Healing and Maintaining Weight After Surgery - Ask a Nutritionist

Transcript:

LEAH: Hello and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's “Ask a Nutritionist” podcast brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. My name is Leah Kleinschrodt and I'm a Registered and Licensed Dietitian and we are thrilled to be celebrating 20 years on air discussing the connection between what you eat and how you feel.

Thank you all so much for your support and listenership over the years. And if you're enjoying this show, let us know by leaving a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps others find these important real food messages.

So on today's show, I will be answering one question that we received from one of our Dishing Up Nutrition listeners. This listener asks, “How to get through post surgery without gaining weight and making the most of nutrition?” So it's a great question and I'll bet you this question piqued some people's interest. I mean surgery is a relatively common experience these days and it's definitely something that can have a major lasting impact on our health, how our bodies look, and how they perform.

I will say we did a wonderful Dishing Up Nutrition show back on March 5th of 2024, so just this year, about healing fast from surgery. So I really encourage listeners to go back and give that episode a listen in conjunction with this mini episode. I learned from that particular show that the average person will have nine surgeries in their lifetime.

Then of course I had to go start counting up my own personal surgeries. I'm up to five already. I actually just my ACL in my right knee repaired last year, so this topic is still relatively fresh on my mind. So when we think about surgery, surgeries often mean that you're out of your usual routine for a while, whether that's shopping, planning, cooking meals for yourself. You might be off of work for a period of time, you might lose your mobility and normal activities for some amount of time.

Of course, this is going to vary based on what surgery you're having done, what body parts are affected, how much pain you have, et cetera, et cetera. Depending on the surgery, you may also be reliant on other people for help with even the simplest things. I mean, heck, even taking a shower might be the most strenuous thing you do in those first couple of weeks. And can we just pause for a moment and say that that first shower after you've had surgery is just like a slice of heaven.

So, when we're out of those routines, when we maybe don't have our usual food lined up, or maybe when we can't engage in some of our usual habits and activities, then when it comes to people who maybe they have weight loss as a goal, or maybe people who have lost weight and they're just trying to maintain weight or people like this particular listener, they're wanting to prevent unwanted weight gain.

When we go on into surgery, we don't know exactly what the impact is going to be on our weight, on our recovery, on our bodies. So the, some of these unknowns can just be scary for some of the reasons I just mentioned. Now, the natural inclination is likely to say to yourself, well, I'm not going to be moving as much, so I'll just eat less than usual.

Nutritional needs are high post-surgery

But post-surgery is a time when your nutritional needs are actually higher than usual. Your body is working overtime to control inflammation and trying to heal and rebuild all those tissues. So if we are undernourished during this critical time, it's going to take even longer to heal and to get back to your baseline.

So, if we can create a game plan going into surgery and that recovery period, we stand a better chance of a faster recovery and kind of landing on our feet in a better place from a metabolism perspective. I know not all surgeries are planned, heaven forbid that there are, like sometimes we need an emergency surgery and there's not much we can do to prepare ahead of time. But most of the time, you know it's coming. And by the sounds of this question I'm guessing this listener is in that same boat.

So one thing I would say is like, let's use that pre surgery time to get really familiar with the procedure you're going to have done, what the expected healing timeline and what that process is going to look like, what kind of medications might you be on after surgery, how long are you going to be on them, so on and so forth.

Preparations to make before surgery

So ask a lot of questions of your provider, your surgeon, your physical therapist, if you already have one, or whoever is on your care team. We can never foresee exactly how things will go, but oftentimes the more information you have going into it ahead of time, the better you can plan. So once you know what the process is going to look like, it's likely it's going to be easier that you'll be able to start making arrangements for that post surgery period.

And as I was thinking about this question, I, it kind of brought me back to when I was preparing for my babies to arrive, both of them. You know, if you are able to, and again, if you know you have a couple of weeks or even a few months ahead of you before surgery, this would be a great time to do some meal prepping and to freeze some meals ahead of time.

This would be a huge help for, especially that immediate post surgery timeframe when all you have the energy to really do is heat something up in the microwave. Depending on the extent of the surgery and the recovery process, you or maybe your spouse or your coworker or a friend or a neighbor, somebody might want to organize a meal train for those first few weeks after surgery just to take some of that food prepping and cooking burden off your plate.

