Resources for Meal Planning / Prepping? Dealing with head hunger?

[mari.beth 6]

There's quite a few book on Amazon to help with that. I've been checking them out but didn't decide on which one yet. Why don't you eat meat? You body needs that kind of Protein especially after WLS.

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

There are a multitude of reasons people choose not to eat meat, or certain kinds of meat, and all are valid. She stated that she is a pescatarian, which means she eats fish. She may also be lacto-ovo which would mean she drinks milk and eats eggs. But even if she's not lacto-ovo, I don't think we should be trying to convince her to eat meat when she has religious/moral/health reasons for not.

I am no longer vegetarian, but was raised that way for religious reasons (we were lacto/ovo/pescatarian in practice) and I can assure you that there are MANY ways to get plenty of Protein without eating meat. There are a number of high protein foods that are not animal-based.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4771/10-Vegan-Sources-of-Protein.html

To the OP:

I have been trying to find meal planning help with my own food issues, and have found that in general the options are not very good. There's tons of recipe ideas here in the recipe section and on Pinterest, but not a lot of information about how to plan meals especially if you're planning to do once-a-week or once-a-month cooking. There are resources for OAW/OAM cooking, but it's with their recipes and doesn't offer a lot of insight as to how to put your own recipes in place of theirs.

If you search once-a-week or once-a-month cooking, and read enough of the books/resources, there are basic principles you can apply. Like which kinds of food freeze well, which are good for make-ahead, etc. I personally have found it very hard to implement from scratch. But if you dig enough you can find them.

I will offer that if you're doing low-carb, you shouldn't worry overmuch about fat. The concept of low-carb requires a higher fat content than in a "normal" diet. I wouldn't go overboard, but since you don't eat red meat, your fat options are going to tend to be the "healthy" fats, so I really wouldn't worry much about that.

Also, I advise getting some clarification around "only 3 meals" a day. Post-op, your intake at a sitting will be so little that I don't believe only allowing 3 meals a day is wise. My instructions are to eat every 3-4 hours. Many of the people here who have 3 meals only as instructions, were allowed 2-3 Protein Drinks outside of those 3 meals as "snacks". Others are told 3 meals with 2 or 3 low calorie high protein Snacks.

Good luck! If I remember when I get home (feel free to PM me to remind me) I can post some of the OAW/OAM resources I've found.

I would love some of those resources. I had not considered looking for once-per-week/month / foods that freeze well, etc. I definitely will look for that. I am supposed to have three meals with Protein shakes in between (I guess as "snacks" but they said, "No snacking" -- I guess just another way of saying the same thing!).

[Shell Renewed 176]

I subscribed to foodcoach.me. She's a nutirtionist that specialises in bariatrics.

[mari.beth 6]

There's quite a few book on Amazon to help with that. I've been checking them out but didn't decide on which one yet. Why don't you eat meat? You body needs that kind of Protein especially after WLS.

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I don't eat meat because of cruelty in the meat industry. I might eat it if I could find a source where the animals were treated humanely, but probably not because I think cows are cute and pigs are smart. I tried to go vegan, but really could not do it (way before surgery), so I settled on pescatarian even though I know that the fishing industry is not humane either. If you figure out which books are especially good, please share!