How to Prepare a Pre-Op Diet For Lap Band Surgery

About 2 weeks prior to your lap band surgery, you are expected to start making gradual adjustment in your diet. The lap band surgeon will get you started on a special pre-op diet which has designed to prepare your body for this surgery by a nutritionist. At the same time, it also helps to strengthen your immune system to improve the post surgery recovery.

As a rule of thumb, lap band pre-ops diet plan should be high in protein. Protein helps to speed up your body healing after the surgery and protect your muscles tissues when you are on a low fat diet after the lap band surgery. Approximately 70-100 grams of protein are recommended each day as part of the pre-op diet. You can supplement for protein intake through the in-take of protein powder, white meat as well as from salmon fish.

On the other spectrum of the diet plan, some of these foods need to be removed or reduced, especially those which is high in fat, calories, sodium and carbohydrates. Foods which need to be removed or reduced from your diet are high-sugar foods such as carbonated soft-drinks and sugar, high carbohydrates such as bread and pasta, high calories foods such as red meat and fried foods etc.

The average calorie allowance for this pre-op diet should be around 850 and 1200 calories daily. Most of these diets consist of a smaller portion of food, and they are usually supplemented with regiment of key minerals and vitamins. The pre op diet helps the patient to start accommodating this new diet with lower metabolism due to the lower fat and lower carbohydrates intake.

The objective of the pre-op diet will not only help to speed up the recovery, but also facilitate the momentum of weight loss after the surgery. It helps to get the patients to become accustomed to the smaller portion of their meals gradually and not immediately after the surgery to reduce any negative consequences. The other key reason of pre op diet is to prepare for the surgery, by reducing the fat deposits around the patients' liver and stomach to ease the whole lap band surgery procedure.