Overwhelmed with the difference in opinion on post-OP diet... help!
I'm so confused. My sugery is 23 days away. I'm trying to plan ahead on what I'm supposed to be eating. I decided to create a menu/meal plan that my fiance will follow and cook for me, to make everything easy. After I went to my nutrition class I came on here and EVERYTHING is so different! Why are there so many different rules depending on the surgeon?? I feel like it should be cut and dry for everyone having RNY because it's the same surgery!
I've heard: red meat VS no red meat VS only ground red meat
diet pop VS no diet pop VS only flat diet pop
lettuce VS no lettuce VS only non-iceburg lettuce
warm foods VS only cold foods
NO sugar VS 3-5grams of sugar
I'm so scared I'm going to completely fail with all these different rules!!! Any advice on how you found what worked best for you??
I've heard: red meat VS no red meat VS only ground red meat
diet pop VS no diet pop VS only flat diet pop
lettuce VS no lettuce VS only non-iceburg lettuce
warm foods VS only cold foods
NO sugar VS 3-5grams of sugar
I'm so scared I'm going to completely fail with all these different rules!!! Any advice on how you found what worked best for you??
Most of the different rules are really just based on the preference of the surgeon. Most of it is not based on science. Like, I do not believe there is a study out there showing that patients that stay on liquids for two weeks after surgery do better than those that only stay on liquids for one week. There's no study that shows that patients that eat lettuce throw up or have diarrhea more than those that do not eat lettuce. Etc. But if anyone has seen any studies, please let me know where to find them, K?
Here's what I suggest you do. Look at the written meal plan you got in your nutrition class. (You have something in writing, right?) See if all the "rules" make sense to you and seem doable. If something doesn't make sense or seems really difficult to do, ask your surgeon or dietician to explain why it's important and ask them any other questions you have about it. You can also post a question here about it.
For the rules in your plan that make sense and seem doable to you, do them. Don't worry about whether or not other people do them.
For those that don't make sense to you, if they still don't make sense or don't seem doable after discussing it with your surgeon and dietician, decide what does make sense and seem doable to you and do that.
Here's what I suggest you do. Look at the written meal plan you got in your nutrition class. (You have something in writing, right?) See if all the "rules" make sense to you and seem doable. If something doesn't make sense or seems really difficult to do, ask your surgeon or dietician to explain why it's important and ask them any other questions you have about it. You can also post a question here about it.
For the rules in your plan that make sense and seem doable to you, do them. Don't worry about whether or not other people do them.
For those that don't make sense to you, if they still don't make sense or don't seem doable after discussing it with your surgeon and dietician, decide what does make sense and seem doable to you and do that.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
Thanks. :) Very Informative. :) I do have it in writing. A LOT in writing! haha. So many instructions! But there are some things that make me nervous. My surgeon says lettuce is okay, red meat (ground) is okay but I hear about all these terrible experiences with it. I'm just nervous. My surgeon also says absolutely NO pop, not even diet pop. (Which I have a love-hate relationship with). I want to be able to drink *a little* diet pop after. Some people say they do, some say no way. It's just nerve wracking but I know in the end the only thing I will listen to is my body. It knows what I need/can have more than anyone else!
If you're nervous about lettuce or ground beef, don't eat them, at least not for a while. It seems like most people do OK with both of those once they are a few months out. When you're ready to try them, try just two or three bites the first time and see how it goes.
As for diet pop, there are numerous reasons why pop is not good for you, but there is no medical reason that you cannot have a little once in a while. The carbonation gives some people gas so they choose to avoid it. The carbonation will NOT damage or stretch your pouch though.
Try to wade through all the info and figure out what things you will be able to eat the first week after surgery, the second week and the third week. Make yourself a list of what foods your surgeon says is OK and that you don't feel nervous about. Then you can just work off your own list. Save the things that make you nervous, like lettuce and ground beef, for a little further out even if you doc says it's OK to eat them sooner.
As for diet pop, there are numerous reasons why pop is not good for you, but there is no medical reason that you cannot have a little once in a while. The carbonation gives some people gas so they choose to avoid it. The carbonation will NOT damage or stretch your pouch though.
Try to wade through all the info and figure out what things you will be able to eat the first week after surgery, the second week and the third week. Make yourself a list of what foods your surgeon says is OK and that you don't feel nervous about. Then you can just work off your own list. Save the things that make you nervous, like lettuce and ground beef, for a little further out even if you doc says it's OK to eat them sooner.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
I would recommend you follow your plan and figure out what works for you.
