When were you cleared for regular diet and what did you eat:?

Hi, I am supposed to begin a "regular diet" next Friday, which will be my 6th week since surgery.  Anything I can tolerate.  I am kind of nervous.  It's crazy, but it was kind of nice to have food boundaries, and now I have to try to set my own boundaries from a wider variety of foods.  Just wondering a what point were you all cleared to eat regular foods and what was on the menu??

My doc's program was basically liquid/puree/mush/soft proteins as tolerated for the first month and then most everything else as tolerated after that, and they give a list of examples. Their primary instruction thru it all was to try one new food at a time to test your tolerance for it - if it worked, great, and if it didn't try it again in two or three weeks and move on to something else in the meantime. So, basically keep doing what you have been doing, and slowly expand your menu each meal or each day. We progress at different rates, so let your body be your guide - my wife, after getting her DS sleeve had a hard time with ground beef (for which the surgeon suggested filet instead, and it worked!) but I never had any problem with ground beef.

Generally moister foods work better early on than drier foods - dark meat poultry over white meat, fatter and moister cuts of meat (though grain and texture count too - pot roast still sits heavier in my stomach than steak or chicken.)

Have fun exploring new things again!

 7 weeks and I was cleared for anything that I could tolerate. I started easy with chicken salads (no longer mushed to death), crackers, crock-pot type of meals. Like the other poster said, dark meat is a lot easier to tolerate than white. I would cook chicken thighs in the crock pot often. Super soft and easy to chew. Rotisserie style chicken from the grocery store is a great choice-- usually 5-6 bucks a chicken and it's already super moist. 

My MD/NUT says regular diet as tolerated after 2 weeks.

 Every surgeon has a different plan for how long each post-op diet phase is. Mine is pretty extreme with 4 weeks of liquids, 2 of mushy and then cleared at week 7. 

Mine will be clearing me for everything 4 weeks out (Monday) but I'm still only eating tuna/egg salad and refried beans beans with greek yogurt sometimes and some cheese. When he clears me I plan to add shrimp (I hope) and some chicken and keep with the tuna and cheese. Nothing else seems interesting to me...

Food has become the most boring and pointless thing EVER since all of this has happened...

You are so right. I can't get over how I do not care about food anymore, I am not planning dinners or looking for great recipes. If I didn't have to eat to survive, I probably wouldn't

As for the post..I am at week 7 and reallyy moving slowly on adding new things. I am still doing a lot of mushies and know i need to progress to more solid. I finally was able to keep down chicken this week. My fridge is filled with eggs, yogurt, cheesse, soy milk plus protein and soup.
M

Yeah, I bought cook books and everything and haven't even looked in them because I could care less. I just have my boring tuna every day that I made a huge batch of and I have no desire to make anything else.

Hi Shwag,
How are you doing? How many weeks out are you now?

Exactly 4 :) My "surgiversary" is in 4 days. I've lost  28.2 pounds  post op as of this morning and 37.6 with my post op diet. I kind of count the total loss because I lost that the week +/- before and, to me, it was just as much a part of my surgery as the surgery was. Anyway, I've hit some bumps in the road that I posted about yesterday but I see my surgeon on Tuesday and I may request some more time off work. Thank you for asking :) How are you doing?