface's egg bites for breakfast. (Just recently I'm up to three of those, for the longest time I could only eat 2.) Canned fruit (packed in Water or pear juice), Peanut Butter, or Dannon Lite & Fit or Greek yogurt for Snacks. You have to fix up the Greek yogurt, add honey or powdered SF Jello or Crystal Lite or something. I'll have nuts when I feel like something crunchy. That's the hardest part about post-op eating, the lack of crunch.

I do cook, and prefer to eat homemade things so I know what's in them, but if you cook a regular-size recipe, even a low-carb one, be prepared to either eat it for days on end, or freeze some of it. Actually both, LOL! So I'll do crockpot chicken or meatballs (I use almond meal instead of breadcrumbs), or pot roast, etc., and I freeze it in 6 oz covered glass containers to take to work. I eat so little these days that I only have to cook about every couple weeks to get lots of mini-containers for work or a quick meal after work. If you cook, here are some sites:

www.theworldaccordingtoeggface.com

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ ("A year of crockpot cooking")

http://sushifabush.tumblr.com/ ("Low carb food porn")

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/recipes/u/lowcarbrecipes.htm (About.com: Low carb diets, which has recipes)

Good luck! You'll do fine.

I don't work but my hubby does (and he had the sleeve too)... I help him out by packing a lunch box for him every day. Our guidelines are to eat 5-6 small meals a day. Usually he eats once in the morning at home, I pack him 3 small meals for his work day, and he will eat twice more in the evening at home. He likes easy things in his lunch box, so I limit 'heat-up' meals to only one per day (sometimes none). Some typical meals I pack for him are... a light string cheese with turkey lil' smokies.... tuna salad or chicken salad with one wheat thins flatbread cracker (don't eat crackers or other solids til 6 weeks post op).... apple slices with peanut butter.... beef jerkey and 1 slice of cheese .... a 'cream cheese cracker' which is one flatbread cracker, cream cheese (you can buy them in these single serving packs, very convenient for the lunch box), deli turkey or ham, a slice of cheese. Pile it all on the cracker....... usually a pickle or some strawberries or blueberries but very few since he sticks to more protein..... cold grilled chicken strips (you can buy them prepackaged)...... turkey pepperoni with light string cheese..... shrimp cocktail (6 cold shrimp and some cocktail sauce).... cottage cheese with mandarin oranges or pineapple...... cold bean salad (mixture of beans in a vinaigrette)..... a hard boiled egg...... some hummus and veggies with chicken strips....

I'm sure there are more but that's all I can think of right now.

Usually 1 meal a day is leftovers from easy dinners (I hate cooking).... some hormel white chicken chili..... maybe a taco mixture (ground beef with taco seasoning + seasoned black beans topped with a little shredded cheese and sour cream, with or without a tortilla)..... leftover grilled chicken.... meatballs that have been cooked in a creamy soup in the crock pot ...... sometimes I will send breakfast foods like egg beaters scrambled with ham, onion, pepper, cheese........soups (the chunkier the better, you don't want too much liquid).....PROTEIN BARS! They are a lifesaver for a quick grab or an unplanned late work day. We buy Premier Protein bars from Costco (also available online at Premier Nutrition's website)... these were suggested to us by our surgeon because they are dense/heavy/filling, and they have no bready products in them like ricecake stuff or anything like that. They are soft enough to be eaten fairly early on post-op as well.

I hope this helps... I know it was long but I really wanted to give you as many ideas as I could!

I take a Premier Protein shake to work with me for breakfast every day. A couple of times a week I go out to lunch with colleagues, and I usually order a cup of soup or an appetizer or a plain chicken breast. Other days I'll either bring a small serving of leftovers like 2-3 ounces of chicken and 1/2 cup of rice, or I'll eat a protein bar.

I am having my surgery Dec 1st. I know it will be awhile before I can eat some foods. I have not met with my nutritionist yet to go over my post op diet yet. I work crazy hours so I am a little concerned with eating healthy post op. What kind of meals do you eat for lunch? I do not have a lot of time to cook, so any suggestions would be great. How many times of day do you eat? I know Protein is first priority along with 64 oz of Water.

Lisa from St Louis

Lunch for me.....like Emerald that posted right below you....NO BREAD, there is NOTHING about bread that is good for you. I made several changes a few months before surgery that I've stuck with, LIFE changes and removing bread from my diet, ALMOST totally, is one of them. Bread, chips and cold Cereal, which was my 'afternoon' and before bed snack....I had cereal in the afternoon and before bed almost every single day. Doing these simple thing, enabled me to lose 23 lbs before surgery. Now I eat bread, I PICK at it, just a few nibbles, when we go out to eat, I.E. OutBack or Red Lobster or Olive Garden...and I specifically order it at the last two mentioned with out the garlic butter. At Red Lobster you can order theirs without the garlic butter and cheese...and get them hot out of the oven fresh every time, and they are WONDERFUL. Anyway, I'm off topic!! No bread at home except a half slice of toast once in a while with an egg....I eat Special K baked crackers with tuna salad. I love solid white with 2 TB of lite mayo. I eat half the can with 8 - 12 crackers. Love it!! Otherwise, I will steam some shrimp or eat leftovers from the night before. Protein, protein!!! Lunchmeat is good, a few oz with a little 2% cheese and some of the Special K crackers. Keeping a food log is fun for me and makes sure I keep up with the calories and protein I'm getting. I may be a little OCD, but I've always liked things like this. I wanted to make sure I was getting the protein I needed....I was paranoid about my hair, and I stopped with the supplements asap...and started getting all my protein with food. So far, no hair issues!

The only bread I eat is a toasted sandwich thin (multi-grain) for breakfast, topped with a couple of deli ham slices and cheese. The sandwich thins come 8 to a package, so be prepared for the package to last a while, since you're only eating a half of the "sandwich" at a time. If I don't have that for breakfast, I will sometimes stop at McDonald's and get scrambled eggs & a sausage patty. Not very economical, though.

I got tired of Wendy's chili really quickly, so I make my own. I recently made turkey chili with black and red Beans and it was awesome. Should've frozen some of it because I've been eating it for MANY meals, even for breakfast on occasion.

A couple of nights ago I went to a Chinese buffet and packed a to go box. Had 4 meals from it before throwing what I couldn't finish away. My rule for Chinese food is nothing fried and/or battered, nothing with rice or noodles, and nothing with sweet and sour in the name. That still allows for many good choices.

I'm seven weeks out and I know I can have more variety, but I'm still feeling cautious about what I try. I did have apples a couple of times this week and those were the most delicious apples I've eaten in my life! (I didn't eat the peelings, when should I be able to do that?)

Typical day:

Breakfast. eggs Poached or boiled. with a piece of toast, coffee

Snack. 1 x toast with cheese, coffee

lunch 4inch`s of a subway

Snack peanuts, coffee

dinner Pork/chicken a little mash potato and veg. yogurt

Snack. anything I can find that taste good, normally bad.

I`m sure the only reason I have lost weight is purely due to exercise.