Starting 26 and can’t wait - allowed decaf tea and coffee as tolerated - what’s your experience with coffee? How did you make profee?

What was a days eating like to wean off shakes and switch to food like? How was the first bite?

1 minute ago, Fars said:

Starting 26 and can’t wait - allowed Decaf tea and coffee as tolerated - what’s your experience with coffee? How did you make profee?

What was a days eating like to wean off shakes and switch to food like? How was the first bite?

Proffee is just coffee and protein shake. I like mine iced with the premiere protein caramel shake. Someone in another forum just shared with me that the Walmart brand shakes taste just the same as premiere protein and I bought some today but haven’t tried them yet. It’s $1.50 cheaper for 4 so hopefully they are good. ?

I make a decaf cold brew and add the Caffe Latte Premier Protein shake (I know I know no caffeine, but I have tolerated it well and its the only caffeine I have all day). I found recipes for some for "shakes", 1 cookies and cream premier with 3 tbls of sugar free fat free cheesecake jello powder mix for an Oreo cheesecake mix. Caramel premier with decaf cold brew and there is a zero everything caramel sauce my Jordan Mims Skinny Syrup that you can top onto your shakes with a drizzle. PB Chocolate Premier shake with 1tbls of pb2 and ice. You can also make protein pudding with 1 package of the sugar free fat free jello mix and one shake. Anywho! I drink a profee every single day because I love them and my first bite of food was eggs and it was HEAVY. just go slow and find foods you enjoy!

Okay I'm done with my tangent LOL

Edited June 24, 20242 yr by AmberFL

Thanks much

i was having profess before and some of these sound amazing

more soft food ideas would be very welcome - basically am allowed eggs, soft cheese, all seafood except shrimp and ground meat plus non starchy veggies

What about the ricotta bake? Just do a search on here and you will see a few ways to make it. It’s just basically lasagna without the noodles.

Edited June 24, 20242 yr by ShoppGirl

Oooh that’s so on the cards but what else?

Do you like refried beans? I pretty much lived on those two meals up until I could have eggs and then tuna and chicken salad

Edited June 24, 20242 yr by ShoppGirl

I love proffee. I find more protein shakes too sweet, so I tend to mix decaf coffee with part protein shake, part fairlife milk. I've tried unflavoured protein powder into coffee with milk as well and it's not bad but never quite as good, lol. If you like flavoured coffees, sugar free syrups and extracts are great to change things up -- I like bourbon, almond or rum extract in my proffee, but can only handle the sweetness of the sugar free syrups if I'm using unflavoured protein powder in place of a shake, otherwise it's too overpowering.

My program had me wean off shakes and into purees (not soft food), so I had a much slower reintegration into 'actual food'. But I remember being absolutely in love my first day of purees (cottage cheese and pureed sweet potato seemed like heaven) -- and progressing to soft foods, I had chicken noodle soup my first day and not having to strain all the delicious things out of it made a world of difference. It's like a light shining down on you from above that there's an end to what you're going through, confirmation that you will be able to eat 'real food' again, all that reassuring stuff.

For soft food, definitely recommend ricotta bakes -- but since you're allowed lean ground meats too, you could adapt it into an even more lasagne (sans noodle) experience by making the tomato-sauce a meat sauce.

If you're allowed crackers yet (my program allowed melba toast and saltines early on), 'avocado toast' with a bit of cream cheese is a nice texture, or pseudo-eggs benedict: crackers/toast with goats cheese and a poached egg. I loved making chili with ground turkey and random veg, add a bit of refried beans to thicken it up and serve with a dollop of greek yogurt on top in place of sour cream.

Oooh love how you describe it - I start day after tomorrow and am excited although a little apprehensive too on how it goes down

stuff like would I throw up? Can my stomach digest it ok and a gazillion other what ifs

which SF syrup brand do you use? I like caramel and hazelnut but haven’t tried any so any suggestions would be very welcome

my prog has a post op liquid diet inc cream based soups and then goes straight to soft so no puree stage per se

no crackers bread pasta rice in soft food otherwise the faux toast sounds yum

18 hours ago, ShoppGirl said:

Do you like refried Beans? I pretty much lived on those two meals up until I could have eggs and then tuna and chicken salad

I do like

beans - how did you make the tuna and chicken salad?

2 hours ago, Fars said:

I do like

Beans - how did you make the tuna and chicken salad?

Alot if people substitute plain greek yogurt for the Mayo but I didn’t like that (if you like sour cream you may) so I just used the lower fat Mayo since I wasn’t eating much. Which reminds me, you can also do egg salad. That uses way less Mayo and it’s softer to begin with.

Egg salad sounds nice

any recipe please ?

I was allowed regular coffee afterwards, not restricted to decacf, so once I could have it I made a frappe version with cold brewed coffee, dark chocolate almond milk, a scoop of protein powder and ice cubes. Sometimes I include a syrup - Da Vinci Caramel Syrup Light.

For the soft food stage I had a lot of bolognese or lentil curry/dahl - good amounts of protein and flavour for the small portions.

Which protein powder did you use?

12 hours ago, Fars said:

Which Protein Powder did you use?

For me, I use a European brand - barinutrics or else one of my many flavours from My Protein - salted caramel, vanilla, plain, mint chocolate.

I'm in Canada, so the brands we can get might be a little different.

For SF syrups, Matteo's is my go-to for the most part. I really liked the Skinny Mixes and Jordan's syrups in the past (pre-OP) but haven't tried them since my surgery. I find all of them to be cloyingly sweet if you're not careful with the amount you use -- so really, add half a teaspoon at a time, test it out and see if you need more until you know what your 'sweet spot' is.

I made tuna, salmon & chicken salad too, but my recipes were very lack-luster. I did a can of tuna or a can of chicken, drained (but not squeezing out the liquid using the lid otherwise it'd get too dry too fast, lol); I usually started with 2 tbsp of light mayo or greek yogurt, mixed until it was coated and then adding another tbsp at a time until it was saturated to the point of being sloppy (I was having a ton of texture / moisture issues at the time). Salt & pepper to taste. With the fish, I often added a couple shakes of dried dill and a touch of garlic powder, and some peas (raw or cooked). With the chicken, I liked adding curry powder and tiny pieces of cooked carrot. Honestly, any veg you like that you can stomach at this point would probably be a nice addition to change things up from meal to meal. I can still only eat half a can of tuna/etc at a time, so I tend to leave it plain and dress it up with seasoning or veg right before eating.

I also found that for me personally, the light mayo worked better at moisturizing the salads. The greek yogurt was more protein (and overall healthier than the mayos I could get my hands on), but the yogurt absorbed differently into the flaked protein. Especially if I was making it ahead of time. Probably the oils in the mayo.