Even with what's in your written plan , you may find that some things
dont work well for you. Everybody is different and my pouch isn't going
to like the same things your pouch likes, so don't listen too much to what
works for somebody else. Ground meats (beef, turkey, chicken) will likely
work best for your first "meats" because it's small and moist. You can
then figure out from there what you will tolerate. Carbonated beverages
can be problematic for several months because they can introduce gas
into your tiny pouch, which can be really painful at first. I would not
recommend trying any carbonated beverages for several months.
If a food doesn't work out, try it again in a few weeks. It took me over
6 months to be able to eat chicken (have no idea why) and I still don't
do well with drier white chicken. But, I kept trying it and I can now do
ground chicken or dark chicken cut up. Start slow, introduce new
foods slowly and you'll be fine. Good luck!
Jan
I like your self am preparing for surgery,,here are some links that have helped me...on you tube there is a couple that have had RNY surgery and they posted some "pouch friendly menus with cooking instructions...look up
www.pouchfriendly.com and the other is from the local bariatric program that the nutritionist put together. muschealth.
http://www.muschealth.com/weightlosssurgery/nutrition/index. htm
scroll down the page and you will see video for fluids and nutrition video...
www.pouchfriendly.com and the other is from the local bariatric program that the nutritionist put together. muschealth.
http://www.muschealth.com/weightlosssurgery/nutrition/index. htm
scroll down the page and you will see video for fluids and nutrition video...
As Kelly said, you are getting the grouping of hundreds of "studies" and as I say, plus or minus the opinion of your clinic staff.
My doc started doing these in 1963, so my vastly were VASTLY different than those today. Our vitamin regimen was MUCH more aggressive i***** than most are today, but we didn't get B12. How odd! We were on protein supplement, and any meals were following today's rules, mostly protein foods.
Fortunately, in the 80's he hired a patient to interact with the patients. So, then the "rules" became even better because they lived the life, and then instructions were not issued from "on high" somewhere, but from the various opinions, PLUS the experience of these patient advocates. So, when they said, "Don't do carbonation unless you want discomfort", it made more sense than this rule that hit the world about 8 yrs ago about any soda, even diet, being bad. Our rule was 30 days, then diet if you wanted to your comfort. But not INSTEAD of water.
I do better with red meat than chicken, personally. Couldn't do chicken breasts or eggs for 5 yrs. And I'm NOT eating dark meat. Ewww.
I drank diet soda and iced tea until my kidney stone, then I limited myself to 2 brown drinks per day, so 1 cup coffee, 1 diet or tea. No more gallon of iced tea per day.
I didn't tolerate lettuce in my pouch for about 6 months, and it gave me "surprises" for another 6 months. Then I could eat it just fine and prefer crunchy salad over meats any way. If I HAD to eat the better lettuce only, I'd be skipping that more. I like iceberg, even tho it has the nutritional value of a tsp of water, but if you mix that into the better types, and I get the crunch, I'm fine.
I was one who didn't tolerate cold for about 6 months, now I prefer cold things cold (want to see and hear the ice) and hot things hot.
Our sugar was 6g per MEAL, and I teach "single digit per meal". So, milk will not fit that criteria - 4 letter word for candy. When you are a year or so and you examine your plate and you have a teeny pork chop with gravy, maybe some wild rice, and some canned veggie (sorry-some of us still do canned food!), the TOTAL for that meal might be the 1g in the sauce or gravy + the 2g in the peas, for example. BBQ sauce is higher, but seriously, just how much sauce can we eat in 15 minutes?
The same office changed their rules over time to no soda, nothing white, and so on, whatever rule was trendy that year. But my actual surgeon drank diet soda and didn't mind if we did.
We were told to eat UP TO 6 meals per day. A meal is 15 minutes or less. At first, 1-3 oz, then after goal wt, eat to comfort. BUT when you feel the food, you're done. We don't wait for the full to pass, then eat more to eat some caloric or oz goal. That's grazing. For the social part of the meal, fine, but my plate is gone when my serving is gone. BUT I can eat again in 2 hrs if I want.
Some of my meals might be 2 string cheese or a small peach. I just ate some celery with PB. 2 stalks. My dh went out to do errands and I'll be having Wendy's chili in a minute.
