Yay - Day 3 of Optifast ... Think I've got it!!!

My surgery is July 20/16.  I am on Optifast for 4 weeks in hopes that we can get my BMI down.  First 2 days I cheated ... But kept my calories under 1200.  Hard to cope when everyone eats and you discover that you eat for any reason other than energy.  I have realized today that I can bang through by drinking the 4 shakes with ice throughout the day flavoured with extracts as suggested here.  I hope everyone else is having positive revelations and great success!  Much love ??

You seem to be doing well, but here's how I felt on the pre-op diet.

When my doctor told me to lose some weight before surgery, i wanted to scream at him - WHY BOTHER IT WILL ONLY COME BACK - bu before I said anything, I realized that was why I was having the surgery so it WOULD NOT come back.  That thought helped make the pre-op diet different for me.  The promise of having the surgery made it easier for me to make good choices during that time (My pre-op period included Thanksgiving and all the Christmas parties - I had surgery on 12/22 and busted out of the hospital on Christmas Eve -so I had a lot of temptation to say No to.)

This is also a time to practice and strengthen your ability to follow directions - you will need to follow directions post-op and continue for good long-term weight loss.  The food and eating issues you work through now will be behind you and will make you post-op weight loss easier.  You are doing a good thing by asking for ideas that keep you following your drs instruction. 

I have a sweet tooth - so I added diet orange soda (~6 oz) to a vanilla shake (8oz) and had a creamcycle shake - it got me through pre-op.  Can't do it post-op because of the soda but you won't need much volume to feel full.   Pre-op I used 12gm per serving prot shakes so I could have satisfying volume.  Post surg - I used the 35 gms of prot per serving prot shakes because you will not need volume to fill you up.

Pre-op - I also added diet chock soda to chock prot shakes.

Hang in there - you are making more progress than you now realize.