Pumpkin also delivers a punch of potassium, a comely amount of copper, an interesting bit of iron, a pleasing amount of magnesium and a fair amount of fiber. A caution for bariatric patients is the 10 grams of carbohydrates found in a ½ cup pumpkin puree.
And who doesn’t love carving Jack-O-Lanterns with your children (or just for you) for All Hallow’s Eve? Who has not posted adorable pictures of their kiddos in your local Pumpkin Patch? You can prepare your own pumpkin puree or stock up on the canned type. Perhaps our greatest love of pumpkin awaits us at Thanksgiving with our beloved pumpkin pie. One estimate says Americans eat 50 million pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving.
Alas, a pie is known as a confection loaded with sugar and fat. What is the bariatric patient to do? Modify the recipe, of course! Lower the sugar and fat and pump up the protein is the goal. Try the Pumpkin Pie pudding recipe on the BariatricPal website. If you need a pumpkin treat before Thanksgiving, there are many pumpkin-flavored protein shakes, protein bars and yogurts in the stores right now. So, pumpkin can be a health partner this season. Enjoy!
I have become much more health conscious and logical since having my gastric bypass weight loss surgery in 2003. And I have witnessed that just as there is a method for obesity, there is a method for weight loss. As a result, making good food choices for your bariatric life can be as simple as swapping out unhealthy foods and cooking methods for their healthy versions. I promise you will love cauliflower rice, zoodles, and air-fried veggie chips so much that you’ll never feel deprived of your potatoes and pasta again.
Say buh-bye to the habits that kept you trapped in mounds of flesh and fat. And say hello to easy-to-prepare home-cooked meals of whole foods.
INVEST IN SEVERAL QUALITY SMALL APPLIANCES AND LEARN NEW, HEALTHY WAYS OF PREPARING FOODS.
Investing in a few high-quality small appliances and kitchen tools will pay for themselves with the money you save on processed convenience foods — and you’ll be rewarded with highly nutritious foods and superior taste!
Check out a few basics to get you started:
• Coleman grill for amazing grilled meats, fish, and vegetables! Take this portable grill on road trips, too!
• Slow cooker or electric pressure cooker make food very tender and easier to digest.
• Osterizer is the best blender I’ve ever had for frozen protein shakes and smoothies — and it’s far cheaper than a Vitamix!
• Cuisinart food processor for chopping cauliflower into rice to pureeing cashews into nut butter or roasted cauliflower into mashed potatoes, and more.
• Wok pan for quick and healthy stir-fry meals in minutes.
• Vegetable spiralizer to make grain-free noodles from zucchini (zoodles) or sweet potatoes.
• Air-fryer for healthy veggie fries, crunchy veggie chips and more!
Want the Bariatric Diet Tips that I have culled from experts in health and wellness and have enabled me to maintain a 120+ pound weight loss? Get more life-changing bariatric diet tips: READ NOW.
We take it for granted and perhaps do not recognize the many properties of water. Open the tap, and here it comes. Travel to the shore front and there it is, oceans and oceans of the stuff. It fills rivers and streams. It fills the shelves of markets and convenience stores. It falls on golfers who shake an angry fist and lament that their day on the green is ruined.
Just imagine how ruined all our days would be if it never rained. To state the obvious, water is vital.
How Much Water Should I Drink?
For as long as I can remember we have been told to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day – more if you exercise heavily but less if you drink other beverages frequently. That seems a bit outdated to me. More recently, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends that men should consume about 3.7 liters (about 13 cups) of water daily and women should consume about 2.7 liters (about 9 cups).
Read, Planning a Great Bariatric Diet Grocery List
During a workout or other physical activities, on hot or cold days, and owing to your weight and certain medical conditions, you may need more. The online daily hydration calculator is a great tool that calculates how much water you need by factoring in those criteria. I just used it to calculate how much water I need today. The result - 3.2 liters.
The benefits of this simple discipline are many.
Water for Optimal Health
Water is an energy booster, relieving the dehydration that makes you feel fatigued. When you are thirsty, you have already become a bit dehydrated. Dehydration also makes the body and mind feel stressed whereas 70 to 80% of your brain tissue is water.
Water helps to prevent muscle cramping and is a lubricate for the joints of your body. Water also hydrates your skin cells and gives your face a younger appearance. In addition, it is a good for digestion and helps to keep your bowels regular.
As an added bonus, it has been proven that drinking water helps to lose weight.
Water for Weight Loss
It has been shown that people who drink two glasses of water twenty to thirty minutes before they have a meal lost weight more quickly and lost a greater number of pounds then those who did not drink water prior to eating.
It was also discovered that people who drank water before meals consumed an average of 75 less calories over that course of that meal. If this action were continued for one year, a person would lose 14 ½ pounds.
It has also been shown that being just 1% dehydration causes a drop in metabolism that can interfere with weight loss.
The body has difficulty differentiating hunger from thirst. If you do not consume enough water across the day, thirst might be interpreted as hunger and more food will be eaten then is necessary.
Read, My Top 10 Bariatric Diet Tips for You!
Finally, drinking plenty of water to stay healthy during a fasting diet is essential.
Drink Iced Water for Maximum Calorie Burn
Calories can be used to define the amount of energy contained in food. Another definition for calorie can be the measure of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius. Therefore, your body burns calories when you simply drink iced water.
Read, Eating Foods that Burn More Calories
Your body burns 17.5 calories raising the temperature of a sixteen ounce glass of iced water. If you comply with the eight glasses of eight ounces of water per day recommendation but drink iced water instead of non-iced water, you will burn 70 calories per day. Over the course of a year, the numbers will add up and translate into weight loss.
DropWt4Life reacted to BaileyBariatrics for a magazine article, Ode To Pumpkin