Ontario54
Constipation & Chia
Jun 14, 2013
Well, I browse the Ontario forums daily now it seems. It's becoming part of my routine. Before surgery I saw a post from a woman Joan who was having surgery the same day as me and by the same doctor. I had to say hi. We were able to talk to each other while we were there and it was nice to connect with someone who messages on here.
Well, a couple of days after being home I saw a post by her about constipation and all the replies from the 'vets'. I hadn't gone since the day before my surgery (going on 5 days) but wasn't concerned as I hadn't had a protein drink until 2 days prior but I had alot of gas. I followed some of the advice myself and the next day...success. It's funny what you feel comfortable talking about on here but it does help anyone that reads it that might not ask otherwise.
After reading the pain Joan was in and remembering a 4 hour struggle I had while on OptiFast I decided I should seriously look at how to prevent this in the future. I was on a 3 person team last year and the guy took time off to have the same surgery. He had issues with constipation and I used to tell him to put chia seeds into his diet but he never did. As I got closer to my own surgery and started purging my cabinets I brought him some Chia cereal that I bought at Fortinos for him to try. Well, he thanked me every time he saw me for the next couple of weeks. So I had about a teaspoon of chia seeds in my drink on Wednesday. I don't know if it is the chia seeds or what but every day...Wednesday, Thursday and this morning I have gone. No constipation, no diaherra. I'm sold on chia.
Here's some really interesting facts about Chia:
1 ounce (28 gram) serving provides:
11 grams of dietary fiber
4 grams of prein
18% RDA of calcium
27% RDA of phosphorus
30% manganese
Now I wouldn't be putting an ounce in at one time as I only used 1 teaspoon for my drink but some other ways to use Chia is to sprinkle it on yogurt, oatmeal, applesauce, etc. There's no taste to them. It is used in health food circles as a thickener for a pudding or porridge consistency as the tiny seeds have the ability to make some liquids gelatinous if left overnight.
Here's some information from a recent article this month:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/06/03/chia-seed-benefits-_n_3379831.html
P.S. Don't use Chia seeds until at least 8 weeks post-op as it is a seed and they are on the Do Not Eat list as any type of seed can become embedded at a healing site and may become infected. After you heal I highly recommend them.
