Diet after gastric bypass

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After all surgery, there are diet restrictions regardless of what some post ops claim:

1. After a DS/BPD, the more fat you eat, the more diarrhea you will get.  A low fat diet is recommended

2. After a gastric bypass, very little in the way of sweets can be consumed without dumping.  These are better consumed with other foods.  Dumping causes cold sweats, weakness, basically not feeling well for 30 minutes or more after the meal.

3. DSers do not dump due to having a small piece of duodenum and also the pyloric sphincter but in the same vein, can 'out-eat' their surgery having too many sweets so they have to limit sweets also.  Flancbaum states that in a DS/BPD, ALL sugar is absorbed.

4. Flancbaum says that although patients generally are not hungry immediately after surgery, sometime during the following 9 months to 1 year, they will become very hungry.  His advice is to ignore hunger pangs.

5. Flancbaum tells patients they can realistically expect to lose 50 percent of their excess weight and keep it off. A small percentage get very slender but this is not the rule.  He states that obesity surgery makes obese people, a lot LESS obese (but still obese).  Making lifestyle changes of diet and exercise can increase the changes of becoming slender but these changes may be just as difficult to make after surgery as they were before.

6. Protein is important to obtain after surgery.  Flancbaum suggests that DS/BPD individuals might have to drink "protein drinks" to obtain the protein that they need.

7. Flancbaum suggests sublingual B12 pills as gastric bypass patients and DS/BPD patients no longer manufacture the enzymes to digest vitamin B12.  He observed that it takes 9 months to a year to notice a B12 deficiency because we have some stored up in the body.  (Many longer term patients such as those on the Graduate-OSSG list) are taking the B12 shots.

from: Flancbaum, Louis, MD: THE DOCTOR'S GUIDE TO WLS (NY, 2001)

NOTE: Dr Flancbaum has done over 1000 WLS procedures and is a respected member of the asbs.

Dr Simpson suggests:

"Measure TWICE, Eat ONCE, vomit NEVER"

He explains that vomiting can cause a rip in your stomach - gut assembly even years after surgery so the less you vomit, the better.