Diet History - help please

Okay, so Legacy requires me to fill out and submit my complete diet history before my appointment with the nurse practitioner.  This is TRICKY!  For those of you who've been through this, how accurate do they really expect you to be?  I mean, if I knew I was having surgery 15 years ago I would have kept all these details!  I can remember the lowest I've weighed and the most I've weighed in my whole life.  And I have some guess-timates as to how much I lost during each one.  So if I do my best, is that going to be good enough?  I mean... I'm anal... but not THIS anal to where I've tracked this my whole life! Any thoughts or advice? Sarah

Sarah, I am having my surgery with Legacy.  On the diet history, be as accurate as you can, but don't lose any sleep over it.  It was my understanding that they want to see that you have tried diets and failed. They are also interested in the length of time you were committed to the diet.  My information was pretty sketchy, and they accepted it.  They will ask you tons of questions. Just be honest with them.   Best of luck.

Your diet history should include any diet plans that you have embarked upon. List approximate start and finish dates, how much weight you lost, and how much weight you regained after stopping the medication/plan.

Start with diet plans or diet medications your PCP has prescribed for you, such as Phentermine, Redux, Phen-fen, Meridia, etc. Next, list any formal diet plans you have tried. For instance, Weigh****chers, NutraSystem, HerbaLife, etc. List any diets you have attempted on your own. You can include calorie/fat restriction diets, cabbage soup diet, Richard Simmons tapes, etc. I submitted my diet history to OHSU along with my WLS application, and the NP was not picky about its accuracy.  I used years only and approximated my weight, weight loss, and weight gain.  I did not remember every diet I was on nor all the details, but my NP was satisfied with my diet history. Hope this helps!

I did the best I could but did have several weigh****chers stamp books that I brought in with my history and the nurse practicioner didnt even want to see them. I made a table with the approximate dates, kind of diet, how much weight I lost and when I gained it back. I think it helped. I found it interesting when i was done to see how much I really had tried. I kept saying to myself that I'm not good at the dieting thing but when you see all the attempts written down on paper its crazy how much money and time I spent over and over with little success. It really convinced me that surgery wasn't giving up-It was taking control.

My diet history was also in spreadsheet format.  As I recall, it included columns of date started, how long I was in program, name of diet and who supervised it, starting weight, weight lost, and weight gained after stopping the program.  Mine also included several unexplained weight losses, and I sought medical attention for only one of them and that was also on my record with OHSU.  Only a couple of my diets were supervised by physicians and both were already on my record with OHSU.  OHSU was not overly concerned with accuracy but with whatever patients could remember. I think that both of my diets that were supervised by physicians met the supervised diet requirements for WLS.  Therefore, I have no need to start a supervised diet for insurance purposes. You're right that WLS isn't about giving up; it is about taking control.  My former PCP told me that the more I yo-yoed, the easier it was to gain all the weight back and possibly more and the more difficult it would be to lose weight in the future.  Even the endocrinologist whom I saw for some 2 years tried to encourage me to have WLS, but I was not interested at that time.  It was a matter of finding the WLS that would fit my needs and DS is my choice.