Following the correct dietary guidelines after undergoing bariatric surgery is crucial for your recovery, maintaining weight loss and overall health. Your healthcare practitioners will provide you with a strict diet to adhere to after your surgery.
You might be concerned that alongside managing expensive medication, your new diet will be expensive and inaccessible, but we have rounded up a few tips on how to cope with the changes.
Supplements
You will more than likely need to supplement your diet with additional vitamins, minerals and nutrients. These kinds of supplements can be expensive, but there are affordable and effective options available, such as Bariatric Fusion vitamins.
These kinds of supplements will help you to take in any nutrients you might be missing since your diet will be low in calories especially for the first few months post-surgery.
Protein
Maintaining adequate protein intake is important for any healthy individual, and especially for recovery after your surgery. You could supplement your protein with an appropriate, healthy and low-calorie protein powder, or you could choose to opt for cheaper options like ground chicken and turkey which are easily chewed and digested.
Track Your Diet
Keeping a record of what you eat and how many calories it contains each day is a great way to make sure you’re on track and adhering to guidelines.
There are various free apps available for your smartphone that will help you track your meals and calories. This will give you a good idea of whether or not you’re eating enough or too much, and whether or not your meals are healthy and balanced overall. Using these apps can also be helpful for weight loss in general if they are used with a healthy mindset.
Focus on Whole Foods
While you might need some of the supplements mentioned above, the rest of your diet should come from whole foods wherever possible. Not only are processed and packaged meals unhealthy, high in sodium, sugars and fats, but they can also be expensive.
After your surgery, focus on eating balanced meals consisting of cooked vegetables and easily digestible protein sources. This will be cheap to purchase, easy to cook and good for your recovering digestive system.
Keep it Simple
By focusing on whole foods, your diet will naturally be simple, which is what you want to be aiming for. For the first few weeks after your surgery, you’ll be following a liquid diet and slowly introducing pureed and soft foods.
Even after this, you’ll want to keep your diet simple and nutrient-dense. Consume products like eggs, yoghurt, cottage cheese, potatoes, lean ground meat, and low-calorie protein drinks.
The Takeaway
By making your diet all about simple, whole foods and purchasing affordable yet effective supplements, you’ll be able to maintain a new healthy diet with ease and no strain on your bank account.
Taking care of your diet post-surgery is crucial, so be sure to strictly follow advice from your health practitioner first and foremost before taking into account any third-party tips.