My next rant - protein shakes?

My powder of choice is Dymatize ISO-100 Gourmet Vanilla. Its not your cheap $20 container of protein powder. I dont know if the "change" from gag to love came from trying a high quality brand or if my body finally decided to accept it. It mixes super smooth and doesnt have the nasty taste/smell of some of the other powders I tried.

When I had the issues with the taste/texture/smells, it was from all foods. I didnt know from day to day what I was going to eat. One day I could tolerate cottage cheese, the next I was gagging on it. Same thing with eggs and greek yogurt. I could tolerate cheese very well and I ate tons of it.

For some strange reason 6 months seemed to be my "turning point". I havent had many issues since then. The first 6 months I tried to get as much protein as I could with food alone but the majority of the time I was below 60 grams.
I was very tired and lethargic most of that time. I honesty think low protein levels affected the way I felt.

I dont see my surgeon regularly, I mainly see his PA/Nut. He has been my biggest supporter and never made me feel bad about not drinking my shakes. He knows I'm now doing the 2 shakes a day and has no issues with it because it works for me.

One thing I look for with the posts about not tolerating protein shakes is  definitely their "other" intake. If someone can tolerate most of the other purees/mushies/soft foods and is just having issues with protein shakes, I might suggest to them not using the shakes but eat more often to get as close to 60 grams of protein as they can.

If they are having issues with everything unfortunately I'm not going to be much help other than try to eat what you can when you can because that was basically what I had to do.

Something I have suggested when posters are complaining about the "sweet" shakes is adding instant coffee to the chocolate or vanilla powders. My 2 a day shakes are the vanilla powder, 3 pumps of Torani SF Chocolate Syrup and 1 heaping tablespoon of instant coffee. To me it has enough "bitter" to offset the super sweet.

Hope this helps some. If you have more questions, just let me know!!

Thanks so very much for explaining and sharing :)

Well Ruggie  I am probably an exception here in that I've been voluntarily drinking protein shakes daily since 1999 when I became fascinated with bodybuilding.  So I was used to them and that was before they were as good as they are now!  I've drank some nasty **** in my day, LOL.  But after surgery they did in fact nauseate me and I had the whole liquid in liquid out thing too.  But ya know what???...I sucked it up, put on my big girl panties (and they were big) and just drank the damn things.  I knew I had an awesome tasting shake because I used that particular one on my pre-op diet and I had heard about the whole tastes changing thing so I was prepared.  It just takes time and most people are giving up too easily.  It took about 4 or 5 months before the diarrhea calmed down, but it did.  And I never changed shake brands until much later out when I was back to normal and wanted to experiment.  And I still drink one every single day of my life...a double scooper!  Now I switch around between brands for variety and I actually like 'em.

I think people think they are gonna taste like real milk shakes and are just flat out shocked and disappointed cause well, they don't, LOL. 

Laura

Ruggie, you take the thoughts right out of my head!!!!!
I do believe that a lot of these people do not get the education from their doctors about this journey. The surgeon is the surgeon and his staff are the educators.
i have listened to so many people from my support group that don't have a clue. They talk about eating pizza, going to McDonalds, but they are only having the kids meals. They don't have a clue about choices.
I did this to get my health & life back, so I have been anal about my foods, logging, protein and analizing what has worked for me. I have had people make fun of me but I am the one the doc is using in a mother's day ad, even his nurse who is a band revision talks about going to the store on Friday, buys cookies & only eats 2 & throws the bag away, Ha Ha, like I believe that. So I basically have been on my own learning, researching and learning from the Vets on OH. I did not like protein shakes either but you force yourself because it is part of life now. I enjoy them now. Will send you the ad via e-mail. I just don't know how to post yet. Thanks for all your rants - Love them.

 During my first year post op I hung out on the Light Weight forum.  Everyone there was really helpful. Everything was confusing for me so I had to ask for help a lot!  My Kaiser plan calls for three meals a day, no snacks, no protein supplements of any kind regardless of whether iwas I week one or year three.  Everything that I read here on OH said that I needed protein.  I decided to bypass my nut and try protein shakes.  I was one that got terrible runs from the protein.  I was so sic****il I discovered Muscle Milk Light. It tasted vile but I could keep it down.

So I didn't have my surgeon or Nut to help me since I was going against medical advice.  I asked tons of questions on OH  LW forum.   I needed those people to take me seriously and help me.  I think it gives me more tolerance now.

Suck it up?  Really?  It's the bootstrap police.  Throwing up on a new sleeve is not the optimum use of said sleeve.  And when it feels bad to drink/eat something like your soda comment above, why just out of surgery would you do that 3 times a day? Can we say different strokes?  What is with the no tolerance thing that has been creeping into these boards on a much more reliable schedule?  We are talking about folks just out of surgery.  You know some mothers having done a ton of research, leave the hospital and are afraid to bathe their babies.  Off with their heads.  Not everyone is perfect from the get go.

