Guess who ran out of protein powder this morning. My morning and evening protein shakes provide 25g-30g of protein (25g if I mix the protein powder with water, or 30g if I mix it with milk), and damn, that is a lot of protein to try to make up in other low-fat (or better yet, fat-free) ways. My first preference for protein is Isopure, but unless GNC carries it, I’m just S.O.L. until I order some from BariatricEating.com and it arrives (their shipping is anything but prompt). In the meantime I’ll get some regular “OTC” protein powder, though it’s usually sickeningly sweet, and doesn’t always provide as much protein powder in one scoop. Blah blah blah. First world problems, I know.

Happy New Year! I seriously meant to post here on January 1st, but I’ve been busy this week, and it just kept slipping my mind. Sorry! In terms of the new year, I have one gastric bypass related resolution, and it’s an important one:

Drink two protein shakes per day.

By drinking two shakes a day, I will be taking in 60g of protein just from them (or 50 if I use water instead of milk). For the last year I have been very good at drinking at least one shake per day, but that’s only 30g – half of my minimum daily requirement. My thinking was I’d take in half from a protein shake, then make up the other half from regular, high-protein food. But it doesn’t hasn’t always worked out, especially on days where I didn’t have anything high-protein, was busy running errands, or simply forgot to eat (yes, it happens). By doing two shakes per day, I’ll have all of my protein bases covered – anything after that is just gravy.

So far I’m doing good, though obviously we’re only four days into 2012, so there’s plenty of opportunity for me to screw up. Ha.

Weight-wise, I have no clue where I’m at – my scale broke on December 23rd, and I haven’t yet replaced it. :/ I don’t think I hit my goal, if I had to guess I’m probably still in the 163-166 lb range. But I’m close, oh so close. I know I’ll get there!

Full-length pics of me (and my husband ♥) from Christmas Day:

Protein, protein, protein. It’s all about the protein baby. In the last two years I have become protein-driven, and like a heat-seeking missile, I seek out foods that are high in protein. And without further ado, here is a generalized, no-specific-order list of foods and recipes that I turn to in order to satisfy my daily minimum protein requirements.

• Protein powder: Bariatric Eating’s Inspire, Isopure, store-bought protein powders (generally you need more liquid to mix these up, so I prefer the more expensive but much more efficient and “compact” bariatric-specific powders such as Inspire and Isopure)
• Protein drinks (watch the “smoothies”, as they’re often very high in sugar!)
• Milk (1 oz = 1g of protein; go for low-fat or even skim to save on the calories)
• Greek yogurt: Chobani, Yoplait
• Cheese (try to choose low-fat so as not to go over on fat grams), especially sharp cheddar
• Cottage cheese and ricotta cheese (don’t like to eat these by themselves? Add them to a cooked item, such as mashed potatoes; or, heat up a bit of spaghetti sauce and seasonings and mix in the cheese to have a nicely seasoned “Italian” dinner!)
• Eggs (did you know that just one large egg has about 8g of protein? Scramble it with a bit of milk and a sprinkling of cheese and that’s easily bumped up to 10-11g!)
• Ground beef (may be tough to tolerate; try mixing in some low-fat gravy or even spaghetti sauce to give it some much-need moisture)
• Chicken (white meat, no skin, definitely not fried!)
• Fish, crab/lobster/shrimp cakes (bake or broil)
• Egg noodles (the perfect substitute if you’re pasta-intolerant, as I now am; a 1/4th serving of uncooked egg noodles has about 8g of protein)
• Beef jerky (tends to be chewy, so your teeth are in for a workout)
• Beef & ostrich jerky (found in GNC and other health food stores; has a more “pasty” texture that makes it easier to consume)
• Protein bars – but these can be iffy, as many don’t offer a lot of protein without offering a large bar, which may be too large to consume (I really like Supreme Protein Bars)

I’ll update this list and re-tweet it to Twitter as more additions are made! And if you have any to add, please comment!

Yes, ostrich. My favorite beef jerky sticks contain ostrich in them. Now, make no mistake: they’re not my favorite because of taste. They’re my favorite first and foremost because they deliver 14g of protein. And secondly, the texture is smoother and softer, so I don’t have to gnaw at the sticks like you do normal jerky in order to chew it up enough for swallowing.

