Even though requirements differ from surgeon to surgeon and nutritionist to nutritionist, I think that protein requirement is probably a misunderstanding.
Women should get 50 to 70 grams of protein a day, total. Whatever you put on your plates, most of it should be protein. You should also indulge in high protein foods that gives you that extra burst of protein.
These include:
- Cottage cheese
- Eggs
- yogurt
- eggs
- Magic Milk
- turkey breast meat. 4 oz of roasted skinless boneless turkey breast has about 150 calories and gives you 34 to 36 grams of protein. I was advised to eat a 6-oz portion.
And another thing about turkey or any other meat. When you reach the pureed food stage, you can pulverize it in a blender or food processor and add some Magic Milk to it as well as a teaspoon of dried gravy mix and a teaspoon of instant potato flakes. This is paired on your plate with cranberry sauce and to me, it feels like Thanksgiving dinner.
If you think about the ingredients that you would include in a meat-based meal, like roast beef, remember that you can put that meat in a blender or food processor and add cooked carrots and onions and a teaspoon of mashed potato flakes. If you want a cheeseburger, drop a few ounces of hamburger and cheddar cheese and a teaspoon of yogurt and a teaspoon of mayonnaise and Blended. Serve it with a pureed pickles.
You can certainly leave out beef gravy or potato flakes but in those tiny amounts they are certainly going to fit in with your calorie requirements and make everything taste better. You can also use hamburger beans and chili or taco seasoning to make something that tastes like tacos, or you can pulverize a little canned spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese and have a pizza.
I just thought about the foods I loved and then I built recipes that I could puree. I always kept track of the calorie content as well as the protein gram content. I usually ended up with more food than I could eat in one sitting, but I would set my plate on a heating pad to keep the food warm while I took my time eating it, which sometimes lasted an hour or longer.
And these are some of the things that helped me a lot, especially cream soups and Malt-O-Meal cereal made with Magic Milk:
- Beef and chicken bouillon
- Magic Milk-based soups
- Malt-O-Meal made with Magic Milk and thinned to a Milky consistency
- Whenever possible, incorporating a scoop or two of protein powder from the store into whatever liquidy thing I was consuming
Magic Milk is something you should definitely have. The recipe is 1 qt of nonfat milk plus one packet of dry milk powder, like Milkman, which was what I used. It doubles the protein in 8 oz of milk. Use it as the base you cook your Malt-O-Meal in and make your smoothies with and every other time you use milk.
So I’m 5 days post op and every time I try to drink the clear liquid protein it makes me sick please tell me how you got your protein in the week of surgery
www.americanbariatrics.org
When you arrive at the solid food stage, you might want to enjoy some beef jerky. it is extremely salty, but you can find low salt versions and if you have an air fryer oh, you can make your own at home and reduce the salt drastically. 1 oz of beef jerky gives you 11 grams of protein. There's a lot of reasons to eat it, and especially because you need to chew it for a long long time to pulverize it. That chewing action is extremely satisfying.
If you want it, you can eat an entire can of water-packed albacore tuna. It is only 220 calories but it gives you 41 grams of protein.
And yes, Penny, you should be taking more calories in than that. Your goal should be about 900 calories now. And in a few months your goal should be about a thousand per day. After you reach your weight-loss goal, you can go up to 1500 calories.
I still avoid bread and pasta, because I feel those are probably the worst carbohydrates you can put in your body. I have no evidence of this. It's just what I do. When I was allowed solid food, I would buy a small cheeseburger and remove the top bun. I would eat around the bottom bun, which if you didn't keep it, could maybe make your hand a little messy.
Make sure you drink as much water as you possibly can. I drink two liters a day. The more water you drink, the more weight you will lose, and the faster it will come off.
I would be interested to know what doctors say about pulverizing good vegetables during the puree stage, including something like lettuce. And you should avoid the high carbohydrate vegetables like peas and corn. Those are the things we like the most, but that's probably because we are carbohydrate addicts.
I hope this helps.
