Protein Shake Questions from a Newbie

Hi everyone! I just had my surgery date scheduled for April 29th last week. It's been a loooong 6 months or so of doctors appointments, approvals, testing and procedures. I can't believe it's really happening!

So, when I had my meeting with the nutritionist at the surgeon's office, she went some of the protein shakes with me, but there was so much to cover in so little time I didn't get 100% clarity. I've been doing a lot of research here and Googling but I'm having a hard time making heads or tails of what a "protein shake" means post WLS. 

In addition, I am severely lactose intolerant so I know that a lot of pre-made shakes and shake powders have whey protein in them, which wouldn't work. ALSO (and I hate to be picky) Splenda gives me horrible gastro side effects (no need to go into details here!) so if the shakes or powders are sweetened, it would have to be with aspartame. 

Can anyone help me out? What kind of powders or shakes can I eat? I love unsweetened almond milk so my plan was to use that in place of milk if needed.

I think for the 2-week pre-op diet I need to be drinking like 4 protein shakes a day so any help would be very very very much appreciated!

Thanking you all in advance!

P.S. How to I edit my signature/ticker?

There are vegan proteins out there - Vega is the shake that my vegan bff prefers.  I forget if it's hemp or pea protein, but both exist.  Jay Robb also makes an egg protein that might work for you.  

I use unsweetened almond milk too and love it :)

Thanks Gwen! So I guess my question is, if I have to fit within certain protein/sugar/fat guidelines, what do I DO with the protein powder? Can I add fruit? Bananas for example? 

And if I work, how can I bring them with me? I bought a mini Cuisinart blender - do I need to bring it with me to work every day to make fresh smoothies? That would be super awkward. 

You'd want to ask your nutritionist to be sure, but most of us skip fruit during weight loss.  My plan prohibits liquid calories aside from my protein shake - so it would be cheating to add more calories to my shake in the form of fruit, right?  Fruit is pretty caloric and high in sugars and carbs.  

I stick mine in a blender bottle with almond milk and shake it up.  Then I drink it.  This would be easy enough to do at work.  Mix it all up and stick it in the fridge when you get there.  Or, if you don't have a fridge, get shelf stable almond milk singles and mix the protein shake once you're ready for it.  (Although I do prefer them cold.)  

There's this brand called plantfusion & they claim they have a complete protein made only from plant sources.  It's an alternative if you can't tolerate whey protein or lactose. I tried some back when I was trying alternative protein shakes & I admit I wasn't crazy about it, but I'm not allergic to the whey, or lactose intolerant, so I went back to that., but you might want to check them out.

Try using the search bar on top by the magnifying glass, there might be some old posts from other people who needed an alternative to lactose or whey protein based drinks.

Protein powders with the ingredient "Whey Protein Concentrate" will include lactose; but "Whey Protein Isolate" will not. And you can get unsweetened Whey Protein Isolate powder and doctor it to your liking. 

You can try soy protein powder. I did, when I was having trouble tolerating shakes (it turns out they had Whey Protein Concentrate, not Isolate, and the lactose was giving me problems). They were pretty foul. :( 

I'm not sure of the sweetener, but I am also very sensitive to whey protein, so I use egg white protein mix by Jay Robb.  There aren't as many cool flavors, but I'm happy just mixing it in coffee and there's no horrible aftertaste I encountered with the whey powders

I use unsweetened almond milk for my shakes. I can't stand dairy milk. As for the sweetener, aspartame is not commonly used in protein powders. I have been sampling a lot of protein powders, and the sweeteners used are typically sucralose (which is another name for Splenda) or stevia extract. Some use a combination and/or add different sugars as well. I prefer powders that use stevia extract as the sweetener because it is a natural sweetener and it tastes better. Stevia is very different from Splenda. For what you are looking for, the best one I have seen is SDC Nutrition About Time Whey Protein Isolate. It uses whey protein isolate and stevia, and it is one of the better tasting powders I have tried (but not my favorite). Your other option would be to use an unflavored whey protein isolate, such as Isopure (I have not tried this one yet). Yes, there are other protein powders that don't use whey at all, but they are not absorbed as well and tend to have a lot more carbs. Whey protein isolate has the lactose removed, but if you still can't tolerate it, then other poster can probably help you better than me.

Thank you everyone for all the information! I did some research and it seems like I may be able to tolerate Stevia better than Splenda - I'll be giving that a try soon. 

Does anyone know how to get samples of different protein powders/shakes, so I don't have to buy a ginormous tub that I may or may not like?

I can't link since I'm on my phone, but Nashua Nutrition sells singles.