Cruising Recipes am I a Masochist?

Ok, My husband did this too after his RNY 11 years ago. I had surgery 6/22/17 and I can't stop browsing pinterest for recipes. I'm looking for vsg friendly ones, but the not so healthy ones creep in too.

Did anyone else do this? Any suggestions for great week 2 recipes? I'm trying baked ricotta for our 4th of July bbq. Any other ideas?

I love especially to bake, but am going to have to get more veggie and protein recipes in my cook book.

Thanks in advance!

Heya. I replied to the other post about pureed stuff, so you can see my comment there.

But.. as to finding recipes, I find that Paleo recipes tend to be really VSG friendly. My favorite Paleo blogger is Nom Nom Paleo, but there are a lot of other ones out there. The focus on unrefined and unprocessed foods that tends to be protein forward has netted me lots of great recipes.

As Gwen suggested, the Paleo or Keto diet recipes are generally really low carb and protein focused (they are high in fat but it is the healthy fat we need - despite what the lobbyists and main stream media have tried to tell us).

I'm at 33 days post op and am struggling to eat most anything right now (moved too fast through the phases and have had to back track). I'm looking forward to trying some of the recipes I've found... but I suspect it is a bit too for most of them (for you and I both).

As for pureed food, my favorite is beef stew put into the blender... then again I'm finding beef easier than chicken. Good luck.

Oh, my favorite 'Keto' site is Diet Doctor.

Sorry, to answer your question I did it too! I thought I was being a masochist until I realized I was looking to the future and a whole new way of eating. While I haven't tried any of the recipes YET I am eagerly looking forward to a number of them I've already picked out!

Can I ask what happened/how fast you moved through the phases? The booklet my surgeon gave me says that I can start trying "soft foods" 7-10 days after I am released from the hospital. I planned on waiting 10 days which puts me at about 13 days after surgery. Do you think it is too soon? My 2 week post op appointment technically isn't until July 6th...do you think it would be better to wait until then? I don't want to have to back track!

Are you vomiting with foods or just unable to eat them?

Regrettably everyone is so very wonderfully unique that there isn't an easy answer for 'is it too soon'. The longer you take before moving to the next phase the better... in my opinion. YET...

I trusted my body to tell me when it was ready to try something new. And for the most part this has worked. My biggest problem has been nausea - partially because I was taking that last bite. It took me about 10 days (after I started pureed/soft food) to begin to learn my 'warning' signs.

Eating too much = pain and discomfort... the kind that has you sitting upright with your arms in the air hoping to make that tiny bit more space in your stomach.

If I eat something I'm not ready to handle I 'throw up' which I actually call "blurping" because it is nothing like pre-surgery vomiting. I tried extremely moist chicken last night for dinner - it was wonderful and delicious for the whole 2 minutes it stayed in my tummy.

One benefit of throwing up, as gross as it may be, is you can tell if you're chewing your food enough!

I have no schedule to get to 'life food' so I'm taking it easy and trusting myself and TRYING very hard to have patience and understanding for myself.

I believe there is a limit to the preparation we can do for this post-operative healing phase, in the end we do what we need too do to get the water and protein we need. In my life working on the 'food for life' comes after I've learned how to eat, how much to eat, how fast to eat and what I can tolerate. AND slowly trying new foods every couple of days.

I figure I'll get 'there' eventually and I'd rather practice listening to my body than trying to think for it (beyond the basics) on someone's 'average' timetable.

My first 'real' food was a craving for a scrambled egg and that was at about 7 days. I ate about half of it and it was really good. Right now I'm trying a mini Caesar salad with a tiny bit of last night's chicken, lettuce, a crouton or two, some crumbled bacon and some dressing... Here's keeping the fingers crossed it will be okay.

I think starting on some soft/pureed food before your two week follow up is appropriate. Take is slow and easy. I needed apple sauce to take medication (discovered I love unsweetened apple/peach sauce). I've tried eggs and they are good - in a variety of ways but straight up hard boiled was a bit too dry for my taste. I've had tuna mixed with mayo and herbs. I've had some pate but find it generally too fatty to feel good for more than a taste or two.

I was really surprised to find how much I enjoyed a low-fat cream of mushroom soup (concentrate) mixed with skim milk (with extra skim milk powder) and a can of well rinsed white beans (I think I used kidney) - put it all into the blender to make it smooth, then heat it up. I only ate about 2-3 oz at a time but it was really good.

I digress... Back tracking is inevitable. You will eat something you're not ready to eat, you will eat too much and feel uncomfortable. 'back tracking' is taking a breath and backing up to the limits of what worked the day before and then next day try something new again. IF you irritate your staple line you need to give it a rest for a bit to recover (NO Peanut Butter it is an irritant). Learning curve... children fall down as they learn to walk and yet they get back up and try again until they figure it out.

My plan required full liquids for 2 weeks, purees for 2 weeks, soft foods for 2 weeks, and then forever diet.

For me, this worked out well. I don't think I would have been ready for soft foods at 7-10 days post-op but, who knows, I might have been.

I've been cruising recipes since about month 2. I am collecting them for when I hit maintenance, and know I will be upping my calories. I have a Pinterest page with about 800 low-carb and keto recipe pins so far lol. I try really hard to check the ingredients and macros on each recipe (sometimes I don't have time so it's not 100%) to ensure they truly are low-carb/keto. I need to separate them out but right now they're all under low carb. I enjoy searching and adding the recipes, as I was always a big cookbook collector/cooking person.

I find looking ahead to the challenge of cooking low carb and making new/converting recipes something to look forward to. A way to get my love for cooking satisfied while still maintaining my new way of eating/lifestyle.

20 more pounds to my initial goal, and I'm going to start giving some of them a try!

Woo hoo congrats on your weight loss success!

That makes so much sense. You should write/ compile a cookbook for weight loss maintenance - I'll be your first customer! Please share the best ones you find here! We should start a recipe thread

There is a recipe forum on OH, it just doesn't get much activity.