Diet while recovering from surgery

I didn't really know how to name this thread so I named it as to the point as I could. I am undergoing my second and final shoulder surgery tomorrow and had a few questions concerning my diet since I can basically do zero activity for a month.

After the first surgery I ate everything in site and just had fun with it, eventually cleaning up my diet and kicking up the cardio when I was allowed to get back at it. This go around I don't want to do that. This recovery will be the path back to 100% so I want to be ready to start training again.

1. My goal would be to loose fat with my diet alone, with very little physical activity (walking to the bathroom and or the truck would be about it), is this possible?

2. If so, how do I eat to accomplish this?

IF and whey? I'm just saying whey since that's often what's in a drip when you are in a hospital. I noticed the stuff my friend was on after his stomach surgery and it was basically whey+some kind of sugar.

I agree with BlairBob.

Do you think that taking a ton of fish oil would be a booster for recovery since they're so anti-inflamatory? I'm thinking about 10-15g a day.

Not sure I quite understand when I should eat and when I should fast since I am not active?? Also, should I only eat meat and veggies?

For the whey I might just make a sippy drink that I sip on all day, sound good? Fish oil is a good idea, will do. Thanks!

Eddie, if you want high quality fish oil in BULK, then I super highly recommend True Protein's (trueprotein.com) fish oil capsules. They've got 1g a capsule and you can buy 1000 capsules (no joke lol) for roughly 24.5 USD. They come in a nice big plastic container and in excellent condition.

Personally, I can't praise them enough. I take about 10+ grams a day and I've never felt better. Knee pain is gone and even slight discomfort is rare after a heavy workout. 8)

Patrick Smith said:

Eddie, if you want high quality fish oil in BULK, then I super highly recommend True Protein's (trueprotein.com) fish oil capsules. They've got 1g a capsule and you can buy 1000 capsules (no joke lol) for roughly 24.5 USD. They come in a nice big plastic container and in excellent condition.

Personally, I can't praise them enough. I take about 10+ grams a day and I've never felt better. Knee pain is gone and even slight discomfort is rare after a heavy workout. 8)

Just keep in mind that every capsule you take only contains 180mg of EPA and 120mg of DHA. So if you take 10 capsules, you are really only getting 3 grams of fish oil. I would not recommend taking much more than 3 grams of fish oil.

Patrick Smith said:

Do you think that taking a ton of fish oil would be a booster for recovery since they're so anti-inflamatory? I'm thinking about 10-15g a day.

As far as I know, omega 3 fatty acids are not actually anti-inflammatory, just much less inflammatory than omega 6 fatty acids. So the most important thing is to balance omega 3 fatty acids and omega 6 fatty acids.

Here's what Robb Wolf has to say in regards to fish oil supplementation:

1-LIMIT linoleic acid!! You’d think after I jumped up and down about his for the past 1500 words that it would be obvious, but I just wanted to make sure we are clear on this. Nuts, seeds, corn, safflower, sunflower and similar seed oils are “no bueno.â€

2-Limit linolenic acid form things like flax, hemp, chia etc. I’d prefer you get the bulk of your N-3’s in the ready made forms of EPA/DHA and your N-6’s as aracidonic acid. The conversion of linolenic acid to EPA/DHA is inefficient and overall exposes up to a greater oxidative potential as you must consume MORE total polyunsaturated fats to get the goods. I know there are some folks that recommend these short chain fats. Do whatever you like but this is what makes sense to me.

3-Try to get the bulk of your EFA’s (both N-3 and N-6) from grass fed meat, and perhaps pastured dairy in the form of butter. BUT that’s expensive!! I know Buttercup, I know. Do your best. Sardines, mackerel and similar fish are also great sources.

4-Supplement with 2-4 grams of EPA/DHA heavy oils from fish oil, fermented cod liver oil (god help me…that stuff is NASTY, but Chris Kresser loves the stuff) or vegetarian sourced DHA from algae. The DHA can retro-convert to EPA, so no problems there. Which should it be, 2 or 4 grams? If you are “big†take 4. If you are little, take 2. If you do not know if you are big or little, please disavow all knowledge or the paleo diet and adopt veganism. Please.

Source: http://robbwolf.com/2011/10/05/fish-oil/

To adress your questions, Eddie:

1. My goal would be to loose fat with my diet alone, with very little physical activity (walking to the bathroom and or the truck would be about it), is this possible?

2. If so, how do I eat to accomplish this?

Yes, it is possible. Diet is the main factor in losing weight. Getting in some physical activity as possible is still a good idea though.

I would suggest a paleolithic/primal diet fairly low in carbs (50-100g daily), high in protein, and moderate to high in fat (depending on your caloric needs). If you need more resources about paleolithic diets, check out archevore.com, robbwolf.com, and marksdailyapple.com.

Thanks for the help fellas! I will definitely read up on that and use that link to purchase more fish oil. My girlfriend is a pharmacist and used to work for Walgreens. When she was there I got her to purchase 5 big bottles for me with her 50% discount! So I am still trying to finish that off! I also have prescription Toradol for anti-inflammatory for this first week. Both of them together are working great.

