Hi there,

I've just learned yesterday that I'm on the list for the gastric sleeve in Ireland. The op should happen in the next 6 months to a year, with various appointments with various specialists beforehand.

I have never kept track of food in my life, except when I see the fridge gets half-empty, and I start panicking and order some more.

Does following a healthy diet become a new obsession daily after the op, and is there much time spent on thinking about meal preps, food types, after the op?

What happens if I'm rubbish at it?

Thank you for your advice!

Maroux

5 minutes ago, vikingbeast said:

Bonjour,

I understand. Even for many of us who love to cook, meal prep could be a chore.

But here is the thing. You won't be able to eat much at all, and you'll need to concentrate on Protein first, then vegetables, then if you have any more room in your pouch you can have some carbohydrate.

For the first little bit after surgery, you are healing and you will need to eat liquids at first, then purées or soft foods next. My surgeon requires three weeks of liquids and three weeks of soft foods, and I am one week and a little bit into the purées.

But once you are done, you can easily either find healthier ready meals (don't know about Ireland, but here in the US some markets sell "meal prep kits" with, say, a bit of chicken or fish or beef or lamb, and a veg and some kind of starchy side), or you can learn to cook. You won't need very much, so you could cook a couple of times and have enough for the whole week.

It doesn't have to be beige food all the time. You will introduce foods back into your life a bit at a time and eventually eat a normal diet, just... smaller. I will say that the next time I go to France I may have trouble eating the three courses that are part of the staple meals in a restaurant... even just the entrée would be enough right now, never mind the plat principal or the dessert.

Hahaha, I see you have experienced the French cuisine. At leat The Irish staples are very much bariatric op ready! ? (banter).

That's actually a good point you made. I don't think I've realised what the actual portion size will be or look like in a plate.

It might be a bit of a shock reconciling what I see and what I can actuall eat after.

11 minutes ago, vikingbeast said:

Even just four weeks out, the weight loss is so amazing that I put aside the yearning. And honestly, a lot of what I gorged on before doesn't appeal to me anymore. All the sweets just look terrible to me now.

Oh fabulous! It feel incredible getting that feeling of winning the battle and not flinching to the sweet stuff. Congratulations on your journey. That gives me hope!

7 minutes ago, Maroux said:

Hahaha, I see you have experienced the French cuisine. At leat The Irish staples are very much bariatric op ready! ? (banter).

That's actually a good point you made. I don't think I've realised what the actual portion size will be or look like in a plate.

It might be a bit of a shock reconciling what I see and what I can actuall eat after.

Well, except the potatoes have to go so you'll starve to death. (Kidding!)

Let me give you an example from the liquid and soft food stages. Someone else can chime in if they like about the "regular" food so you know what to expect. There's also a whole huge thread called "Food Before and After" with photos in the Lounge.

I am in the US though, and every surgeon has different requirements. I am in this phase supposed to be going for 80-100 g protein a day and about 800 calories. (I am very active, my calorie count is higher than might be normal for this phase.)

One week after surgery (still in the liquid phase):

2 Core Power Chocolate Protein shakes

1 container raspberry fat free skyr

300 ml chicken broth with 11 g of cream of rice cooked into it

120 ml sugar-free Jello

120 ml sugar-free Jello with protein powder

1 bottle isopure (protein water)

TOTAL: 111 g protein, 37 g carbs, 11 g fat, 691 calories

Yesterday (soft foods phase):

1 wedge La Vache Qui Rit

95 g deli turkey

1 core power chocolate shake

0.5 c tuna salad with fat free mayonnaise

1 small portion ma po tofu

30 g basmati rice

120 ml sugar-free Jell-O

1 container fat-free, sugar-free tapioca pudding

TOTAL: 88 g protein, 49 g carbohydrates, 19 g fat, 719 calories

15 minutes ago, Maroux said:

Oh fabulous! It feel incredible getting that feeling of winning the battle and not flinching to the sweet stuff. Congratulations on your journey. That gives me hope!

It's been amazing. I am unusual in that I have lost 18 kg in a month since surgery. I feel like a new person.

55 minutes ago, Maroux said:

Thank you for your advice Tek. I was both thrilled and scared when I learned the news. Still feeling both, and I can see it is going to be a long journey.

I mostly rely on ready meals, so haven't much of a clue about cooking healthy. Also I am originally French and I can't see myself eating beige food for the rest of my life, like turkey with mash and cauliflower ?.

I guess this is going to be a longer journey than I thought, but I can see by your rely and the ones from others here, that I have joined a fine support group.

Thank you,

Maroux

I can assure you I don't live on beige food. I wouldn't be surprised if most of your ready meals can be healthy enough for purpose.

I do most of the cooking at Casa de Tek and I am a spicy and flavorful cook and so is the food. I do prepare larger than necessary batches and prepare them for eating over the next week or three. I can find healthy enough food anywhere and enjoy the little bit that I eat.

You will do fine. Day at a time and all that.

Tek

Forgot to add you’ll probably have lots of leftovers. My freezer is full of single serve meals of leftovers. When I don’t want to cook I pick a ‘takeaway’ from my freezer. Couple of minutes in the microwave, prep any sides I want or need & done - 5 mins top.

