• American Bariatrics is a free online Bariatric Support Group. Register for your free account and get access to all of our great features!

More Protein

Need help getting more protein with less calories... any an all suggestions pls!
I don't think i'm getting enough protein or calories! Not sure what I should eat or do I drink more protein?
Protein drinks make me nausea's now after the surgery.
 
Need help getting more protein with less calories... any an all suggestions pls!
I don't think i'm getting enough protein or calories! Not sure what I should eat or do I drink more protein?
Protein drinks make me nausea's now after the surgery.

We all have this problem. You MUST include protein shakes in your diet until the day you can get enough with food alone. I use Premier Protein Shake. It gives me 30 grams of protein and 160 calories. Do NOT worry about calories at all for now. Just make sure you get your required protein, which is 60 grams for a woman. For a man it is 80 grams.

Generally, most of us are getting by on 800 - 1000 calories per day. There are even days when I have gotten less calories, but generally I am in the 800 to 1000 calorie range. On rare occasion I had as much as 1200 calories. The way I have gotten my calorie count up is to drink more apple juice rather than just water.

But again, don't worry about calories. Afterall, this is the time to drop weight. But DO worry about getting your protein so that the weight you do drop is NOT muscle. Rather it should be fat!

Keep up the good work we are all here to support each other.

If you don't like Premier Protein Shake, try Isopure grape flavored. It provides 15 grams of protein for about 60 calories.

Best wishes,

Ralph
 
Need help getting more protein with less calories... any an all suggestions pls!
I don't think i'm getting enough protein or calories! Not sure what I should eat or do I drink more protein?
Protein drinks make me nausea's now after the surgery.

Oh one more thing. With respect to nausea, your Doctor should have prescribed some meds to suppress the nausea symptom.

Secondly, you must drink in small sips very slowly. Remember to drink no more than one ounce every 15 minutes if that is what you need to do.

I can consume a 12 ounce protein shake in about 30 to 45 minutes, but do it slowly. If you begin to feel funny feelings including nausea simply stop for awhile and let your system settle down.

Eating/drinking too quickly brings on lots of lousy feelings. Also, eating too much.

I need to let things settle down for at least a couple hours after having my 1/3 cup meal ( up to 1/2 cup) or if I have a shake like I am doing right now, I wait now for a couple of hours before having a meal.

That little stomach we now have does take some time to empty out. This is different for each of us.

Ralph
 
Need help getting more protein with less calories... any an all suggestions pls!
I don't think i'm getting enough protein or calories! Not sure what I should eat or do I drink more protein?
Protein drinks make me nausea's now after the surgery.

If you don't get enough protein your hair will fall out more (everyone will lose some hair) and as Dancinbr said, you want to lose the fat and not your muscle. As far as food goes, eggs, beans, cheese, and meat are protein foods. Protein has calories but won't put fat on you. Protein builds muscle.. if you don't eat enough protein, your body will breakdown the muscle from your own body to digest. You want to lose weight but you want it to be the fat in your body and not your lean muscles. You had a bypass like I did and your body will not absorb nutrients as easy as it once did. I find scrambled egg with cheese and omlettes with cheese and diced ham easy to eat to get protein. I also like to put a little Salsa over my eggs for flavor. Also I cook chicken in a slow cooker til its falling apart and thats another protein food thats easy to eat. You can find out how much protein is in each food by googling it on the internet. - foods amount of protein - My surgeon and nutritionist never had me count calories at all but rather told me to eat mainly protein and eat a small amount of carbohydrates.
 
I would also recommend a great site that I use for keeping track of everything.

www.caloriecount.com

I journal everything on this site: food, exercise and weight. The site has a huge database of foods and what they contain. You have an analysis section that shows how you are doing during the day and so on and so forth.

Try it.

Ralph
 
there is a protein shake I found at walmart and kroger, it is called Myoplex. the large one has 42g protein, 300 calories in 17 oz drink. the calories are a little high, so i walk a little extra on the treadmill and use it for my lunch.
 
I'm finding the only way I can get enough protein and calories per day is to drink at least 2 protein shakes. I don't feel good when I get less than 800 calories in, and my weight loss stalls, too. Right now I'm getting less than 50% of my needed protein with regular food.
 
