STRUGGLING TO GET ENOUGH CALORIES

juliebccs

This was something I dreamed of before my sleeve. Imagine not wanting to eat enough food? How amazing.
However I am 3 weeks out, on soft foods. Following my dieticians instructions I am not getting enough calories. I am lucky to get 300 per day. I am eating low calorie foods such as minestrone soup, refried beans, soft fruit. I am eating 6 times a day but only managing 1/5-1/4 cup of food at any meal. This means every meal is about 40-60 calorie. I have actually chosen to eat an ice crem tonight, but it is also only 40 calories.
Any advice would be great because I am sure 300 is far too low even at this stage. I don't want to switch my metabolism off.

Julie

garber6th

Are you reaching your protein goals? Are you drinking enough fluids? This early on I would think that this would be more important to focus on than calories. Follow the food/eating plan your surgeon gave you. If ice cream isn't on it, don't eat it! Three weeks out is not a good time to start improvising on your own. If you have any concerns about your calorie intake, by all means contact your surgeon's office and get advice from them.

FYI - Most of us were not able to consume a lot of calories in the beginning, but that will definitely change for you as you heal and as you transition into solid foods. Focus on your protein and water!

pawoodhull

At 3 weeks out you should be concentrating on getting enough protein and the food you are describing isn't really high in protein. As for ice cream, my reaction is NO! Those are really empty calories and you don't want to start bad habits like that again. Your surgeon's staff should have given you some guidlines on what to be eating. Follow those. Concentrate on things like eggs, soft meats or ground meats and getting your water in. Refried beans is good, use plain greek yogurt if you want something that tastes like sour cream but is healthier for you. I also made a lasagna (mini, just for me) with lean ground turkey, cottage cheese, mozzerella cheese and a little spagetti sauce (no noodles). Protein shakes are always a good idea made with skim milk.

garbeth6th is right. Don't start improvising. It's way too easy to go back to bad eating habits and regain even with a sleeve.

Mangopickle

No matter if you are at liquid or soft or regular diet the 70% protein rule still applies. puree some cooked ground meat into that soup, or spike it with protein powder. I used Vienna sausage for a week to get onto ground wet meat I had to chew the crap out of it but it would go down. 11g of protein per can. I also ate lots of soft buttered scrambled eggs. I am not saying that you are doing this on purpose but I have seen several people focus on calories and not protein and slip in high cal carbs. This is a huge mistake as those are taking up the space needed to eat your protein. If you can only get in 1/4 cup of food 6x a day then 4 of those 1/4 cups need to be pure protein. In my surgeons plan he does not want you to eat bread, potato, pasta or rice until you reach maintenance. he wants your carbs linked wth protein. like peas,beans, nut butters and spinach and corn on the cob. I know it is hard. it was 3 months before I could just eat a bite of meat that was not really ground up and wet. put cream in your coffee or soups but ice cream is really a bad idea. way too much sugar. don't worry about the calories, I have 500 calorie days and I am 4 months out. when people say that is too little I remind them of the 40lbs= 152,000 calories that currently resides on my enormous butt that my body can access any time it wants.

MsNParker

I am 3 1/2 months out and still only manage 500-600 calories a day. Just follow your protein requirements and don't stress about calorie count. It's a constant learning curve but you are doing just fine!

DJRonnieLINY

Protein + fluid = success. I suggest you take a look at a protein shake or clear drink. Most basic protein shakes can be sipped and will dliver between 25-50 grams of protein in 8 - 12 oz of fluid and contain 125-220 calories depending on whether you mix with water or milk.

Protein drinks were are staple of my diet for the first 4 months.

bikrchk

What others have said... Protein First! We all struggle to get enough high quality food in us in the beginning. If you want to boost your calories a bit you can throw some avocado in your protein shake or eat some guacamole on a dab of fat free re-fried beans as soon as you're on purees. You won't taste the avocado in the shake and it will make it rich and creamy adding good fat and a few calories for you. I could eat guacamole on everything! Adding some peanut butter can boost calories and give you a bit more protein as well.

aylajane

Try a 5 oz light greek yogurt (dannon for example), mixed with 1/2 scoop protein powder and add 1/4 cup body360 bodycrunch whey protein crunchies (basically protein granola). The volume stays about 5oz, but it comes to 36g protein and around 200 calories (and maybe 1-2g fat and about 10-12 carbs depending on brands of yogurt and protein powder). May take you 2 sittings to eat it all at this stage, but later it will be easier to eat all of it.

For example, I will put cherry protein powder into black cherry light greek yogurt with the crunchies (they are basically flavorless, but also come in cocoa flavored). Or banana cream protein powder into banana greek yogurt, etc.