I don't count the protein in food toward my daily protein, that's 180g supplement. But any protein food that I eat is "nothing" that can fatten me up. We malabsorb fats and oils, to varying degrees, so I consider protein food a "free" food.
Our rule for water with meals was to drink up til shortly before you eat (comfort level), then not for an hour. Then someone new came in the office and wanted 1.5 hrs before and after each meal. 6 meals at 3 hrs each would be 18 non-drinking hours in a day. Lofty ideals from someone who does not live with the equipment. Being well hydrated before eating helps you not drink during the meal. I wait only about 15 minutes, which means my plate is now gone.
Bite-sip,bite-sip can quadruple your meal intake! So, I maybe do that 2-3 times per year. Winter holidays and 4th of July. The rest of the time, I only keep a fairly small glass on the table in case something is too hot or salty. Then I "rinse my mouth" only.
My highest regain was 15 lbs. I've had 3 and you can point your finger right to the sugar that did it to me.
So, see how it becomes personal to YOU after awhile? I'm a volume eater, always was, always will be. It is still an effort to eat scatter meals, rather than eat once per day. Grazers have trouble NOT eating between established meals.
Some say never eat standing up. Well, that's fine unless you have paperwork all over your table, then I eat standing in one place at the counter. I do not leave a "bowl of...", nuts (which are not a bad thing) or anything that I might grab a handful as I walk by. What I eat is in my hand (taco) or on a suitable dish.
I just listened in to a pre-op seminar and they judged bringing fast food home or eating that the computer as "bad". When I'm at my computer, I'm usually working, so I bring my allotted meal. When it's done, it's done. Lots of fast food places have decent meals, so I'm not eating a bucket of chicken - I bring it home.
BTW, it's pretty hard to get 0g sugar. If you have any dair, there is a bit there. LOTS in milk, less in half and half, none at all in cream.
I usually send ppl to a yahoo group for long termers. You can speak til you're 1 yr, but you surely can learn a lot. You do all the smart things we all did and don't do all the stupid stuff we did. I mean, seriously, what part of "no sugar" is fudge?
The ones who were not started on an aggressive supplement regimen often arrive on this list at 5-10 yrs out with enough nutritional deficiencies to have gotten them on SSI, can't work.
Since we were not issue B12, I learned about from someone whose doctor ONLY required B12, and a multi. She lost her teeth, but her brain still worked!
Surgeons are actually PEOPLE, so they have opinions. Some formed by studies, some by prejudice about fat people, some just by theorizing (hence the 18 hrs with no drink thinking).
Somewhere in that mess is what really works for us, and then more finely tuned for what works for YOU.
We never chewed any vitamins. They said we could chew them or cut the larger ones in half. They never planted the seed that we could "never take a pill again", which would be a death sentence, if you contracted a serious infection or broke an arm and needed pain meds.
If you emailed me, I'd send you the somewhat modernized version of what we did in the 90's, but as written a few years ago, with modern info.
[email protected]
My doc started doing these in 1963, so my vastly were VASTLY different than those today. Our vitamin regimen was MUCH more aggressive i***** than most are today, but we didn't get B12. How odd! We were on protein supplement, and any meals were following today's rules, mostly protein foods.
Fortunately, in the 80's he hired a patient to interact with the patients. So, then the "rules" became even better because they lived the life, and then instructions were not issued from "on high" somewhere, but from the various opinions, PLUS the experience of these patient advocates. So, when they said, "Don't do carbonation unless you want discomfort", it made more sense than this rule that hit the world about 8 yrs ago about any soda, even diet, being bad. Our rule was 30 days, then diet if you wanted to your comfort. But not INSTEAD of water.
I do better with red meat than chicken, personally. Couldn't do chicken breasts or eggs for 5 yrs. And I'm NOT eating dark meat. Ewww.
I drank diet soda and iced tea until my kidney stone, then I limited myself to 2 brown drinks per day, so 1 cup coffee, 1 diet or tea. No more gallon of iced tea per day.
I didn't tolerate lettuce in my pouch for about 6 months, and it gave me "surprises" for another 6 months. Then I could eat it just fine and prefer crunchy salad over meats any way. If I HAD to eat the better lettuce only, I'd be skipping that more. I like iceberg, even tho it has the nutritional value of a tsp of water, but if you mix that into the better types, and I get the crunch, I'm fine.
