Hi all, I was on the forums last year for the gastric sleeve in Turkey but decided to wait a year & see if I could lose the weight naturally. Safe to write that I lost nothing & gained a lot more!

I am having my gastric sleeve surgery with APERA (went to them for a rhinoplasty last year & they were excellent) so I’m not nervous about the operation.. more the discomfort of the gas & pain afterwards.

Could someone please let me know the stages you go through with food consistencies, please?

Week One: Clear Liquids & Protein Shakes

Week Two: Full Liquids

Weeks Three & Four: Soft Foods

Weeks Five & Six: Modified Regular Diet (soft regular foods & soft carbs, if you choose to eat them)

Week Seven: Soft fruits w/o skin, ground meat, and moist chicken/turkey

Week Eight: Raw & Crunchy fruits/veggies with skin, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit

Week 12: Dense meat (like steak), and caffeine and alcohol (if you choose to partake)

I bought 1 oz glasses at Walmart (they’re the size of a shot glass and are 97 cents in the baking aisle). I bought 12 of them. I used 6/hour. I drank 1/2 ounce every 5 minutes. I got up and walked a lap around my downstairs after every ounce I drank. I rotated between protein shakes, protein water, regular water, fiber water (not too much at first!), popsicles, jello, collagen coffee, and Propel. This allowed me to get all my fluids and protein for the day.

My first fluids every morning were 6oz of decaf coffee with collagen mixed in.

BIGGEST thing to do after surgery: Get your protein, water, and movement. You do those three things and you’re good!

As soon as they have you start your multivitamin and calcium, take them as directed. Take your multi and your calcium at least two hours apart. Your body can only absorb up to 500mg of calcium at a time so take calcium four hours apart.

What I do, I take my multi at lunch (12:40) (because I tend to have yogurt or cottage cheese with breakfast: calcium), and I take my calcium during my 1st and 2nd snack (10:40am and 3:00 pm).

Edited June 5, 20242 yr by jmorrisbp
Adding more

I would assume that your medical team will provide you with the stages they would like you to go through.

everyone one here were given widely differing sets of instructions post op, so it may get a little confusing with all the differing accounts. best to pick one program (easiest one would be the one provided by your team) and follow that. remember they are guidelines, so if you are unable to do a stage or meet a goal or have issues, do something else. don't force it. and get in touch with your team

with that said, here was mine (almost 5 years ago):

week 1: clear liquids

week 2-3: full liquids

week 4: purees (i skipped this one, i just did full liquids for another week because purees were YUCK! lol

week 5-6: minced

...after that i was cleared for everything/anything (just reminded to chew alot).

Yeah, agree with @ms.sss -- everyone seems to get a slightly modified version from their care team, and it's best to just follow what directions they might give you. Part of this is also because different care teams also encourage different types and dosages of supplements, but also because everyone's medical history and starting point on their WL journey can have different requirements that need to be met. (Some of us have various co-morbidities like Heart issues, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, etc...)

For example, my schedule was:
Day 1-2: clear liquids
Week 1 & 2: Liquids & Protein Shakes
Week 3 & 4: Purees
Weeks 5-9: Soft Foods
Week 10+: introducing more variety of healthy foods