Consumer Tip of the Day

Ok I guess I will just start a new thread each day which will contain my "find"...  GNC now has the Supreme Protein Carb Conscious protein bars (Peanut Butter Flavor) in sample size.  FREE!  Yes I said FREE.  You can go in there, peruse their stock, and enjoy a protein bar.  It's about 4 of our bites.  It's really good too...  Stay tuned for further updates.

Melinda, You once advised me not to stock up on protein before surgery but I wanted to ask a question. My plan is to gradually go ahead and make changes in my diet that will have to be made after surgery. This month I'm working on adding protein and counting the grams so I get 60 to 90 grams. What protein powder do you recommend to start with? It would be good if it were kind of inexpensive too. Walmart has a very reasonably priced whey protein powder. Have you ever tried it? What do you mix your powder with? Do you think I'm crazy to be thinking about this now? I figure if high protein helps after surgery it might help before too. What do you think? Blessings, Karen

If I may jump in with my 2 cents. I added one protein shake per day to my diet for the month preceding my surgery. I also started taking 5 mg (not mcg) of Biotin at the same time. I believe these 2 things helped keep my post-op hair loss to a minimum. I never experienced the noticable hair loss most people have. My hair has always been very fine so any loss would be noticable on me. Having said that, the protein powder I used, and loved, pre-op was something I could not stand after surgery. You do need a good vanilla powder that you can mix with other stuff and alter the taste for variety. I would also recommend an unflavored powder to add to soups and "non sweet" foods during your pureed stage after surgery. You will get very tired of sweet stuff. A good unflavored is Any Whey. It can be mixed with warm foods and is truly tasteless so it can be mixed with anything.

SuseeQ... due to the price of inflation...  its no longer 2 cents for an opinion.  The cost has risen to 4.09 cents per opinion.  Just thought you would want to know.   LOL!    So you're worth is rising every day with the price of gas!

Susan,  Thanks so much for the tips. I will also look for some unflavored protein. I will probably have to go farther than Walmart to find it. There is a GNC in the area and as soon as I have more money I will look for some. As for the hair, I guess you missed my hairtastrophe post. I let my daughter cut my hair and now I have none to speak of, as Marilyn and Cheryl can attest. I have become a creature of comfort and whatever is easy works for me. My hair is fine too and it has never been much to look at. I'm so used to it being like this now, I am thinking of keeping it this way for the summer. I did make it blonde and it looks better than the original photo. I also have numerous hats in case of emergency. If I had ever had pretty hair, I'm sure the thought of losing it would bother me a lot more than it actually does. I appreciate the tip about the Biotin though. I'll file it away in case I change my mind. Blessings, Karen

Guess what? I know I gave one consumer tip today, but I have another. Dollar General has a summer dish section... plasticware! OH I love plastic plates, bowls, glasses! But, I found a tall container, it has a screw on lid with a pop top.  They are $2 each.  And, they come in tealish blue, light lime green, and red.  These are AWESOME, DO NOT LEAK! Great for protein shakes.. to shake, shake, shake away... And, Target has plasti**** cubes... a bunch in a bag for $1!!!  Yes ONE DOLLAR! So if you buy one plastic bottle at Dollar General, one bag of ice cubes at Target, that is one "generic, low budget" blender bottle for just $3! How can ya go wrong?  Unless...  your plastic cracks and your ice cubes leak.  But for $3??? 

I hope you guys agree that there are no stupid questions, because I'm probably getting ready to ask one!!!  If you have an icemaker do you need plasti**** trays?  Thanks

Not unless you want to make protein popsicles but you can buy the popsicle makers at Kroger and other places......  instead of ice trays.

Karen I did try the Chocolate Body Fortress.  It does taste pretty good.  Juanita, bless her heart, was kind enough to give me a choc and vanilla sample, but I have not yet tried vanilla.  Let me go into the kitchen this moment and make one up and I will be back in 5 mins.

ok I'm back.  I just used a brand new homemade blender bottle.  I don't know when the next get together is, but if anyone is interested, I will buy some bottles and ice cubes and let you pay me for them when we get together.  Let me know if anyone is interested .  I now own 6 of these bottles (3 at work, 3 I just got are for home).  There are plenty of cubes in one bag that two could share the price of a bag... 2.50 a shaker bottle compared to the real blender bottle which is 8.99 at GNC!  Let me know.  Oh the things I do to help my peeps! lol Karen, Here is my review on both Super Advantage Body Fortress Whey Protein  flavors.  These would be great for a base chocolate and vanilla pro powder before and after surgery.  I just tried 1/2 scoop of vanilla, added 3 oz of water plus 1 oz of Hood 2% Calorie Countdown Milk to make it creamier.  The vanilla foamed up quite a big but I am letting it sit just a few minutes.  The taste is good.  The only thing that I would have to say about it would be its a little gritty... but to most people who have never had a smooth protein powder, they would never know the difference!  The taste of both, suprisingly is very good.  These are sold at Walmart for 12.87 a container from what I remember.  Stats are as follows: Per scoop - Calories 105; Carbs:  3; Sugars 1.5; Protein: 26 These stats look great. Keep in mind that once you have surgery, and shakes will surely be too sweet, you can always add jus****er, and if still too sweet, add lots of ice, let it melt slowly as you drink or add more water.  Also, every wls patient needs to have a good vanilla powder to use for their "other" concoctions... you can always add 1 or 2 strawberries to make a strawberry shake, or some Hershey sugar free chocolate syrup to make chocolate, or you can always add any flavor Davinci or Torani syrup to make whatever flavor you want!  You can always add peanut butter, peanut butter Davinci to a chocolate and make choc peanut butter shakes! Yumm!  Or add coconut Davinci to chocolate protein shake to make chocolate coconut...  I just found out that the protein bullets Walmart sells is Body Fortress and their website says it only comes in fruit punch flavor.  That's why Walmart did not have any other flavor like the ones that New Whey sells.  Hopefully they willl add new flavors soon!  I bet they will. I hope these answers help you.