Cooking post-op?

I have a question for the mamas (and the papas) of this group.  How do you cook for a family post op?

In the past when I've tried to eat low carb, I had a hard time eating my food and then managing a meal for my family. That was one thing that tripped me up.

My youngest is 14 so it's not like they can't cook for themselves some but I will still want to do family dinners.

Btw, my insurance approved my surgery in just one week. I'm a teacher and I'm waiting until summer. My surgery date is 6/7. 

Meat and vegetable, meat and vegetable, meat and vegetable...

I cook for me and my honey.  Nobody needs a lot of carbs. Good quality food... It does not have to be expensive.  Over the weekend I baked pork loin, made pork chops, cooked meat spaghetti sauce (that I have with zoodles, my BF with real noodles), made salad, cooked green beans and steamed veggies. Green beans, and sauted spinach. Yum. We have meals for a few days. On top of that I cooked eggs for HB eggs. BF has cheese sticks as snacks. I made guacamole - I have that with pork rinds, and BF with real chips. 

Add a serving of rice, mash taters, muffins - all for BF. 

I cook meat+veggie dish then add some more veggies and starches for honey.  

I make a lot of food - then portion and freeze or keep in fridge for up to a week. 

I eat berries, BF has banana, melons, apples.  

When I don't feel like cooking...we go out or he gets pizza or Chinese... 5 Guys have great burgers... Now I can eat bunless burger... Honey gets the fries.. 

This weekend I plan to make ribs.. Everyone likes ribs.. 

I make food I don't eat..often don't even taste... Its about choices... 

I love getting the 5 Guys burger bunless...mmmmmm. Haven't done that in awhile.

I am one year post-op, and have no problems with dinners that everyone likes (I have two small children and a husband). If we so spaghetti, I make sure to put aside sauce and eat it on bean sprouts or zucchini noodles. Taco night I forgo the shell and make a taco salad. We do different chicken recipes in the crock pot, for example a salsa chicken or Italian chicken. I also have found a lot of previous weigh****cher recipes to be helpful in finding variations of different recipes, like sloppy joe (without the bun) or meatloaf. We almost always cook with ground turkey to make it a little healthier, and no one seems to mind. I try to keep some of the precooked grilled chicken strips on hand for nights when they want something like pizza or Mac n cheese, and throw it on a salad or mix with salsa and shredded cheese. If you shop at Costco, they have Kirkland brand ones that are delicious and a better deal than the Tyson grillers. 

Congratulations on getting a surgery date, it'll be here before you know it! Good luck!!

Thanks. That's exactly what I needed. I'm willing to eat nothing but meat and vegetables but the reality is that my kids won't. They will still want mac and cheese and pizza.

Do you find it hard to resist their foods? Right now my appetite is so huge and I too crave Mac and cheese and pizza. I'm hoping that will be easier after the surgery.

The surgery will be an incredible tool for helping with the cravings. Sometimes it is hard, especially the further out you get. However, I have learned to have a bite of Mac n cheese and be ok with that. Or make a Mac n cheese with cauliflower, so good and everyone loves it at my house. If I really want pizza, we will order a thin crust and I will have a slice.

It really becomes a "new normal" fairly quickly. We have such a great resource in the Internet and the endless recipes that are available.

Totally off topic, sorry! I'm not there yet, but your mac and cheese with cauliflower, do add cauliflower to it or completely replace the noodles with cauliflower? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm new at all of this and gearing up recipe ideas for later. It's funny, I lost my sweet tooth (and I had a huge one) and wanting to eat anything has been a challenge...but pasta, that's what I have been craving.

No noodles, just cauliflower. So good, everyone loves it! If you google Cauliflower Mac & Cheese you'll get a bunch of recipe choices. I also really like spaghetti squash as a noodle alternative. If I'm craving something a quick google of the name of the food with low carb added on the end will usually yield something that sounds like a reasonable alternative. 

I do the same for my DH- if he wants mac, mashed potato I make i for him.

There has only been one situation which was a struggle for me- I made homemade banana bread.

I had a 1/2 inch cube of it and that was it.

Whatever he didn't eat I put in the freezer or gave away.