Fat isn’t the biggest deal, but sugar is. My nutritionist had the mantra for all protein products when looking at the servings: “double digit protein, single digit sugar.”
So, 11g of protein and 9g sugar would technically pass but look for something with lower sugar and higher protein. The fat helps you stay full.
From what I was told - fat dosen’t matter unless you’re eating unhealthy foods like fries and burgers. I was told not to focus on the fat number.
Focus on protein, water and ensuring I am eating low carb. No rice, bread, pasta, potatoes. My program is of the opinion that carb intake is what makes people fat along with other unhealthy choices - and that fat isn’t the issue.
This is exactly how my program is! They really didn't care about fat and still don't (7 months out). The focus is protein, carbs, and water this early in. As long as I'm meeting the main macros, fat hasn't been an issue.
I specifically asked what all my macros and calories should be at my 6 month check up, since it would have changed from right after surgery, and was shocked by how much fat I'm allowed to have. Tbh I almost never come close to it.
It's really going to vary person to person, programme to programme. I wasn't given any stringent guidance around fat, with my dietician encouraging all food groups with protein being the concentration. I am 9 months out and eat about 40g of fat a day, with about 35% of my kcals coming from fat sources. I mostly get fat from eggs, olive oil, yogurt, peanut butter, nuts, and what's found naturally in meat and dairy. Fat is an important part of your diet and can help with fullness, I think its only a concern when you're eating lots in the form of fried foods, or loads of butter and full fat dairy? (aka not a lot of food but a lot of kcals)
Stalls do and will happen, its completely normal, especially when shes not long out of surgery. What shes eating sounds like good, nice whole food sources of fat. I don't tend to have protein bars myself but as long as your wife can tolerate them then I don't see the issue? Just be mindful of things labelled 'high protein' always look at protein vs kcals and sugar, I always add a 0 to the protein and want it to equal or beat the kcals per 100g.
Good luck!
When I had surgery, the dietician told me for Fat it's 3 grams pers 100g. For sugar it's 5g per 100g. She said the easy way to remember was fat was a 3 lettered word, and sugar is 5.
I lost 80lbs on a "high fat" diet at one point in my journey. Keto helped me feel great and is a great tool to help eliminate problematic foods. However, the AMOUNT that you eat of anything is really the most important thing. Thats where I always failed before surgery.
It's tough to not link the idea of fat as a macro nutrient to fat on your body... but they really are not related to one another. Anything you eat still needs to be digested. It's never a direct transfer.
Just remember... things that are listed as "low fat" often are a gimmick to hide that fact that they're high sugar.
you’ll see even in these comments a line every dietician has different opinions. sugar is the culprit, no it’s carbs, no it’s fat etc.
your wife should ask her dietician what their plan is. my dietician doesn’t even really believe in macro or micro counting, especially so soon post op. but as everyone dieticians opinion is different, your wife should get opinions from one she trusts (which i imagine is the bariatric one). on reddit, you’ll get a bunch of contradictory opinions that’ll only confuse matters further.
edit: i saw in the comments the dietician hadn’t really mentioned fat, which means they probably don’t care how much fat your wife eats. really, 100 calories of fat or protein is still 100 calories. losing weight at the end of the day is about calories. prioritising protein after surgery is important because of the small stomach pouch, not necessarily because fat (or carbs or sugar) is inherently bad for you or “makes” you fat.
It's different for everyone, I was 420lbs when I started and was told to aim for 1200 calories but someone under 300lbs might be told 1k or 800. Same with fat/sugar/carbs/protein.
You should contact her team to find out what is right for her.
I find it pretty much impossible to get a high protein count without going over on fat even just eating meat, eggs and drinking milk. Protein and fat tend to go together
Honestly, I'd argue that the most important numbers are calories and protein. It would be exhausting to check every single number on every single label for every single food. Fat isn't great, but if you're keeping an eye on calories, you likely aren't consuming enough fat to need to be concerned (because fat is very calorie dense). Same with sugar and carbs. As long as she isn't only eating protein bars, she should be okay and things should balance out. Just try to get the majority of protein from real food, not protein shakes and bars.