Well edelu -  I'm going to be honest and say I'm not sure I'm clearly understanding your total message - also not familiar with 'bootstrap police' and I can't read whether you're being sarcastic or not about the new mothers story - my apologies.  (Does this really happen where new moms don't clean their children?)

But I do want to be clear - this isn't a call for intolerance!  What I am trying to do is look at the driver of these issues.  And I mean "what drives this action we perform" on a conscious basis.  So, for someone who has a 'good' sleeve but can't bring themselves to drink shakes - what is the cause?  Understanding the cause may help someone move through it faster if it's a mental thing.  A physical thing, not so much.  Little guidance or advice will change the difference - although compassion and even commiseration may be comforting.

And I'm not sure if you're advocating tolerance for the 'extreme' issue I posted about someone drinking carbonated drinks for two years despite the moderate pain it always brought them!  This isn't a political situation where I tolerate or not tolerate them - but perhaps here we really are disagreeing with each other.

I just personally find if odd someone would continue to cause reliable pain and in this particular case would have to assume "something mental" is going on to not have generated a learning experience from this in two years.  How many painful events is that in two years?  50?  200?  If a soda a day, even 700.  I guess I would say "different strokes for different folks" if we are told no carbonation but they still drink it and are ok with it, but not if it's actually giving them pain - pain is usually a good teacher, and when it's not moderating us away from behaviors, that often indicates that something even greater is overshadowing it.  

For the protein shakes, regardless of whether people are having physical issues or mental issues, I think the vast majority really want to be "on plan" and "feel successful" and just be healing and happy.

I agree I don't think there is anyone who can even start to approach being a perfect WLS patient - it's just impossible with our history and culture.  I found my Christmas Candy Debacle to be a very humbling and enlightening situation into my own weakness and drivers.  

I also bought/ordered many different protein drinks pre-op......some were better than others.....

but overall crap.........I knew protein shakes were gonna be bad news when they made my Pizza, Cheeseburgers and Chinese Food taste bad....talk about a buzz kill......

They were all better with strawberries, Hershey Chocolate Syrup and a scoop of ice cream....

I actually enjoy them now in maintenance..... I use whole milk and frozen fruit with a packet of Splenda....blended....I may have one in the morning!

I can see how they can be intolerable for some....... but most like myself just need to literally "Suck it Up" it's part of the game.....

frisco



 

 "That is, imagine this scenario.  Morbidly obese person, ready for surgery.  Didn't need to do a pre-op diet, maybe never really "dieted" before as opposed to the yo-yo dieters.  Maybe never really said goodbye to certain kinds of food for a long period before? Has surgery, but has not lived with denying themselves pleasure for food so after surgery it's WHAM!   Cold turkey.  "

Yeah, I think this is off base.

First of all, protein shakes, for the most part, ARE vile. There are very few that I can tolerate myself and it took a lot of effort to find them. I probably never would have found the shake I did find if it wasn't for friends I met on OH and then met in RL who showed me how to make the shake so I could drink it. Most people haven't got that and they just go with the powders they can find at the grocery or maybe GNC or Costco. And if they don't like them (and I sure didn't), then they are screwed.

Second, I think no one* comes to WLS without having dieted, really dieted, at least once in their life but usually more than once. Usually  many, many times.

I think the difference here is that people are physically depleted from surgery, having trouble eating and drinking anything at all, and that makes them grumpy. Plus everything tastes horrible in the early days so that makes the vileness of the shakes more apparent.

Also surgery isn't like a diet. It's not something you can go off of this weekend because Aunt Suzy is getting remarried. It's forever. So that freaks people out. Plus many people have WLS to break that yo-yo dieting cycle so that makes them less willing to do the things they'd do for a diet including eating horribly tasting food.

The other thing is, our surgeon pushes shakes. But a lot of programs discourage them. They are only for the early days. Then you have to get your calories from "real" food. If you are in a program like that, what's your incentive for pushing through the pain (and the SMELL) to drink the shake anyway? It's not going to be there, IMO.

*of course there are always exceptions so in this case "no one" means 99.9% of the people. 

MacMadame -

As always, you bring a fresh perspective and encapsulate something that I have failed to see.  You must be right about people having tried dieting the 'vast vast vast' majority of the time before WLS.  I guess I was thinking about people dieting yet lying to themselves in some fashion.

The point about "forever" is well taken - I found relief in "forever" but I could still understand how others would at first have anxiety.  Excellent point.

I know Kaiser in North Bay hates protein shakes.... do you know why the push to eat form "real" food from these programs?  The Kaiser patients I've spoken to never seen to know. 

I guess I some of this comes down to wiring - while i found protein shakes I didn't like, I never found any "vile" - I guess I should count myself as fortunate.