Angelbaby677
Member
Hello everyone! I was just wondering how much protein should one be getting 3 weeks post op?
Protein
- Thread starter Angelbaby677
- Start date
dianeseattle
Member
For women, 50 to 70 grams every day. You may have to supplement until you can eat real protein like turkey, which has 36 grams in one serving. But on the way you can get high quality protein from cottage cheese, eggs, and Magic Milk (do a search here for the recipe). You get less protein but the food is still good if you use Magic Milk to make your hot cereals like MaltoMeal, Cream of wheat, Farina or FF/SF instant puddings. Most yogurts are not high in protein, so read the labels in the store before you buy. There are high-protein yogurts.
Do try to hit the protein goal, as you will heal faster with fewer complications, and your weight gain should reflect it. I lost 60 pounds in 60 days post-op. I was always making recipes with Magic Milk in order to get the protein you get there.
I feel like I just published this the other day but now can't find it. This is a copy of an email I sent to a cousin and other family members after I'd lost 65 pounds and they wanted to know what my diet was. Some of it is a little BS-y because I didn't want to share the real story of surgery with them. Nobody in the family knows, even 12 years later.
But I do believe they could have lost a comparable amount of weight, even without surgery.
This data is 12 years old and there have been a lot of new products introduced especially for post-op people. I don't have personal experience with them. I just eat a high-protein diet every day, but I do my own cooking and baking and count calories and such. I have maintained my weight for 12 years.
=======================================
Anyway, about the protein diet...
Of course, it's not a diet. You need to educate yourself about protein gram content in food. You need to give up sugar & fats, completely. No adding anything to your food. You can spray Pam on a baked potato (butter flavor, one second spray) & use artificial sweeteners in everything. But these foods are foods you will not eat much of.
You will also not eat vegetables. You'll get horribly constipated unless you take fiber laxatives &/or stool softeners.
You'll need to augment your diet with high-potency vitamins, & you’ll need to take two a day, not 1-a-day. You'll also need to take calcium three times a day in 500 mg doses. Don't take it all at once; the body can only absorb 500 mg at a time. You'll also need a B-12 tab, the kind you can dissolve under your tongue.
I do all of the above. I now eat small quantities of vegetables if I've met my protein requirements for the day. My favorite veggie is cooked spinach tossed in a little balsamic vinegar & peppered a lot.
You need a minimum of 50 grams of protein every day. 70 is better, but anywhere between is permissible. If you don't do this, your nails will be brittle & you'll lose hair every time you shampoo.
Now, as to the diet itself:
It is horrible.
You have to be committed (to a mental hospital, preferably) to this new kind of eating. You will almost die trying to do it. You'll smell all the other food people are cooking & eating right in front of you. You'll fantasize about cheeseburgers or whatever your favorite fast food is. The fattier the meal being cooked, the more you'll want it.
The first week all you can eat is bouillon & Jell-O. You will continue to eat Jell-O & specific foods for the next two months.
The foods you'll have to eat are:
1/2 c. cottage cheese (14g)
2 eggs (14g)
cream soups (2t to 1/2 cup milk, 7-10g)
cream cereals (1t to 1/2 cup milk, 11g)
sugar-free, fat-free Jell-O instant pudding made with the special milk, 1/2c, 10-11g
now, the magic milk:
this is the foundation of everything you'll cook or drink.
1 qt. nonfat milk +
1/c Milkman powdered milk, dry
Mix this up & every half-cup is worth 8 grams! Use it in the soups, cereals & pudding I list above to get those protein grams. Otherwise, you'll only get 2g or so of the soup or cereal (before adding to the milk) & maybe 4 grams from the nonfat milk you'll add to it.
Don't use any other kind of dry milk. You won't get the same results.
A note: you use milk, not water, to cook the cream of wheat or Malt-o-meal cereal. Bring to a bubble & add the dry cereal, then stir for a minute or two. It will be thin, but it thickens in the bowl. I add wheat germ & flax seed to mine & get an extra 4g.
