Megan Rush is a cook and the author of six cookbooks for people whose diet is no longer a matter of choice: after bariatric surgery, with diabetes, with diverticulitis. She came to this kitchen as a patient before she was a cook, and it shows in what she writes. Her recipes respect the rules a doctor has set and still taste like food you would choose to eat.

Where it began

She was born in 1975 in a small Midwestern town, in a close family that fed her well. It did not help. Through most of her childhood she was unwell in ways nobody could name, and the doctors who ran the tests sent her home with the same symptoms she had walked in with.

She refused to accept that as the end of the story. She read everything she could find, from research papers to natural health magazines, looking for something that explained what was wrong. After years of searching she came across a little-known nutritional approach that fitted her condition, tried it with more hope than faith, and within a few months felt better than she had in years.

That is the ground everything else stands on: what you eat can change how you live, and the people who most need to hear it are usually the ones being handed a list of restrictions and nothing else.

How she cooks

Once she was well, she went back to learn properly: studies in culinary arts and nutrition, then years of travel, cooking beside local chefs and taking home whatever could survive the trip. Her own kitchen became the place where the two halves met, the discipline of a medical diet and the pleasure of a good plate.

She is not a doctor or a dietitian, and she does not write as one. What the surgeon or the dietitian says comes first, always. She writes as someone who has followed a restrictive diet from the inside, knows how quickly boredom turns into giving up, and has spent years working out what can be done within the limits.

So every recipe is built for the person who will eat it: the size of a bariatric portion, the carbohydrates a diabetic has to count, the fiber a diverticulitis patient has to manage in one phase and avoid in the other. Her job is to make the rules livable, and on a good night, delicious.

The books

Six cookbooks, each for a diet that someone else has prescribed. The idea behind all of them is the same: the restrictions are given, the sadness is optional.

• Bariatric Cookbook — recipes for every stage after weight-loss surgery, from the first liquids to solid food
• Gastric Sleeve Cookbook — for the smaller stomach, with portions and protein already worked out
• Gastric Bypass Cookbook — for a rerouted digestion, with the foods that bring on dumping kept out
• Bariatric Air Fryer Cookbook — small, crisp, high-protein meals with hardly any oil
• Diabetic Air Fryer Cookbook — air-fried dishes with the carbs counted for you
• Diverticulitis Cookbook — from clear liquids through the low-fiber stage to the meals that keep a calm gut calm

What you’ll find on this blog

The articles fall into ten sections, one for each diet and each stage:

• Blood Sugar Control — carb counting, glycemic load, hidden sugars and the meal timing that keeps mornings steady
• Life After Bariatric Surgery — vitamins, hair loss, hydration, eating out, stalls: the questions that come after the operation
• Diverticulitis Diet — from the first day of a flare-up to the fiber that helps prevent the next one
• Diabetic Friendly Recipes — breakfasts, packed lunches, crockpot dinners and desserts with the sugar kept low
• Bariatric Meal Prep — high-protein soups, freezer meals and small-batch cooking for the pureed stage onward
• Healthy Eating Basics — heart-healthy meals, gut-friendly foods, allergy swaps and the diets people ask about
• Diabetic Air Fryer Recipes — chicken, shrimp, tofu and low-carb vegetables, crisp without the oil
• Bariatric Air Fryer Recipes — soft-stage fish, egg bites and protein breakfasts sized for a small stomach
• Gastric Sleeve Diet — the pre-op diet, the liquid stage, the first real meals and what to do about regain
• Gastric Bypass Diet — the stages after surgery, dumping syndrome, reactive hypoglycemia and a stretched pouch

The newest articles are on the blog page.