One month and soft foods

Hi all...one month post op as of yesterday...I lost 20 lbs. in month one. Not as high as some but high enough that I am happy with that. My one month check up was Friday and it was mostly positive, I have super low blood pressure and they had difficulty obtaining a reading both on the machine and manually. In the end about ten minutes later the doctor got a reading of 80/50. I have been having lots of dizziness and lightheadedness. They said to add salt to my diet and increase liquids if I can. I'm already at 2 litres which I think is pretty good for one month and they agreed but I am trying to up it each day. Felt pretty water logged last night. The added salt is a bonus though as I love salt and had been avoiding it.

On to my soft foods question...I have not been hungry or having any kind of appetite and generally just don't want to eat. Nothing is appealing and I'm unsure what to move on to now. I was so excited to go from liquids to purées and had a list of recipes that I tried. Now I'm feeling a little lost and just sort of meh about food. A few things I have had include the normal Greek yogurt, hard boiled egg and prosciutto and mozzarella stick (although apparently I'm suppose to avoid all red meat until 6 months and it occurred to me after that the prosciutto is pork therefore red meat so I guess I won't have that again). I'm going to buy fish even though I'm not feeling it. Any other ideas on recipes/suggestions? I'm looking on egg face but can't find a "soft foods" specific page like there is for purées yet.

Hi...I have always had low blood pressure too... Hope you are feeling better soon.

Your appetite will come back (along with some cravings!), so in the meantime follow the plan. Write everything down, measure stuff, and continue with the liquids. Your body is going through a major healing time and it needs you to pay attention to it whether you can feel it or not. Things only get better from here!!!

All the best

Barb

Scrambled eggs worked well for me at the soft food stage. So did poached eggs but I made sure that they were soft. Egg salad, tuna salad, salmon salad.

I made meat loaf and bought a small can of gravy. I found ground meats broke up easily and were very easy to digest. A couple of teaspoons of gravy really helped it go down as well.

Meatballs in tomato sauce were good too. Just break up the meatballs, and make sure you have sauce to soften it up.

Smoked salmon with cream cheese was a favourite!

I actually ate scrambled eggs through purées because I can't stand the thought of a wet egg so poached didn't work for me. I may try the egg and tuna salads, thanks for that suggestion. Did you make meatloaf with beef? I guess I could try with ground turkey but never done that before. Wish I could have ground beef. The dietician said that even if it goes down well I would be causing scarring to the juncture of the stomach and intestine...can't decide if that was a scare tactic to keep us away from it or is real but going with her direction at this point. Thank you for the suggestions.

I ate ground beef early out. I just made sure to use gravy and chew it up really well.

I am not trying to tell you to ignore the dietician, I'm just saying that I had no problem with it. Ground turkey or chicken meatloaf has absolutely no appeal to me.

Thanks Ginnny...that sounds like the consensus here so I may just go that route :) I bought the ground turkey and it ended up just going in the freezer haha!

I was never told we couldn't have beef. I've had lean ground beef since the soft food stage. I've made chili, meatloaf, hamburgers, zucchini lasagna, meatballs and meat sauce. It's actually been a bit of a staple for me because I digest it so well with no issues.

Interesting how the different centres have different guidelines.

Ahh...those all sound delicious....especially zucchini lasagna, I have a paleo recipe for a zucchini lasagna and would love to try it now. I'm pretty swayed by everyone here saying they were able to have ground beef, I don't get why they would advise against it.

I made tacos with ground turkey and it was delicious. (I just ate the meat with some cheese)

Thanks for the idea! After this weekend I will have to find something to do with the ground turkey I froze and this could definitely work. O