Oh man can I ever relate to that!! I had so much more to deal with than I realized. I can admit now that I am a food addict, I was in so much denial about why I was eating, when and what. I was definitely not facing everything that was going on. For myself I have to be very ruthless, very black and white, very regimented now about food, for now anyway. My plan is to make sure I am getting my protein and being very low carb, eating very natural, no processed foods, nothing made with flour or sugar, none of my trigger foods (and I KNOW what they are now). Maybe in a year or 2 when I feel like I have got a handle on my weight and more importantly my emotions dealing with food I can try eating some of those foods. Maybe by then I won't want to! It seems a lot extreme but then having WLS is pretty extreme and if I am going to make this work I am going all the way with it!!

Ive tried unjury, isopure, syntrax nectar flavors, atkins shakes, musclemilk brands of protein and I hate them all! I've tried the powdered milk also. It too makes me gag. I like Jens approach. If I could find a protein drink I liked, I'd for sure drink them. It's very frustrating worrying about what to eat etc. There are times that I don't want to eat so it'd be very helpful to have protein. I'm down 2 more pounds today..so I'm excited about that! I'm thinking about going to a gnc or maxx nutrition and see what they suggest. Thank you all SO much! I don't know what I'd do without help.

heh, I hated the Syntrax Nectars, too. I WANTED to like them - I really wanted a protein drink I could just mix with water since it would be so much easier to keep at work and whatnot. I tried SO many of them, and some I even tried more than once! But no such luck. Luckily, I had gotten them as samples from vitalady.com, so I didn't have a bunch of tubs sitting around, but I still wish it had been a more positive experience!

I also hated Atkins and Muscle Milk shakes. For ready-made drinks, I much prefer EAS carb AdvantEdge (and by "prefer," I mean they don't make me gag, not that I love them - EAS are sold in grocery stores and Walmart and stuff, but I ONLY like the chocolate flavor) or the Premier brand chocolate shakes sold at Costso. Other than that, I don't mess with the ready-made ones.

I will say that, when I was using artificial sweeteners, I bought a bunch of Torani and DaVinci sugar free flavored syrups and would make protein shakes using natural/unflavored protein powder and some different flavors added. I also used them to make flavored protein hot chocolates and protein hot chai tea lattes :)

Laylay, do you like/drink coffee? I personally have never liked coffee, but those who do seem to love protein coffee drinks. I know one of my local friends here swears by her double protein coffee every morning using IDS cinnamon vanilla protein (I think that's what it is). Hearing people talk about their favorite protein coffee drinks sometimes makes me wish I liked coffee!

I'm not a fan of coffee...never have drank the stuff. I personally can't stand the smell lol

I'm totally making that salsa, chicken, cream cheese recipe this weekend, as well as some of the crustless mini-quiches. I'll throw those in the freezer for the occasional meal.

I used to like the nectar drinks, and in fact have 3 big half-used tubs in the house. I'm still working my way through them, as I refuse to waste them, but it is definitely a challenge to drink them during the day. My new go-to protein drink is Click Vanilla Latte. I don't like coffee, but I can tolerate these for now. Jen's list of protein drinks has inspired me to try a few different combos.

Is there any protein bars that you ladies eat and like?

Before surgery I was living off protein bars at work for lunch because I never had time to make lunch in the morning. I just went to walmart and got their generic brand. They are like $1 and the calories and carbs and protein grams were good. I'd have that and an apple and I'd be set for the afternoon.

Also for protein shake flavorings at the local bulk food store they have small bottles of different flavors like rootbeer, orange, lemon, cherry etc etc. A lot of other people on other weight loss boards use those and the Torani and Davinci syrups to flavor optifast and protein drinks.

I tend to purchase Pure Protein bars because they are easily available and provide a decent amount of protein in a small bar. However, most of them are so sweet that they can make me feel ill if I eat them too fast.

