Diet details

Diet recommendations after gastric bypass surgery vary depending on your individual situation.

A gastric bypass diet 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 6 to 8 weeks after surgery.

At each stage of the gastric bypass diet, you must be careful to:

• Drink 64 ounces of fluid a day, to avoid dehydration.
• Sip liquids between meals, not with meals. Wait about 30 minutes after a meal to drink anything and avoid drinking 30 minutes before a meal.
• Eat and drink slowly, to avoid dumping syndrome — which occurs when foods and liquids enter your small intestine rapidly and in larger amounts than normal, causing nausea, vomiting, dizziness, sweating and diarrhea.
• Eat lean, protein-rich foods daily.
• Choose foods and drinks that are low in fats and sugar.
• Avoid alcohol.
• Limit caffeine, especially while recovering from surgery, as it can cause dehydration.
• Take vitamin and mineral supplements daily as directed by your health care team.
• Chew foods thoroughly to a pureed consistency before swallowing, once you progress beyond liquids only.