Snack Experiment in Progress

After Dr.C support meeting I'm trying a few new things.......

One of the things we got from Dr.C  was that foods that are harder to digest stay in your sleeve longer. He mentioned one of the hardest things to digest is cucumber skin. Another is Broccoli stalk.

Also Amy the nutritionist has me adding more veggies to my diet for it's nutrients and fiber.

Since it's hard to get veggies in with protein, I've been doing veggie only snacks. So today I took it a step further.

Made up some broccoli for a snack.......normally I cut the stalk back pretty far. This time I cut minimal stalk away.

Just got it wet and microwaved it.....to undercooked/crunchy (Dr.C says raw is best) Salted and peppered it..... Made a Mayo/Red Wine Vinegar dip.

Another thing I did was "Not" chew it down as far as normal just to make it a little harder to digest.

Pretty tasty and it seems to stay in my sleeve pretty long.

*Experiment still in progress........

frisco

Hey great idea Frisco, I too am trying some new veggie snacks since the meeting.  I decided to follow his advice and eat three protein meals, one all veggie meal and one made up of nuts and berries.  Today I cooked down a whole bunch of spinach with olive oil, garlic and lemon juice.  I also charred two peppers, one yellow and one red one with olive oi and balsamic vinegar.  I ate these two foods as a meal.  I was surprised that I did not miss the meat.  Later, I toasted a handful of walnuts and mixed it with cinnamon and a bit of splenda.  I ate them while they were still hot from the toaster over.  Quite good.  I also have a new favorite ingredient, peanut flour from TJ's.  I am making all kinds of sauces for the veggies with the peanut flour, a bit Thai style.   I am also using with shrimp and those 0 calorie noodles and veggies.  Very filling and the stats are out of this world.  Something like 1/4 cup of flour has 110 cals. and 16 g. of protein.  Of course I can't eat that much, but I like to cook with it.

 

I like how it seems we can change up our diet/menu/eating. It seems these new additions make eating seem more versatile.

Peanut flour??????

I'm gonna have to try that.....

frisco

Hey Elina
Tell us more about what you do with that peanut flour. I bought a bag when I was last in the big city and also have several jars of PB2. Thought i would just make my own protein bars or something but havent done it. now i don't know what to do with the stuff. I know some people put it in protein drinks but for some reason that is not appealing.

Still contemplating the vegetables. Raw veggies sometimes disagreed with me even pre op and i have been reluctant to eat much in the way of raw stuff. I do try to have some fruit or veg with meals even if its two green beans or two asparagus spears or one satsuma orange. adore apples but can't eat a whole one at once. love em smeared with peanut butter. gotta admit if you are what you eat then i am an almond as i toast em myself often. guess i will try a carrot or two and see what happens. what the heck.   diane

If you go on the PB2 site you can get many great recipes.  I love their pancake recipe and I use apple butter on top of them.  It is really low call high protein. You can also make cookies and cake with it.  I use it to make peanut butter sauce for dipping. Sometimes, I'll make the cookies with it and add more of the peanut butter from the flour and sugar free jam on top.  Yum. This last support group really made me realize that I was not eating enough veggies.  I really thought I was doing great with just focusing on protein, well apparently that is great in the losing phase, but now he really does want us to eat veggies too.  So at least one full meal is now veggies.  The good news, is I can add fat to make them taste great.  So hummus or ranch for raw, peanut butter or some other sauce for stir fry and so on.  I make them taste great. I didn't realize how much I missed them until now. 

I was going to post what I eat for snacks but I figured I it would freak people out too much. LOL

I do have a dairy/veggie snack every afternoon though.

 
I'm up for a little freak out !!!!!!

Snacks?

frisco

This is what I take to work every day:

Nuts (1 serving)
1 fruit (banana or grapes usually)
1 raw veggie (baby carrots or celery) sometimes with hummus, but usually not
Lunch (usually lean meat and mixed veggies)
1 dairy (non-fat Greek yogurt or cottage cheese, sometimes the kind that comes with fruit to mix in, but usually plain)
1 additional protein based food (usually 2-3 reduced fat cheese sticks or 2 hard-boiled eggs)
1 protein bar

I usually have a protein shake for breakfast and fini**** on the way into work. Then, a mid-morning snack, lunch, followed by two afternoon snacks made up of some combination of this food.

The second afternoon snack, I try to make more carby than protein because I'm usually working out within 1-2 hours of taking it. So that may be when I have my fruit, if I haven't mixed it into the yogurt. Or maybe that's when I'll have the carrots.

Even if I don't work out, dinner at our house tends to be late so I still need the 2nd afternoon snack. Plus I can't eat a lot of lean protein at once so sometimes my lunch is under 200 calories and I'm hungry again an hour later!

Then, after the workout, I have a recovery snack that's more protein-based (Fluid Recovery drink, a protein bar, cheese sticks, more nuts), then dinner, then 1-2 evening snacks which could be more nuts, 1-2 packets of protein hot chocolate, another protein bar and/or something else if I've got protein to make up and/or calories to make up.

Sometimes I consume calories during the workout as well. That's usually a sports drink, gels or Powerbar Energy Bites (which are kind of like energy bars only shapped into little bars).

I think I may stop with the baby carrots though. We had leftover regular carrots from Christmas dinner and I brought them in instead for a few days and they were fine. (I used to find them too hard to eat.) This way I'll get more fiber and there will be less food wastage (they throw out a LOT of the carrot when they make it into baby carrots).

I'm also trying not to eat more than 1-2 servings of nuts a day. They don't have enough protein and they have a ton of fat. Mostly I grab for them because they are EASY. No heating up, no mixing, just stick my hand in the bag and go.

I also sometimes snack on beef jerky (the kind from Trader Joe's with no nitrates) but that's usually when I am out and about and get caught without food.

 
Hey MacMadame.....

Thanks for posting this.....freaked out...nah....maybe a little scary! (for us non athletes)

Your diet or food intake....what ever we want to call it.

Is what your doing to feed your body for your athletic activities as a Tri Athlete. Figuring out your food and nutritional "balance" sounds way harder than most of us just trying to maintain a weight that just involves eating and a minor physical activity.

frisco

God Marie, your lucky you actually have the appetite to eat all that!  Just looking at your list turns my stomach.  I do need to eat more but just can't.  Maybe your little mini meals are the answer, I don't know.  Heck, I still can't eat a whole banana and can barely do the 5.3oz Oikos Greek yogurt.  And after my workouts, my appetite is just gone.  It sucks majorly.  Most of my clothes are just falling off me...not too cute at all.  Sounds like you've got it goin' on girl...kudos!

Laura