Feb 2, 2012

I don't have much time for a post this morning because I have to get to work.  I travel light when it comes to food for work; a bottle of Isopure with 40 grams of protein, no sugar or carbs and only 160 calories.  This is what we call an RTD or Ready to Drink product.  It isn't always practical to carry around powders and mixing cups.

I have tolerance issues with whey products anyway.  Isopure drinks are NOT thick and shake like.  They basically taste like kool-aid...pumped up!  I think they come in about 12 flavors.  IMHO...blue raspberry and grape taste the best.

I won't kid you, they are not cheap.  A single bottle will set you back about 4.00 in most health food or vitamin stores.  There is a slight advantage to buying them by the case but then you are stuck with only one flavor.  More on these later!

Heads up, the cheapest place I have found to get them is actually Amazon.com 

I had Morning star veggies sausage weighing in at 10 grams of protein and
about 3 0z of Greek Yogurt for breakfast with roughly 12g of protein.  The goal should be at least 20g per meal.  I will definately get into this in greater detail later!

With an Isopure drink to take along giving me an additonal 40g of protein, I should be good till after work.  I carry a protein bar in my purse just in case though.

I wanted to add a few words about dinner.  Sometimes I make more of an effort but I was just really tired after work tonight.  When I'm tired or don't know what I want, don't have a taste for anything in particular I go to my standby meal.

It is vitally important for the bariatric patient to pack as much nutrition as possible into an incredibly small amount of food.  For the Roux-en-y gastric bypass, like mine; the stomach is initially the size of a walnut and eventually stretches a bit to about the size of an egg.  That is NOT MUCH ROOM!  I know, I'm throwing out some terms that you may or may not know much about and I promise a thorough explanation of them in futures posts.

Back to dinner though.  The MOST important nutrient the bariatric patient is looking for is protein.  You will hear about protein ad nauseum.  You will eat/drink protein till you want to gag at the mention of the word.  You will consume protein BEFORE any other food group and only IF you have enough room in your stomach will you worry about other types of food..initially at least.  The lenght of time you will need to eat this way will vary from patient to patient but no matter how well you tolerate carbohydrates (and many including myself do not tolerate them well) you will always eat proteing FIRST.

When I don't have time or the energy to cook my stanby dinner is a dish of Fage greek yogurt which has a whopping 23g of protein per cup.  Now of course, I cannot eat an 8oz serving but I can manage about 4oz. at this point (four months out from surgery) since yogurt is technically not a solid food.  There are greek yogurts flooding the market right now because they are the new "in" thing in yogurt.  Let me just caution you though; not all greek yogurts are created equal!  They can be LOADED with fat, sugar and crap of all sorts so READ YOUR LABELS. 

I eat Fage almost exclusively because I think the texture is amazing...extremely thick and creamy, the protein content is the highest of all the brands I've seen so far, the taste is sharp but not acrid, the sugar content (yes, even plain yogurt has sugar from milk or lactose as it is known) is low AND..it is a clean product.  By clean I mean not loaded with a bunch of junk I can't pronounce.

In case you have never seen it; this is how the carton looks.

In most stores these six ounce cartons sell for 3 for $5. and occasionally go on sale for 3 for $4.  They are also available in a 16oz tub which I generally see for about $3.50 -$3.99   THis is the 0 fat variety but you can also get it in 2%.  Strictly speaking, the bariatric diet is often low in fat (even good fats) just because of the limited amount of food you can eat so if you want to use the 2% I don't see that hurting anyone.  I just got used to eating this one and it's so creamy that you never miss what is not in there.

So here is what I do.  Place about 3-4 oz of fage in a bowl and stir in Stevia to taste.  I add 1/2 a teaspoon of good quality cinnamon which is an excellent metabolisim booster by the way and a splash of real vanilla extract.  Stir this to mix well.  Then I toss in about 2 tablespoons of chopped walnuts; a rich source of healthy medium chain unsaturated fatty acids (good fats), a tablespoon of ground flax seed for fiber but also for it's store of Omega 3 and if I have any on hand, a couple tablespoons of some type of organic low sugar granola.  However, I have to watch that later because even a little bit can make you sick if the sugar is too high.  Plus, since it is a grain (carbohydrate) it has a tendency to over-sugar me anyway because my post surgical body VERY RAPIDLY converts grain to...you guessed it...SUGAR!  Sugar is the enemy...take my word for that for now because we'll speak to this in depth as we go along.

This is more than sufficient for a meal.  You may not even be able to finish the entire amount but I know I'm eating someting my body can use...protein!  Yogurt for dinner?  Yea, well sometimes I eat a 2oz ground sirloin patty for breakfast!  You may find that foods you liked before surgery (and I'm not talking about the junky stuff...in my case it is chicken) don't taste so hot to you afterward.  Vice versa...things that you could not stand before may be appealing to you afterwards.  It's a coin toss.  A good rule of thumb for me is...I eat what I think I can tolerate at any given time.  If that is steak or hamburger at 8 am and yogurt for dinner...so be it!