As for the diet I guess low calorie, low carb paleo with the whey sippy drink will be the way to go. Any one know any more information on how the IF would work if you were doing no activity? Just curious. Thanks for the help guys!!

Slizzardman,

I used a metabolic calculator from a Google search and my resting metabolic rate (5'7", 165lb, 25 yr old) was 2033 calories. 2033x0.3 = 610 calories / 4(cal/carb) = 153 carbs a day. Does this sound about right? When my activity is back to normal, should I still use 30% for carb intake?

Thanks for your help man!

Eddie, I'm obviously not Slizzardman, but a guideline he recently gave to me was 30% of your RMR calories from carbs - and when you get active again you recalculate the RMR, cover the 30% by carbs and replace the carbs you've burned through additional exercise.

30% of RMR is baseline.

Bissen, thanks for the help man! I wasn't trying to act like no one else could comment or help, we had started a nutrition conversation on a different thread and I was moving it here to continue it. Thank you for the information, I appreciate it and it makes perfect sense!

I hate to keep bringing this up but I have another question. Before I got injured I was following Slizzardman's perfect pre, mid, post workout nutrition pretty closely. I ate the majority of my carbs at my pre-wo meal by eating a sweet potatoe w/ meat & veggies 1.5 hr before workout, and my post work out meal by eating a sweet potatoe w/ whey protein immediately Post workout. The rest of the time it was nothing but eggs, meat and vegetables for the rest of the day and on non training days. BY vegetables I mean no sweet potatoes, just green veggies.

This was only about 60-70g carbs from the sweet potatoes and probably another 20-30g from the veggies in the day. This was when I was very active, and I gained muscle and lost fat. It worked great.

Now, the above reccomendation says I should be eating about 150g carbs a day with no activity in order to lose fat and keep muscle. Therefore, I am now eating 3 sweet potatoes a day with lots of green veggies and am inactive other than daily functioning.

How is this?

Was I doing it wrong and not getting enough carbs before, meaning I could have had better results if I would have calculated the amount as mentioned?

Weight loss following surgery is very, very common, even if you're not totally laid up in bed. You're insides became our outsides for a while, which is a major stressor - and your body is working overtime trying to repair itself.

Fish oil doesn't really stop that type of post surgery inflammation (there are dozens of different signals), though it can interfere with clotting in high enough dosage. You do want normal clotting to occur following surgery. You don't want blood clots, that's another story. Are you receiving a blood thinner like warfarin or coumadin? If so, fish oil is probably not advised.

The sooner you can start including some rehab movements, after the swelling is down, the better your speedy recovery chances.

In any event, you most likely will have a setback of some sort after surgery and just will have to rehab and work your way back.

There is no magic diet to prevent that and putting on a little fat should be the last of your concerns. Coconut milk often is used in hospitals post-surgery as it provides lots of accessible energy and is easy to digest. You need calories now to recover and rebuild.

I should probably change the title of this thread as it is misleading. I had surgery on December 15th and originally had questions for how to eat while being significantly in-active 3 or so weeks after surgery. During the first 2-3 weeks, everything put in front of me went down the hatch! But now that initial recovery is over, going on 6-7wks of rehab, I asked for advice on how to lean up with out losing muscle. I had started cutting the portions waaay down and was losing muscle. Slizzardman and Bissen explained the carb intake "equation" and I was comparing it to my pre-surgery diet. Pre-surgery I was losing fat and gaining muscle eating less carbs as described in the above post. Now I can't do cardio and can only do my prescribed shoulder re-hab and stretching, and was told to eat more carbs than I was eating Pre-surgery. I was questioning the how and why of this and if I was simply doing it wrong before?? Thanks for your help!

Eddie said:

I should probably change the title of this thread as it is misleading. I had surgery on December 15th and originally had questions for how to eat while being significantly in-active 3 or so weeks after surgery. During the first 2-3 weeks, everything put in front of me went down the hatch! But now that initial recovery is over, going on 6-7wks of rehab, I asked for advice on how to lean up with out losing muscle. I had started cutting the portions waaay down and was losing muscle. Slizzardman and Bissen explained the carb intake "equation" and I was comparing it to my pre-surgery diet. Pre-surgery I was losing fat and gaining muscle eating less carbs as described in the above post. Now I can't do cardio and can only do my prescribed shoulder re-hab and stretching, and was told to eat more carbs than I was eating Pre-surgery. I was questioning the how and why of this and if I was simply doing it wrong before?? Thanks for your help!

This might be the justification for eating somewhat more carbs when inactive, but just surmising.

If you're not exercising you are not going to have high carb needs, however having 150-200 grams is not excessive to me as long as the total calories eaten matches your expenditure. I'm not sure you should be eating at a deficit i.e. dieting, at this time, as it is still very close to your operation. Probably want to wait 4-6 weeks for that. If you want to eat less carbs, probably keep it above 100 at which point ketones start to develop, which can create a catabolic environment without resistance exercise to counteract it.