Any Honesty left out there???

I AM SICK TO DEATH OF BEING LIED TO!!

I am scheduled to have Lap RNY done on March 3rd.  Now, I realize I am a bit grouchy right now  (2 weeks of liquid diet will do that to you) but I am SERIOUSLY getting sick of people...both in person and on here...telling me what i KNOW is a bunch of BS.

Now, I had to go through the same thing most of you have to go through in order to get where I am today.  One of the most ANNOYING things was having to do a group session.  We had to keep food diaries...which turned out to be a useful tool, even if I hated doing it.

During group...and during other times where I was forced to discuss my eating habits in a group setting....I was completely honest.  Lets face it people....we didnt get fat by GOOD eating habits....and ending those bad habits was NOT as easy as going cold turkey as some would like us to believe.

 Over and over i saw people present these PERFECT food diaries.  No they didnt cheat!  Of course they kept to their diet!!

Excuse me??  THATS WHY U ONLY LOST HALF A POUND!!!   Or why in fact, the person next to u with an equally perfect food diary actually gained 2 pounds.  

Come on!  Can we at least be honest with ourselves??   And no... I didnt cheat on my food diary.  If I screwed up, I wrote it down!!

Now I cant say exactly WHY it bothered me so much to see everyone lying...but it did.  THIS IS NOT A CONTEST!  What should it matter what others think of you?  Is it that people are scared of what others will think? Doctors included?  OR are we all so accustomed to lying to ourselves that it makes it second nature to fib a bit on such things??

Even on here...i have asked direct questions and got answers that made me think  "Yea right"

I dont want foo foo and flowers... I dont want to hear what people THINK I want to hear.  I WANT THE TRUTH!!  Sometimes the truth isnt pretty...but thats what I am asking for.

SOOOOOO with that being said.... can anyone fess up to me if they "cheated" at all ever on their pre-op all liquid diet?  I know that i CANT be the ONLY one out there seriously considering it!  I have been VERY VERY good and have lost 70lbs on my own but im goin nuts now.  Surgery is a week away and I AM A HUNGRY HUNGRY GIRL!  I am SOOOOOO tempted to eat ONE LAST MEAL!  ive lost all my weight i was supposed to....and even more then was required....hell ive lost 15 of it THIS WEEK ALONE! But I feel this overwhelming need to eat one last time!  i realize food can be like an addiction and I dont know what is bringing these feelings on but its like a desperate need....will it really kill me if I have ONE LAST MEAL?  Even one last sandwhich? something?  I have no intentions of OVER eating...just SOMETHING !  

Has anyone eaten food during their liquid diet? and did it cause any horrid problems that I need to know about!  I cant be the only one!  someone fess up PLEASE!!!

my first response is no-it won't kill you-however-it will set you up for your body wanting MORE--but you know that already is you have researched!

i was fortunate not to have to go thru two weeks of liquids preop---i wouldn't have made it!i did have to go thru two weeks of liquids after surgery-and it was hard...so maybe you are getting in practice??

sorry-not what you are looking for in a serious answer-but honest!

OK you don't want "foo foo and flowers" huh?

Why on earth would you risk your surgery by "cheating" on your liquid diet?  Think of all of the hoops you likely had to jump through, the group sessions, the evals.  Did you have to do any insurance prep?  Many folks have to do a required six month supervised diet.

Is it really worth having "one last meal" to satisfy youself?  I have heard of surgeons who forego continuing the procedure when their patients didn't stick to plan.  There is a reason your surgeon has you on a liquid diet, right?  I'm sure your surgeon didn't just randomly decide to do it that way. 

You are only a week away!  You have come this far, and have stayed on track to this point.  Now stop comparing yourself to others.  All of these others in your group that "cheated" well they have to be the ones accountable to themselves and to their surgeon. 

Who do you honestly think is going to be a success in the long run?  Someone who stays on track and keeps their eye on the prize, or someone who muddles their way through?  I wish you the best of luck and hope that you are happy in whatever decision you make!

