Gaining Weight After Gastric Bypass? Bad Snacks May be the Cause

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As I become acquainted with many of our LivingAfterWLS.com community members I'm finding that old snacking habits have crept back in to our lives. In my third year post-op I returned to the miserable habit of snacking and snacking on all the wrong foods. Crackers, popcorn, toast, cereal, pretzels, sugar-free candy, granola bars. The unpleasant result of this is I regained some weight, several dumping episodes, vomiting and bouts of fatigue.

According to my bariatric center "Snacking, nibbling or grazing on foods, usually high-calorie and high-fat foods, can add hundreds of calories a day to your intake, defeating the restrictive effect of your operation. Snacking will slow down your weight loss and can lead to regain of weight."

Almost universally the snacks WLS patients admit to eating are high carbohydrate, nutritionally void processed foods. In order to maintain weight loss after gastric bypass successful patients avoid these poor snack choices:

  • Pretzels, potato chips, corn chips
  • Crackers - sweet or savory
  • Trail mix, sunflower seeds, nuts
  • Cookies, cakes, pies, pastries
  • Popcorn
  • Sugar-Free Sweets (except Jell-o)
  • Granola
  • Full-fat, full-sugar frozen desserts (ice cream, frozen yogurt, frozen custard)
  • Smoothies
  • Foods containing butter or mayonnaise

    What you will notice about the poor snack choices is that most are nutritionally void foods - they do nothing to feed your body the vitamins, minerals and nutrients it needs to function well. In addition when grazed upon many of these foods can be consumed in large quantities by gastric bypass patients. It's called the "soft foods phenomena". When WLS patients eat soft foods (think crackers) which mix with stomach fluids a slurry results. This mixture passes through the pouch into the bypassed intestine allowing for steady intake without satiation. In addition, these foods may cause dumping or vomiting.

    You may be surprised to see trail mix and granola on the foods to avoid list as they are well known "health foods." It's true trail mix and granola are nutritionally dense but most bariatric patients report a low tolerance for nuts, seeds and raisins. In addition many of these foods contain hidden sugars.

    Kaye Bailey � 2005 - All Rights Reserved

    An award winning journalist and former newspaper editor Kaye Bailey brings expertise in writing and personal experience with gastric bypass surgery to EzineArticles.com. Having spent most of her life overweight Ms. Bailey is strongly empathetic toward the obese, particularly overweight children. This compassion compelled her to found the website http://www.livingafterwls.com, a fast-growing resource of information, understanding and support for the weight loss surgery community.

    The LivingAfterWLS.com site is complimented with daily blog. The blog, http://livingafterwls.blogspot.com offers readers the chance to comment or leave feedback about fresh content added daily. This site contains success stories and recipes, general information and WLS inspired topics. Complementing the site is a monthly newsletter titled "You Have Arrived" available exclusively to people who subscribe through the website or the blog.

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