Hi Teresa, and welcome to the group. That's a very good question and it is a real challenge both for the person who is having surgery and for the person who lives with the patient, postoperatively.
After surgery my appetite changed drastically. There are things I can no longer eat because the very thought of them makes me sick. Before surgery I ate them by the bucketful. By the same token, the aromas of cooking food are just torture to me, like right now. It's about 7:45 and I can smell barbecues all over the neighborhood. I can also smell other f ne cuisine being cooked by my neighbors for special Saturday night guests. And I am sitting here with carrot and celery sticks and a bowl of hummus I made yesterday. I love my crudites, but man, I would be eating a hot, homemade meal right now if I could.
By the same token, that's kind of a lie. If I had a huge supper of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, or steak and a baked potato with Caesar salad, creme brulee, a frozen margarita, a fine bottle of cotes de provence, I couldn't choke it down. If I tried, it would come back up. I could have three bites or so, but then I would be done.
So if you eat like a queen and your husband can barely hold down his lean protein, you are going to have a lot of conflicts. I would advise you to find the middle ground. Whoever cooks in your family should learn what to include and what to exclude in order to make the meal as balanced and healthy as possible. Then you both can eat the same thing but he will just eat a lot less.
To be perfectly honest, I had to learn not to want to eat like a pig. I had to stop caring about food. I was obsessed with food before. It's almost all I ever thought about. And I am a great cook and I'm not a bit shy about making huge feasts for others to enjoy. I hardly ever do that now. Lately, my food processor has been busy making homemade hummus, which is fabulous, and I have spent tons of time chopping celery and carrots into sticks , and peeling apples for applesauce. I have made naan to go with the hummus. I have made my own protein energy from a recipe I found on the internet. And the most indulgent thing I have been making are these oatmeal cookies with bits of dried apricots, pecans, raisins, and sometimes, white chocolate chips. There are no eggs, sugars, salt or fats added to these cookies, but I make unsweetened applesauce and smash ripe bananas together with that to make the base that the old fashioned rolled oats and other items go into. You probably would never buy this cookie in a store, but I actually kind of live for them. And they are very similar to the protein breakfast bar recipe so I look forward to my cup of coffee in the morning and my oatmeal cookie. And I have actually never put white chocolate chips into them, but I bought some today because I wanted to have a little bit more of a treat.
By the way, since I mentioned what I am cooking and baking in the previous paragraph, you must be able to see that I am eating fairly normally. You don't change to a post-op diet and stay on it for the rest of your life. You change your diet and you lose the weight and you start exercising and you change your life. And eventually your cravings subside a lot. And you start eating food that everyone else eats. You're just eat a lot less and your judgment is based on your own study of nutrition, protein grams and avoiding fats and carbohydrates.
The person who has the digestive revision really has to be responsible for his own cravings and problems. If you're sitting there stuffing your face full of cream puffs, your husband just can't have one, and he has to live with that. That's exactly the same thing he's already living with, and you're living with, and I'm living with. One big component of an eating disorder that causes obesity is an inability or unwillingness to exercise discipline. I am not talking about control. Control is impossible. But discipline is possible. Discipline means saying no, even if you run off crying to your bedroom while everyone else is having dessert.
I have photos on my profile if you'd like to see my before and after. But I will attach one here where I am wearing the same tank top before and after surgery.