So, here's the thing... we didn't get to be the size that qualified by being totally honest with ourselves (and others) about our eating habits.  In fact, when I DID think hard and honest, I got depressed and self-medicated with food!  So I'm not suprised if folks in your pre-wls group are not being totally honest about their eating habits.  But I must say that a 70lb loss pre-op is AWESOME!!!! Congratulations!

My dr didn't have me on an all liquid diet, except for 2 days before surgery (which was NOOOOO problemo!).  That being said... I'm not suprised that you want some texture in your diet.  That was the thing I missed most immediately post-op when it was a total liquid diet, even though I wasn't even hungry. 

You have come so far, so be strong and resist the urge!  We're here to support and encourage each other :)  Maybe try to get some texture with frozen foods?  It's NOT the same, but you're so close.

Good luck, and congrat's on your upcoming surgery, it sounds like you're gonna be a super sucess story!

ok u want the truth here it is. i 2 went to the cc and had to go through the same hoops u went through so i feel your pain. did i cheat on my 2 week liquid diet? no i didnt because i kept my eye on the prize. if u r already having these issues about a "last meal" then u really need to see someone about it. your hole eating habits must change and they will. if u are not prepared for this u can sabatoge your surgery(not saying u will) please dont take any offense to this im not by any means trying to be mean or disrespectful or saying im any better u just asked for the honest truth. i 2 sat in these meetings to hearing about people and there eating habits and thought am i the only one who eats ben and jerrys???? no im not but i only need to worry about myself cuz i am the one who controlls what goes in my mouth. look at it like this this liquid diet is also 2 shrink ur liver for ur surgery to be safer for u cuz things can happen i was supposed to have a lap rny but had to have a open rny. take care and best of luck to u!!!

Brutal truth - Like you I was always honest on my food journals. If I screwed up I wrote it down and tried to do better with my next meal. That being said, no, I did not cheat on my pre-op liquid diet. I was tempted, but the surgery was just too important to me to risk screwing it all up by cheating on the diet. Besides, I felt that if I couldn't do the pre-op diet, how in the world was going to get through the surgery and making the right choices later?? I felt as if I couldn't get through the pre-op stuff with honesty, it was only hurting me and that maybe I wasn't ready for the surgery.

I lost my mom in the middle of the pre-op liquid diet and I can tell you that the thought of grabbing food to cope and just blowing off the whole damn thing crossed my mind - but what good would that have done me?  So even through that, I stuck to the liquid diet. I lost 71 pound pre op.

There is no sunshine. The liquid diet sucks but there is a reason for it. You can do it!! And I completely understand the being grumpy.

Good luck and hang in there. Before you plan that "last meal" decide if that is more important then the surgery and changes you are making in your life to be healthy.

Fortunately, I did not have to do a liquid pre-op diet (just low fat, low sugar for 2 weeks) because -- being totally honest -- I likely would NOT have been able to do it without cheating no matter how much I wanted the surgery and no matter how much energy and effort I had already put into getting approved for the surgery.  I tried a liquid VLC diet once and failed miserably.  I do NOT do well with not eating  at all OR with feeling deprived.  Diets -- and my own behavioral and emotional failures related to eating -- are how I got to be 300+ pounds in the first place.  I would also have had  VERY hard time doing several weeks of liquid-only AFTER surgery (again, fortunately, my surgeon gets you eating soft food the first week post-op).

I did have to keep food logs for 3 months to get apporoved and I was 98% honest on them... on teh days when I mentally said "screw it" and totally ate whatever I wanted, I just put that down... not WHAT I ate, but that I ate lots of bad stuff... and just left it at that.

Just a warning... I was surprised to discover that there are people who continue to lie about what they are eating and how much they have lost AFTER surgery.  Unfortunately, one of the negative aspects (for some people) of sites like this is that it does breed some competition about weight loss and clothing sizes.  I stopped reading ANY posts that talk about "numbers" because 1) I found out that more than one person on here lied to a MAJOR degree about losing a lot of weight very quickly when in fact they were losing very little because they were eating crap and/or were eating 10 times a day, and 2)  I found myself minimizing my OWN accomplishment just because I did not lose it as fast as some others or because others lost less weight but are smaller clothing sizes than I am.    It is not a contest, but it sure can feel like it sometimes.

