Going on a liquid diet. Any suggestions?

MrPolo · 1 year

My jaw was wired shut for about that time when I broke it in college. Best advice I can give you is do not blend up food that is not meant to be eaten soft (steak, pizza, etc.). DO get a protein shake recipe book- you will be enjoying a lot of soy protein powders, etc. for a while. It's really not that bad. Sometimes I feel like going back to it cause of all the weight I lost and knowing that I was taking in 95% nutritious 'food'. My favorite treat during that time was a vanilla milkshake blended with oreos.

Also if you have available funds- get one of those handheld blenders (~$50), (so you can blend shakes in a cup)- cleaning the regular kind of blender after every use (there will be a lot of uses) gets annoying.

mark_nb · 1 year

Shouldn't be hard to get your calories through fruit and veggie smoothies, but you don't want to go into protein deficiency. Go pick up some whey protein at GNC or, if you're cheap, wallyworld. Vanilla whey is delicious with some strawberries blended in.

janey24516 · 1 year

Acquire one of these: A Vitamix

My husband and I were given a 10-yr old model by one of our aunts. She joked that it would blend bark. It will blend anything to a pulp, quickly, and is easy to clean. If you can find one used, go for it. Our is really old and we've had no problems with it and use it daily.

Another suggestion is adding silk tofu to desserts/smoothies/things you'd want creamy. You can't taste it, it makes the drink creamy, and protein.

poserkidsrus · 1 year

i got your liquid diet right here.

tomyownrhythm · 1 year

My brother, after some oral surgery, had to go on a liquid diet for 2 weeks. He did a lot of those protein shakes that come in a can, various flavors. Also he became the fruit smoothie master. He did try to puree some regular meals to drink, but after puking through his nose decided to not try that again.

I think you have to just come to terms that this is not a normal thing to do, your options will be pretty limited, and its for a short known length of time. Plan a post-repair feast.

[deleted] · 1 year

Don't run out of toilet paper.

HerrDoktor · 1 year

Live on the toilet

r0n3i1 · 1 year

My husband just went through this. Upper and lower jaw surgically broken and bolted back together (he had severe sleep apnea and is very slim, and doesn't drink regularly, so it was 100% jaw, they are actually using him as a study on how jaw problems cause sleep apnea and high blood pressure). He literally lived on Boost and Ensure and mashed potatoes. For the first few weeks you're probably going to only be able to handle thin liquids (like boost and ensure), later on you can go to mashed potatoes (runny). Don't try blending food too much, texture is everything. I had a friend that loved lasagna, apparently no matter how good lasagna is, when you blend it, it becomes disgusting. If you don't want to go the boost or ensure route get protein powder, and for the love of god, don't get flavoured protein powder, it's disgusting and has aspartame, get the natural flavoured (unflavoured) and put what you want in it (berries, chocolate syrup, peanut butter, etc.)

wildtangentx · 1 year

A brain Slushie.

THE_PENIS_TRUCK · 1 year

Fortified wine.

bloodyunderwear · 1 year

There's always fruit-type smoothies. Fruit is yummy.

JustRay · 1 year

I suggest smoothies and thicker soups are also good. Blending an assortment of veggies such as squash, carrots, etc. Stuff that goes well together is tasty even when you arn't forced to eat it.

SC2MASTER · 1 year

My favorite is a smoothie with some ice, some yogurt, a banana or 2 and some strawberries. You can also substitute the yogurt out with ice cream. Any smoothies with bananas are awesome imo.

fe3o4 · 1 year

Top shelf only. that other stuff leaves an aftertaste.

[deleted] · 1 year

My favorite when I had oral surgery was chili. For some reason it actually improved the flavor.

furbait · 1 year

split pea soup, with various vegetables. lots of different pea-type things at indian shops. yellow dahl is one of my favorite foods ever.

raw vegetables, with some broth. serve hot. add seeds, like roast pumpkin and sunflower, and tahini, and hummus.

frozen fruit with juice, no ice.

alclone · 1 year

Highly recommend that you do protein shakes like Whey. A lot of men who lift typically use protein shakes. They taste good/they're healthy if you do it right.
Also recommend that you make fruit blends or something. You'll get your fiber from there. FYI, you probably don't need carbs to survive. Humans have lived on meat/vegetables for thousands of years.

