Taoz

You can do this!!!

ohhhh, hadn't seen discussion of this before. Thanks for sharing, I'll try to prepare myself mentally for food to potentially taste really bland for a while.

I tried the Australian clear protein water yesterday (bodie'z protein). Tastes kind of like Gatorade. I have the clear unflavored powder on order. Much easier for me to swallow. (I make my meal replacement shakes with lots of ice and eat them with a spoon to avoid the texture turning my stomach). Should be a very good option for you if lacrosse intolerant. Much

I'm in Adelaide, capital of South Australia. Our choices for protein, meal replacements and supplements are a bit Different here, as shipping much from overseas costs a small fortune. I've been glad to find a number of newer quality products available here now though.

You can freeze things like soups and purees in ice cubes then pop them in snap-lok bags and just take whatever volume you need at a time. I have a few large icecube moulds from kmart which hold maybe 75ml each - they might prove useful for freezing small soup and pure portions. I'm not really worried about hunger. So far I'm doing fine on the VLCD pre-op diet the past few days, and that's before I have most of my stomach removed. I had a tin of smoked rainbow trout and broccoli and green beans for dinner, a choc-hazelnut VLCD shake for lunch at 2:30, a coffee with 200ml 1% milk at 12, and one scrambled egg at 9:30am. Once I get my bodie'z unflavoured protein delivered (hopefully by mid next week) I'll include a scoop of that for an extra 15g protein in my coffee and I'll be set. (Can't yet stomach the shakes for both brekky and lunch)

Hi and congratulations to everyone else with their ops scheduled in May (I'm getting VSG on 2 May - my ticker keeps saying 1 May but that might be because we here in Aussieland are a half day ahead of US?). Quite a few of us are also chatting in the "Any MAY sleevers???" post in the gastric sleeve forum.- feel free to join us there too. I plan to post/talk a lot in these forums to help keep myself focused and accountable. I made the decision at the start of February that I'd be having the gastric sleeve surgery (I had stopped dieting more than 10 years prior due to the rebound weight gain and mental health damage it caused me every time, focusing instead on figuring out my food intolerances, sourcing and growing nutritionally better quality food, and starting our family). Fingers crossed the lack of recent dieting works in my favour. I still feel very strongly that all people deserve respect and I hate how aggressively anti-fat society is. While with weight loss I will get to enjoy no longer having to worry about seat widths, weight limits, limited clothing choices etc I'm still going to be angry at the systemic oppression of fat people in the modern world.

my pre-op diet list only specifically says no potato, kumara or sweet potatoes. However I know sweet corn, pumpkins, and peas are also quite sweet. Maybe check with your nutritionist? Post surgery it will only be potatoes and sweet potatoes that I limit, most other veggies will be ok. I just picked up several cauliflowers on special to make some smooth cauliflower soup (which has a little sharp cheese and potato in it) to have frozen ready for liquids phase. Once I can have mushy foods I'll have my more usual chicken and vegetable soups - including the estimated 6g of protein in real homemade chicken stock, plus a scoop of bodie'z unflavored protein (15g) plus any soft bits of chicken I throw in, a simple bowl of chicken and veg soup will give me at least a third of my needed protein for the day. And I love my soups (as do my husband and son, haven't been able to convince my daughter yet) - the more fresh stuff included from my garden the better (herbs, garlic, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes mostly). I'll attach word documents of the cauliflower and cheese soup, and a nice-sounding mushroom soup that I plan to make for liquids phase. I"ll probably do a fairly thin basic butternut pumpkin soup with a little potato, carrot and cumin in it too. Cauliflower Cheddar Soup.docx Vegetarian Mushroom soup.docx

Welcome to the party babypinkbunny!

Looks like you've got most of your protein supplements sorted Sorry you won't have much help post surgery - perhaps make and freeze what you can of liquid/runny soups and a few simple purees like pumpkin and mixed veggies? I plan to do this (bought a few nice butternut pumpkins last week while 99c/kg, we are mid-Autumn here so hot soups will be nice post op). I know what you mean regarding excessive sugar substitutes, and research is divided on whether the sweet taste without the sugar energy causes problems like making your body crave more sugar/sweets, along with any potential side effects of artificial sweeteners (aspartame certainly doesn't agree with me). I already didn't have many sweets (only the occasional soft drink or half strength apple juice, and one sugar in my coffee) and I've been struggling with the sweet tasting meal replacement shakes. I plan to stick with natural foods (plus some protein supplements when needed) as much as possible, like skim milk, eggs and lean meats. Hopefully the less sugar and sugar substitutes we eat, the better our taste buds get at detecting the natural sweetness and flavours in our fruits and veggies. I'm going to pick up some "unflavoured" bodie'z protein powder as mentioned by Jules earlier, as it's ingredients are only "Whey Protein Isolate, Sodium Citrate" and it's supposed to dissolve well into clear liquids up to 80 degree C hot, so will be great in my coffee and soups.

Welcome aboard Wendybooth!

Welcome aboard let us know how you are doing in the days post op as we early May sleevers get underway.

