Food suggestions by stage

[missyinacage]

Hi. I have noticed a lot of confusion about what to eat. I thought I'd share the foods that were suggested to me by my bariatric team. Sadly, the file is too large, even in photo format. So, I'm writing it out.

YOU SHOULD ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR OWN DOCTORS GUIDELINES!!

Clear Liquids:
Protein Water
Sugar Free Jello and Popsicles
Sugar Free Sorbet
Chicken, Beef or Vegetable Broth
Diluted Fruit Juice

Full Liquid: All if the Above PLUS
Protein Shakes, including Carnations no sugar added Instant Breakfast
Sugar Free Pudding with added protein
Cream Soups, with added protein
High Protein no sugar added Yogurts

I suggest finding protein shake recipes, as you're going to get bored with the premise flavor s.

Puree: All of the Above PLUS
Cream of Wheat
Mashed Veggies ( sweet potatoes, butternut squash & cauliflower were my favs)
Pureed Meats/Fish with gravy or broth ( I did not do this .. Gross!! lol)
Cottage Cheese
Soft Scrambled Egg
No Sugar Added Applesauce

Soft Foods: All if the Above PLUS
Canned Tuna
Cheese
Ground Chicken, Turkey or Lean Beef
Stewed or slow cooked Meats
Fish
Soft Cooked veggies
Eggs (all ways)

Regular Diet: Healthy Swaps
Skim or low-fat Dairy
Sugar Free or No Sugar Added
Healthy Fats - Avoid Trans Fat
Lean Meats
Fresh or Frozen Vegetables and Fruits with No Added Sugars
Bake, Broil or Steam instead of frying or sauting in oils
Low Fat Refried Beans
Whole Grains for Breads, Cereals, Crackers etc

Read Package Labels!! Oftentimes, reduced fat has added a lot of extra sugars, starches, or sodium. Reduced sugar can mean added fats. If an item has more than 10 ingredients, put it down and make your own.

There are a TON of recipes, here and all over the internet, for protein shakes, smoothies and other healthy recipes. Homemade is always better than prepackaged. The additives to control flavor consistency are really bad for you and some have proven to be addictive.

Again, you should always follow your teams dietary guidelines. These are just suggestions made to me, by my teams nutritionist.

 

[dianeseattle]

Newbies and people considering surgery, print out Missy's list and stick it on your refrigerator. Make a copy to keep in your wallet for when you're at the grocery or drug store. These lists didn't exist when I had my surgery but she's right, they're all over the internet now. You need to be careful, though, because some of these lists are bogus, so check each entry against encyclopedic resources like the FDA's nutritional contents of food list (my favorite) which even includes nutritional breakdowns of fast foods.

Sugar substitutes and other chemical additives give me the heebie-jeebies. I grew up on a farm and we ate what we grew or butchered. This was a real boon for me, because when I'd get my allowance, I'd go to the grocery store and buy a box of sugary dry cereal and eat it like cookies or a bagged snack. That was a lot of real sugar (I grew up in the 1950s, so no sugar subs were available). I was lucky to have a healthy base of foods that were nutritional and built health. Then saccharine was introduced into our food culture and that proved to be linked to cancer. There's a lot more information that show artificial sweeteners are incredibly bad for people. But everyone turned to artificial sweeteners and manufacturers spent billions trying to convince us that using Splenda and other sweeteners was good for us.

As an adult I started eating food without adding sugar or sweeteners to it, which was incredibly hard. I spent years as a vegetarian, gained and lost weight, performed hard physical labor for a living as a landscape gardener and walked or hiked almost everywhere.

So I'm almost 72 now and it's really obvious that I made the right choices about my health. The only reason I became obese was that I developed thyroid disease but doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me (I eventually diagnosed myself and blood tests confirmed my suspicions), so while I struggled for 11 months without a diagnosis, I gained 70 pounds. I'm extremely vain, meaning super self-conscious about how I look, so I was obsessing 24/7 about my weight.

This story is too long to tell, but it went on for years, and eventually led to WLS. That saved my life. I think a lot of us become highly educated about food when we start the journey to real weight loss that includes WLS. This is good.

Bottom line: Knowledge is power. when you have knowledge you can make decisions that will give you power over the stranglehold of your eating disorder, whatever that is. When you have the knowledge, what you choose to eat is an informed decisions. You live with the successes or failures born from those decisions. Get intimate with food. There are only a few things you absolutely have to do every day. Breathing is one. Drinking water is another. Eating is a huge one, and it's worth taking the time to know what to eat and how much.