How many calories after Gastric Sleeve or Bypass?
How to use calories and macros after bariatric surgery, in the most helpful way possible
After Gastric Sleeve or Bypass surgery, patients often wonder how many calories they should be eating. You may wonder how many grams of protein or what your macros should be. While numbers can be beneficial for evaluation and assessment of how things are going, it’s not a one-size-fits-all all answer.
In this video and post, I will share my approach to meal planning and using mindful eating to identify how much is about right for you! I will also share how I use calories or macros to evaluate when it’s time to make some changes.
For a deep dive into this topic, check out my course “Food Fundamentals” where I help you build confidence in food decisions, meal planning, and hunger control. Unlock that course with my Premier Access Membership!
The controversy of counting calories, or not
Counting calories has been an age-old approach to weight control. While the science and math will point to “calories in, calories out” what we’ve found is that it’s not an effective way to treat the disease of obesity.
A quick search on Google about calories will show you that we are not at a consensus if calorie counting is the way to go, or not.
It’s not that calories no longer matter. I use them as a way to evaluate a single food product rather than adding up all the calories eaten in a day. It’s tedious and not practical for the busy lives we all live.
Instead, I like to focus on WHAT the food is and eat mindfully (more on that in this blog and video) to allow the pouch to do its thing.
Quality over Quantity, keep food simple
Instead of spending time, energy, or worry over how many calories after Gastric Sleeve or Bypass, I recommend focusing on the quality of the food itself.
Simple meal planning focusing on lean proteins, veggies, fruits, healthy fats, and sometimes whole grains (depending on where you are on the journey) and the pouch will do the rest.
Take small bites, go slowly, listen to body cues **mindful eating** and the numbers will work themselves out.
Using numbers to assess and evaluate (not to plan and stress)
Numbers can be helpful and I use them most when I look over a journey and reflect on how things are going over a bigger scope of time.
I look at the macro pie chart after a week or up to a month.
I do not look at the pie chart for a single day.
At least, that’s how I start. If one of my Premier Access Members requests a food journal review, I will ask for a least 7 days. But here’s the good news. I am all about best guessing your food journal and moving on. C plus work is okay! Don’t stress the exact brand or the exact portion size if it’s keeping you from getting the food journal done.
I like to look at the pie chart from a bigger period. Then I can see if carbohydrates are higher than we’d thought or if fat was creeping up and making protein lower.
After that, I might scroll through each day and see if any outliers are making the seven-day macro chart goofy.
Calories after Gastric Sleeve or Bypass can have their place to provide information, but they aren’t the starting point!
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