Feeding Family

Looking for ideas, tips and how you all have done feeding your family while doing this. I'm scheduled Jan. 19th and worried about having to cook and/or smell food when I can't eat it. Any help out there?

Planahead, have lots of freezer meals ready to go.

Get some soups and chili in the freezer, you will be able to have strained soups very early out and can eat with them.

Otherwise, it might help to have YOUR 'meal' (shake, soup, Popsicle, jello, whatever you are allowed) just before you feed the family .... And leave the room while they eat if you need to.

I don't know how old your family members are ... If old enoughg, make them fix thrie own food and clean up after themselves while you recuperate.

Best advice I've gotten and I LOVE soup of any kind!! It is just my husband and me and he is very supportive and does know how to cook - I taught him over the last 47 years!! I just didn't want to completely abandon him ;) I guess we all get a little nervous about how it is going to work after surgery. Haven't gone to class yet. I'm sure that will help. Thanks for your help!

It is just me and my husband .... He took care of himself until I was on solid foods.

He ate sandwiches, he fixed stuff from the freezer, he kept his 'carby' snack food out of my sight.

Several nights, he even ate on his way home from work so I didn't see or smell his food .... Very supportive!

Good husband!! We are blessed!

In the weeks before my liquid diet started, I cooked double batches of a lot of dinner meals and froze the extra in order to stock up the freezer for my family.  And then I told them that, for the four weeks I was on liquids, they were on their own.  So they ate from the freezer, did some basic cooking, and ate out a few times.  It was fairly easy for all of us.  

Once I got to pureed foods, though, I was back to cooking for my family and eating what I cooked.  We all eat the same foods - if it's healthy for me, it's healthy for them too :)

So cook what you can eat!  It won't hurt them to eat low carb and higher protein.  My family fared well.  I had two veggies on the plate with meat and no rice or pasta.  On occasion potatoes, but everything else was indulged when we ate out.

Thanks, Valerie! My husband and I have already started eating in this manner years ago. But he still craves his potatoes, rice and bread so I think it will all be OK. I like the idea of indulging when eating out. Good idea!

The only time i wasn't cooking was the 2 days I was in the hospital.  Once I was home, life and routine went back to normal.  I would sit with them at the table and "eat" (or drink) what I was allowed at the time and moved on.  I didn't want my kids to see the surgery as a reason not to be with them.  We have dinner together every night because that is our main time to spend time together and not have any interruptions.  I'm not going to lie, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but if anything else, it taught me will power and being around food I can't eat, itsn't the biggest worry in the world :)

Thanks for the encouragement!! I start on my 2 week Jan.5, surgery the 19th.