To maximize the effect of the gastric band and limit your calorie intake and feel satisfied for longer, by eating more solid than liquid meals.

Once on a full unrestricted diet, your goal is to work in partnership with the gastric band to limit your calorie intake and feel satisfied for longer. This will be easy for you to achieve by following the first key principle, chew your food do not drink them.

The more solid in texture the food is on your plate that requires chewing to convert it into a paste, fewer calories will be consumed and it will help place pressure on the signal points with the gastric band to trick your brain and feel satisfied for longer after a smaller amount of food.

Are you wondering what I mean by this? Let’s compare eating your fruit to drinking the juice.

I glass of fruit juice would contain the calories of four whole oranges. The gastric band will allow you to drink these calories reasonably easily in a very short space of time. However to sit and plough through and chew up to 4 whole oranges, I know you would give up, it just takes too long to achieve. Liquid calories such as juice, soups, mashed vegetables and casseroles should be kept to a minimum for maximum weight loss results.

The discussion needs to be taken one step further. To enable you to consume as many dry and solid textured meals as possible successfully with the gastric band, often you need to modify your food preparation slightly to make the meal more gastric band friendly.

There are many foods we could use as an example, however lets use a few protein rich foods, such as a hardboiled egg, left over dry chicken and fish which can create havoc with the gastric band. Slightly better alternatives would include scrambled egg or a frittata, tinned chicken and tinned fish.

These textures are still dry and solid but easier to eat pain free with the gastric band. This ever so slight modification to your meal preparation will enable you to eat more pain free.

In summary, to maximize the effect of the gastric band and limit your calorie intake and feel satisfied for longer, by eating more solid than liquid meals.

This doesn't make sense. You say that you shouldn't eat soups as they are liquid and pass through easily but then go on to say frittata is fine. In many instances the soup is more nutritious than the frittata , it depends what type of soup it is. Also if it is homemade and thick then it is not going to pass through any differently to the food that has been chewed to mush. Frittata can be a slider as it is easy to eat, may be fairly high in calories and gives little satisfaction.

I think she means a frittata to be like an omlette or quiche, which would be full of protein. Sounded like more British verbiage since she also used the word tinned instead of canned, which we would be more likely to say here in America. Saw that the original posters from Melbourne. You may be thinking of a fritter, where one would deep fry or bake something in dough or pastry. Just a thought.

No I know what a Frittata is. Yes it is full of Protein but also incredibly easy to eat and pretty high cal the same as a quiche would be except it doesn't have the pastry. My point is I don't see why that should be good and a nice healthy homemade veggie soup bad. If anything the soup is probably lower cal and can be just as filling if made to the right type of consistency.

BTW I'm also from Melbourne.

Hi Guys,

Lets remove nutrition from the discussion and focus on what texture of food that passes through the gastric band that will make you feel more satisfied. These foods include the more solid options such as a frittata. A frittata would be a simple meal of eggs, low fat milk blended with some carb free vegetables and cooked in a dish in the oven. No need to be high in calories, far from a quiche which I agree is a disaster in calories. It's amazing what impact different different terminology can have internationally.

Elcee lets compare a meal such as a soup even of a thick consistency. The theory suggests that this texture would pass through the band easier compared to a salad and steamed fish which requires much more chewing to pass through the band.

At the recent OSSANZ conference there was even a very small study showing participants felt fuller for longer on a solid Optifast bar compared to the optifast shakes. The nutritional value/content is exactly the same but the texture is different. The more solid the food is in the original form prior to consumption, the greater the satiety effect with the lap band. More studies are required with larger numbers at this stage to consolidate the finding. However I receive this feedback all the time from my clinics.

I agree that the more solid the food the better, which was why I queried the frittata. I suppose it depends what is added to the frittata that makes the difference. I also think that soup is a good choice if it is homemade, full of veggies and blended to a thick consistency.

I wont give up soup as I have altered bowel function after rectal cancer and really need the vegies, chick peas etc. I wont eat canned soup, its always home made and extremely nutritious, and I find it very filling, I just dont have the expected satiety problem with soup - in fact its a go slow food due to the combo of Fluid and solid pieces, I'm quite likely to pb on it. All you have to do with soup to make it extremely filling is eat say half a wholegrain roll with it - it absorbs all the fluid and creates quite a solid mass in the stomach - again, something to be very careful with if you dont want to see it again.

The Optifast shake/bar comparision - totally agree with that. I just dont know how people get by on Protein shakes. They have no thickness, texture, no satiety inducing properties at all. I can down one in 2 second flat and be looking for food, I avoid them, they are not a good choice for me. But optifast bars take aaaaages to eat.

I think we have to remember there's "guidelines" rather than hard and fast rules. Everyone is different.