Hello,

I'm still in the soft food stage of things. I just found out that tamales are being brought in for lunch. Are tamales a good decision to par take in?

I am sure there will be a lot of "stick to the plan" replies, which I will agree is never a bad decision but I wanted to offer a real life viewpoint lol I was about 5 weeks out from bypass when my guy made homemade pork tamales. I asked him to make some mini ones for me because I knew my tummy could not hold a full size tamale. He made the pork melt in your mouth tender, lighter on the seasoning and I had zero issues have one mini one and I had zero regrets for enjoying it. If you try one, just eat super slow, small bites and make sure you listen to your tummy. That's all I have to offer on the subject ?

Yeah, I’m a stick to your plan person. There’ll be always be occasions where the food on offer doesn’t support your plan & your weightloss. You have to decide whether it’s worth it to just go for it & whether it could then become a thing to justify going off plan regularly in the future, whether you can make the best of a bad situation & carefully select the food item that’s best for you or whether you can not eat the provided food & still enjoy the social aspect of the occasion.

If you decide to try one maybe just eat the filling. The corn meal dough will be filling & limit your ability to eat the important protein component & it may sit heavily in your tummy. Remember you are still healing even on the soft food stage.

I didn't go off plan for months and months, but I know others on here who do it occasionally. I would avoid tamales during the soft food stage - but if you decide to do it, just eat the filling. Arabesque is right about the corn meal. it's not very nutritious, and your new stomach is tiny. With only being able to hold a limited amount of food, that food really should be nutritious and protein-forward. A few months down the road you'll be able to eat tamales again - but it's best to avoid that kind of thing now while you're still healing and need to focus on meeting the protein requirements.

I think of the soft food stage as having a stomach similar to an infant. that made it easy for me to answer the question, should I eat this?

I don't know what surgery you had, that kind of impacts the answer. If you had a DS I'd steer WAY clear, the carbs in the corn portion will send you running to the bathroom. My nutritionist told all of us regardless of surgery to avoid anything dense and chewy for 6 months as it will ball up inside your tummy and sit like a lump. I'd be especially cautious of this if you had the Gastric Bypass.

If you had one of the other surgeries you may be able to eat the meat portion. But I'd caution you to consider the spices. I'm 4 weeks out and if I have anything Mexican with sauce, or spices, or any tomato based sauce other than ketchup, I end up in agony for hours...and then in the bathroom. My healing tummy has decided those things are still just too strong. I can weirdly handle sriracha just fine and have no clue why, but other than that, nope.

I am also a "stick to the plan" person. You're way too early to eat anything not specifically allowed. Revisit this with your nutritionist when you hit 6 weeks and see what they say.