I've spent most of the morning preparing food for eating in Phase 3.
I cooked and prepped these.
- tofu with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce
- chicken breast with Laughing Cow Lite cheese
- white beans with reduced-fat ricotta cheese
- canned salmon with greek yogurt, dijon mustard, and red-wine vinegar
- sweet potato, baked
- white potato, boiled, then pureed with a bit of butter and salt
- and last week, I made lentil soup made with a ham hock
I pureed each one, and transferred portions to either the muffin tin or tiny Pyrex bowls.
I decided not to add protein powder, in case the cooking and storing breaks down the protein. I'll mix in a teaspoon or two of protein powder as I eat each portion.
I also have applesauce, canned fruit (which can be pureed or mashed), and baby-food fruit.
We also bought some sugar-free pudding. I normally don't eat such artificial food, but it seemed like a good snack idea. It has almost no flavour, but it's sweet and the texture is nice. I don't think I'll make a habit of this.
I really understand why in Canada, anyone who qualifies for bariatric surgery must first transition to a healthy diet and demonstrate that you can maintain it. I've always said that the first requirement of healthy eating is preparation. If you're not accustomed to planning meals, shopping for what's needed, and cooking in advance, it's not going to work. If you want to eat healthy snacks, they have to be in your fridge or cupboard!
I've been on board with this for most of my adult life. But for so many people, this means crossing many hurdles and adopting many new habits. If you started that for the first time after your surgery, your chances of success would not be good.
It took a pandemic to get me to plan meals ahead of time!
ReplyDeleteHow did you know what groceries to buy -- or did you shop on a per-meal basis? Or did you live like a New Yorker and rarely eat at home? (Assuming you don't mind sharing.)
ReplyDeleteWe basically planned on the day we were eating, but had staples in the house. We always have had salad with every dinner and always have salad stuff in the house. When the kids were home and we were both working, there were lots of nights of pasta or tuna fish or eggs for dinner. I always make chicken for Friday nights, so we always had that in the freezer. And we ate out usually twice a week---once with the kids during the week having pizza or something, once on the weekends with friends or the two of us.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a healthy way to eat. When the kids left, we didn't really change much. Just habit. After I retired, I did somewhat more cooking, but still---I hated cooking so was pretty lazy.
Along came COVID, and no eating out, and lots of time at home. So now I cook almost every night except for the occasional night we will bring in from a local restaurant---pizza or Asian food. We go to a wonderful local fish store and have fish once or twice a week, chicken still on Fridays, but with leftovers another night, veggie burgers, turkey meat sauce with pasta, and then usually eggs or bagels and lox on a night I don't really feel like cooking.
I still don't like cooking for others---it makes me anxious. But I am enjoying cooking for the two of us now that it is less hectic and planned out in advance.
That's an amazing change -- plus a covid #SilverLining, which I love.
ReplyDeleteWe used to plan dinner day-of, too. I always did a lot of cooking in advance, but that was usually for my own lunches, or for our food when we worked our long days on our weekend jobs.
After moving to a more suburban area, I started planning ahead more. It's really become part of my life now -- especially because I dislike cooking after work. For me the only way to ensure we consistently eat a healthy dinner is cooking ahead and freezing.
One other factor I forgot to mention---we are trying as much as possible not to go into stores, so we use Instacart to get our groceries. That forces us to plan a week ahead since we aren't just running into the store every day to pick something up for dinner.
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to cook ahead of time. I try to make big enough portions so that we have leftovers and then freeze those, but the initial meal is cooked right before we eat.