I am four weeks post op and on a solid food diet. I can (physically) eat anything right now. My nutritionist gave me a calorie range of 750-800 calories a day, and I have been very good at not going OVER. But a lot of days I find I am way under. Like today, it is 8:15pm, and I have only eaten 452 calories today. I also walked 2.5 miles. I feel like that just isn't a lot of fuel!! If this happens to you, do you try to increase the next day, or do you have some kind of snack, or what?? Any advice is appreciated!

When I was struggling at the beginning to get in calories, I added extra Protein wherever I could. A spoonful of Peanut Butter for a snack, string cheese, cottage cheese, a piece of lunch meat, even a Protein shake.

Nuts are great for protein, I love pistachios. There are some really good Protein Bars, too. Luna makes a lot of flavors and they have 10g of protein each.

It will take some time but you really do need more calories or your metabolism will slow right down from not having enough to sustain itself.

Thanks so much Missy, that's kind of what I figured!

That's pretty normal for the phase you are in....you will eat a little bit more as you go. My daily goal is 999 cals but I can usually eat about 1200 because I also walk/jog a 5K a few times a week and so I get some cals back.

I am starting to learn it's less about cals per day and more about healthy choices with me though.

This is the time when you protein shakes come in handy to get your protein and calories in. Cottage cheese, greek yogurt, lunch meat, boiled eggs, chicken or tuna salad. There are many ways to get in the calories and protein without going over your calories. But definitely you need to step it up

Getting my protein in is not the issue at all. I get it every day (my NUT wants me to get 60 g). But I often get my protein in with very little calories. I guess I'll need to choose things once or twice a day that have a higher calorie content but the same amount f protein than I have been eating. I'll give it a whirl tomorrow!