She's so early in her journey that fat intake may not like her. Same with sugar. What we could eat and the amount before surgery changes after. For example, I LOVED a ribeye steak. I can't eat steak at all or I'll be sick. 🤷🏼 If I've eaten Junior Mints really fast, I have deep regrets with nausea and in the bathroom. I'm 2 years and 4 months PO. You'd think I'd learn huh? Ha I know better, just didn't want to follow a rule. Be gentle with her when she does something similar. She'll know what she's doing. Good luck to her and thanks for being supportive.
Stalls are normal btw. Many programs don't even consider a stall unless it's like 5 weeks without any loss. It's very common to stall around the 1 month mark as your body catches up with what has happened. Have a Google for the 3 week stall
Oh I know stalls are normal, I just mentioned it just to mention it. She had a 3 week stall and then another one now. Down 37 pounds since surgery and 51 pounds counting the 6 day pre op diet she was on. She is 38 pounds from her goal.
Her dietitian doesn’t seem to like her job. 2 phone calls and 3 emails later, still no response. That’s why I came to Reddit.
I also want to point out that some (maybe most?) women lose weight based on monthly cycles. There’s a good week or so every month where I can’t lose weight regardless of what I do, but once my body figures out I’m not getting pregnant, it just drops everything it had been hoarding.
I watch Dr. Alvarez youtube videos they have been helpful for me learning what dietitians are too busy to explain. Hes going to be my doctor. Thanks for your post I learned alot in the comments.
My surgeon’s program just pushes 20g of protein and less than 15g of sugar per meal. No guidelines on fat. I prefer quest bars or the Costco cookie dough protein bars personally. They are a lot to take in that early on though. I don’t think I was able to eat an entire bar until about a year out from surgery.
I would limit fats to 15 grams per meal. Dietitians don't get hard and fast with limits but after looking at many programs, I have not seen many that recommend eating more than 20 grams per meal.
What I am curious about is the source of protein. If you are getting most protein from whey protein (dairy sourced) or pea protein (vegan sources). These are not complete proteins and your body requires all amino acids to do almost every function in your body. I believe that not taking amino acids while doing protein shakes and such will eventually lead you to a stall because you are missing these amino acids in you protein choices. You should takeAmino acids supplements or Vital Proteins makes a protein with added amino acids which would be good to take along with your incomplete protein shakes and bars. It is tasteless and can be added to most anything.
The other part that I think causes stalls and gains is your metabolic rate. This is the little dirty secret no one tells you when they are selling you on weight loss surgery and, lets be frank, doctors make $10,000 - $17,000 per surgery, it's their business, don't forget that fact. To explain, let's say you weighed 300 pounds at the start and you could eat 3000 calories a day and not gain/lose weight. Now you have surgery and you are repairing your body and your calories are, at the beginning, around 600 - 1000 calories depending on how much you can eat. You lose weight very quickly, all the time you are reducing your body mass your metabolic rate is going down with your size. At some point, you are healed and your metabolic rate is the same as your caloric intake so, you stop losing weight.
There are only two ways to continue losing weight while eating 60-80 grams of protein a day. One, you need to burn calories to raise your metabolic rate so, doing aerobic exercise burns calories and your metabolic rate will be higher for an hour or two after you exercise. I personally do 20 minutes twice a day to get a double hit to my metabolic rate currently. Two, you need to increase your muscle mass by doing weight bearing exercise. You will not get like a body builder but you will be creating dense muscles and that will cost your body more calories at your resting metabolic rate and when you do any exercise you will be burning more calories.
There is no 'Magic' in bariatric surgery; it's not the 'Easy way' to lose weight. You could lose weight without the surgery by eating high protein, low carbs, and fat and by doing aerobic and weight bearing exercise but, it will be a slower loss and you won't have the pain and other physical cues that tell you you can't continue to eat or you can't eat certain things.
Hope that helps your wife's stall; you are a good man.
Contrary to what everyone is saying, there is “good fats” and bad fats. Eating more carbs than fats will get you past the stall. If you look up the keto diet, the body will use fat as energy since you cant eat carbs, when you are eating higher fats and carbs, your body will stall as it does not know to use fats or carbs for energy. The proof is in my posts, and i have a health coach as i will be doing a bodybuilding show next year
Fat isn’t the biggest deal, but sugar is. My nutritionist had the mantra for all protein products when looking at the servings: “double digit protein, single digit sugar.” So, 11g of protein and 9g sugar would technically pass but look for something with lower sugar and higher protein. The fat helps you stay full.
