Diet Progression after DS

 thank you!

This list is not what my surgeon's office follows. I think each surgeon's office has different instructions. The hospital did not advance me to mushy foods. I was lucky to get down a little bit of protein shake before I left the hospital. My doctor did not clear me to eat things like cottage cheese, like it says the hospital progressing a patient to while still in the hospital in this PDF, until I was two weeks out. Also, this PDF talks about avoiding fat and using low-fat products like low fat sour cream and low fat mayo. DSers don't need to avoid fat. We are OK with using regular mayo and sour cream as our bodies malabsorb 80% of the fat we eat, plus it helps keep us regular. (The nutritionist at my surgeon's office shared this info and I have heard it repeated here in the forums.)

Wait and see what your doctor suggests. This PDF isn't necessarily very helpful, except the part where it shows how much protein is in certain foods. My surgeon's office gave me a a small pocket-sized book to use to look up nutritional values in most foods.

It is not about "needing" to avoid fats for weight loss purposes...I have discussed this with the head nutritionist at Cornell...it is about oil slicks and diarrhea that some people deal with from fat,  especially early on.

Watching the fat early out is a good idea, because many people are sensitive to it at first. This almost always changes the further out you get.

I was an exception in that I got constipated IMMEDIATELY and eating more fat fixed it.

I didn't have a problem with the fat at all. I used regular olive oil mayo in my pureed tuna salad and in my egg salad at two weeks out. And regular sour cream in the bit of pureed chili that I had. It didn't cause any weirdness for me, but I do know of someone who had an issue with oily-spotting caused by some Italian sausage around four weeks out. I ate the same thing and didn't have a problem.  

Of course, even the amount that I was having was probably minuscule in the scheme of things. I could only eat a few bites of any given thing so I wasn't really getting in very much fat either way. I wasn't over-zealous with my fat use, but I didn't avoid it either. I still do pretty much the same thing (with the exception of dipping just about everything that came across my plate into butter at Joe's Crab Shack.) I suspect that once I started on Vitalady's regimen I would have been totally constipated without the fat that I consume regularly.  I was six weeks out by that point though.

I'm glad you added that many people are sensitive to fat though. I wasn't so it didn't occur to me that others might be. 

Yup, it's actually pretty common for folks to get a good oil slick or two in those early weeks when they first start eating the fatty yummy stuff. It almost always evens out after a while though--takes longer for some people than for others, of course.

Well, let's see....

---"avoid snacking" is not accurate. If I didn't eat every two hours, all day, every day (more or less) I'd never get in all my protein, even five years out.

--4 oz. of fluids per hour is darned low IMNSHO.

--I'm not even going to START on the supplement suggestions. Just throw that page out entirely.

Use of a food log is an excellent idea. Learning portion size and protein content of every food on the planet is also an excellent idea :-). Hmmm, how many grams of grasshoppers to I need to eat for 30 grams of protein? Does it vary by species?

Bottom line:

WITHOUT FAIL you need to follow your own surgeon's instructions and time line for post op eating. Once you've healed, listen to us.