In the past I have ordered beef and ostrich sticks from Bariatric Eating, but I’ve also found them at GNC. They’re not cheap — roughly $17 for a pack of ten — but they’re well worth it!

Obviously if you are serious about maintaining your daily recommended protein levels (my surgeon recommends 60g-80g; or 80g-100g if I am planning on doing a lot of activities or physical exercise), then you will want to keep a ready supply of liquid protein shakes, powdered protein shakes and various protein-heavy snacks on hand. But what if you’ve run out, you’re waiting for an order to arrive, you’re not at home, or you simply don’t feel like drinking another blasted shake? Fortunately most kitchens will have at least some of the following items, all of which contain a decent amount of protein (6g – 12g) per serving:

• Cheese (look for: sharp cheddar, colby jack, mozzarella)
• Milk (1g of protein per ounce!)
• Oat bran (5g-6g per 1/4 cup uncooked; cook with milk instead of water to add additional protein
• Eggs
• Yogurt
• Egg noodles
• Peanut butter (roughly 8g of protein per tablespoon; take care, however, as a lot of peanut butters contain a lot of sugar!
• Beans (chili, kidney, red, black, etc.)
• Ham and bean soup

There are plenty of other protein-heavy foods, but off the top of my head here’s a decent list to get you started!

I’m off to a good start with the 5 Day Pouch Test. I actually started last night, when it was a little after 10:00pm and I realized I still needed another 15g or so of protein, but didn’t feel like eating anything solid (yeah, I get lazy). So I grabbed a Pure Protein Supreme Whey Shot, which, FYI, is the nastiest tasting protein drink I have ever had. But it packs 25g into just 2.9 oz of fluid, so I do my best to mentally ignore the screaming and writhing of my taste buds long enough to swallow the stuff down (2-3 swallows, usually, since my pouch doesn’t have the capacity to hold 2.9 oz in just one go).

I had another one for breakfast. Yum. Heh.

As much as I loathe those things, I may go ahead and order a case or two of them, since they do pack so much protein in them! If I could stomach one every morning and then another every night, that would just leave me with 10g-30g of protein to get in throughout the day, which would be easy enough with the various protein snacks I keep around, plus regular food.

As the subject states, Unjury is disgusting. It is the most vile tasting protein powder I have tried to date. And believe me, I have tried to mix up these powders in different foods and drinks in order to mask the taste, after-taste and texture, and I have tried different flavors. But I have never been able to successfully consume more than a few sips of liquid or bites of food that contained Unjury. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I think I’d rather lick baby shower tableware than attempt to consume another bowl of soup or cream of wheat with that crap mixed in it.

Now I can definitely appreciate Bariatric Eating and their Inspire protein powders. They’re more expensive, yes, but the increased amount of money is worth paying if the trade-off is being able to tolerate the stuff!

Being post-op, there’s nothing more important than protein. Protein promotes healing, and I need it for energy, so that my body feeds off of that and my fat cells, and not my muscles. But it’s been hard for me to get an adequate amount of protein in. But I’m doing my best. The goal is 75 grams of protein a day, though I was told that obviously it would take me a few months to reach that. I have been battling upper respiratory infections since my surgery, and I’ve been really tired and run down feeling all the time, so I’m going to try and increase my protein intake in the hopes that the extra will help me get over whatever it is I’m sick with, and feel better on a day to day basis.

Protein is highest in meat… obviously a problem since it would be impossible for me to chow down on even 30ish grams of protein a day. So I’m going to go back to the protein drinks. I admit that I stopped drinking them on a daily basis around two weeks post-op, because I was so excited to have more food choices available (not that potatoes, mashed up soup and cream of wheat are exactly exciting). Now I’m going to start off every day with one. Right now I’m drinking a frosty chocolate flavored protein shake. It’s not bad. It does taste almost like a Wendy’s Frosty. The whole can has 21 grams in it, and I’m almost finished about half of a can worth.

I’m also going to be super duper religious about adding at least one scoop of protein powder (6 grams per scoop!) to my soups, cream of wheat and puddings.

Here’s to more protein! *shakes fist*