4 Week Post-Op: Eating's a Chore

After some extra hospital time and an unexpected setback, I was so eager and excited to move onto Stage 3/"Mushy Food" phase. It's been a week of eating and now I'm longing for Stage 2 protein shakes again. Yes, eating is a little of an adjustment and my sleeve is doing exactly what it should be - I really don't have an appetite. But I'm also finding the foods that work for me to eat are a chore - I'm bored to death by them (and generally bored with everything cause of the recovery time by now). Looked on the message boards for mushy food recipes, but everything's pretty blah for me right now. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's gone through this. Any tips to beat food blahs?

No tips. I was on full liquids weeks 3 and 4, and even when I started purées I did mostly shakes. It's a short phase, and once you can eat real foods it will be a distant memory. Just try to get to your protein goals and stay hydrated. 

Agree with previous post. I'm 4 weeks out too and took myself back to liquid protein. Mushies were just too hard to eat. I felt terrible after eating. Kind of like lead in my stomach. Turns out it was the right thing to do. I've been encouraged to listen to my body on this forum. When I called the WLS Clinic a couple days ago, I admitted I had gone back to liquid protein. They said that was okay. Actually, my surgeon did an unexpected hiatal repair and sometimes this leads to needing to be on liquids for a longer period of time. (I didn't find that out till I called a couple of days ago). I imagine other physical setbacks may require the same thing. Thanks to this forum, I discovered the wisdom of just taking it easy and slow if necessary. Everyday I try a little something mushy. If It doesn't sit well, I go back to liquid protein. Good luck.

Yeah, eating real food, even mushies in the first month is a chore.  Your tummy is still healing & swollen so even 1 or 2 spoonfuls take work.  My NUT said I was able to add hot sauce or salsa to cottage cheese if I could tolerate the spicy which I did & it helped to not always eat bland food.  As the days & weeks go by, you will be able to add more & more foods.  Luckily, we eat high protein foods than can be full of flavor.  We just gotta experiment.  I know a lot of people raved about the ricotta bake which I never did try but sounds delicious.  Protein shakes might be your staple right now but add a taste of this & that to the mix to shake things up a bit.  Try sipping the broth of some soups if you are getting tired of the sweetness from shakes. 

Tell you what I did for a mushie. I hate bland and being from Texas I spice everything to death.

I bought some canned chicken breast and canned ham. I got some horseradish sandwich sauce instead of mayo and jalapeno mustard. I also used a little sweet relish. I added some ground black pepper to taste. 3 oz of the ingredients mixed up was around 140 calories, 8 gm carbs, 1 gm fiber, 18 gm protein, 3 gm fat, 4 gm sugar.

I mixed it all together and had some spicy chicken salad one day and spicy ham salad the next. Both meats are very tender and can be picked apart to very small pieces and since everything is so wet it goes down pretty well. It chewed up to almost nothing.

It was a good food to learn about my restriction and how to weigh foods on the digital scale.

Uncle bens stuff and such stuffing. So mushy not much chewing required and my god it was good, I could only eat 1/4 cup but it was fantastic. It's not a food to be eating all the time but its a nice change that's fulfilling during this stage. 

Make some taco soup and blend to refried bean consistency. Top with cheese, melt, add sour cream. Yummy!!