Lean Cuisine and Greek Yogurt

I used to enjoy eating one, and occasionally two, Hungry Man (R) TV Dinners for supper.  One of the big things prior to surgery is starting to change your diet.  This is important not only to help shrink the liver, but also to help you transition to the way you'll be eating the rest of your life.  I've given up the Hungry Man (R) TV Dinners in favor of Lean Cuisine.  If you've never tried them, Lean Cuisine has a wide variety of smaller dinners that are balanced for those of us trying to lose weight.  It's not a good idea to eat them all the time, though, because the sodium content can be high.

Greek yogurt is a high-protein yogurt, with almost twice the protein of regular yogurt.  This is important, because one of the things post-op patients need most is protein.  Why?  Protein is the building blocks your body uses to make things like cells, hair, fingernails, and so on.  If you don't eat enough protein, your body will start taking it from your muscles, and you'll get weak.  Definitely not what I want to have happen.  Exactly how much protein you need will be explained to you before surgery and in the instructions sent home with you when you're out of the hospital.

So what's so special, aside from the higher protein, about Greek yogurt?  It's the perfect thing to mix things with - for example, you could make a high-protein chocolate mint smoothie with it.  That may sound counter intuitive, because we're trying to lose weight, right?  Let me explain.  As it turns out, dark, unsweetened chocolate is actually good for you.  But it's bitter and nasty to eat plain.  I'm sure there are people out there who can do it, but if you're like me, you'd rather it taste a little better.  I also love mint.  Mint and chocolate go great together.  Since the chocolate is unsweetened, it's healthy.  The mint can either be mint extract or sugar-free mint syrup (like what you put in coffee).  So now we have the flavor, we just need a delivery system.  You could use skim milk alone, but to me that's too thin.  So, if you mix in Greek yogurt in the skim milk, it thickens like a shake.  You could drink this like this, but it could be improved.  Add in a scoop or two of your favorite low-sugar protein powder and 2-3 tablespoons of Splenda.  Blend well in a blender.  Try it.  It should taste like chocolate mint ice cream.  Delicious.  Good for you, too.