In the end, being honest with YOURSELF is what matters... and it sounds like you are.  FWIW, it is unlikely that you cheating for one last meal (assuming it is not a "pig out") will affect your ability to have surgery.  The point of the liquid diet is to reduce the size of your liver and one meal is unlikely to change that.

Lora

I'm not in your shoes yet, but come March 22, I will be for 4 weeks.  So now, I'm trying to mentally prepare myself, because I believe that's half the battle.  I can't offer you any firsthand advice, but what I can say is this:  If you've come this far without breaking down, bravo for you.  I can only hope that I do as well.  You've strived so hard over the past several months, maybe even longer than that, and you only have one more week go.  Stick to the plan - because NOTHING is worth jeopardizing the progress you've made.  In the long run, the personal satisfaction and pride that you'll feel within yourself will far outweigh the short term satisfaction you'll get from over-indulging right now.  Good luck!!

Yep.
My pre-op diet was 6 days of proteing meals provided by the surgeon's office.  They were powdered mixes of soup, hot chocolate and puddings/shakes.  We also were allowed one protein bar per day (also provided by dr) if we felt like we had to have something to chew on, and we were allowed to eat SF jell-o.  I hated everything but the soup, and I could only just eat that--I didn't like it.

At the beginning it was very hard.  My first day of the pre-op diet coinsided with my family's annual Christmas party.  So I stared at sugar cookies and turtle brownies and chinese food and I was a good girl and barely even blinked.  I was so hungry that day!  By the end of the second day I felt desparate to chew something and/or to eat something that tasted pleasant.  Yes, I was trying to stay focused, but no, I didn't manage to.  I knew that the objective was to eliminate carbs and stay very low-cal to shrink the liver.

So... I traded out one of my shakes for some scrambled egg whites.  Carefully measured so that I knew how much protein/calories I was getting.  I didn't think it was likely to matter too much.

By the third day, the hunger had disappeared.  That must be because the carbs were out of my system.  My blood sugar was low all week too.

On the morning of surgery, Dr. Myers asked if I had followed the diet exactly, and I confessed to him what I had done.  I definitely got the lecture.  So much so that my husband who was sitting there with me got teary, because Dr. Myers made it sound like I was going to die because of my lack of willpower.  Honestly--he really scared my husband, and that kind of ticked me off.  Gave me the big talk about how could I expect to be successful long-term if I couldn't make it for one week, etc.  Talked about how important the rules are, and how they are there to help us.

After the surgery, Dr. Myers told my hubby that my liver looked great and he had no problems with it at all.  I was happy to hear that because I had been told a few years ago that I have "fatty liver" problems.

I suppose it would have been worth it to not cheat just to have not scared my husband.  The sight of his tears before I was wheeled away was not particularly comforting.

So there's my confession.  For what it was worth. =)
Vickie

 

You're so right!!!! You start by being honest with yourself. You asked some questions I'd like to answer. Once I was approved it was EXACTLY two weeks and I had surgery. I STOPPED SMOKING, JUST THREW THEM DOWN. I DID NOT CHEAT ON MY LIQUID DIET. AFTER SURGERY FOLLOWED EVERYTHING TO A T FOR AT LEAST THE FIRST YEAR AND A HALF OUT. See when I made the decision to have this surgery I promised myself I wouldn't end up back where I was. Now, 4 years out....i go by everything in moderation. i've have remained the same weight for about a year and a half. I had originally lost way to much weight 173lbs wearing a 4-6. I gained about 20lbs back wearing 8-9. I've held this weight for about a year and a half.

People if you're going to do this YES be honest with yourself and make the commitment to make it work!!!

Hugs,
Lisa