Post Gallbladder Surgery Diet Tips

When you’ve just had your gallbladder removed, then you must start thinking about your life after your gallbladder removal surgery. Your body can survive without your gallbladder. But, you will absolutely need to arrange some lifestyle adjustments, especially when it comes down to your diet. If you are wondering what kind of diet that will suit you best, you can use these post gallbladder surgery diet tips.

6 Post Op Gallbladder Surgery Diet Tips

1. A lot of liquids

The first thing you need to do after your gallbladder surgery is that you have to make sure you are hydrated. That’s because diarrhea commonly happens to those who just experience gallbladder removal. It is really unfortunate, but it’s okay and you don’t need to worry about it.

Because of this fact, it’s very important for you to stick to a clear liquid diet and drink a lot of water, broth, or even vitamin or mineral enhanced beverages post-surgery. You can definitely drink sport drinks, but on the other hand, you need to avoid all alcohol and caffeinated beverages. Then, slowly but surely you will have to start introducing solid back into your system. But, right now you have to stick with a liquid diet in order to give your body time to heal properly.

2. Small meal portion

After your gallbladder removal, you need to eat your meal in a smaller portion. You can eat a smaller portion bit more frequently. For example, you have to eat smaller meals every two or three hours. By doing so, you will be able to get all of the nutrients and calories that you need without overworking your liver.

3. Low fat

The next post gallbladder surgery diet tips that you need to follow is that you should eat meals with low fat. That’s because your body will be having some problem digesting fat right after your gallbladder removal surgery. Therefore, for the first week after your surgery, you should eat a no-fat diet. You can eat food such as rice, bananas, soup, pasta, unbuttered toast and many more.

A few weeks later when your body has acclimatized to the removal of your gallbladder, you can start introducing healthy fat as a regular part of your diet. You can eat food that contains healthy fat, such as chia seeds, avocado, walnut, anchovies, salmon, etc.

4. Lean Protein

Low fat diet is very essential to maintain your health after you get a gallbladder surgery, thus you need to focus on only eating lean meats. This indicates that you need to cut out red meats, which tend to be on the fatty side. Some food that you can eat, such as white turkey, chicken, legume, lean beef, nuts, seeds, cod, and etc.

5. Increase fiber slowly

When you are experiencing diarrhea after your surgery, adding fiber to your diet definitely can help it. But, if you introduce it too quickly it can cause other issues such as stomach cramping and gas. But, you can avoid those issues by introducing some soluble fibers into your diet. You can add some food, such as carrot, bananas, chickpeas, oatmeal, apple, lentils and many more.

Later on, when your body has adapted, then you can add more high-fiber food. But, remember that you need to introduce this kind of food slowly, usually over the course of a few weeks. These kinds of food include cabbage, broccoli, whole bread and cereal, legume, cauliflower, and bean sprouts.

6. Avoid most dairy products

After your post gallbladder surgery, you need to avoid most dairy products. Milk and many other dairy products can cause many kinds of digestive problems, especially after your gallbladder removal surgery. If you can’t avoid dairy products all together, you need to choose a low fat or fat free dairy option.

All in all, making some adjustments to your diet after your gallbladder surgery is not easy. But, you have to do that so you can recover nicely and fully. If you don’t know what kind of diet that you should do, then you can just follow those above post gallbladder surgery diet tips. And, don’t forget to consult with your doctor to get more recommendation.