Your body’s response to eating is affected after gastric bypass surgery. Following bariatric surgery, your bariatric surgeon will guide you through each stage of the post-surgical diet plan until you are prepared for the ultimate, permanent stage.
Your healthcare professionals carefully crafted these recommendations to reduce your calories while offering balanced meals that support the preservation of lean muscle mass and the prevention of nutrient deficits.
This article will help you understand what is a bariatric diet and how it can be used to help you lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
What is a Bariatric Diet?
After a gastric bypass procedure, your stomach was reduced by having the majority of it stapled shut. Your body’s reaction to the food you eat has changed. You will consume less food, and your body won’t take in calories.
A gastric bypass diet, also known as a bariatric diet, aids those recuperating from sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass surgery – also known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass – in their efforts to heal and alter their eating patterns.
The goal of the gastric bypass diet is to:
- Ensure that you don’t overeat so that your stomach can heal.
- Learn to eat smaller portions so you can digest them safely and comfortably with your smaller stomach.
- Aid in weight loss and prevent weight gain
- Attempt to avoid surgery-related side effects and consequences.
Diet Plan
Diet advice after gastric bypass surgery depends on your unique circumstances.
A gastric bypass diet often uses a phased approach to help you gradually transition back to eating solid foods. How quickly your body heals and adapts to the change in eating habits determines how quickly you advance from one phase to the next. After surgery, you can typically resume eating regular meals around three months later.
As you progress through the gastric bypass diet, be mindful of the following:
- Prevent dehydration by consuming 64 ounces of fluid every day.
- Drink in between meals rather than during meals. Avoid drinking 30 minutes before a meal and wait roughly 30 minutes after a meal before doing so.
- Avoid dumping syndrome by eating and drinking carefully to avoid the symptoms of nausea, vomiting, dizziness, sweating, and diarrhea brought on by foods and liquids entering your small intestine more quickly and in more significant quantities than usual.
- Consume lean, protein-rich foods frequently.
- Select foods and beverages that are low in sugar and fat.
- Stop drinking alcoholic beverages.
- Be careful with caffeine, which might dehydrate you.
- Mineral supplements and vitamins should be taken as recommended by your doctor.
- Once you move past drinking only liquids, chew food thoroughly until it is liquefied before swallowing.
Clear Liquid Diet
You will begin a clear liquid diet during your first day in the hospital following surgery. You can consume sugar-free gelatin, water, chicken or beef broth, or skim milk. Only begin if your doctor has prescribed this diet.
- You’ll be drinking from medicinal cups. The first 30 minutes should be spent drinking 1 oz (30 ml).
- Drink 2 oz (60 ml) over 30 minutes if you don’t feel queasy or throw up after consuming 1 oz.
The two fluids you want to consume are 3 cups (24 oz) of skim milk and 6 cups (48 oz) of water.
Before other clear drinks:
- Consume your protein-rich milk.
- Throughout the day, savor little sips carefully.
- Use your check-off sheet to ensure that you are achieving your daily target.
Full Liquid Diet
You will only consume liquids from day two (2) following surgery to day fourteen (14). Full liquids are naturally liquid foods and foods that become liquid at room temperature.
You have to:
- Each day, consume six 8-ounce glasses of water. Drink one oz. in five to fifteen minutes.
- You are allowed to sip from a standard glass. Never use a straw. Never gulp down beverages or drink too hastily. Abdominal discomfort and severe nausea may result from this.
- When you’re full, stop eating!
- As directed by your surgeon, take vitamin and mineral supplements following your follow-up appointment after one week.
Eat your Protein
Consume foods high in protein to preserve muscle tissue. Tuna, tofu, fish, seafood, eggs, poultry, soy milk, meat, cottage cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products are high-protein foods. Your daily protein intake should be between 65 and 75 grams. If you cannot accomplish this aim in the first few months following surgery, don’t worry.
Supplements
To avoid vitamin shortages, you must regularly take the supplements recommended below. Please remember that all pills must be broken or divided into six to eight pieces. Whole medications may not be absorbed as well as before surgery, and it may be challenging to pass through your altered anatomy.
Multivitamins
Use a daily chewable multivitamin and mineral supplement with a high potency that contains at least 18 mg of iron, 400 mcg of folic acid, selenium, copper, and zinc. This formula is found in Centrum Adult chewable multivitamins products and Trader Joe’s. After your operation, take two pills daily for at least three months, then one tablet daily.
Calcium
To avoid calcium insufficiency and bone damage, take 1,200–2,000 milligrams of calcium each day. Take the calcium in two to three evenly spaced dosages throughout the day to improve absorption; for instance, take a 500–600 mg supplement three times daily. The optimal form of calcium is calcium citrate.
Vitamin D
Take 800 to 1,000 international units (IU) or more of vitamin D daily. This amount should be consumed in 400 to 500 IU doses twice daily. It would help if you took a calcium supplement and vitamin D supplement. If you’d instead not take numerous pills, you can take a calcium-vitamin D combo supplement as long as it has the right amounts.
Other Supplements
Some patients, especially women who are still menstruation, require supplementary folic acid or iron supplements. You will talk about this with your nutritionist.
Call the Doctor
Whenever you notice any of the following:
- You either stop losing weight, or you start gaining weight.
- Following a meal, you’re throwing up.
- Most days, you experience diarrhea.
- You constantly feel exhausted.
- You’re sweating or feel lightheaded.
Final Thoughts
The gastric bypass diet can aid your recovery from surgery and transition to a healthy eating plan that supports your weight loss objectives. After weight-loss surgery, keep in mind that you might not lose all of your excess weight or gain back any weight you lose if you resume bad eating habits.
Food choices after bariatric surgery are crucial. But with the help of an eating diet plan and discipline, the body will heal fast.