Eating Enough Calories after Gastric Bypass Surgery

One thing most people do not consider after having gastric bypass surgery is how severely their calorie intake will be restricted. It takes at least 800 calories to function properly and 1000-1200 is better.

For the first two months following surgery, you will be doing good to be able to eat 400-500 calories daily. With this being the case, you are probably going to find that you are very tired. It is very important that you make every calorie count and that they all be calories with nutritional value.

At that early stage, your protein intake is going to be your biggest concern. At that point in time, after my surgery, everything I ate was protein. The shakes are very convenient and most of them have at least 20 grams of protein per shake. You just have to watch the sugar content, because a lot of protein shakes are also high in sugar (they are trying to cover up that taste).

I also ate a lot of tuna and salmon. My dietician wanted me to have at least 60 grams of protein daily. Cottage cheese, salmon and tuna are all very high in protein. I ate all of these things pretty much right from the beginning. I remember pureeing salmon two days after I was home from the hospital. It wasn’t like I thought it would be (I am not sure how I thought it would be), but it worked for me at the time.

The first few months are rough, but if you do what you are told and what you know you should, there is going to be a thinner and healthier you on the other side.