I tried the chicken/salsa/cream cheese recipe today. While it tasted divine, the pouch rejected it after 1 oz. I'm starting to worry that I have another stricture developing. Blah.

I also purchased some diet root beer for that root beer float protein shake. I'm thinking that tomorrow may be another full liquid today to calm the pouch after tonight's chicken yak fest. I received an invitation to a friend's house for Thanksgiving, but I am going to decline, as I can't seem to keep solids down and I don't want to cause a scene. Bummer.

I looked at protein bars yesterday but they all have so much sugar so I didn't buy any.

laylay - don't give up! take a look at the label on the protein bars - if you ate only half of one of those bars, would you come in at under 15 grams carbs and somewhere over 12 grams of protein? that could work -

and you'd have TWO servings of protein bar! so it'd go twice as far!

Jen - i hate to think that your eating [or lack thereof] will prevent you from hanging out with friends and enjoying yourself. what's that saying? something about not explaining because friends won't care and others don't matter?

and i'm going to tell you a little story. I had a bunch of friends over for a lovely, long sunday dinner. we had a WONDERFUL time - lots of food, teenagers were there [they were in charge of setting out dessert - we had chocolate fondue and they LOADED up platters with dunkers] - dinner went on for at least 4 hours.

but one of the girls had a digestive issue, and apparently disappeared into the bathroom for quite awhile. When she came back to the table, she apologized and started explaining -as delicately as possible - what had happened. and i said something like - OMG - i didn't realize you were having problems! we didn't notice that you were gone a long time and i'm sorry because i should have been paying closer attention [really - i felt bad]. but bottom line, most people won't notice!

and i'm also wondering if you have a problem with chicken - I sure do. i do better with beef [not that i understand it - but there it is!], and frankly, T-day is not easy. i can get down a couple of bites of bird with enough gravy, but i've learned not to push it.

Thanks, Jilly. If it was just my friend and her family, I would attend for sure. But she is having some other folks over, strangers to me, and I fear that the focus would be on my noneating on a day devoted to gorging. Plus, last night's chicken debacle made me ill for 3 hours. I really did vomit up chicken 3 hours after I ate it, which leads me to think my issue is more stricture related than intolerance. Otherwise, wouldn't the chicken have passed through? I'm going to call the surgeon's office on Monday to see if I need to move my next endoscopy up (currently scheduled in 5 more weeks). Maybe I'll go over for dessert...she is making a pumpkin pie with Splenda.

By the way, the root beer float protein drink is to die for. 8oz diet root beer, 2oz half/half, ice, and vanilla protein. It is much higher in calories than what I typically drink, but that is mostly because I am trying to use up my Body Fortress vanilla (which I do NOT like), and I find it has a LOT of calories compared to other protein mixes. At least I have found a way to make that protein tolerable (even enjoyable!).

Hi Jen -

i know you'll do something that will make you comfortable - as for the chicken and the three hours. that's happened to me. here's the [somewhat gross] picture - if i don't chew well enough, sometimes a piece of whatever lays across the outlet and takes WAY TOO LONG to clear.

so, you're right - talk to your doc - but it also might not be a stricture.

For protein bars, I like Power Crunch bars the most - they're not super heavy/dense; they're actually more like wafer cookies, and they have fewer unpronounceable ingredients! No sugar alcohols - they're sweetened with Splenda.

I also always like the Atkins chocolate peanut butter bars. Early out, I could only eat half of one at a time.

My favorite was the EAS brand CarbAdvantEdge cookies n cream flavor, but it appears they recently changed to only making the EAS Myoplex version, which is a larger bar, and it's too many sugar alcohols for me to have all at once :mad:

In general, though, I actually try to avoid the bars most times because they're so sweet they can easily trigger junk food cravings for me (or else I end up eating multiple in a day, which can cause gas and whatnot).

I tried the Pure Protein chocolate/peanut butter bar tonight. 31 grams of protein and 3 sugars. Its pretty good but very rich! I ate about 1/3 of it.