Definition:
A gastric bypass diet helps people who are recovering from sleeve gastrectomy and from gastric bypass surgery — also known as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass — to heal and to change their eating habits.
Your doctor or a registered dietitian will talk with you about the diet you'll need to follow after surgery, explaining what types of food and how much you can eat at each meal. Closely following your gastric bypass diet can help you lose weight safely.
Purpose:
The gastric bypass diet is designed to:
Diet details:
Diet recommendations after gastric bypass surgery vary depending on your individual situation.
A gastric bypass diet typically follows a staged approach to help you ease back into eating solid foods. How quickly you move from one step to the next depends on how fast your body heals and adjusts to the change in eating patterns. You can usually start eating regular foods about three months after surgery.
At each stage of the gastric bypass diet, you must be careful to:
Liquids:
For the first day or so after surgery, you'll only be allowed to drink clear liquids. Once you're handling clear liquids, you can start having other liquids, such as:
Liquids you can have during stage 1:
Pureed foods:
After about a week of tolerating liquids, you can begin to eat strained and pureed (mashed up) foods. The foods should have the consistency of a smooth paste or a thick liquid, without any solid pieces of food in the mixture.
You can eat three to six small meals a day. Each meal should consist of 4 to 6 tablespoons of food. Eat slowly — about 30 minutes for each meal.
Choose foods that will puree well, such as:
Blend solid foods with a liquid, such as:
Apple juice is one of the best choices for the diluted juice you are supposed to drink after your weight loss surgery.
Key recommendations:
1- You should drink 1700 to 2000 ml of water and clear liquids a day. After being discharged from hospital, gradually increase your intake
as your body’s tolerance to liquids
also increases.
2- If your urine color is dark yellow to orangish
, and it has a bad smell
, it is a sign that your body is dehydrated
and you need water.
3- Six to seven light meals are enough for you in this phase. Do not eat more than recommended and keep off solid foods.
4- Drinking weak tea or herbal tea is allowed
in this phase, but avoid drinking fizzy drinks, soda, caffeinated drinks like coffee, milk, concentrated juices, undiluted juice, or sweetened natural juice.
5- As for the diluted juice (half water, half juice), Apple and grape juices
are the recommended choices.
6- Sip water and liquid slowly, not gulp it down, as it causes stomach ache, nausea, and vomiting.
Do not use a straw to drink
, as it causes you to inhale air into your stomach.
7- In the first days after surgery, avoid sweetened drinks
such as sugary tea, as it may cause dizziness, excessive sweating, and heart palpitation.
8- Avoid smoking cigarettes and hookahs
, as it increases the likelihood of acid reflux.
9- Do not take protein supplements
without a prescription or if you do not know the
correct dosage.
10- Drinking alcoholic beverages
is very dangerous in this phase and it might cause shock and even death.
11- Eating candy and chewing gum
should be strictly avoided.
Smoking and drinking alcohol are two of the worst things you can do after your weight loss surgery.
Soft foods:
After a few weeks of pureed foods, and with your doctor's OK, you can add soft foods to your diet. They should be small, tender and easily chewed pieces of food.
You can eat three to five small meals a day. Each meal should consist of one-third to one-half cup of food. Chew each bite until the food is pureed consistency before swallowing.
Soft foods include:
Meat or chicken broth should be sifted through a sieve to be free from solid particles.
Key recommendations:
1- All the dietary habits and recommendations you have adopted during the last 3 days,
including sipping water and liquids and gradually increasing liquid intake, hold true in this phase
as well.
2- In days 4-8 after surgery, it is recommended that you drink no more than one glass of milk a day and that you divide it (equally) between two meals, gradually increasing the quantity in the following days. Bear in mind that chocolate milk, coffee milk, and milk mixed with yolk
is not recommended, but you can eat soy milk or lactose-free milk if you like.
It is highly recommended that you use skim or low-fat milk instead of high-fat milk or milk mixed with other ingredients, such as chocolate milk or coffee milk.
3- Stop eating once you feel full or nausea.
4- Do not drink water one hour before and one hour after meals, and do not lie down for 45 minutes after meals.
5- In the first days after surgery, avoid sweetened drinks
such as sugary tea, as it may cause
dizziness, excessive sweating
, and heart palpitation.
6- Avoid smoking cigarettes and hookahs,
as it increases the likelihood of acid reflux.
7- Do not take protein supplements
without a prescription or if you do not know the correct dosage.
8- Different kinds of plain soups NOT containing rice, potato, peas, corns, cream, butter, noodles, and vermicelli
are allowed in this phase and it is recommended that you use meat or chicken broth for making soups instead of water.
9- Soups must be thin, well-mixed,
and have the thickness of milk.
10- On the day 10
you can add parsley, coriander, or finely-chopped celery leaves
.
Days 15 to 30 (Phase 3 Diet):
Two weeks have passed now, in a blink of an eye, since you had a weight loss surgery. Your stomach has partially recovered now and you’ve lost a few kilos of weight. If you have followed the dietary guidelines given to you for the first two phases, now you have a better understanding of the principles of a healthy diet, thus you would not experience side effects like acid reflux, pain, nausea, and vomiting.
Now you are prepared to add semi-solid or pureed food to your diet. In fact, a blender is your best friend during these two weeks, because all your foods should be pureed and softened with a bender before consumption. For eating solid foods, you should be more patient as it is too early yet.
1- For each meal, eat 30-50 grams of pureed protein-rich food
and 30 grams of cooked and pureed vegetables.
2- Until you are able to tolerate half a cup of food for each meal, eat 5-6 light meals a day.
After that, eat 3 main meals and 2 light meals.
3- Plan your eating in a way that each meal last 20-30 minutes.
Until your stomach fully recovers, try not to eat solid foods. Instead, use pureed and soft foods that are easy to digest.
Solid foods:
After about eight weeks on the gastric bypass diet, you can gradually return to eating firmer foods. Start with eating three meals a day, with each meal consisting of 1 to 1-1/2 cups of food. It's important to stop eating before you feel completely full.
Depending on how you tolerate solid food, you may be able to vary the number of meals and amount of food at each meal. Talk to your dietitian about what's best for you.
Try new foods one at a time. Certain foods may cause pain, nausea or vomiting after gastric bypass surgery.
Foods that can cause problems at this stage include:
Over time, you might be able to try some of these foods again, with the guidance of your doctor.
A new healthy diet
Gastric bypass surgery reduces the size of your stomach and changes the way food enters your intestines. After surgery, it's important to get adequate nourishment while keeping your weight-loss goals on track. Your doctor is likely to recommend that you:
Results:
The gastric bypass diet can help you recover from surgery and transition to a way of eating that is healthy and supports your weight-loss goals. Remember that if you return to unhealthy eating habits after weight-loss surgery, you may not lose all of your excess weight, or you may regain any weight that you do lose.
Risks
The greatest risks of the gastric bypass diet come from not following the diet properly. If you eat too much or eat food that you shouldn't, you could have complications. These include:
