Green smoothies yay or nay for you?

What exactly is moderation?  I'm not being a smart alec, I honestly don't know.  It seems subjective.  Is there a chart or something that shows what moderation means for WLS?  I think that would help a lot.

What exactly is moderation?  I'm not being a smart alec, I honestly don't know.  It seems subjective.  Is there a chart or something that shows what moderation means for WLS?  I think that would help a lot.

For me it was common sense.  I didn'tcount anything, calories, carbs etc.. But I knew the nutritional benefits/problenx of foods well and every three weeks or so I wouid check calories for a day to make sure I really was still eating around 1200 .

moderation, to me, meant knowing that an apple was crunchy so filled me, was fresh fruit so on balance "good" and one was fine.  A banana was still ok but only a small one. A peach was fine, but only one. And eating all three in one day would mean I was not able to eat as much protein. So all three wouid not be moderation! So getting 250/300 calorues a day from fruit was not moderation. 

Yesterday, I hada delicious smoothie. Avocado, coconu****er, cucumber,, fresh pineapple and mint. Gorgeous. And fine now I am no longer trying to lose weight. At probably 250 calories, it would have taken the allowance of a full meal while losing and as liquid calories would not have given me lasting satiety. But because I worked on the "in moderation" principle, I might have had one very occasionally; nothing was totally excluded for me. Maybe once every few months! As a treat. 

My plan really stresses no liquid calories aside from a high protein, low carb shake a day. So these wouldn't work for me. I do eat veggies and fruits, but not in a form that won't give me satiety. 

Green smoothies - absolutely. But without fruits. Way too many simple sugars. 

Adding protein powder to make them WLS , weight loss freindly - absolutely.

I made one once with kale, cucumber and cilantro.  I don't recommend it for taste but other people seemed to like it. 

Drinking calories is a bad idea. Anything will work in the short term, and everything will work the first few months after surgery. But drinking a good portion of a low number of daily calories will make you miserable, and miserable people end up eating more.

Protein is important. But not just any protein. The thing that makes VSG and RNY work is DENSE protein. Dense protein will leave you satisfied and keep you from eating more. Liquid protein will not. And carbs, especially sugars, leave you wanting more. In the long run, people who want more, eat more. You can resist for a while, but in the end everyone gives in.

Okay, here's the thing.  As we lose weight, we do so in a combination of high protein and low carb.  There is no way around that to be successful.  In fact, many of us are here today because of the low-fat/high-carb craze drilled into our heads in the 90's that many are still struggling to get against that grain, not to mention struggling to kick their carb addiction as a result.  It has now been established that we don't get fat from eating fat.

Now it's established that all things growing out of the ground contain carbs - some are complex and some are simple.  Vegetables (esp green) are complex.  They take the body longer and more energy to digest.  Fruits are simple, asorbing very quickly starting at the tongue.  A banana, orange or berries may carry nutrients - but on the carb calculator scale, they might as well be a jelly donut, and the body treats them as such. 

Thats why these smoothies aren't a good idea for someone trying to lose weight.  They may be a nice treat for someone in maintenance.  Just in reading your posts, I see that you're inspired for a healthier life and struggling to find the right path to get there.  There are many options for high protein/low-carb eating.  Instead of trying to fight it, instead try to embrace it, knowing that your veggies intake will be small at first, but you will make that up with vitamins until you have the capacity to consume more natural foods.  Once you lose your weight, you can enjoy more fruits liberally or as your weight allows. 

There's a sugar lobby. We need a fat lobby, with a good PR firm.

Maybe because of the name, as well as bad information repeated ad nauseum, fat does not make you fat, as you said. Nor does it cause high cholesterol, or other things. The body processes fat very well.

It's refined carbs especially that cause weight gain, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and finally diabetes. No one got obese on protein and dietary fat.

If dietary fat had a better name, people wouldn't fear it. If it had a cool name, like candy, everyone would love it. And let's face it, fat is just as tasty as candy.

I follow almost everything my surgeon tells me, but I won't follow a low-fat diet.  

Ditto :P  It's the one point my surgeon's team and I disagree on!