I'm finding the only way I can get enough protein and calories per day is to drink at least 2 protein shakes. I don't feel good when I get less than 800 calories in, and my weight loss stalls, too. Right now I'm getting less than 50% of my needed protein with regular food.

When you say 2 protein shakes a day, do you mean 15 grams per shake or 30 or what?

I need one 30 gram protein shake. I am able to get the other 50 grams of protein from food. I eat eggs, chicken, turkey mostly to get the protein. I even had 2 ounces of lein lamb loin a couple of days ago.

However, it is common for most of us in the early stages of post op to need to supplement with protein shakes.

As time goes by and we become somewhat more tolerant of more foods and our new stomach does grow a little in size, we will not need the protein shakes.

However, they are always a good fall back.

Ralph
 
When you say 2 protein shakes a day, do you mean 15 grams per shake or 30 or what?

I need one 30 gram protein shake. I am able to get the other 50 grams of protein from food. I eat eggs, chicken, turkey mostly to get the protein. I even had 2 ounces of lein lamb loin a couple of days ago.

However, it is common for most of us in the early stages of post op to need to supplement with protein shakes.

As time goes by and we become somewhat more tolerant of more foods and our new stomach does grow a little in size, we will not need the protein shakes.

However, they are always a good fall back.

Ralph
I usually drink 1- 30 Gm protein drink and 1- 17 Gm protein drink per day. I'm only allowed 3 oz of food at each meal with no snacking. I don't know understand how you can get 50 Gms of protein from the small amounts of food allowed. I'm not questioning you, I just don't understand. I eat chicken, turkey, fish, beans, greek yogurt and cottage cheese.
 
I usually drink 1- 30 Gm protein drink and 1- 17 Gm protein drink per day. I'm only allowed 3 oz of food at each meal with no snacking. I don't know understand how you can get 50 Gms of protein from the small amounts of food allowed. I'm not questioning you, I just don't understand. I eat chicken, turkey, fish, beans, greek yogurt and cottage cheese.

I don't understand you are only allowed 3 ounces at each meal no snacking. That is the opening guideline. But many of us have to do more. Right now, I do about 5 mini meals; yes no more than 3 ounces, which I believe is about a 1/3 cup.

You have to work what works. Even with 5 mini meals I am only consuming 800-1000 calories per day.

We were told if you couldn't get your 1/2 cup meal in one sitting split it up. That is essentially what I do. I do get my 80 grams of food. I do allow for more than 3 meals. I also allow for a snack such as a 1/2 glass to a full glass of 1% milk.
 
With the sleeve there's no physical thing that prevents me from consuming 2000 or more calories a day. I mean, I don't have to chew that much or wait that long for things to pass from my stomach. There's no malabsorption. I don't get clumping or dumping. So I think the idea of "no snacking" comes from the idea that the doctor wants us to build good habits and not graze all day.
I was told if I couldn't get my 3 ounces in to throw the rest away.
I'm still at phase III and won't go to phase IV until 6 months out from surgery.
 
With the sleeve there's no physical thing that prevents me from consuming 2000 or more calories a day. I mean, I don't have to chew that much or wait that long for things to pass from my stomach. There's no malabsorption. I don't get clumping or dumping. So I think the idea of "no snacking" comes from the idea that the doctor wants us to build good habits and not graze all day.
I was told if I couldn't get my 3 ounces in to throw the rest away.
I'm still at phase III and won't go to phase IV until 6 months out from surgery.

OK.

I had considered the gastric sleeve. However, I went with the by-pass since I am also Type 2 diabetic. True to its promise with the gastric by-pass I am completely off all diabetic meds including the 80 to 90 units of insulin I needed to control my diabetes prior to the operation.

I thought with the sleeve there was also a reduction is size of your stomach. Therefore, you also would be limited in how much intake you could have at any one meal. Perhaps I am wrong on that.

I know you certainly can stretch it back to full size. But I do recall with the sleeve your stomach is considerably smaller.

I will check around more on that.

Ralph
 
Oh yes, they remove most of the stomach with the sleeve. It goes from the size of a football to the size of a banana. I am limited in how much I can take in at a meal, but it passes through quickly, that's why the surgeon said take 20 minutes to eat, then throw the rest away.
I was not diabetic, but so far am off 2 of my 3 BP meds and the cholesterol meds are gone. Working on getting off the anti-anxiety meds now.
 
Back
Top