If you could get Trader Joe’s whey high-protein drink, you'd get 32g of protein right at the beginning of your day. However, if you buy turkey & cook it, then cut it into 3 oz. portions, that 36g per portion. Other meats have high protein contents also, but white meat turkey contains no fat.
Go here to find out how many grams each food has:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
It will even tell you the gram content in KFC or McDonald’s or any other fast food.
If you get your 50g of protein (& you are probably not getting that now), you can indulge in other foods, so long as they're nonfat & sugar free & you don't eat out of control.
If you do this, you'll lose 25 lbs. the first month. If you're like me, you'll continue to lose 10 to 15 lbs. every month thereafter. If you walk for 15 minutes each day, you'll lose a little bit more.
Remember, this diet is awful. You can’t stick to it if you have to cook for others. You'll go crazy if you are around people who are cooking. It will tax your every impulse. If you can do it, the hunger will go away in a month or so. You can begin adding regular food other people eat back into your diet within three months of beginning. You could have a cheeseburger (small) & the occasional piece of pie or cake (small), but only after you've met your grams & only as you count calories on a day when you do that. You shouldn't consume more than 2000 calories a day. If you're faithful to the regimen I outlined above, you'll be eating 600 to 800 calories a day but you will not die of malnutrition. You're eating those vitamins & calcium & B-12 so you're getting more vitamins than you’d ordinarily get in processed food.
I have a little pocket pc into which I have recorded the protein values of every food I might eat in a day. I consult this constantly. The first thing I do is meet my protein grams. Then I eat very little food for the rest of the day. Because I'm feeding my muscles protein, it doesn't do that "wasting" thing where it draws from muscle instead of fat to survive.
I've been doing this since July. At this moment, I have lost 65 pounds. I have 30 to 50 more to lose, depending on how much I want to look like a younger version of me.
BTW, here's the highest protein meal i've had that didn't include turkey:
1c cottage cheese
1T flax
2T wheat germ
2T nutritional yeast
& that is 39g protein & 285 calories.
With my 33g, 330-calorie breakfast & snack, that gives me 73g of protein & 615 calories & i could stop now & go to bed & lose another pound this week. Or i can go for door number two.
I went for door number two. Had a pudding for 10g of protein & 70 to 100 calories--i have to guess after 70 calories because i don't have data on the enriched milk. Still doing fantastically with the calories & the protein! I still have two snacks allotted, too.
Do try to hit the protein goal, as you will heal faster with fewer complications, and your weight gain should reflect it. I lost 60 pounds in 60 days post-op. I was always making recipes with Magic Milk in order to get the protein you get there.
I feel like I just published this the other day but now can't find it. This is a copy of an email I sent to a cousin and other family members after I'd lost 65 pounds and they wanted to know what my diet was. Some of it is a little BS-y because I didn't want to share the real story of surgery with them. Nobody in the family knows, even 12 years later.
But I do believe they could have lost a comparable amount of weight, even without surgery.
This data is 12 years old and there have been a lot of new products introduced especially for post-op people. I don't have personal experience with them. I just eat a high-protein diet every day, but I do my own cooking and baking and count calories and such. I have maintained my weight for 12 years.
=======================================
Anyway, about the protein diet...
Of course, it's not a diet. You need to educate yourself about protein gram content in food. You need to give up sugar & fats, completely. No adding anything to your food. You can spray Pam on a baked potato (butter flavor, one second spray) & use artificial sweeteners in everything. But these foods are foods you will not eat much of.
You will also not eat vegetables. You'll get horribly constipated unless you take fiber laxatives &/or stool softeners.
You'll need to augment your diet with high-potency vitamins, & you’ll need to take two a day, not 1-a-day. You'll also need to take calcium three times a day in 500 mg doses. Don't take it all at once; the body can only absorb 500 mg at a time. You'll also need a B-12 tab, the kind you can dissolve under your tongue.
I do all of the above. I now eat small quantities of vegetables if I've met my protein requirements for the day. My favorite veggie is cooked spinach tossed in a little balsamic vinegar & peppered a lot.