If you're able to ask people, as part of that meal train, or even if there's just people that are offering to help, oftentimes people respond well to a little direction. So if you ask people say, hey, use the Nutritional Weight & Wellness cookbook or go on their website. I trust their recipes. You can guide people towards some of those resources. So you know that the food you will be getting will be real food. It'll be packed with protein and it'll be well balanced.

So I love our hamburger soup recipe, the pot pie soup recipes, those ones are great, a chili works most of the time, egg bake, the wild rice meatloaf recipe, which that recipe can be made either into a form of a meatloaf or can transition into meatballs.

So that one's a really versatile recipe. Our beef shepherds pie recipe, like all of these would work really well, like to cook up in a large batch and these would be things that could be eaten over the course of several meals or things that could work really easily to throw into the freezer and bring out, you know, either in a couple of days or a couple of weeks or even a few months later. So there's so many good recipes out there that can be made in large quantities and frozen.

Check Out Some of Our Website Recipes

Another great idea that I think for most people would be to make a batch or two of some protein smoothies ahead of time. And again, either keep a couple in the freezer or put some in the fridge if surgery is coming up really soon. This is great because sometimes after surgery we lose our appetites or we might feel nauseated or like we just might be affected by the amount of pain that we're in or some of the medications that are on board. So protein shakes can be an easier way sometimes to get nutrition in versus chewing on a, like a piece of steak or something like that.

Protein is crucial post-surgery for tissue healing

Protein is so, so, so crucial after surgery for tissue healing. So this would be again, a protein powder being used in a protein shake would be an easy way to get that in. So protein is crucial for healing, but it also helps us feel full and satisfied. And I can't count the number of times that it really just turns the dial back on sugar cravings and more of those processed food cravings when we have adequate protein.

So when we have enough protein on board, we're less likely to get snacky and crave that bag of chips or the salsa or mindlessly eat M&Ms while we're just chilling out on the couch. And on the subject of protein, this would also be a great time to mention collagen. So whether it's in a powder form or through homemade bone broth, collagen is the main protein that makes up our soft tissues and our skin.

So it becomes a really special kind of protein when we're talking about healing tissues, healing skin, scarring, things like that after a surgery. Personally for me, I tend to cycle on and off collagen normally, so there, I might get a container and then not get a container for a little while, but I made sure after I had my knee surgery last year that I used collagen powder in my coffee every day for about three months.

So I made sure that I had a lot of those great building blocks to help the, help that knee joint heal the best that it could and also to just help the skin tissue also repair and regenerate as best as possible. I also packed away a few jars of homemade bone broth in the freezer to drink.

And if you like bone broth, but not necessarily drinking it straight from a mug or something like that, this would be another great opportunity to use it in a soup that you're going to make and then store in the freezer or have at a later time.

So before I continue on, I'm going to pause here and take a quick break, and when we return, I'll share a few more tips about how to navigate and nourish your body after surgery.

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Stay well hydrated post surgery

All right, welcome back. Another strategy that I'd recommend after having surgery is staying up on your water and your fluid intake in general. So usually during surgery and post surgery, you're getting pumped up with a lot of IV fluids, sometimes more than you really need. And that's actually sometimes done on purpose because, you know, if you don't drink a whole lot and maybe that first day or two after surgery, just because maybe you're a little nauseated or it doesn't feel good, like we're not going to get into a huge amount of trouble there.

So again, you might have a little extra fluid on board coming out of that surgery. And oftentimes, if you do see some weight gain in those first couple of days or that first week after surgery that's because of that fluid retention and we've got a lot of inflammation in the body. Again, like your body has undergone some kind of trauma, and it's working really hard to do all those repair processes.

So in the meantime, we are going to hang on likely to some extra fluid. So you really, if you are getting on a scale, In those first couple of days after the surgery, you might see that weight go up likely because of the fluids and the inflammation. And when you feel puffy, when you feel inflamed, or when you kind of feel heavier, like you're holding on to more weight than usual, the natural inclination may be to not drink as much water as you normally would.

But you're going to need at least your baseline amount of water to flush out the anesthesia and the medications you're taking, as well as to help prevent constipation, which is a common thing that can happen after surgery. And especially some pain medications are well known for causing constipation.

So this would not be the time to back off on the water. Drinking at least your normal baseline of water and likely, if you're able to, getting in a little bit more would be a helpful thing. Again, this is where maybe the smoothies and the bone broths or even one thing my kids love in the summertime is taking a smoothie recipe and then freezing it into popsicle molds.

