Little scared

Don't sweat it too much. You will have lots of time to shop after your first couple of weeks. I would buy low fat canned creamed soups, unsweetened apple sauce. cottage cheese and oatmeal. You are not going to eat much for your first couple of weeks. Focus on getting in your protein shakes and water and items I listed above were the foods my centre allowed after that you can shop. I agree with other posters you can look for  a book with some recipes later if you wish.

Best of luck to all of you who have there surgery soon.

PS You might want to pick up a case of Premier protein shakes. Most people seem to like them and it saves having to mix them and they are very portable.  

Thank you guys I think I am just freaking out a bit afraid I will not be prepared haha I am going to try getting premium shakes but i do not have a costco membership and I live in trenton.  Not sure where else exactly you can purchase them lol

I'm going to Costco Tuesday after my appointments in Kingston. I can pick you up a case of premier and some wellesse liquid calcium if you want. Then you can reimburse me...

You'd be welcome to come but I'll bet you have classes. My appointments are at 0900 and 1030 plus bloodwork.

heather you are so so awesome!! Yes please pick those up and I can pay you for them.  I would def come but yes it is the last two weeks of school so lots of tests and in class assignments! Ugh almost done for the year lol  I am also going to I think come to that meeting monday night is it one hour or two??

I'll see you at the meeting. It's usually and hour and a bit, depends on how much extra talking goes on. I walk there, I'm going to be getting off my stretch of nights that morning so I'll probably be a cranky zombie.

I have a pdf version of Weight Loss for Dummies which I can email you if you want to message me your email address.

Also check out the what are you eating thread each day for suggestions. There are also lots of good websites with recipes. I made a bunch of stuff from the World According to Eggface site.

Muriel

Thanks so much but I downloaded the PDF version of that book today:) but thank you I will check out that site for sure 

I find that I have lots of stuff to eat that doesn't require major "cooking" - it's learning the healthy stuff we can have that helps with that.  Some ideas include:

Milk, rotisserie chicken from the supermarket (a lifesaver for me), tuna or salmon from the can mixed with whatever, yogurt, cottage cheese, raw fruit and veggies and salads (which you can't have at first, but you can slowly add into your diet as long as you make protein a priority), cheese, nuts...

Probably most of the stuff I eat these days hasn't been cooked by me, although I can cook - I just don't always feel like it.  And the best part is, even when I don't feel like it, I can still manage.

One thing you might find ****rtainly do) is that even if you weren't much of a fruit-eater before surgery (I hardly ever ate fruit), after surgery and after your initial food stages are done and you're into the "rest of your life" food, fruit becomes a real treat, and one you can have every day.  I find fruit tastes amazing and sweet and excellent now, and I love to eat it.  I would never have believed that before surgery.

Don't worry - you'll find lots of stuff you can eat - you just have to get used to it.  And I found that it was hard for me to predict before surgery what I would like afterwards, so I just took it one day at a time, and it's working out great.

That previous post by me was about the long term, to alleviate your fears about the long term and not liking to cook.

But you were looking for suggestion for the first few weeks, right?  Well, I went shopping before Optifast for my time during Opti AND my first few weeks after surgery.  These are some of the things I picked up well ahead of time:

• Chicken broth in boxes (to have during opti - my centre allowed it)
• Sugar-free jello (to have during opti)
• Sugar-free flavour syrups and flavour extracts (to flavour opti)
• Splenda
• Canned cream soups and tomato soup (to have in the liquid stage)
• Oatmeal (liquid stage - although I found I didn't like it much)
• Unflavoured protein powder to stir into things - I got mine at Bulk Barn - whey isolate
• Cans of tuna and salmon (to have during your puree stage)

These are some of the perishables you can get just before surgery to have on hand afterwards if your centre moves immediately to the full fluid/liquid stage right after getting home, as TWH does:

• Fat-free plain Greek yogurt (mix some of those flavour extracts into it and maybe splenda if you like)
• Skim milk (or 1% if you can't stand skim) for drinking and for preparing your canned cream soups

There are probably other things but I can't think of them right now.  Honestly, during the liquid stage, the problem for me was getting all the food in, not finding enough variety.

Hope this is somewhat helpful!