confused123456 · 1 year

If you don't mind me asking what surgery are you having? I need one that will correct my underbite because I have a lot of jaw pain and the way that it is now I will wear away at the cartilage. I'm in braces and my back teeth don't touch (cross bite) and I had an open bite for a bit of it. My upper jaw was also to narrow so they put in an RPE. In other words I have a seriously messed up mouth. It doesn't look that bad especially now that my teeth touch and are straight but my effing jaw hurts constantly. When they remove my braces my teeth with supposedly shift back because it's the angle of my lower jaw and the fact that my upper one is narrow/short that causes this.

My insurance claims that it's cosmetic since it will change my entire face(something I am terrified of even though when they showed me what I would look like I have to admit I would be a better looking person but still). If your surgery is similar how did you argue you needed it? Every orthodontist I went to said I badly needed surgery and it would stop the pain in my jaw.

As for what you should eat I suggest making your own peanut butter mood's(this can be done healthfully), and checking out a smoothie cookbook. Yes they have them for dieters and such but you can always add more pb(they make PB powder called PB2 I use for smoothies so my hand doesn't get gross ) or tofu or protein powder to make it more substantial.

[deleted] · 1 year

Green smoothies. Hand full of fresh/frozen spinach and about 4-5 bananas. It will not taste like spinach!

[deleted] · 1 year

[deleted]

blueblur · 1 year

I have been on a liquid diet for several surgeries. Strongly recommend this: http://www.amazon.com/Lipton-Soup-Chicken-4-Count-Pouches/dp/B000EOXQRG Pudding and yogurt are nice too, but the lipton cream of chicken is a life saver. Also purchase 2 fleet enemas. When you switch back to solid food, that first solid poop is going to feel like giving birth (constipation). After 2 hours on the toilet screaming in pain, I managed to drive myself to the Walgreens and walk inside to purchase and then drive home to use. The pain was intense. It would have been so much better to have just reached under the bathroom sink, boom and done.

ofimmsl · 1 year

alcohol is a liquid

Kibibitz · 1 year

I just need to say that this topic was right over "Reddit, What is your best "I shat myself" story?"

Coincidence?

arnie_apesacrappin · 1 year

I have been in the same boat. You can read my IAmA about it. My diet consisted of mainly:

Pintos and cheese from Taco Bell.
Any soup that had small bits, clam chowder especially.
Mashed potatoes and gravy.
Peanut butter sandwiches. They can be torn and pretty much dissolve in your mouth.

If you have any questions about what it is like after the surgery, feel free to ask. Best of luck with your surgery.

affix · 1 year

I had extensive jaw surgery, my food schedule after the surgery was 6 weeks of strained liquids, 6 weeks of unstrained liquids, 6 weeks of soft foods (i.e. overcooked pasta).

First you need to find out if you can have unstrained liquids from the beginning. I couldn't. This meant: Lots of thin (milky) milkshakes, chicken broth, and protein shakes. I lost ~25 pounds in the first 4 weeks, because I was tired of everything I could think of eating and I eventually just sorta stopped eating most days. You stop getting hungry after a while.

If you can have unstrained liquids... all of the stuff that you think sounds gross will sound AMAZINGLY good after enough time spent not eating anything. You won't really crave flavor as much as you'll crave texture, but by week ~10 I was having massive cravings for mexican food, so I blended an enchilada with a bit of chicken broth and slurped on that. In retrospect it sounds totally disgusting, but at the time it was a complete lifesaver.

'Healthy' wasn't even on my mind at the time... I was just eating (or rather, drinking) anything that I could think of that I wasn't totally sick of eating. As I said, I was eating almost exclusively milkshakes and protein shakes, and I still lost a massive amount of weight (~40 pounds by the end of it... I was 6'2" ~210 when I started, I didn't look fat, but I looked totally malnourished by the end of it.

Assuming you can have unstrained liquids, blended soups are great (you can even buy non-blended soups and blend them yourself, i.e. potato leek soup that you blend yourself).