So that might be another thing that you could try is doing some, making a smoothie recipe or two ahead of time, freezing it into popsicles, and then it's something to suck on while you're recovering. And you can bulk up the water or the almond milk content in there a little bit so you are getting some extra fluids.

This would not be the time to cut back on fluids. We want to keep those fluids. One thing that I did postpartum and that I've done before when I've had some other knee surgeries is like, I figure out where I'm going to be parking myself for the most part while I'm recovering.

So that's, again, usually it's like the couch and the recliner and your bed and maybe like one other place. Maybe it's a sunny spot out on your deck. Kind of try to figure out the places where you're going  to spend the most time recovering and relaxing and put some extra water bottles in that space. So if you don't have somebody to at your beck and call to run and get you water and get you ice whenever you need it, just setting up stations around your house so you have those fluids available and you don't have to get up every single time might be another helpful way just to encourage you to get more of those fluids in.

Support liver and gut health

There, there's a lot of other things we could talk about, but I think one last little tidbit I'll drop in here is that this is a great time post surgery to love up on your liver and love up on your gut a little bit extra. As I mentioned just a moment ago, you've likely had anesthesia during your surgery.

Now you have a cocktail of medications to help manage pain, even if it's only just the over the counter Tylenol and ibuprofen stuff. You might have medications on board to prevent you from getting constipated. You might have needed to take antibiotics either before surgery, during surgery, or after surgery to prevent an infection.

So your liver and your gut, your kidneys to an extent also bear the brunt of detoxing these things from your body. So this is where drinking plenty of water and bone broth, again, definitely come into play. But you may also want to consider taking a quality probiotic or making it a point to consume fermented foods like sauerkraut or kimchi or yogurt or a little low sugar kombucha, things like that to replenish the microbiome.

And if you are a little hesitant or think you may be trending on the side of constipation, this one might be where some magnesium citrate would be really beneficial. So you get kind of the relaxation effects of magnesium, but you also get kind of the natural laxative effects that come along with magnesium citrate. And constipation just to say is another way where you might see that scale go up a couple of pounds if you're just not moving your bowels through like you normally do.

Now eating vegetables at most meals of the day, another great way to increase fiber intake, which will be helpful for that gut to rebound. And the cruciferous vegetables especially, so think broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, things like that, these guys have some special detoxification powers.

Broccoli sprouts and microgreens are another easy way to kick up your detoxification pathways in your capacity. So, again, these would be helpful things that will help that liver especially with just managing some of the extra burden that it's under.

For my tea loving clients, I might recommend like a liver supporting or a detoxing tea daily. A couple brands that I like are Traditional Medicinals or the Yogi Tea, so something that's organic and has some of those great herbal components to it.

As I round out here, I do just want to end with a few thoughts around weight gain after a major event like surgery. Sometimes we can prepare and we can do all the right things, “right things” being before and after surgery. And yet we still can't always predict how our bodies are going to react, the exact path they're going to take after surgery, or if we're going to run into any kind of complications or bumps in the road along the way.

We don't always have control over that. You may truly gain some weight. You might lose some muscle or you just might see your body change in a way that's not quite to your liking. That can be a hard thing to watch and to accept, and I also want to say it doesn't mean it's going to be like that forever.

There is a season for healing. There is a season for taking things slower and being more intentional. And then there will be another season again where you are more able bodied, you're not in as much pain, you're sleeping well again, your digestion is back to normal, and you can settle back into your normal eating routines, your normal physical activity patterns and things like that.

So I really encourage you, as you're kind of looking down the barrel of having surgery or looking at a lengthy recovery, play the long game when it comes to your recovery and your health and do your best not to fall into that desperation of trying to get the weight off as quickly as possible or trying to do anything drastic to prevent that weight from coming on in the first place.

At Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we've worked with many, many clients going through a whole host of different kinds of surgeries. So if you're worried or you're finding yourself struggling after surgery, reach out and let us know. We'd be happy to help and collaborate with you and get you back to a great baseline or back to a place where you're feeling a little more comfortable.

So our phone number that you can reach us at is 651-699-3438 or find us on our website at www.weightandwellness.com.

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So that's a wrap on nutrition and surgery. I thank you so much for listening to today's Dishing Up Nutrition's “Ask a Nutritionist” episode. And if you found this helpful, as a reminder, please leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

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