I was one who didn't tolerate cold for about 6 months, now I prefer cold things cold (want to see and hear the ice) and hot things hot.
Our sugar was 6g per MEAL, and I teach "single digit per meal". So, milk will not fit that criteria - 4 letter word for candy. When you are a year or so and you examine your plate and you have a teeny pork chop with gravy, maybe some wild rice, and some canned veggie (sorry-some of us still do canned food!), the TOTAL for that meal might be the 1g in the sauce or gravy + the 2g in the peas, for example. BBQ sauce is higher, but seriously, just how much sauce can we eat in 15 minutes?
The same office changed their rules over time to no soda, nothing white, and so on, whatever rule was trendy that year. But my actual surgeon drank diet soda and didn't mind if we did.
We were told to eat UP TO 6 meals per day. A meal is 15 minutes or less. At first, 1-3 oz, then after goal wt, eat to comfort. BUT when you feel the food, you're done. We don't wait for the full to pass, then eat more to eat some caloric or oz goal. That's grazing. For the social part of the meal, fine, but my plate is gone when my serving is gone. BUT I can eat again in 2 hrs if I want.
Some of my meals might be 2 string cheese or a small peach. I just ate some celery with PB. 2 stalks. My dh went out to do errands and I'll be having Wendy's chili in a minute.
I don't count the protein in food toward my daily protein, that's 180g supplement. But any protein food that I eat is "nothing" that can fatten me up. We malabsorb fats and oils, to varying degrees, so I consider protein food a "free" food.
Our rule for water with meals was to drink up til shortly before you eat (comfort level), then not for an hour. Then someone new came in the office and wanted 1.5 hrs before and after each meal. 6 meals at 3 hrs each would be 18 non-drinking hours in a day. Lofty ideals from someone who does not live with the equipment. Being well hydrated before eating helps you not drink during the meal. I wait only about 15 minutes, which means my plate is now gone.
Bite-sip,bite-sip can quadruple your meal intake! So, I maybe do that 2-3 times per year. Winter holidays and 4th of July. The rest of the time, I only keep a fairly small glass on the table in case something is too hot or salty. Then I "rinse my mouth" only.
My highest regain was 15 lbs. I've had 3 and you can point your finger right to the sugar that did it to me.
So, see how it becomes personal to YOU after awhile? I'm a volume eater, always was, always will be. It is still an effort to eat scatter meals, rather than eat once per day. Grazers have trouble NOT eating between established meals.
Some say never eat standing up. Well, that's fine unless you have paperwork all over your table, then I eat standing in one place at the counter. I do not leave a "bowl of...", nuts (which are not a bad thing) or anything that I might grab a handful as I walk by. What I eat is in my hand (taco) or on a suitable dish.
I just listened in to a pre-op seminar and they judged bringing fast food home or eating that the computer as "bad". When I'm at my computer, I'm usually working, so I bring my allotted meal. When it's done, it's done. Lots of fast food places have decent meals, so I'm not eating a bucket of chicken - I bring it home.
BTW, it's pretty hard to get 0g sugar. If you have any dair, there is a bit there. LOTS in milk, less in half and half, none at all in cream.
I usually send ppl to a yahoo group for long termers. You can speak til you're 1 yr, but you surely can learn a lot. You do all the smart things we all did and don't do all the stupid stuff we did. I mean, seriously, what part of "no sugar" is fudge?
The ones who were not started on an aggressive supplement regimen often arrive on this list at 5-10 yrs out with enough nutritional deficiencies to have gotten them on SSI, can't work.
Since we were not issue B12, I learned about from someone whose doctor ONLY required B12, and a multi. She lost her teeth, but her brain still worked!
Surgeons are actually PEOPLE, so they have opinions. Some formed by studies, some by prejudice about fat people, some just by theorizing (hence the 18 hrs with no drink thinking).
Somewhere in that mess is what really works for us, and then more finely tuned for what works for YOU.
We never chewed any vitamins. They said we could chew them or cut the larger ones in half. They never planted the seed that we could "never take a pill again", which would be a death sentence, if you contracted a serious infection or broke an arm and needed pain meds.
If you emailed me, I'd send you the somewhat modernized version of what we did in the 90's, but as written a few years ago, with modern info.
[email protected]
Michelle
RNY, distal, 10/5/94
P.S. My year + long absence has NOTHING to do with my WLS, or my type of WLS. See my profile.
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