You need a minimum of 50 grams of protein every day. 70 is better, but anywhere between is permissible. If you don't do this, your nails will be brittle & you'll lose hair every time you shampoo.
Now, as to the diet itself:
It is horrible.
You have to be committed (to a mental hospital, preferably) to this new kind of eating. You will almost die trying to do it. You'll smell all the other food people are cooking & eating right in front of you. You'll fantasize about cheeseburgers or whatever your favorite fast food is. The fattier the meal being cooked, the more you'll want it.
The first week all you can eat is bouillon & Jell-O. You will continue to eat Jell-O & specific foods for the next two months.
The foods you'll have to eat are:
1/2 c. cottage cheese (14g)
2 eggs (14g)
cream soups (2t to 1/2 cup milk, 7-10g)
cream cereals (1t to 1/2 cup milk, 11g)
sugar-free, fat-free Jell-O instant pudding made with the special milk, 1/2c, 10-11g
now, the magic milk:
this is the foundation of everything you'll cook or drink.
1 qt. nonfat milk +
1/c Milkman powdered milk, dry
Mix this up & every half-cup is worth 8 grams! Use it in the soups, cereals & pudding I list above to get those protein grams. Otherwise, you'll only get 2g or so of the soup or cereal (before adding to the milk) & maybe 4 grams from the nonfat milk you'll add to it.
Don't use any other kind of dry milk. You won't get the same results.
A note: you use milk, not water, to cook the cream of wheat or Malt-o-meal cereal. Bring to a bubble & add the dry cereal, then stir for a minute or two. It will be thin, but it thickens in the bowl. I add wheat germ & flax seed to mine & get an extra 4g.
If you could get Trader Joe’s whey high-protein drink, you'd get 32g of protein right at the beginning of your day. However, if you buy turkey & cook it, then cut it into 3 oz. portions, that 36g per portion. Other meats have high protein contents also, but white meat turkey contains no fat.
Go here to find out how many grams each food has:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
It will even tell you the gram content in KFC or McDonald’s or any other fast food.
If you get your 50g of protein (& you are probably not getting that now), you can indulge in other foods, so long as they're nonfat & sugar free & you don't eat out of control.
If you do this, you'll lose 25 lbs. the first month. If you're like me, you'll continue to lose 10 to 15 lbs. every month thereafter. If you walk for 15 minutes each day, you'll lose a little bit more.
Remember, this diet is awful. You can’t stick to it if you have to cook for others. You'll go crazy if you are around people who are cooking. It will tax your every impulse. If you can do it, the hunger will go away in a month or so. You can begin adding regular food other people eat back into your diet within three months of beginning. You could have a cheeseburger (small) & the occasional piece of pie or cake (small), but only after you've met your grams & only as you count calories on a day when you do that. You shouldn't consume more than 2000 calories a day. If you're faithful to the regimen I outlined above, you'll be eating 600 to 800 calories a day but you will not die of malnutrition. You're eating those vitamins & calcium & B-12 so you're getting more vitamins than you’d ordinarily get in processed food.
I have a little pocket pc into which I have recorded the protein values of every food I might eat in a day. I consult this constantly. The first thing I do is meet my protein grams. Then I eat very little food for the rest of the day. Because I'm feeding my muscles protein, it doesn't do that "wasting" thing where it draws from muscle instead of fat to survive.
I've been doing this since July. At this moment, I have lost 65 pounds. I have 30 to 50 more to lose, depending on how much I want to look like a younger version of me.
BTW, here's the highest protein meal i've had that didn't include turkey:
1c cottage cheese
1T flax
2T wheat germ
2T nutritional yeast
& that is 39g protein & 285 calories.
With my 33g, 330-calorie breakfast & snack, that gives me 73g of protein & 615 calories & i could stop now & go to bed & lose another pound this week. Or i can go for door number two.
I went for door number two. Had a pudding for 10g of protein & 70 to 100 calories--i have to guess after 70 calories because i don't have data on the enriched milk. Still doing fantastically with the calories & the protein! I still have two snacks allotted, too.