What do you eat?

Hi all!
  I am a little over two weeks out and kinda wanted some new idea's and even to see what I can have later on!
  So, Can some of you give me a typical days food for you.

Here is mine:
A boiled egg mashed up w/ mayo to make it a develed egg
Some cottage cheese
Canned chicken

That's about it for now! LOL

Hey. here is a run down of an average day:
B: Peotein coffee made with 1 1/2 scoop nectar
B2: 1/2 peice of light weat toast and 1 tsp peanutbutter
S:   1/4 cup cottage cheese with 1 tsp crushed pineapple & splenda to taste
L:  1/4 cup fat free refried beans w/ff cheese, 1tsp greek yogurt, 1tsp salsa
S:  2 string cheese w/hot  light spaghetti sauce To dip in.( I can only eat 1 1/2)
D:  2 oz grilled samon
S: Protein latte with 1 1/2 scoop nectar

I was on liquids for 2 weeks..started pureed at week 3. Just last week at 6 weeks am i now allowed some solid  foods, very limited though.

Wow.. at 2 weeks out I was still on a full liquid type diet.  I was eating soups, jello and protien shakes.  Not much more.  I am amazed that you are already eating "real food"!  :)

Jennifer when did you go from liquids to mushy or soft foods? I thought most people only stayed on the full liquids 2 weeks. My surgeon said after 2 weeks I should start getting my protien in in food and then if I didn't get 60 oz in to drink a protien drink at the end of the day.

I stayed on full liquids for about 3 weeks.  Then I could move on to mushy stuff.  When I read your post last night it was a bit taxing for me to even remember that far back!  LOL  I struggled to even eat anything in the beginning, but now at 18 months out that seems like a distant memory now.  

Good luck and stand firm.  Your body is still healing and my best advice is to listen to it.  That is what I did.  If I did not feel like I was ready to move to the next hierarchy of foods, I stayed on the lower tier until I felt ready to eat different and more dense foods.  :)  It worked for me and I do not regret doing that.  I know I stayed on soft foods for about 2 weeks longer than Dr. K said I could have.  

I'm 18 months post op, but my DH Ben is in lock-step with you. In our program, you aren't allowed any solids for 3 and half weeks, so for us, it's protien drinks and soups that have a skim milk base for the protien. When we shift to a soft diet, it basically means anything that you can cut with a fork that doesn't have seeds, skins, and isn't stringing or cruciferous ... i.e., celery or brocolli... just adding one new food at each meal. It sounds like it would take forever to build up a new menu like that, but it goes quicker than you might think.

If you are making 'deviled eggs', consider using a low fat or fat free mayo.

To make cottage cheese more palatable, you can make a mock lasagna, where you use the seasonings for lasagna, but no noodles... I even added lean ground beef to mine that was very finely crumbled.

Shrimp and crab were favorites that went down very easily.

Ricotta/cottage cheese pancakes are great. You make them sweet or savory. When sweet, they can be like cheesecake or blintzes, and when savory, they are great with a bit of onion or shredded zuchinni.... mmm.

To be honest, now, I can and do eat just about anything. I try to lead with lean protien, follow with complex carbs and then if I have room, I might have some simple carbs or fat.

Yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: Cottage Cheese pancakes

Snack: Decaf Cafe au Lait w/Skim milk

Lunch: Chicken wrap and cup of chili

Snack: Cheese cubes

Dinner: Roast pork, green beans, carrots, bite of mashed potato

Snack: Peanut butter and crackers

Hi Cindy!  Here are some suggestions:

- Soup, soup, soup!  lol  Split pea, northern bean, lentils (all high in protein), as well as cream or cheese of *anything.*  The latter would spike my blood sugar, darnit.

- Grits or mashed potatoes loaded with chives, Bacos/bacon bits, and cheese (can also add baby shrimp to the grits).  There are low-fat/cal gravy mixes you can make with skim milk, but this also spiked my blood sugars.

- Ricotta bake:  Mix 8 oz. ricotta, 1/2c parmesan cheese, 1 egg, 1t Italian seasoning, salt & pepper.  Put in small glass baking dish.  Pour 1/2c marinara sauce on top followed by 1/2c shredded mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 450 for 25 minutes.  Fridge & nuke leftovers (I add more marinara).  Thanks to Eggface for this recipe, I'm making some of this again tonight.  :)

- Refried beans topped with enchilada sauce, chives, shredded cheese, sour cream.  I do a bake in the oven where I add an egg to the can of fat-free refried beans and layer everything but the sour cream and bake just like the recipe above. 

- Cottage cheese served with sugar-free pie filling.

That's all I can think of right now!  I'm having a horrible time with boredom because I still can't eat much of anything with weight and definitely not dry or sticky, though my program allows me to try just about anything but beef and pork at this point.  Soup is my friend!  :)

I rarely drink a protein shake anymore, but it was a long time before I could go without doing that to even get close to getting in all of my protein. 

This morning so far I've had a mini strawberry bagel with some "pumpkin cheese" spread on top -- it's like cream cheese but it's pumpkin flavored.  I bought it at Aldi's.  Very good!  I'm also drinking some coffee (1st cup of the day).  I also ate a whole clementine -- I love those things!

I'm going to make some chicken soup later with chicken broth, leftover roasted chicken, and probably chunky Vegall vegetables unless I get in the mood to put "real" vegetables in it (celery, onion, carrots).  I'll eat mostly the chicken out of it and the broth.  

For dinner, we'll probably have a lasagna type thingy out of some leftover "beefy mac" and meatballs and cheese added.  It's easy and it's all in the freezer already.  I might make a salad with that, add some cheese and boiled egg for extra protein. 

I will also eat a protein bar -- that's about 1/3 of my protein right there for the day.  And I'll drink milk, so there's more protein. 

At the end of the day, if I think I need it and since I haven't had one in a while, I'll drink a homemade protein shake with a scoop of Walmart protein powder, 8 oz Lactaid, and Torani almond roca syrup.  

I'm finally at a point where I can pretty much eat anything.  I do limit quantities, and I avoid sugar like the plague because I do dump.  But I've been maintaining my weight for months and Dr. Bauman and DIane said to increase fat/calorie intake when I need to in order to keep from losing too much.  (I'm about 10 lb below their goal weight for me).  

Thanks all! Sounds good!

Barb, How do you make the cottage cheese pancakes?

Shauna, That Ricotta cheese bake sounds so good! I will have to try that before long!

I just got so tired of the protien shakes, so now I make sure I get enough protien in without them. I do drink a lot of skim milk to help out with the protien, and the swanson canned chicken has a lot of protien and helps a lot.. especially since I don't cook much!