I have been reading as much as I can through these forums and there is one thing that I cannot nail down....and thats the amount of food you are having throughout the day.

I was just banded on 3/2/09 and was told by my Dr. that Clear liquids for 1 week and then mushy stage for 1 week and then begin adding in solid foods.

This completely contradicts the pamphlet he gave me which is showing a massive change of what the actual intake is. As an example, here is a sample meal that was listed in the pamphlet for post-op weeks 3-5

Breakfast:

1oz Cream of Wheat / 1oz Scrambled Egg / 1oz pureed peaches

OR

1oz oatmeal / 1oz Milk or sugar free yogurt / 1oz Unsweetened applesauce

The lunch and dinner menu are similar to the above, so someone please explain where I am to get the proper amount of Protein in that type of menu 5 weeks after surgery?! Right now I am drinking 3 Protein shakes a day (Muscle Milk - 21g protein / 220 calories), taking a Multivitamin and also drinking crystal light in between. Based on the "breakfast" menu listed above, I would be getting drastically lower nutrients than what I am currently getting 1 week after surgery? Am I missing something?

I would highly appreciate if someone could enlighten me portion sizes they were doing per stage because at this point I am highly confused since the Dr's and Nutritionist are rarely on the same page and just want to make sure I have an idea of how much "quantity per meal" I should be ingesting.

Thanks for any help you can give

Well, everyone's different, that's the thing. The amount you should be ingesting may be different to the amount you CAN ingest. I think the thing is, you really have to eat according to what your body can handle, and whether you're hungry or not.

I could probably only eat that much at that stage but over following weeks, I loosened up till at 12 weeks I could eat pretty normal amounts of food. So whilst nutrients may have been low there for a while, it evens out over time.

And just FYI, there's no emphasis put on Protein at all as the one and only nutrient you need here in Australia, and we're not all keeling over . But the truth is, as a bandster, its probably going to be impossible to get the full amount of everything you need all the time, so supplements are a good idea. But really, its a lesser of two evils - you're far more likely to die from complications of being massively obese than you are from not getting quite enough Iron, protein or Vitamin whatever.