Day 52 - Atkins? South Beach? Jaw Surgery?

A lot of people ask if I lost a lot of weight the first month when my diet was slightly drastically limited.  Before the surgery lots of people like my grandmothers were insisting that I over eat and gain lots of weight so I would come out in the end okay.  Actually, now that I think about it, my Greek grandmother/yaya has always been a big food pusher...so not too much of a change there.  However, its really not healthy for your weight to drastically fluctuate so I chose not to go down that road and instead go with the maintenance thing.  And, believe it or not, I didn't lose very much weight at all - only 5 pounds.  I've lost just as much weight with having the stomach flu for a few days... So considering I barely ate for a month, I think I did pretty well.  I've read a lot of jaw surgery blogs though, I don't think most people lose much more than 5 pounds either unless they had some extra weight already.  One guy said he lost 30 pounds and I thought, "oh my goodness! I'm already pretty slim.. I'll die if I lose 30 pounds!", but I read further and discovered that he had intentionally gained the weight pre-surgery and at the end came out around 5 pounds less than he was originally.  The trick to maintaining your weight while recovering from jaw surgery is very simple.  Its the same secret that applies to your weight at any other point in your life.  Ready?  All you have to do is.....make sure you're getting good nutrition and count your calories!  It can be tricky to get enough calories in, but its not impossible.  I recommend investing in a good protein powder and adding it to your shakes and smoothies. (trust me, you'll be drinking a lot of these).  I used vanilla Muscle Milk.  It has tons of vitamins in it, even more calories, and you don't taste it when mixed in your smoothie.

So while we're on the topic, I'll give you a good smoothie recipe.  This is the smoothie that kept me alive. I had it almost every single day and I think its safe to say I'm a little sick of it now...but it was good for the first couple weeks..

The 500 Calorie Smoothie

1/2 cup frozen strawberries - 50 calories
1/2 frozen banana (slice it up, then freeze) - 50 calories
1/2 cup whole milk - 75 calories
1/2 cup GREEK GODS plain yogurt - 130 calories
1 Tbs - strawberry jam - 100 calories
3 Tbs - MUSCLE MILK (vanilla) protein powder - 100 calories
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One really good smoothie   - 505 calories

Enjoy!