Hi everybody I just had my sleeve surgery 12/14/20. I am at the soft food stage. I am so nervous and don’t know what to eat. I am a southern girl and I cook a lot but I know I can’t have those things and I have no ideas of a menu or shopping list and I don’t want to mess up. Please help me. No one close to me has done this.

Hey, congrats on your surgery. ❤️

I am a southern girl myself.

For soft food, you have a few options. You can always look up bariatric recipes (there are a lot of good ideas floating around the internet, and you can modify a lot of them if you have allergies or intolerances to anything). Cottage cheese, ricotta bake, turkey burger (well cooked and crumbled), scrambled eggs (oooh, I LOVED scrambled eggs when I was in my soft food stage!), tuna fish (honestly, I cooked a lot of fish during this stage and just flaked it really well... I did a lot of salmon and tilapia)... there are a lot more options than you think. I know it's overwhelming to feel so limited. Make sure you take your time when introducing new foods. Sometimes, your pouch might be a little silly and not like something (or vice versa!) from before surgery.

When I introduced new foods, I would try it by itself (so scrambled eggs, then trying to add cheese, and if my stomach agreed with that, I would add some spices or something). I stopped protein powder right after I was off my liquid diet (I can't physically stomach it), so I had to get protein in with food.

It's quite a journey, but hang in there, and you'll do great. ❤️

Thank you Sammi_Katt

The soft food stage felt like it went very quickly for me. I depended on eggs quite a bit, starting with just plain scrambled eggs. Then I started introducing in spices and other things like cheese. I was very concerned that I wouldn’t tolerate spices, but that never seemed to bother me. I also ate a lot of refried beans. I couldn’t stand the thought of tuna, although I liked it just fine pre-op. I purreed some baked chicken thighs with yogurt (or possibly sour cream?). Sounds disgusting, but tasted and looked fine. I’m sure there are some recipes out there, but it was kind of a pain in the butt to prepare and very bland. I think chopping it up very finely and carefully chewing would have achieved the same effect. Towards the end of the soft foods stage I started eating boiled shrimp - just making sure that I chewed it carefully.

I am 5 months from surgery now, and I still prefer dark meat chicken and shrimp. I can eat white meat, hamburger, turkey, pork, ham and steak, but dark meat chicken always feels much easier on my tummy.

Good luck! I’m sure you’ll do well.

The soft food stage does by really quickly, so don't sweat it too much. Didn't your doctor's office give you a list? Mine gave me a whole binder of what to eat when through each stage, etc.

Basically it's cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, protein shakes, yogurt, soup, jello, sugar-free pudding, and things like that.