New to this. Post Op Questions re: Food

I have never posted on forums before. But hopefully some of you seasoned veterans can help me out.

I'm 10 days post op with my VSG. Had my surgery in Mexico by Dr. Huacuz. Which was great.

I'm home, I'm feeling good. I'm loosing lbs but I'm dealing with mad cravings. Everything within me wants something savory. And since I'm on a liquid diet, it seems that protein shakes, gaterade, jello, popcicles and everything I CAN eat is sweeter than sweet and needless to say I'm getting extremely tired of chicken and beef broth. I'm already "cheating" by moving into full liquids early so I can enjoy some cream of mushroom soup for a change.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I am also craving something to simply chew on. I feel great, I feel like I can take on full solids, but I know as soon as I do, I'd regret it...

Also, curious on the puree/soft food phase of the diet... Anyone have any good food ideas for that? I'm not going to resort to eating baby food, can't bring myself to it...

Get a mesh strainer and strain all the bits out of your favorite canned soups. I drank a lot of strained chicken noodle soup with protein powder in it at this stage.

Hi Mersh,

You and I had VSG on the same day - 10 Jul!

If you're still on clear liquids, chicken soup with unflavored protein powder is great. I also added nutritional yeast to my broth. Just don't add too many spoonfuls or it won't dissolve. I also had broth and added miso or seasonings to make it taste better.

Everyone's doctor orders are different, so I'm on puree as of today. Definitely follow your doctor's orders as there's a reason for them.

Can you do protein shakes? Once you're on full liquids, it's easier to have alternative flavors. Straining soups are another thing I did like the previous post mentioned.

For the puree stage, today I bought some Sunkist flavored packets of salmon and Madras Lentils. I had 2 oz each today and it was great! In the puree stage, my puree instructions also allow scrambled eggs, soft tofu, oatmeal, mashed potatoes, meat salads/spreads like taking the salmon and blending in some scrambled eggs and a dab of mayo, etc.

Hope this helps! Keep in touch and we can go through this together!

I feel your pain, a few more days till your on puree and that stage is better though for me it opens the door to me just wanting to throw the food in my mouth instead of blending it lol which is very very bad haha but yes you will soon be there, you got this :)

I strained soups a lot - my favorite at the time was Panera's french onion soup. I've seen some people have luck and wonton and egg drop soup from their favorite Chinese restaurant. Mesh strainer - drink the broth, discard the rest.

For chewing - popsicles or ice?

For purees - I cooked "saucy" foods for my family and pureed them to eat for myself. Meatballs with spaghetti sauce, chili, curries of all kinds, etc. Lots of tasty foods :) I'd puree mostly meat with a tablespoon or two of the sauce. I tended to puree a cup or so of food and then work through it over a few days.

my favorite savory "full liquid" was bloody mary mix. lots of flavor and fills you up as well. just leave out the vodka!!!! LOL

About day 4 after surgery my system revolted to anything sweet. Luckily my program had me on Full liquids as soon as I could. So I made a "TziTziki" drink. Nonfat yogurt, cucumber (peeled and seeded), sweet onion. I blend the heck out of it until it is watery. Normal TziTziki the cucumber and onions are just chopped and then drained so that it is thick, but I want mine thin to stay on the program better.

I also added silky tofu. I use 3 to 4 oz of silky tofu warmed in broth.

I also am allowed V8 juice, and cream of rice or cream of wheat. While I MAY have these I make sure that I only have one of them in a day, as they are high in carbs.

At this point I can tolerate chicken and unflavored protein shakes, but NONE of the sweet flavors.

That and cream soups are the limit of what I am allowing myself to eat. It does mean that eating out is nearly impossible. (While my mom was here my husband wanted to take her to one of our favorite oyster bars. Luckily they had a cream of mushroom soup that I ate 1/2 of and took the other half home for the next day.)

But since my system is repulsed by anything sweet, I can't just pick up a quick yogurt. :-P

Best of luck!

Egg drop soup. Wonton soup minus the wontons.

For purees, I lived on scrambled egg (one was plenty with a tiny bit of shredded taco cheese), the ricotta bake, tuna salad and chicken salad. One day, I got adventurous and had some canned deviled ham and good lord it was good. I didn't use any baby food.

Also, I had the meatloaf I made for my family but smashed it up even more than it already was.

I drank a lot of miso soup without the tofu or seaweed bits in it, pho soup broth (I live in an area with a lot of Asian restaurants), bone broth, strained soup. All that artificially sweet stuff tastes terrible after a few days!

I didn't have a puree phase, just liquid to soft foods. I ate a lot of tuna packets (which I now despise, but at the time tasted awesome), cottage cheese with black pepper, fish...