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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.
The gastric bypass diet is designed to:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
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