I can start soft foods today! I'm a little nervous because I don't want to overdo it. Any suggestions? I also have a couple questions on what qualifies as a soft food? It just seems like such a broad term. Can I do tortillas?! Bagels? I want to stay on track. Help!

your doctor's office probably has a list of foods - I know mine did. Pretty much anything with the consistency of yogurt or cottage cheese. Scrambled eggs, re-fried Beans, etc. I wouldn't do tortillas or bagels for at least a few more months. Your stomach is still trying to heal from surgery and you don't want something to get stuck. Again, check with your doctor's office - and I think there is probably a thread here somewhere that covers this subject pretty well...

Congrats on getting to the soft food stage. I remember that going on soft foods helped make me feel more normal after shakes for so many weeks.

Definitely NOT tortillas or bagels. First of all, those are carbs and you should be steering clear of them in general (not just through the post-op food phases). Second of all, I wasn't allowed any "soft whole grains" until I was in my solid food stage.

For soft foods I was allowed yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken and tuna salad, scrambled eggs, oatmeal with Protein powder, flaky fish, ground or chopped meats, legumes (Beans and lentils), and canned or steamed veggies.

I recall doing a lot of string cheese, shelly's baked ricotta (Google the recipe), scrambled eggs with melted cheese and taco sauce, refried beans, and Wendy's chili.

Soft foods on my list was scrambled eggs, yogurt, refried beans, stuff with a puree consistancy.

Soft foods are different from purees...but sometimes the lines are drawn in different places. Most surgeons who advance you to soft foods more slowly call a wider variety of things purees, like mashed potatoes. Those who let you proceed to soft foods pretty rapidly call more things soft foods that are really just purees. I think that if it moves when you tilt the spoon back and forth, it's a puree, and if not, it's a soft food. Cottage cheese with small curds would probably be a puree under this definition (it is allowed in puree stage by most surgeons), whereas mashed potatoes, unless extremely buttery (obviously don't want that), would be a soft food. eggs are often allowed sooner than they should be...I could have them and many other types of cheeses in puree, but I didn't do that well with them, and I think they are really soft foods. I was also told that as long as I could chew it into a puree, it could count. So anything you are willing to chew 100 times (with the exception of tough meats and stuff), I would say you're good to go. But please double check with your own care team.

Well I'm starting week 5 and the purée phase was my last phase. The surgeons list says I can have bread, rice, pasta, crackers. The last two weeks were scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes. Idk if maybe I didn't mention how far post op I was. I have my one month follow up next week so maybe I should ask? I'm going to stay safe this week and not go too crazy. But I was pretty excited about rice

Well I'm starting week 5 and the purée phase was my last phase. The surgeons list says I can have bread, rice, Pasta, crackers. The last two weeks were scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes. Idk if maybe I didn't mention how far post op I was. I have my one month follow up next week so maybe I should ask? I'm going to stay safe this week and not go too crazy. But I was pretty excited about rice

I'm 18 months post-op and still don't eat rice. Not because my stomach can't handle it, but because it's a complete waste of space. Same with pasta. When you need 100 grams of Protein a day and can only eat maybe 3-4 oz. of food at a time, who has room for rice and pasta?