New... to everything

 I am heading towards my 4th medically supervised weigh-in of the 6 required by my insurance. I started with one facility, but the nutritionist was an **&$ so after 2 visits I switched to Dr. Jeffrey Friedman of Baptist Hospital's "Bariatric Center of Excellence".  
  
   After speaking with Dr. Friedman I have decided to have the RNY vs the Lapband. The first visit with his nutritionist was as long as both visits combined with the "other" one, and I walked away with a ton of information.

  I am really struggling with counting carbs, proteins etc.  Most of my meals are homemade at my mom's (I eat lunch there everyday, and usually keep leftovers).  Also, I guess since I never did it before I just haven't disciplined myself to the counting.  I think that is my #1 biggest hurdle. Protein shakes - check,  Vitamins - check, tons of water - check, counting food grams - not so much.   My other meals are generally labeled- Lean Cuisine type meals or salads from the deli, etc

Any tips or tricks to get myself trained in this? I think it is just scary to attempt something new, but I know this is the one absolutely crucial thing I need to learn.

The "counting" is something you learn gradually. When you come home from the hospital, your focus will be on getting enough liquids and getting your protein in - or coming as close as you can. Each day will be a bit better.

When you move to purees, soft foods, and eventually regular foods, you will find that measuring isn't the hassle you had thought pre op. The addition of foods back into your diet will be welcomed - but you will of course want to eat carefully to avoid any issues. Measuring is one way to be sure that you don't run into problems. I actually carried a 1/2 cup measuring cup in my purse for a long time so I coud "eyeball" things accurately when eating away from home.

As for eating at your mom's, if she wants to support you, the easiest directions you can give her for the first weeks and months would be these: At first, just show her how to mix a protein shake. LET her pamper you at lunch, but keep it simple. After that, share your list of approved foods and simply ask that she "keep it simple" in making lunches for you. Keeping track is MUCH easier if you are eating a simple meal of protein, veggies, and some fruit rather than something like a casserole. What may be hardest for mom is the fact that your food intake will be very small - that's an adjustment!

Don't worry now about couning carbs, calories, and all the rest. Just one step at a time....one day at a time....and it will all come along.

Best wishes to you!

Just avoid carbs entirely. Eat grilled meats and use vinegar and oil instead of butter, mayo, or dressings. Herbs are wonderful. Try the South Beach cook book. If you follow the recipes, all the counting is done for you. I'm below goal, and attribute that to eating whole foods and staying away from carbs. I just started adding whole grains, and then sparingly.

 The only grams I count are my protein.    I do watch the sugar and refined carbs, but I no longer count them, I just try to avoid them if I see the numbers on the scale are a bit higher than I'd lime t hem to be.     I did as an early-out post-op, but was not a nazi about it.   As a DS, I absorb very little fat, so I do not bother to count fat at all, and I've never ONCE counted a single calorie!!

Thanks all....
  My  nutritionist gave me a booklet with sample foods of proteins, carbs, good fats, veggies etc and the measurements that equal "a serving".   Then she wrote out how many serviings for me to have at each meal and snack. Seems like it should be easy enough, I just can't seem to make it happen.  I am beginning to think I need to stay home and just do turkey and eggs and cheese or my frozen dinners. My mom is very supportive and tries to help, but I just don't have the discipline to chase down the counts.  It scares me that I don't have more discipline in this area - I don't want to fail.

If you don't have the discipline to "chase down the counts" (which I presume means you can't or won't read a nutritional label? Or look at just ONE website for you information?), then you are not ready for any bariatric surgery. This is absolutely key to your success and your SURVIVAL.

You MUST do this, or there's no point moving forward with surgery. It is a very uncomplicated body of knowledge that is routinely taught in a maximum of six sessions to new type II diabetics, if they are willing to learn it. If you don't "get it" yet, then go take more classes and learn it well, just like you'd take a university class and make it your mission to get an A.

If you would like me to attempt to break it down for you in a single  document, I can do that.

Actually I do very well reading the labels of canned / boxed / frozen foods (as listed in my post). The problem I have is figuring up the counts in homemade / from scratch foods.

Ah okay. Well, the way I learned to figure out how to count stuff is like this:

For protein: One ounce of meat, fowl, fish or cheese has 7 grams of protein. Eggs vary by size. I use extra large eggs and figure 7 grams of protein per egg.

For fats: One teaspoon of a full-fledged fat (oils, butter, full fat margarine etc.) is five grams of fat.
For carby things, I go by the diabetic exchange method that I learned when I lived in Germany and is basically carb counting. They based it on 12 grams of carbs = one carb exchange. A quarter cup of rice, other grain or small pasta, cooked for one carb exchange, or a potato the size of an egg. Half a cup of a cooked legume was one exchange. Can't recall what corn was off the top of my head, but probably similar to other grains around a quarter of a cup.

Veggies vary in their carb count. You can get lists of low, medium and high carb veggies wherever you look up nutritional information like the diabetic exchanges. After a while you memorize the stuff you use repeatedly.

Where it gets slightly more complicated is when you need to figure out whether your protein choice is lean-low-medium-high fat and how many fat grams to figure per ounce of protein choice. Many items have this information on the packaging. Look at the egg carton or cheese wrapper, for example. Some of it is easy. Scallops are a practically zero fat protein choice and regular bacon is considered a fatty protein. (Bacon used to be considered a fat exchange on the diabetic program, which is just stupid.)

Another very important piece of information, but easy to remember, is: carbs and protein are 4 calories per gram, fat in 9 calories per gram.

If you go to your sample menus and look at them in this light, it should start to make sense.Let's say, for example, that you need 80 grams of protein in a day and 1200 calories total, with fat comprising no more than 20% of your calories. (This would be long after surgery, obviously.)

20% of 1200 calories is 240 calories. We'll make it easy for math and say 270 calories maximum from fat. 270/9 (cals per gram of fat) = 30 grams of fat maximum.

Your 80 grams of protein will be 320 calories (4 cals per gram, remember), plus 270 from fat = 590 calories. Okay, that leaves  you with 610 calories to spend on veggies, fruits and starchy options. More on that in a minute.

First you decide on your protein choices for the day. How about 6 oz. of fat free Greek yogurt at breakfast = 15 grams protein, no fat. (Be sure to figure the total calories though! That's easy cuz it's on the label.

Lunch, um, 3 oz. tuna = 20 grams protein and some fat. I gotta look that one up, for which I'm using http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ . Oh, well, that site says the chunk light canned in water stuff only has about a gram of fat for 3 oz. Okay, cool.

Supper, 3 oz. rotisserie chicken breast (no skin of course) = 20 grams of protein and 3 grams of fat.

You need another 25 grams of protein, which you get in a shake. You'll get your calorie and carb information off the label.

Now that your protein is nailed down, you decide what to eat with the protein. Maybe a bit of fruit with your yogurt, for example. You use the site I just linked to find your fruit of choice, weigh your portion, put in the weight amount and find out what's in it. Voila! That banana suddenly has a nutritional label :-).

Really, though, the vast majority of what we use in food prep comes out of a container that has a nutrition label on it. You just learn to plug in the numbers and come up with the right number of grams of the appropriate foods to make the amounts fit your needs.

Clear as mud? :-) I hope it helped.

That is awesome!! Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to post all of that... it is a ton of information, but I think I can work through it  lol
 (I just now found out how to find my old posts - sorry I didn't reply sooner!!)

 

Yeah, the post notification function here pretty much sucks, no problem! Glad it helps.