I have a question regarding regular, low fat and fat free - everything - cheese, sour cream etc...

I haven't started to eat soft or regular food yet, so I am just trying to get prepared and I am wondering what people eat and why? In a lot of low fat/fat free foods they add more sugar to enhance the taste, also with such small portions is the calorie or fat really that different? What has worked for you?

I use full fat, mostly because it helps up my calories and it taste better. I think if you have other health issues like heart disease, you would want to do what your doctor says on that matter. Years ago when everyone said go fat free, I did which is one of the reasons I became so overweight. Good luck on your journey, Janine

I have a question regarding regular, low fat and fat free - everything - cheese, sour cream etc...

I haven't started to eat soft or regular food yet, so I am just trying to get prepared and I am wondering what people eat and why? In a lot of low fat/fat free foods they add more sugar to enhance the taste, also with such small portions is the calorie or fat really that different? What has worked for you?

I usually stick with reduced fat (mostly 2%). Being I eat semi-low carb (about 50g max per day) eating higher fat content is really important. I'm not sure many realize this... but our bodies are burning fat for fuel. Some will also do full fat, which is fine too. I just do reduced though because even with this barely less than half of my daily calories are still from fat.

Also, reduced fat still tastes WAY BETTER than fat free. I'd rather not even eat the product if it's fat free, because that usually means the carb content is higher than need be for flavor and the flavor is usually yucky to me.

Good luck! You have to find what works best for you.

I usually have regular or low fat, not fat free. Its more tasty, filling and gives more calories. Just have to keep an eye on portion size.

I eat the full fat as I feel we are eating much smaller portions now. They help with boosting the calories and it tastes better than non-fat. Also I have noticed that as the fat content goes down the carb content goes up so you are just trading one for the other.

My vote is going for taste!

Full fat here too. I personally feel watching carbs is more important than watching calories. I lose much faster and long-term when I just eat whole, natural foods.

Low fat here or reduced calories. I watch my labels closely. I am finding fat free has more calories and carbs then regular food. I hope this helps.

I generally go with the lowest fat alternative that I can tolerate out of pre-op habit and long term post-op considerations. Since we don't have the fat malabsorption that the DS guys have, we don't have their fat forgiveness built in. That said, I am not overly anal about ultra low fat or low carb but more go for nutritional density (I don't mind throwing some avo into my salads, as its' fat/calories come with a good nutritional balance). As with fat, I try to minimise sugar and other simple carbs, but sometimes the level of artificial sweetners needed to make SF or low carb products isn't tolerable. I can't take totally plain yogurt, but do blend it with sweetened vanilla yogurt (which on its own is overly sweet) and find that to be a better compromise than the artificially sweetened SF yogurts. Alternatively, I'll throw a little bit of jam into the plain yogurt to sweeten it up a bit and add some flavor, but don't bother with the SF jams due to the small amounts used. Many of the lower fat cheeses have a gram or two more protein per ounce than the regular full fat cheeses, so I'll go with them.

Full fat for me for the same reasons the others listed.

regular only. Used to be light freak, but as I don't eat near as much as I used to, I know the Regular is ok to eat. NEVER FAT FREE---gross!

I can pretty much give up everything and eat the "fake" stuff with the exception of : butter and mayo. I have to have the real deal on those, everything else can be ff lf or sf and it doesn't bother me.