General tips: Eating after your surgery

High calorie liquids will defeat the operation. Sugared soft drinks, ice cream, whole milk, apple juice, and sweet tea (with sugar) can provide enough calories to prevent weight loss.

Avoiding sugar. If you read labels carefully you will find it is nearly impossible to avoid all sugar. A good rule of thumb is to stay away from products that list any of the following in the first three ingredients: sugar, maple syrup, honey, molasses, corn syrup, corn sweeteners, glucose, lactose, maltose, dextrose, fructose, sorghum, sorbitol, or mannitol.
Nutrasweet and other artificial sweeteners generally work OK .

Each meal should take between 20-30 minutes. Taking less time means the meal has been eaten too quickly, and you will be hungry again soon. Taking more than 30 minutes to chew your meal means too much food will be eaten at one sitting.

Liquids must be taken before solids. If breakfast consists of a scrambled egg and coffee, drink the coffee, then eat the egg (or half of it). Trying to drink the coffee after eating will cause vomiting. Also, eating and drinking together is a no-no. This will convert the egg, for example, into a liquid. Consequently, this liquid will pass through your outlet faster, allowing greater food intake which you want to avoid.

A patient who is prone to nibbling should find a snack food which is solid, thereby preventing constant eating. Examples would be an apple rather than a bag of crisps or a Ryvita rather than biscuits. Don't eat ice cream! It is even better to modify your main meals toward solid bulk protein so that you don’t feel the urge to nibble or snack between meals. Frequent small eating is the only way to "defeat" the operation and fail in the weight loss goal.

Quit when you are full. Each patient will quickly discover the feeling of discomfort when the band or pouch has been stretched. It is important to stop eating at the first sign of fullness. You will discover the feeling by paying attention and looking for that "full feeling" – you should recognize it as a "Quit Eating" signal.

When in doubt about a new food, try it! Some patients can eat anything, whereas others may not be able to tolerate certain foods. You won't know for sure unless you try – just start off with tiny amounts of the new food.

If a food can not be eaten at all, wait a month and try it again. It is important to persevere with foods such as chicken, beef, eggs and other high protein foods. Make sure they are cooked well and chewed well. Protein will make you feel more full.