You can eat as much flavoursome food as you & your tummy likes. It may be a bit fussy to begin but as time passes you shouldn’t have to sacrifice any flavours you enjoy. Have a look at the food before & after thread here: hundreds of pages of pxts of food that people enjoy post surgery.

13 hours ago, Starwarsandcupcakes said:

I use loads of spices in pretty much everything. I hate bland foods. Nothing is more boring that bland food.

Exactly this!

13 hours ago, Maroux said:

Hahaha, I see you have experienced the French cuisine. At leat The Irish staples are very much bariatric op ready! ? (banter).

That's actually a good point you made. I don't think I've realised what the actual portion size will be or look like in a plate.

It might be a bit of a shock reconciling what I see and what I can actuall eat after.

So, at a month out the only thing I put on an actual plate is when I make eggs sometimes. I use a small (by USA standards) plate and use 1-2 eggs worth of egg product which has more protein than whole eggs and less fat. It doesn't look like a full plate, but it isn't too sad. Only, I can't usually finish it if I make two eggs worth (90g).

Most of the time, when I make a meal (I use about 400-500g of ground chicken or turkey and maybe a little onion or mushrooms and of course spices) I immediately portion it into small plastic containers that hold about 1 cup (but I only fill about 1/3-1/2 cup) and eat out of those. It's a little sad, but I haven't gotten much joy out of food, to be honest. Sometimes I'll put the food in a bowl... it's fancier that way LOL!

I haven't had any ready meals yet, but I will be traveling this week at eating at restaurants by necessity. I plan to just order fish (lots of Asian food in Los Angeles) and eat only what I need and just leave on my plate what I can't eat. I know it's wasteful, but I can't really take leftovers to my hotel. Work is paying anyway! One thing about the ready meals in the USA at least is that they often have a lot of rice or other carb on the side, so you can just not eat that part.

I don’t spend much time prepping meals at all. I have protein shake for breakfast, P3 protein pack for lunch and usually chicken or fish for dinner. It’s kinda boring but it’s simple. Luke others said, You can do more if you want to. I just don’t do a lot of cooking so this works for me.

On 10/14/2021 at 8:27 AM, Maroux said:

Do you ever look at what you used to like eating and great like it is a friend who passed away? Or is the weightloss so good that it's easy enough to put the yearning aside?

I struggle everyday, my surgery was in july this year. I struggle with deciding what am i going to eat for example right now it's 11am and i still havent had breakfast now i am trying to decide what to have for lunch. Like you i am not a meal prepper or planner i tried to be but it just didnt work but in saying that what i am doing now isnt working either. I learnt a very hard lesson that food was a big part of my life although i didnt realize it until after surgery. Make sure you get councilling before surgery and understand your relationship with food. I think that is where my trouble stems from and i have some sort of psychological block as in my mind i cant eat like i use to but the way i think i should eat is so unappealing. Understand fully what it going to be like after surgery. I had in my head i would eat all the same things but smaller amounts how wrong i was. I also had in my head that after 2 years everything would be back to normal ....as my surgeon told me the sleeve only works for 18 months after that its up to you.....that remains to be seen but from what i have read here and people i have talked to no its much longer than that if at all.

** I think about food and what i am going to eat more than i ever did before surgery to the point it drives me nuts . I wish i could decide what to eat and eat it.

Edited October 17, 20214 yr by SleeverSk

@Maroux I got into LA yesterday and I'm so happy that I am traveling again; first it's my happy place (traveling, not specifically LA), but also, it showed me that I can enjoy food. I ate chicken mole for lunch and trout amandine for dinner. They were both delicious but I had to stop before I'd eaten very much at all. Both servers were very concerned that I must not have liked it, but I assured them I enjoyed it very much but I had had surgery and couldn't eat much. They offered to pack it to go, but I said I was staying in a hotel and wasn't able to take it. That seemed to satisfy them. I know these are higher in fat than I should eat, but there's not much I can do about that. I just thought you should know that it is very possible to enjoy food after surgery. I was getting very depressed about this. I just wish I was less hungry. I did walk a lot yesterday around LA and I noticed that although I still got tired, I wasn't out of breath on the hills.

21 minutes ago, lizonaplane said:

@Maroux I got into LA yesterday and I'm so happy that I am traveling again; first it's my happy place (traveling, not specifically LA), but also, it showed me that I can enjoy food. I ate chicken mole for lunch and trout amandine for dinner. They were both delicious but I had to stop before I'd eaten very much at all. Both servers were very concerned that I must not have liked it, but I assured them I enjoyed it very much but I had had surgery and couldn't eat much. They offered to pack it to go, but I said I was staying in a hotel and wasn't able to take it. That seemed to satisfy them. I know these are higher in fat than I should eat, but there's not much I can do about that. I just thought you should know that it is very possible to enjoy food after surgery. I was getting very depressed about this. I just wish I was less hungry. I did walk a lot yesterday around LA and I noticed that although I still got tired, I wasn't out of breath on the hills.

I so want to respond to your post right now in a lenghty way, but I'm preping for an interview for the past week and working to deadlines at the same time. I just want to say for now, that I'm delighted by your good news, all around, and so glad you were able to adapt to travelling with ease. A bit worried about about your hunger feelings, as being pre-op, I am sometimes hungry WHILE eating. I guess the brain takes a while to stop demanding. I'll reply more later. Well done! x

Edited October 18, 20214 yr by Maroux