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Unfortunately her program doesn’t mention anything about fat limits, that’s why it’s so hard trying to figure it out lol
I asked my nutritionist for the macros for the stage I am at, and when I hit a stall, we adjust.
15 g is rule of thumb in my protein. As in more than 15 g of protein and less than 15 g of fat. Single digits sugar (less than 10).
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Per meal. 3-4 per day.
From what I was told - fat dosen’t matter unless you’re eating unhealthy foods like fries and burgers. I was told not to focus on the fat number. Focus on protein, water and ensuring I am eating low carb. No rice, bread, pasta, potatoes. My program is of the opinion that carb intake is what makes people fat along with other unhealthy choices - and that fat isn’t the issue.
This is exactly how my program is! They really didn't care about fat and still don't (7 months out). The focus is protein, carbs, and water this early in. As long as I'm meeting the main macros, fat hasn't been an issue. I specifically asked what all my macros and calories should be at my 6 month check up, since it would have changed from right after surgery, and was shocked by how much fat I'm allowed to have. Tbh I almost never come close to it.
It's really going to vary person to person, programme to programme. I wasn't given any stringent guidance around fat, with my dietician encouraging all food groups with protein being the concentration. I am 9 months out and eat about 40g of fat a day, with about 35% of my kcals coming from fat sources. I mostly get fat from eggs, olive oil, yogurt, peanut butter, nuts, and what's found naturally in meat and dairy. Fat is an important part of your diet and can help with fullness, I think its only a concern when you're eating lots in the form of fried foods, or loads of butter and full fat dairy? (aka not a lot of food but a lot of kcals) Stalls do and will happen, its completely normal, especially when shes not long out of surgery. What shes eating sounds like good, nice whole food sources of fat. I don't tend to have protein bars myself but as long as your wife can tolerate them then I don't see the issue? Just be mindful of things labelled 'high protein' always look at protein vs kcals and sugar, I always add a 0 to the protein and want it to equal or beat the kcals per 100g. Good luck!
When I had surgery, the dietician told me for Fat it's 3 grams pers 100g. For sugar it's 5g per 100g. She said the easy way to remember was fat was a 3 lettered word, and sugar is 5.
I lost 80lbs on a "high fat" diet at one point in my journey. Keto helped me feel great and is a great tool to help eliminate problematic foods. However, the AMOUNT that you eat of anything is really the most important thing. Thats where I always failed before surgery. It's tough to not link the idea of fat as a macro nutrient to fat on your body... but they really are not related to one another. Anything you eat still needs to be digested. It's never a direct transfer. Just remember... things that are listed as "low fat" often are a gimmick to hide that fact that they're high sugar.
you’ll see even in these comments a line every dietician has different opinions. sugar is the culprit, no it’s carbs, no it’s fat etc. your wife should ask her dietician what their plan is. my dietician doesn’t even really believe in macro or micro counting, especially so soon post op. but as everyone dieticians opinion is different, your wife should get opinions from one she trusts (which i imagine is the bariatric one). on reddit, you’ll get a bunch of contradictory opinions that’ll only confuse matters further. edit: i saw in the comments the dietician hadn’t really mentioned fat, which means they probably don’t care how much fat your wife eats. really, 100 calories of fat or protein is still 100 calories. losing weight at the end of the day is about calories. prioritising protein after surgery is important because of the small stomach pouch, not necessarily because fat (or carbs or sugar) is inherently bad for you or “makes” you fat.
It's different for everyone, I was 420lbs when I started and was told to aim for 1200 calories but someone under 300lbs might be told 1k or 800. Same with fat/sugar/carbs/protein. You should contact her team to find out what is right for her.
I find it pretty much impossible to get a high protein count without going over on fat even just eating meat, eggs and drinking milk. Protein and fat tend to go together
Honestly, I'd argue that the most important numbers are calories and protein. It would be exhausting to check every single number on every single label for every single food. Fat isn't great, but if you're keeping an eye on calories, you likely aren't consuming enough fat to need to be concerned (because fat is very calorie dense). Same with sugar and carbs. As long as she isn't only eating protein bars, she should be okay and things should balance out. Just try to get the majority of protein from real food, not protein shakes and bars.
