kayray.org

I had a really great online meeting with Kari the nutritionist/therapist just now. She gave me some very helpful info — mainly, that I’m not getting as much protein as I thought I was. I’ve been counting on a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter or a lump of cheese to give me a bit of protein each day, but while they aren’t bad sources of protein they are more about fat and calories (which I also need, of course).

Since I’m not really into meat, Kari suggested eggs, tofu, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and protein powder mixed into everything I can mix it with. I can handle that! Eggs are a bit daunting but I can manage a hard boiled egg each day, no problem. I love tofu, even just plain out of the package, and I like cottage cheese and Greek yogurt. I have protein powder which I mix into fruit smoothies, and I’ll increase the amount I use and try to find other things to mix it with. Yogurt and kefir will help with good gut bacteria.

She says one of the reasons I get so bloated and uncomfortable after eating is that my stomach still thinks it’s starving, so it hangs on to everything I eat to try to squeeze every last bit of nutrition out, plus the muscles are out of practice. Should improve over time.

I still weigh 99lbs but now I have hope. I tallied up my food for the past few days and I think I’ve been managing 800-1000 calories a day, which isn’t nearly enough but is much much better than the maybe 500 I was getting a few weeks ago.

So far today I drank an Ensure and several swigs of grapefruit juice, and ate a hard boiled egg, so let’s be generous and call it 400 calories so far, and 15g of protein. Lol not quite there yet. The internet says I need 1600 cal/day to break even, and an extra 500-1000/day to gain weight. So I need a minimum of 2000 calories and 150g protein LOLOLOLOL. In what universe is that going to happen?? Ah well, I am working on it and I have a plan and a good support system.

This morning I made a big pot of Kara-style ratatouille which we’ll eat with polenta for dinner, but there’s no way I can eat enough to bring up my calorie intake to a reasonable level. I’d better eat some ice cream, too. Oh what a hardship.