I had a hard time narrowing it down to only 10 recipes. I have so many to share with you.
Who loves a snack? Who loves to have a snack instead of a full meal? I am guilty of this. My snacks turn into meals. Especially when I am busy working… I have a hard time breaking for a real sit down meal. I think for most of us we have a “grab and go” mentality and we sit down for a proper meal maybe one time a day. For most of us, this is at dinner time
What if we could take a snack and turn it into a healthy meal? Wouldn’t that make life a whole lot easier?
Depending on where you are on your bariatric journey, it may be easier to just prepare a few snacks with the idea that they have the nutrients of a proper meal. Let’s call it a “full-sized snack”. This is one that replaces your regular meal and is more on the “snacky-side”. You can eat it sitting at your desk or in the break-room or sitting in your car. As long as it fills you up.
Post-bariatric surgery, you need to be using your tool. I know a lot of clients who never eat until they are full. I call this “eating around your sleeve”. What this turns into is full-on GRAZING and this is a bad habit to get into. The bariatric tool is meant to be filled until you are satisfied. I see a whole lot of bariatric clients walking around not feeling satisfied because they do not eat enough food for the stomach to signal the brain to say “stop, I am FULL”. The food needs to push against the stomach walls for the stomach to send the signal to the brain to “stop eating”.
If I am grazing all day long, I am never full. It looks like this – a protein shake for breakfast, some almonds in the car while on the way to work, some cheese cubes at my desk, some hummus and veggie sticks for an additional snack, a half low carb wrap that I packed for lunch, a coffee shortly after lunch, a protein bar for mid-afternoon, some cheese sticks, and olives while prepping dinner, a glass of wine while cooking dinner, a dinner of a small piece of fish and some pureed sweet potatoes, a chocolate avocado pudding as a snack, some berries and cottage cheese before bed ….. on and on and on and on it goes.
I teach my clients to eat/stop/ eat. NO GRAZING PLEASE. We can get into so much trouble if we are following the grazing patterns from above and so many of us are guilty of this. I find myself doing this all the time. Then I wonder why my weight loss stalls? It is stalling because I am overeating. It’s hard to calculate the amount I am eating because I never feel full. My hunger signal is out of whack when I have this eating pattern.
I aim now to eat my meal or a large snack. I stop eating and then drink fluids between meals. I don’t “snack” but when I eat I will eat enough to compensate for a meal. Instead of just a handful of nuts, I will have a handful of nuts, a half avocado, some cucumber slices and I will feel FULL. I won’t play around with the “just a bite here and there” any longer. It gets me into trouble.
They can turn into a full meal instead of just a snack. Don’t just eat the avocado, add some low carb veggies and a handful of nuts and you have a “full meal deal”.
Here’s to the long days of summer still upon us!
Sheri Burke RHN specializing in bariatric nutrition.
About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.
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