Hi Guys! My brother works at a juice bar and has always brought me home freshly squeezed juices from work and I was wondering if they're still ok to drink even through the post op diet? My nutritionist never said anything about them, but before I drink one i want to make sure no one else was advised against them...?
Your feedback is very much appreciated!! (:

If they are not on the suggested/approved list of drinks you can have I would give them a miss particularly in the early stages of post op/weight loss. You could always give the nutritionist a call or send an email to ask though.

Juices have most of the fibre removed and there a lot of concentrated fruit sugars...makes for a high calorie drink without any protein. Maybe if they were more veggie based as opposed to fruit based there would be less concentrated fruit sugars.

As I said, best to check with your nutritionist for now.

I would check with your office because I know for me I was NOT allowed (and now being on regular food they still don't suggest it) fruit juices. Not even diluted and yet others here were allowed to have it. Depends on your doc.

Edited June 30, 20215 yr by SummerTimeGirl

I am 1 week post op and I am allowed diluted no sugar added apple juice. I will say after I drank it, I had bad gas and diarrhea… so I won’t do it again for a while. I think it must be like dumping syndrome on a smaller scale due to the sugar??‍♀️

Most pre & post surgery diets recommend you avoid juices. For example it can take three or more oranges to get a cup of juice but you wouldn’t eat three or more oranges in one go even though there’s way more nutrients in the whole orange than the juice alone.

A cup of orange juice contains 21g of sugar (daily recommended intake for everyone is 24g). It contains about 111 calories - that’s a lot of the total calories you’re consuming at this stage. Remember most of your calories should be from protein. A cup of orange juice has about 2g protein - you should be working at consuming 60+g.

Thank you brother for his generosity but tell him it’s best you rely on water, shakes, soups, etc. for your liquids & nutrients.

we weren't allowed to do juices because of the sugar content, but ask your dietitian.

It's all about the sugar. If you can get the reduced sugar juices (Ocean Spray has a line of 5 calorie a cup cranberry mixed juice drinks)...they're actually pretty good and were on my approved list. I drink V-8 juice because my plan has a fiber requirement and it's got low calories, decent fiber, and lots of biodiversity. 50 calories for a cup of tomato, beets, carrots, celery, spinach, parsley, lettuce and watercress...2g protien, 2g dietary fiber. Really not a bad deal.

The big problem with fruit juice is that it's a sugar bomb with few benefits. The sugar will give you rebound hunger (when your pancrease goes...OMG, there's an insane amount of sugar coming in! Quick, pump out a TON of insulin! And the insulin eats up the sugar and you're left with high blood insulin levels that stimulate...guess what? Hunger. For more sugar. Our bodies are assholes, essentially...lol)

Avoid full sugar drinks. Even if it's natural sugar. Natural sugar is actually more bioavailable and gets sucked up faster causing big blood sugar shifts that cause the above mentioned issue.

Whole fruit is good. With whole fruit, the fiber slows the sugar uptake, the fiber provides media to grow good gut bugs, the phytonutrients from fruits are good....but the sugar bomb is not.

If your brother has a way to make you low calorie juice drinks (carrots, ginger, spinach, a splash of 5 calorie cranberry drink, cinnamon) and the end result is under 50 calories......I think this would probably be ok once in a while.

If it's going to have full sugar juice in it (even fresh squeezed) you should probably avoid it.

Even fresh juice is just getting you all the sugar of fruit without the added benefit of the fiber. Low calorie juices were allowed for me so like the 5 calorie Ocean Spray drinks someone mentioned. Or really diluted juice if needed. But in general I would avoid it.

oh wow, Im glad I asked because I definitely did not realize the amount of sugar these things have.... Thanks for all the tips!

No juice for me after surgery either.

I was allowed pure juice that had zero added sugar. 100% apple or cranberry juice is a nice change once a day (4-8 oz.) if it helps get in the fluids. However, it sounds like different programs recommend different beverages.

I drank celery juice every day when I was on full liquid. The first few days I sipped diluted Apple (No added sugar) when I was nauseous but that was it.