Good luck! It totally sucked. I don't even remember the surgery related pain, it was totally manageable. The 12 week liquid diet was excruciatingly difficult.

edit: My doctor had a book of recipe ideas, you should ask if yours has one available. Even if they don't, they deal with tons of patients that go through this, I'm sure they've heard of some great ideas. Ask your doctor(s), nurses, etc.

gmh33 · 1 year

A few suggestions:

At Large Nutrition has the best protein/meal replacement powders I've ever tried. I haven't tried muscle milk, but I've heard it's good.
You might want something like TMuscle's superfood, basically a nutrient/vegetable supplement.
Benefiber might make going to the bathroom better during this time, there is a powdered version.
You may also want to get some liquid fish oil / flax seed oil, you would probably want to mix it with the protein powder.
Liquid multivitamins / multi-minerals would be good to find too.

Final notes: disregard anyone suggesting "soy" protein powders. Soy products in general have an estrogenic effect on you, especially if it's the bulk of your food. Most protein powders are whey, but anything with a mix of types of protein (whey, casein, egg) are good. At Large's proteins are of these types. Protein powders are generally better tasting in milk than water, but mix better in water. For meal replacement powders, you'll probably need to use more milk/water than suggested and/or use less powder for the stuff to mix well.

Things you can add to them for taste/consistency include:

Peanut Butter
Bananas
Chocolate Syrup
Ice Cream
Fruit
Ice

If you just use water/milk/protein a spoon is good enough to mix it, but otherwise you'll need a blender. Hope this helps.

kupitzc · 1 year

Bolthouse Farms drinks are really tasty, and quite good for you too; they even have a couple of protein varieties that I like.

agoodsandwich · 1 year

Don't drink anything that you will want to have after this experience. I had my jaw wired shut for six weeks 16 years ago, and there are some things I still cannot eat because of the associations.

Beef Buillion, for example. When I have beef broth, I can still taste the awful antibiotics I was taking then, I can feel my cheeks puffing up, and I remember the weak feeling I had in my jaws for several weeks after the ordeal.

My mom was really great about taking care of me at the time. She was so sweet. At one point, she decided that I should have something other than fruit juice and ensure, so she blended up a batch of spaghetti. Now I normally loved my mom's spaghetti, but pureed spaghetti is not equal to regular spaghetti. Mixing it up makes it disgusting.

My advice is to take a break from the food you usually like, find some healthy soup and protein shakes that you usually don't eat, and just power through that month and a half.

SicTim · 1 year

Canned protein shakes (like Ensure), bullion. I just had abdominal surgery a few months ago, and the craving for protein and fats is the roughest part.

Soimastersoi · 1 year

Assuming he's putting you on a liquid diet so you don't chew, a blenderized Chipotle burrito(sans tortilla, add some chicken/vegetable broth if needed to thin it out) is actually pretty tasty.

I did that after my surgery(upper jaw removed, some bone grinded away, reattached) after a week or 2 of protein shakes/ensure/jello/etc and it was heaven.

brummmm · 1 year

What you need my friend is the Jack LaLanne Juicer. You can keep mixing up the ingredients and never get tired of any one particular thing. Jack has been ingesting nothing but this for years... and he's like 200 years old now!

djepik · 1 year

Boost and/or Ensure (or similar). Of course you'll need some variety, but this stuff is the obvious choice and I haven't seen it mentioned yet. I've gone for about 1 week on a diet of 90% only Boost and lived to tell the tale.

hedgecore77 · 1 year

I was about to suggest you were an idiot and that you were embarking on an eating disorder, but ... heh. Assumptions. :)

Get an immersion blender, you can blend the crap out of lots of things.

Pizzadude · 1 year

Charmin Ultrasoft.

futafan · 1 year

don't blend food. it looses the taste..

make soup... lots of different kinds

[deleted] · 1 year

drink plenty of fluids

kvellarcanum · 1 year

I would probably drink Slim-fast. They are meant to be meal replacers.

mjsolaro · 1 year

If you do start craving pizza, try the following:

blended tomato sauce
add teaspoon of EVOO
add a pinch of oregano
add pinch of salt

I know it sounds weird, but I eat this regularly for snacks, and it always quells my pizza cravings. Much healthier too.

Messiah · 1 year

smoothies.

ziron999 · 1 year

bolthouse.com those drinks are good, full of protein as well. Located in almost every grocery store.

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