ANother easy option - put chocolate or other flavored protein powder into hot tea or coffee and add sugar free davinci or toriani syrup to sweeten more if needed. My favorites are 8oz vanilla caramel tea bag with 1/2-1 scoop toffee caramel fudge protein powder and caramel syrup, or white chocolate protein powder and white chocolate syrup. You get a whole scoop of protein powder in what tastes like a small hot chocolate.

The trick is to find things that are low in volume and up the protein/calories in them without upping the overall volume. IT can be done, and will get easier the farther out you go.

Ksh1055

Count me in on PROTEIN FIRST. This has been drummed into my head from day one. If it doesn't contain PROTEIN, don't eat it, or depending on the food stage ALWAYS eat PROTEIN FIRST. I'm 6 weeks out and am recovering very well, but given that I have to take steroids for a health condition, have to add on a week or 10 days to each food stage. I still have one HIGH PROTEIN SHAKE each day - usually mid-morning or early afternoon. Greek yogurt is also a great source of protein - I usually freeze mine and love it this way.

Two weeks ago my Dr. increased my caloric intake to 800, stating that anything less would put my body into starvation mode and I needed to keep my metabolism going throughout the day in order to be successful at losing weight. She also stressed WATER, WATER, WATER.

I agree with most of the comments above, as it seems we were all told the exact same thing and there are several comments from people who have lost a great deal of weight. I take their comments to heart as they've already been through this stage.

I look at my calorie intake for the day, but mainly focus on getting in my Protein and water in and keep my sugar down and if these are on par with my goals the calories basically take care of themselves. Sometimes if a food is in question, I put it into MFP to see the breakdown and if it's too high in sugar I don't eat it and substitute something else.

juliebccs

Thanks everyone. My proteins and water are definitely lacking. However today I managed to sip for a half hour on a 200ml protein shake,,a whole 125 calories. But I am finding increasing my water, which I am trying hard to do, leaves little desire to eat. I am now up to about 1 litre of water per day and trying to increase. Today I had a litre over the day and struggled to eat. I managed a small amount of soup tonight and about 30gm of ground meat later in the evening. So all day,,,,again maybe 300 calories only. I am not worried about the weight, it is coming off plenty fast enough. I am just worried about stressing my body further. Ok I need more protein and more water. I have little interest in food and forget to eat in general so I need to really plan out the days ahead I think. I am on normal foods from 4 weeks if I am coping fine. We will have to see.

spfldpam

For first 2-3 months after my Sleeve WLS I was only getting 300 cals in a day but focused on protein only. I finally was able to get 500 cals in and then worked up to 750 by 8 months and was told to be at 1000 cals by 6 months due to workouts I was doing. For the first year after sleeve surgery, nothing tasted good and I only ate cause I was told I needed to. That ended and now everything taste good again, unfortuantly!
Good luck ! Focus on protein mainly if you can't get alot of cals in. Even if you gotta have three protein shakes or more a day do that. You need to have at least 80 grams of protein in a day and at least 80 oz of water in!

teachren

Yes...100 percent you need 2 or 3 shakes a day. You are just out from surgery. Get some protein shakes that you like and drink those all day. Unjury makes a chicken soup protein if you would like to have something warm.

If you don't get your protein in your body will be a mess...and you will have difficulty reaching your weight loss goal.

I'm not sure why I see some people (I'm not saying you..just in my experience lately) be so "anti" protein shake. It astonishes me when people say their surgeon said to get off shakes as soon as possible. If you are on a good quality protein shake (and that is the key) then it is a perfectly acceptable form of nutruients.

Please...get some protein in. You got a lot of good examples in the posts I read above..but if you can't eat...at least have shakes.

Sorry..don't mean to sound preachy! :-)

juliebccs

I am back on some shakes but yes something savoury always breaks the boredom. Managing a little beef or pork mince and fish. Really upped my liquid intake by adding a little extremely low joule cordial. Not as ideal as plain water but it has increased my liquids 3 fold each day which I can really feel the benefit from already. But again it decreases my appetite so still working on more proteins.

Ksh1055

M surgeon also told to get powdered milk. You can add that to almost anything and is a good source of protein and very inexpensive.

gloriabermudez

I agree with everyone else, I am almost 5 weeks post op surgery and still on soft foods I have a protein shake every day and try to have meat like chicken or fish which are also high in protein, greek yogurt is also good. I have made lentil soup and is very low in calories but high in protein I currently manage to get about 500-600 calories and I feel great. I also don't get hungry but have alarms to remind me I have to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.

juliebccs

I am struggling to get much down in the way of protein shakes each day so my dietician has advised to buy albumen powder for my food. Could not find it locally but managed to find a good one online. So just waiting for that to arrive and hopefully I will finally meet protein requirements. Fish and ground beef or ground pork has been nice but of course can only eat a small amount so def not enough. Fingers crossed for the powder. Otherwise feeling good.