July 6,2009

I have to be at the hospital at 5:30 and surgery is at 7:30, still have to lose 10 pounds by June 23, any suggestions???

Congrats on your date (same as mine LOL)!
This is what I am doing and it works for me: I do a protein shake within 30 minutes after getting up. I have a Lean Cuisine for lunch, If I have to have a snack between meals it's either string cheese or carrots, or some type of fruit. For dinner I would eat about 4-5 oz of chicken or steak with 1/2 cup veggies. Sometimes I throw my chicken in a salad with homemade salsa. And most important, I walked everyday for 30 minutes. I was able to lose 16 pounds in ll days. I have lost a total of 25 lbs since May 1st.
Good luck, I know you can do it....

After following the dietician's instructions over the course of six months, I found myself in the same predicament.

1) practiced chewing my food to the consistency of applesauce before swallowing
2) followed a schedule of three meals/day (my schedule the first time we met was all messed up because I had just finished 18 months of heavy political campaigning--basically working day and night)
3) weaned myself off of diet coke (all soda for that matter) and my morning latte (talk about trauma!)
4) incorporated portion control, use a small salad plate and keep total meal volume to 1-1 1/2 Cups--which I'd been doing for years. YES REALLY.
5) up my water intake to 64 oz/day--this was no big deal since it's been my habit for most of my adult life.
6) stretch each meal out to last at least 30 minutes--that was even harder than giving up coffee.
7) 30 minutes exercise 3-5 times/week. i've always loved exercise and got myself back into swimming laps to avoid joint pain.
8) eat between 1200-1400 calories per day; while that seemed like an awful lot to me since in my experience I barely maintained my weight at 1200 calories and started gaining at 1400, I was afraid to eat less (though I often did) because I took the letter of the law seriously and thought it might make me too weak to w/stand surgery.
9) keep a food log
10) take a multi-vitamin

Add to that my ever increasing anxiety about the whole approval process and operation itself, and by the time my surgery date was scheduled I gained 3lbs.

Part of the problem (as I see it) is that these instructions were handed out piece meal--the idea being to take baby steps and change one behavior at a time. The rest of the problem I'll save for another forum.

At any rate, what I ended up doing was fasting the last 2 1/2 weeks and walking 1/2 hour/day.

When I say fasting, I mean drinking gallons of water, cutting out all salt, and occasionally nibble a 20g, 2g fat, 0g sugar protien bar  http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/protbarfinder.htm now and then when I felt like I was going to pass out. The NUT will tell you all of this was ill advised but I felt I had to do whatever it took to hit the target weight.

Best of Luck, I'll be looking forward to hearing your story.

Thanks so much I know all that stuff you said, and I will start NOW!!!  I am so ready to have this surgery...well not to ready...I have my daughters graduation party on the 20th....yes she graduated...HORRAY (trust me it was a hard road for her!!)

Okay I work in a hospital..and I can't sleep in hospitals...that is the thing that I am most afraid of, not sleeping...I know I will be gorked on meds, but I still KNOW that i will not sleep...i wonder if they will give me my Ambien?????

Both times I was scheduled for surgery and did the MediFast ahead of time for a month, I didn't lose a pound.  I was terrified that my surgery would be cancelled, but my surgeon checked to see if my liver was swollen, and since it wasn't, he cleared me for surgery.  The reason I say "both times" is because on the day that my surgery was scheduled, I was told that I was pregnant, so I had to wait a year to have it done.  My point is that perhaps your surgeon will clear you for surgery even if you don't lose those last few pounds.  As long as they see that you've made an effort and that you're physically able to have surgery.

Best of luck!