Concerned about liver shrinking. Help?

Maybe I'm doing way too much research but I've read tons things online that say the main source of shrinking your liver is to cut out carbs. My doctor's 10 day preop diet says to follow a low carb diet to deplete the glycogen stores in your liver.

Here's my problem with the diet...I haven't even eaten everything I'm allowed the past 3 days I've been on it, and my carb levels are between 70-90 a day. Everything I read says to keep your carbs under 30 a day to shrink your liver.

My surgeon says my liver is likely the size of two footballs and I definitely need to shrink it before surgery, but I'm concerned about the carb intake. He said if I follow the plan given I will be okay, but it just doesn't seem right to me...

I'm allowed unlimited sugar free liquids per day and I have to drink 2 low carb high protein shakes per day. I can have 1 cup of juice, 2 cups of milk per day. 1 cup (or 2 small pieces) of fruit, 3 servings of dairy (8oz yogurt, 1/2c cottage cheese, or sugar free pudding), and 2 cups of raw veggies per day.

I don't eat that much each day. I've been keeping track of everything and my nutritional levels look like this:

Day 1: 670 calories/25g fat/920mg sodium/73 carbs/38g protein
Day 2: 670 calories/23g fat/830mg sodium/84 carbs/37g protein
Day 3: 760 calories/38g fat/1020mg sodium/91 carbs/35g protein

The carbs come from fruits and veggies. They didn't specify if I was supposed to look for fruits and veggies on the lower end of the spectrum so I went with oranges and carrots...an orange by itself has 21 or so carbs in it!

I feel like I could do better being allowed to eat chicken or fish and subbing that in for some of the fruits and veggies, the carb count just seems way too high to me...

Any advice?

I guess I'm a little confused.
Your doctor says to do Low Carb, but then gave you a list of foods he wanted you to eat?  These foods listed are not low carb.  Fruit, milk, juice?  That's insane.  I'm sorry, but those are very high carb items.

I was put on the low carb diet pre-op also, because you are right, the ONLY way to shrink the liver is to cut out the carbs from  your diet!   I see your protein is also fairly low. Did your doctor tell you not to eat any protein?  Lean chicken and fish would be ideal.

I ate an ultra low carb diet, less than 20 grams a day and I lost 17lbs in 14 days.  My liver was small and my surgery went off well. 

If I were you, I'd call the office and clarify your diet.  I'd say, "everything on the list" has carbs and especially fruit and juice!  Yikes!  I haven't had juice in years.

Good luck!

I agree that the most efficient way to shrink your liver is to restrict carbs.  Your carb levels above are significantly higher than what I would have expected. 

I'm not sure if you've ever done any of the other low carb WOE, but 20g of carbs would be expected for what was referred to as the "Induction" phase of a one of the most well known LCE plans.  The concept behind keeping your total daily carbs at 20g is to quickly switch your body into a mode where you won't have ingested carbs to burn so your body will use the stores of glycogen in your liver.  Our bodies store about 3-4 oz of water per ounce of glycogen so you lose the glycogen and water stores, thus shrinking the liver.

I had to do a pretty strict pre-op diet (low carb, low sugar, low cal, low fat) for 3 weeks since my BMI was over 55 at my first visit.  My total carb intake for the day was less than 20, total cals under 600.  I had a 'turbulent' first week (meaning, I didn't purely follow the plan), but I lost a total of 16lbs after getting serious starting week 2.

I would double check your plan with the NUT but quite honestly, if it were me, even if they say what you're doing should be fine, I would still reduce to no more than 20g (30g at the most).

But, that's just me.

Good luck!!!

 I never looked up the specifics on how many carbs decrease liver size but I can offer some suggestions.
The fruit and veggies you selected are very high in sugar.  I would ditch the fruit all together and go for green & white veggies which have no sugar content.

Also if you are consuming high protein 
shakes AND cottage cheese, it would appear that your protein intake should be higher than that.

 Most high protein shakes have about 27 gr protein (150 cal) (e.g. Gaspari's Myofusion protein powder)  and 1/2 c cottage cheese has about 15 gr protein x 3 servings - 45 grams - so between your dairy and protein shakes you should be getting nearly 100 gr protein!  

Make those changes and you should be really good!

The list specifically says low carb high protein which completely shocked me when I saw we were allowed to have fruits and juice. I saw my surgeon yesterday for my "1 wee****il surgery" appointment and I told him my concerns, specifically regarding 20+ carbs in a single orange. He said whatever the nutritionist said was fine. When the nutritionist was giving instructions, we (there was a group of us) were just told to adhere to the plan and we would be fine.

Like I said, I don't even eat all the things listed and my carbs are way too high.

Also, in regards to my protein shakes, they suggested a few like slim fast optima, EAS, and Atikins. I got the Atkins and it has 15g protein.

I really like my surgeon and the whole team, and I've been through a great deal getting this far (I've lost 76 pounds so far, and a lot to go) I just realy don't want to end up failing after waiting so long.

I'm thinking I might make my own version of the diet and make sure it's low carb low fat high protein. And low sodium because I retain water very bad. I know we're supposed to follow doctor's orders but from what I read and what you all are saying, it doesn't seem to be the right thing to do this time...

If I were you I would NOT drink any fruit juice and would probably skip the fruit because of the natural sugars.  If you situation is that dire and you absolutely must lose weight to shrink your liver then it's serious.  Count every carb and don't exceed the 30 g.  It can be done but it's not that easy.  Stick to protein, protein and more protein, with a few veggies thrown in for fiber.  Your calories and even sodium levels are great, so just figure out what you can do to eliminate more carbs.  This is primarily how you will need to eat for optimal success with the band, so getting used to protein loading and less carbs will serve you well for both your surgery and your future WL.

Hang in there!

Lisa O.