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Diet Changes after Weight loss Surgery

 

Diet before weight loss surgery or pre weight loss surgery diets follow a diet pre weight loss surgery diet plan.  There is no special diet for quick weight loss before surgery, though may programs institute a liquid diet plan.  This involves replacing two of your three meals a day with a protein shake that will also provide vitamins and minerals your body needs when you a not taking in a lot of calories.  These diets are called very low calorie (VLC) diets and can be very effective if they are follow carefully.  Obviously, it will be very difficult to lose the weight right before surgery on the VLC liquid diet if your one solid meal a day consists of several slices of pizza with a large soda and potato chips.  The key to any diet is limiting calories intake, taking in the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals, exercise, and CONSISTENCY!  It may take several days or weeks before the effects of the diet begin to show.  Patients on these pre-operative diets need to be patient and work with their doctor and office staff to obtain successful weight loss.

 

 

Diet after weight loss surgery sleeve and bypass or post weight loss surgery diet ( even lap band diets) all follow the same general principles.  That is, restrict the calories that a person can take in in one day.  However, this restriction does not have to mean making you sick if you eat too much.  Metabolic operations like the sleeve and gastric bypass (roux-en Y gastric bypass or RYGB) can limit calorie intake by taking away a person’s hunger.  This is critical to successful weight loss surgery.  Hunger, like many things in our body, is controlled mostly be hormones produced in the intestines that control our liver, pancreas, and even our brains.  Because a person is restricted in calories after weight loss surgery, they must be very careful what they eat.  There is no one perfect post weight loss surgery diet that all bariatric surgeons prescribe; however, a good general rule is to make sure that the few calories a patient does eat throughout the day are healthy calories that will fuel the body.  Patients must learn to eat to live, not live to eat.  My four rules are: 1. Stay hydrated, 2. Eat solid protein, 3. Eat your protein first, and 4. Avoid liquid calories.

 

Weight loss surgery diet without surgery is very popular, but has been met with much frustration and weight regain afterwards.  My advice on diets without surgery would be to stay away from the extreme fad diets that have you drinking gallons of water a day, severely restrictive diets, and diets that are just impossible to continue long term.  Dieting should by synonymous with life-style changes.  That is, a person who is going to diet to lose weight must focus on changing their behavior to an activity that works, they enjoy, and they can do for the rest of their lives or it will inevitable fail when the diet ends.

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Weight loss surgery diet recipes are ubiquitous.  The internet is a source of great wealth of information, but it is also a place of great peril.  When looking for good diet receipts, look for foods that are high in protein and moderate in carbs.  All fats should be limited to as little as possible.  The food pyramid has fallen out of view lately (I remember seeing in on the back of bread bags all the time).  I wonder if our children even know what the pyramid is; nonetheless, it is a great rule of thumb when trying to decide how you will prepare your meals and what receipts will lead you to a healthier life.

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