Bariatric surgery patients have a wide variety of food options available to them. You can enjoy everything from pizza to pancakes, as long as they make sure to follow their doctor’s dietary guidelines. There are many healthy and delicious bariatric meal prep ideas that weight loss patients can cook at home.
A concern for many weight loss surgery patients is that they feel no food they want to eat will be available to them or that they’ll have to give up on taste. Nothing could be further from the truth! And with enough planning, you’ll be able to prepare enough meals at once that you’ll be able to plan out an entire week.
So many of us spend our days on the run. Getting the kids to school, getting to work, getting the littles to after-school events, or any number of other errands that keep us on the move. Getting dinner delivered or through a fast food window just makes things easier. But finding bariatric-friendly meals can be few and far between.
Creating a bunch of meals at once, however, takes all of that last-minute planning out of the equation. You can make your favorites for every day of the week or mix them up so you have different flavors from day to day. The key is to make meal time as easy as possible to stay on your healthy meal plan.
Bariatric Meal Prep Ideas
By following a few of these bariatric meal prep ideas, you won’t have to resort to starving yourself or adding stress to an already busy morning making something for yourself. By taking some time at the start of the week, you can set yourself up for success the rest of the week.
Bariatric surgery patients often have to follow a restrictive diet, which can be difficult to stick to over time. One way to make things easier is to cook a week’s worth of meals at once. This will help you stay on track and avoid any temptation to stray from your diet. Not to mention giving your body the nutrients it needs to keep you moving.
There are many different recipes that can be easily adapted for bariatric patients. Here are a few ideas:
Breakfast Prep
Although protein shakes are used extensively in the two weeks after a bariatric procedure, once solid foods are introduced, it’s important to have at least one protein with every meal. And what says breakfast more than eggs? Their versatility lends itself to being a staple of any bariatric breakfast.
By cooking several egg muffins (with assorted low-carb veggies and bits of ham) at the start of the week, you’ll have a fast, tasty, and healthy start to every day. You can even create egg tortillas to have ready if you want to make a breakfast burrito with beans, turkey sausage, veggies, and other appropriate additions.
Lunch Prep
Nothing could be easier than grabbing a bariatric-friendly tortilla and packing it with your favorite healthy fillings. Or creating protein salads that can be eaten cold so you don’t have to wait around for your turn at the microwave at lunchtime. In both cases, you can make several lunches all at once, carefully ensuring you have the right portion sizes.
Mixing chicken or turkey and light mayo or greek yogurt gives you an ideal base for your lunch wrap or salad. You can stick with a traditional chicken salad or add some spice to give your wrap a southwestern feel. Tuna can also be used to give your lunch even more variety.
Dinner Prep
Dinners always seem to take a little more work than either breakfast or lunch, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a jump on a few meals at the start of the week. While more involved than egg muffins or tuna salad, preparing a couple of dinners ahead of time is perfect for those nights when you don’t have the time (or energy) to create healthy meals.
Whether it’s stuffed pork chops, chicken or turkey chili, or burgers with a variety of meat sources, you can prepare the foods in individual containers, refrigerate or freeze them, cook, and enjoy! There are plenty of recipes online to help give you ideas that you and your family will enjoy.
That’s the great thing about bariatric recipes: They can be enjoyed by all! These are just a few ideas to get you started. There are many other great recipes out there that can be easily adapted for bariatric patients. With a little planning and effort, you can easily stick to your diet and enjoy delicious meals at the same time!
Bariatric Diets After Surgery
During the first two weeks of post-op, your meal prep is pretty simple: an all-liquid diet along with vitamins, minerals, and protein supplements. This is to let your body adapt to the surgery and prepare it for a smaller intake of food, the hallmark of any bariatric surgery. Hormonal changes will ease hunger pains and help you feel fuller faster.
In the weeks and months following, solid foods will be slowly introduced into your diet. At first, soft or pureed foods high in protein will be added before moving on to more solid foods and a greater variety of healthy eating. Sooner than you think, bariatric breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes will become the norm.
Bariatric procedures like the gastric sleeve, gastric bypass, Sadi duodenal switch, and others put weight loss patients on the right path to losing excess weight. But it’s the addition of healthy meals and physical exercise that gives patients the best chance to lose weight and keep it off in the long run.
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