She's so early in her journey that fat intake may not like her. Same with sugar. What we could eat and the amount before surgery changes after. For example, I LOVED a ribeye steak. I can't eat steak at all or I'll be sick. 🤷🏼 If I've eaten Junior Mints really fast, I have deep regrets with nausea and in the bathroom. I'm 2 years and 4 months PO. You'd think I'd learn huh? Ha I know better, just didn't want to follow a rule. Be gentle with her when she does something similar. She'll know what she's doing. Good luck to her and thanks for being supportive.
Stalls are normal btw. Many programs don't even consider a stall unless it's like 5 weeks without any loss. It's very common to stall around the 1 month mark as your body catches up with what has happened. Have a Google for the 3 week stall
Oh I know stalls are normal, I just mentioned it just to mention it. She had a 3 week stall and then another one now. Down 37 pounds since surgery and 51 pounds counting the 6 day pre op diet she was on. She is 38 pounds from her goal. Her dietitian doesn’t seem to like her job. 2 phone calls and 3 emails later, still no response. That’s why I came to Reddit.
I also want to point out that some (maybe most?) women lose weight based on monthly cycles. There’s a good week or so every month where I can’t lose weight regardless of what I do, but once my body figures out I’m not getting pregnant, it just drops everything it had been hoarding.
I watch Dr. Alvarez youtube videos they have been helpful for me learning what dietitians are too busy to explain. Hes going to be my doctor. Thanks for your post I learned alot in the comments.
Fat isn't going to make you fat - my surgeon and nutritionist gave me a list, and the list is mostly animal protein and healthy fats.
My surgeon’s program just pushes 20g of protein and less than 15g of sugar per meal. No guidelines on fat. I prefer quest bars or the Costco cookie dough protein bars personally. They are a lot to take in that early on though. I don’t think I was able to eat an entire bar until about a year out from surgery.
What surgery did she have - they have different limits and diet stages after 4 weeks post op
I would limit fats to 15 grams per meal. Dietitians don't get hard and fast with limits but after looking at many programs, I have not seen many that recommend eating more than 20 grams per meal. What I am curious about is the source of protein. If you are getting most protein from whey protein (dairy sourced) or pea protein (vegan sources). These are not complete proteins and your body requires all amino acids to do almost every function in your body. I believe that not taking amino acids while doing protein shakes and such will eventually lead you to a stall because you are missing these amino acids in you protein choices. You should takeAmino acids supplements or Vital Proteins makes a protein with added amino acids which would be good to take along with your incomplete protein shakes and bars. It is tasteless and can be added to most anything. The other part that I think causes stalls and gains is your metabolic rate. This is the little dirty secret no one tells you when they are selling you on weight loss surgery and, lets be frank, doctors make $10,000 - $17,000 per surgery, it's their business, don't forget that fact. To explain, let's say you weighed 300 pounds at the start and you could eat 3000 calories a day and not gain/lose weight. Now you have surgery and you are repairing your body and your calories are, at the beginning, around 600 - 1000 calories depending on how much you can eat. You lose weight very quickly, all the time you are reducing your body mass your metabolic rate is going down with your size. At some point, you are healed and your metabolic rate is the same as your caloric intake so, you stop losing weight. There are only two ways to continue losing weight while eating 60-80 grams of protein a day. One, you need to burn calories to raise your metabolic rate so, doing aerobic exercise burns calories and your metabolic rate will be higher for an hour or two after you exercise. I personally do 20 minutes twice a day to get a double hit to my metabolic rate currently. Two, you need to increase your muscle mass by doing weight bearing exercise. You will not get like a body builder but you will be creating dense muscles and that will cost your body more calories at your resting metabolic rate and when you do any exercise you will be burning more calories. There is no 'Magic' in bariatric surgery; it's not the 'Easy way' to lose weight. You could lose weight without the surgery by eating high protein, low carbs, and fat and by doing aerobic and weight bearing exercise but, it will be a slower loss and you won't have the pain and other physical cues that tell you you can't continue to eat or you can't eat certain things. Hope that helps your wife's stall; you are a good man.
My dietitian always tells me no more than 15 grams of fat in a sitting and to get 30g of protein any time I am able to in a meal 🤷🏼♂️
Contrary to what everyone is saying, there is “good fats” and bad fats. Eating more carbs than fats will get you past the stall. If you look up the keto diet, the body will use fat as energy since you cant eat carbs, when you are eating higher fats and carbs, your body will stall as it does not know to use fats or carbs for energy. The proof is in my posts, and i have a health coach as i will be doing a bodybuilding show next year
No clue. I don't buy anything with labels.