Jaw surgery

Recovering from jaw surgery, as you might guess, involves at least four weeks of eating liquids. (I'm at about 3.5 weeks postop). No one prepared me for the longings for solid food that started hitting me a couple of weeks ago. When a piece of bread in the toaster oven smells like the most delicious thing on earth, you know it's bad. When you're slicing up dog treats to stuff in a Kong and you think, "this smells pretty good," you know it's worse.

I've lost about 10-15 pounds. Number of overweight people who've said to me, "maybe I should get my jaw wired shut:" 2 so far.

What have I been eating? In addition to fruit juices, milkshakes, sippable soups, Jamba Juice, and venti mochas, I've been making a lot of smoothies. They're fairly nutritious and tasty, except when you've had three or four in a day. Here's the recipe:

1 banana, sliced OR a handful of strawberries OR a diced apple OR 1 cup other fruit
1 cup plain yogurt OR 1 Tbsp peanut butter
1 scoop GNC Whey Protein Powder or equivalent (various flavors, including strawberry, vanilla, etc.)
1 serving GNC multivitamin powder (e.g., Mega Men Living Well)
2 tsp Benefiber or equivalent
0.5-1 cup milk OR 0.5-1 cup orange juice

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. About 500 calories, 35 g protein, 40 g carbs, 8 g fiber, and 12 g fat. A good breakfast for the physically active. If you take other supplements, you can skip the multivitamin powder (which will drop it to about 400 calories). If you want to cut fat, find low- or non-fat yogurt.

The only caveat for people replacing most or all of their meals is iron. I've been feeling rundown since the surgery, and it finally hit me that I might be slightly anemic. Believe it or not, GNC Mega Men Living Well powder contains no iron! (Presumably well-living mega men eat a lot of red meat, which seems a safe assumption). So I'm now crushing an iron tablet and throwing it in with the other ingredients.