Post-Op Update & Questions about "Full Fluids"

So happy to hear the surgery went well! I had the gas in my left shoulder and neck when I had my band surgery ages ago. It is good it is getting better and better each day.

thanks! how are you doing with optifast??

These are the sugar-free flavourings I got on IHERB - organic and natural.

Congratulations Jules! I am sorry to hear you have not been feeling well, but you will do better as each day goes by.

I, like you, thought when I got home, "Now what?..."I had bought premier protein drink, cream of mushroom soups, all kinds of packaged broths, jello, puddings. Well...turns out that just thinking about all of that stuff makes me feel sick. I would never have thought so pre-surgery, but what a difference a day makes! (post surgery). What I can tolerate has completely changed.

So, over the past week, things have evolved for me. I started making my own broths. I went to an organic farm in Dundas and purchased beef and chicken bones to make the broth. I've already made the chicken broth and it is easy and very good. I just added the bones, lots of different herbs from my garden, a few carrots, some celery sticks and an onion and garlic. I boiled the whole thing then simmered all day. It has 12 grams of protein per cup. I am going to make the beef broth tomorrow. Also, I picked up a jar of "Soup's On" soup at Fortino's - the lentil/pea soup. This is basically a homemade soup with all natural ingredients. I will make my own once I'm finished the jar. Although it's made with legumes and technically we can't have those for a few more weeks, I just add a bit of water so it's not so thick. It's really good too and it's 20 grams of protein per cup. I also made some broccoli soup today (broccoli, chicken stock, water then blended very fine). It was delicious and satisfying. I figure there was about 4 grams of protein per cup of that. I have purchased an unflavoured protein (got it at the health food section of Fortino's) and have been added it to skim milk and some almond milk that I made as well. So, with all of this I have been getting between 65-90 grams of protein a day eating "real" foods (except for the protein powder). I just can't seem to tolerate anything sweet, artificial or processed. I never really planned on eating a diet like this so early on, but I am loving it and I feel fantastic! I had my one week appointment with the nurse and she was really pleased with what I was eating too. As of today I am down 19 pounds since two weeks ago today when I had my last bit of food before starting to fast on clear liquids 2 days before surgery (as you may recall I didn't do opti).

Anyways, I hope some of this is helpful to you. PM me if you want to talk.

Thanks,

Barb

Also, forgot to mention that "Happy Planet" makes some natural ingredient soups as well and they are very good - Squash as well as Tom Yum Soup (you'd have to strain this one) - but if you like Tom Yum this one is excellent. Don't know if you have a juicer but I have been juicing beets and carrots too for liquids - lots of phytonutrients which will help heal your body.

Barb

Thanks for sharing your experience Barb. What you describe... looking at all the food you bought to prepare and feeling sick just looking at it..... thats what is happening to me too. I have been trying to open the cans of soup and try them anyway, but ending up dumping them out. I am ok with a glass of milk and with greek yogurt. I bought New Zealand whey - unflavoured as suggested from another poster but the smell bothered me so much I can't use it, so will give that away to someone who can use it, since I spent $35 on 15 servings I don't want to just toss it out.

I looked up Happy Planet - not getting a result that makes sense. Can you give me more info about the place so I can look it up? Another awesome place for soup is the Burnt Tongue Restaurant on Cannon/James in Hamilton, and they post their soups of the day on Twitter, if you feel like looking to see if t here is something there you would want to go get. I plan to look and see if there is anything I can pick up today. They have won awards the place is amazing. That was the only place I could think of to get soup from. I live right by a fotinos so can check out the soup they offer too. Thanks again for these tips.

How do you estimate the protein amount in your bone broth? I am thinking I will do a chicken soup for my family and skim off a bunch of the broth...

I feel super weak though. All this planning etc to make foods is good in theory, I just wish I had someone else making it for me lol!!!!

Julie

Congrats on your VSG; so glad you're home now. I'm sorry about the pain; I had it too. Every day will get a bit better.

I just looked for cans that said "cream of" on the label, then read the stats and only picked the ones that were low carb. I couldn't stand the cream of mushroom or the butternut squash soups. I liked cream of chicken, and a cheese soup (it was actually good).

I was in no condition to cook that early on, so didn't make any myself.

At that stage, I was living on 2 premier protein a day, water, and sometimes a medicine cup of broth.

Good luck!

Glad you are home, and feeling better. I have been told pain in the shoulder/back after surgery is usually gas pains. I had bad gas pains too, but never had any discomfort in my back or shoulder area.

Haven't read all the responses to your post, but I can tell you tomato soup is a full fluid, not sure about squash. Any cream soup strained you can use.

I went through Guelph and had to do full fluids for three weeks. I'm a very picky eater. I stuck to milk, (would have liked to do yogurt..but still hated it after post op lol) strained cream soups for the most part. Also I could have pudding, and anything that was on my clear fluid diet, like jello, apple sauce. Even though Guelph doesn't seem to like protein shakes, I lived off Costco Premier Protein shakes as well after the second week, as I was barely getting any protein in.

And welcome another VSGer! Man it seems like a lot of people are getting more VSG surgeries lately. When I started on this website, only knew one or two people that had had it (not that there couldn't have been more, just whom I was aware of) on this forum.

Having the VSG was the right thing for me. Feel free to PM or ask me any questions if you like.

Good luck to you in your recovery and journey!