Really innocent question

You know the funny thing is once you write it out, i totally know it all..makes total sense. I guess i just needed a reminder to refresh my memory. Definitely, for me, i need to stay away from the sugars. i am always tired, and i was prediabetic. The sugars is what got me here in the first place. I will definitely stick to more protein, less sugars/carbs.. Maybe stay away from the mashed potatoes too for that matter.. thanks for the post!

Looks like OH ate the other hlf of my post,lol,but glad you got my meaning. I also am very carb sensitive and have to stay away from them. Another bad thing about them is the more you eat of them the more you want. One is too many and 1000 aren't enough for me.

First, you will likely lose hair.. early hair loss is not linked to protein at all.. it is a stress response of your body. Hair loss that starts later (say 6mo or more out, that could be protein or another deficiency.)

You will also lose some muscle as you lose weight.. less load-bearing stress, less muscle needed, some will be broken down regardless of how much we consume. Our muscles, especially the legs are oversized due to carrying around so much weigh.. Eating enough protein minimizes this, and also provides what your body needs (amino acids etc) to constantly re-build and maintain itself. If you short the protein, it will break down muscle to get what it needs. Our bodies run on protein, it is essential, along with some healthy fats..

Ok, thats what i thought but wasnt for sure on that! Thanks for the response. I requested you as a friend, you seem to know what your talking about. Hope you dont mind..

In addition to the two wonderful answers you already received, you should know that protein is not produced in your body.  That means the only way to get protein is to eat it.  If you don't get enough you will lose muscle mass first, your hair will start to fall out, you will feel weak, and eventually your body will start to "cannibalize" this very important muscles, like your heart.  It is a very bad idea to not get enough protein.  Having said this, early out, (first few weeks), you should concentrate on getting enough liquid in because although protein is important, you have time before you start to deplete it to the point of having problems, but hydration is needed right away.  So the bottom line is get the liquid in first, once you can do that, work on getting your protein in.  I hope this helps and it is not a stupid question.  It is a very important question to have a clear answer to so you can really understand and appreciate why you have to do this.

I just read your response to another poster and I wanted to add that while you can get the vitamins needed from a multivitamin, you can't get the protein in this way.  Since you have very limited space, you need to eat what is essential first.

To Elina7,

Thank you so so much for your reply. I really appreciate all that you have written. I totally understand, and yes, i asked the question because for me i need to know why in order to succeed. I didnt know that our body does not make protein. I learned something so important from you! So thanks again for that! I will be sure to eat my chobani yogurts, and have my protein shakes..

I am a pre op patient and from my understanding protein is needed to mainly prevent the loss of lean body mass (muscle) and also hair.  Since you will be losing weight at a rapid speed with the bariatric surgery and not consuming or maintaining enough protein, it is important that you replenish protein so that you aren't losing muscle mass.  Now if you wondering why muscle mass is important well it's because of two main reason 1) it helps shape the body and 2) it burns more calories over fat.  That's my understanding of it in a nut shell.  Hope that helps.

You've gotten good answers, so I'll just add one thing...it's not that we need abnormally large amounts of protein, really just the amount necessary for health. As you've read, our bodies can't make the amino acids found in protein--we have to get it from food, but in the beginning after surgery you just can't EAT a normal amount. There is no way you can get that much from solid foods, so you have to get it from shakes. And yes, protein does keep you full longer and many doctors (including mine) recommend proteins first, green veggies second, carbs last, for life. Now, 4 years later, I don't drink shakes anymore, but for my health I generally HAVE to start with protein in my meals, or I still won't be able to get enough in for my health. During the losing phase, once I was on solid food, I pretty much just ate protein---lean meats, chicken, some dairy and a little bit of veggies. No fruit, pasta, potatoes, beans, rice, flour products, etc.

Hope that helps!

Lizanne

 I just wanted to say thank you to ati27 for posting this question and another thank you to those *****sponded.  I've learned so much valuable information in the last few minutes, I'm very grateful.

Thanks again.   

The typical 60g of protein per day comes from the basic government RDA guidelines of protein requirements to sustain heathy adult. One rule of thumb has it that we should consume 1g of protein per kg of lean body mass per day, which gets most of us back to that same 60-70 number. Actually, the stress and trauma of the surgery can increase our protein demand by 50% or so, but most surgeons recognize that most patients have a hard enough time getting in the basic 60-70g stated in most programs that they compromise on that; if you could get that 90-100g for a while to help recover from the trauma, that would be ideal, but after a while, much more than that 1g/kg level represents excess calories unless one is actually building muscle mass (which is rare in these programs) rather than just preserving as much as we can while we lose the fat.

Since, as others have noted, that we don't store protein as we do fat and carbs (long term as fat), we need to regularly consume protein to stay healthy, With our limited capacity to consume, protein takes the priority in our diets while most everything else can be put off while we concentrate on our weight loss, drawing from our stores of fat (obviously!,) and accepting the use of supplements over real food sources during this transition phase, ultimately moving back to using primarliy real foods for our nutrients as we reach goals and go into our maintenance phase.