To those with surgery approaching....
Hi, thanks for your post. I started first day of liquid diet today and due to be sleeved in two weeks. Im literally ready to contact the surgeon tomorrow and cancel the whole thing as Im so inside my head right now. Im male 37 yrs and bmi of 36. Im really apprehensive about my life after surgery being limited. I know portion etc will be smaller but reading some blogs where people are only able to eat a few spoonfuls before they are full scares me. Is it out of the question to have 1-2 beers and a small steak, approximately 6 months after surgery?
Its the quantity of these pleasures I realise will be reduced though I'm unsure if I'm ready to give it away for good?
Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated
Well first of all, like you, I am a man, seems the vast majority of posters here are women, not that is a bad thing mind you. Like I mentioned in my initial post above, my biggest concern was the finality of it all, that I was making a major life change where there is no going back, my brother just kept telling me to trust him, to just do it and once it's done and you see results from your journey, you will be like you should have done this long before.. I was just as skeptical as you are and I will say my brother was absolutely correct. Sometimes I miss being about to indulge in this or that, but I know that's just a mental echo from days long past. When I get that thought, it just for a moment and pretty much there and gone in moments. I had the thought that being I lost 30 pounds during the pre-op diet phase, why can't I just keep doing that and skip the surgery. I even posed that question on here. The reason that isn't viable is because it's not maintainable. The purpose of the pre-op diet is in part to lose weight, but it's main goal is two fold, to prepare you for the liquid phase after surgery, but primarily it's to help shrink your liver prior to surgery. That way it's smaller and easier for the surgeon to navigate around, in which makes your surgery safer for you. The first 4-5 days of your pre-op diet are going to suck out loud. It's the carb withdraw, once you are past that 5 days or so, it will be like a switch being flipped, at least it was for me. I had 5 protein shakes a day, my zero calorie life waters and as much sugar free jello as I wanted. That helped with the hunger issue for it made me feel full and was like only 5 calories a cup. So that would be my suggestion for you. Yes I have an extreme hate of jello now. I know personally speaking, I should weigh out everything I eat, but I don't. I probably would have lost even more weight than I have if I did. We all have our personality traits and I just don't like dealing with it. I also probably eat to fast as well. We all have out bad habits, we just have to make sure out bad habits don't out weigh (no pun intended) our goods ones and that they don't impact us negatively. Please don't get the idea I just throw whatever I want into my mouth or however much either. I don't. I am 12 weeks post op tomorrow and my more than often food choices I pick from is my protein shakes, yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken/tuna/crab (one of which, not all mixed together) salad, homemade burrito, sometimes with lettuce, sometimes with a flour tortilla, soup, chili, etc.. There is variety to choose from. I would say at six months, you could probably have a small steak. I know I have had some slices of beef or chicken already. Just not a lot of it, but I wouldn't say I have deprived myself. Your body will tell you what you can tolerate and what you can't. I would definitely say no to the beer. First, you don't want to have the alcohol, second it's very empty calories and is just a manner of sabotaging yourself, third you don't want that carbonation in your sleeve unless you enjoy misery. I was never really a drinker so I didn't have that problem. If i had half a dozen ****tails in a year, I was surprised so it isn't an issue for me. I know I gave up sodas years ago and I was only drinking diet sodas for years before I gave them all up together. It took like 5 months to get over the withdraw but it was so worth it, it got rid of the carbonation bloat and I am so much happier now that I did it, and even happier I did long before surgery. For the long term, I will give an example I see with my brother, who is 13 years out. When we visit, he lives out of state, we'd go out to dinner as a family, and he would order something off the menu. He's eat some of the soup or salad that came with the dinner, nibble a bit on this and that from his entree and take the rest of it back to the house when we left, and would get probably two more meals out of it. More often than not he'd chop it up and make a stir fry out of it for the additional meals. I bring this example up for the point that while the sleeve will change your lifestyle, it doesn't destroy it unless you allow it to. I know I have over ate a couple of times, where I just felt awful for like a half hour and got the foamies at the mouth and you learn real fast where your thresh hold is and you learn where to stop. I think the biggest thing for me is remembering to drink through out the day. I used to drink 100 plus ounces a day prior to surgery. I have no problem taking liquids, I'm just not that thirsty anymore and I have to make a conscious effort to get my fluids in each day and I do, but if I get pre-occupied, it's an effort. Anyways, I hope this helps you on your resolve. Just take it one day at a time, once you have the surgery and you start seeing the weight just drop, you will see it's easy to keep your eyes on the prize.