I'll go check out that Bodiez protein water too EDIT: hubby is picking up a berry and a kiwi ready to drink protein water for me from chemist warehouse tomorrow. Will see how I find them, might be a good option for slow sipping at room temperature post sleeve while I'm stuck in hospital a few days and won't have a blender, ice and ice water to make palatable blended formulite shakes. Not sure on the calcium tablets, I think they would be more required for bypass patients and am hoping just the bariatric capsules will be enough for me from one month post sleeve. I'll have a blood test a week before my op to check my current vitamin levels among other things, and will be starting on the bariatric capsules as soon as they arrive. Let me know how much biotin your dietician recommends, as my bnmulti comes with 300mcg Biotin in the daily dose (2 tablets a day). I have very fine hair and very little of it to start with, so if I get much hairloss it's going to look pretty grim for a while - might just shave it off if it irks me enough! (that might risk anyone I don't tell of my bariatric surgery worrying that I have cancer though).

Here's hoping you'll be joined us soon!

Welcome aboard Sheylina!

yep, I don't like to think about what my kids diet for the week would be like if I didn't prepare meals ahead for them. will be hard enough getting hubby to manage school lunches.

Beyond pre-op dietary changes, what else is everyone up to between now and surgery day? My kids start school holidays after tomorrow and my sons 6th birthday party is this saturday (no major stress for me as its at a lollipops playland play centre and they manage all the food there and the icecream cake so no birthday cake baking/decorating stress for me.) if the weather moderates (just had hottest April day ever at about 36 degrees C, weird for mid autumn) will hopefully drag the kids out with me for some walks. I still need to plant my garlic, onions and carrots (delayed by hot weather and then weeks of migraines) and want to get a few other things tidied in the veggie patch before i go into surgery. ive also made overnight a fresh batch of 20 hour slow cooked chicken stock and will make some soups and some purees to freeze for post op, and some veggie soups for this preop stage. Also freezing a few meals for hubby and kids since im the only one who cooks (tuna mornay, savoury mince for tacos, spag bol, roasted chicken wings etc). Edit: Oh yeah, and I picked up like 12kg of lovely fuji apples for $2/kg last week - am going to stew up a heap of those with cinnamon and freeze for puree and soft solids stages.

Yes, i want to keep focused on my progress, and happy to do monthly photo updates. i had my first formulite meal replacement shake yesterday and tummy did not like it (queasy for nearly 2 hours afterwards, and gurgly upset tummy that evening). I'm hoping my tummy just needs time to adjust. this morning had just half a honeycomb shake mixed with some cooked rolled oats and cinnamon and though didn't much like the taste, i only felt slightly off afterwards. Going to try the choc-hazelnut shake made really thick with icy water and crushed ice in a bit (had some slow cooked turkey with some smashed avo for lunch). Im a natural foods and cook from scratch kinda person (intolerant to a lot of additives in processed food) and have a big veggie patch, so liquids phase is going to be really tough for me if i cant adapt to meal replacement/protein powders. I have some unflavored/unsweetened uprotein brand protein powder on its way to me and am hoping it mixes well into my homemade chicken stock for protein boosted healthy soups. has everyone got their bariatric vitamins planned? My bariatric physician recommended aussie brand www.bnmulti.com who do chewable bariatric multivitamins and calcium tablets, and now multivitamin capsules too. I'm planning to get a months worth of the chewable multis, then the capsules from one month out. If you are still having 2 meal replacements a day in liquid phase dont need to start vitamins until you start purees. If the unflavoured protein mixes well in my soups it be mostly having those post op i think, so will need extra vitamins.

Do a site search for the infamous week 3 stall. Tends to happen as people move into solids. Totally normal and losses will resume. Follow your surgeons instructions and you should be fine.

wow, are you on a shakes only diet? can you talk to your surgeon now and see if there is a better alternative for you? a lot of meal replacement shakes contain a lot of sugar and other fillers, so there might be a better quality product or alternative low calorie diet available to you?

I'm on 2 shakes and a lean meat and veggie dinner for the remaining 3 weeks before my op (only shakes/liquids on the last day before). I had my first shake late this morning after they delivered (formulite which is stevia sweetened because asparatame and other sweeteners give me nasty headaches/migraine) and I felt really off and queasy for at least an hour afterwards. The taste (honeycomb) was ok, but I think it was mostly the texture that really didn't agree with me. I'm hoping my body adapts quickly as I have a lot of them I need to drink between now and surgery!!! I'll try one of the choc-hazelnuts with very warm water tomorrow morning with my usual 2 shots of coffee as a mochacino and see if that works better. And will try some blended with half cold water and half ice too.

Further to Creekimp13's post, I apologise if anything in my reply came across as offensive. I really hope every single WLS patient is successful in weight loss.

Another person in the May 2nd party Welcome aboard!

4 of us! SmileyMay, Optimisk, Stacy4243 and me Taoz GO TEAM 2nd!!!

A lot of people have reported on these boards significant gaining after having band removed (though theirs was usually at 5 years or less) - more general lap-band forums might report better band-removal stats though? Talk with your medical advisers, but as you are still 36 pounds from goal, would you consider a revision to gastric sleeve with the removal of the band? (seems to be common for both procedures to be performed at the same time as long as there isn't damage from band slippage). Once you recover you should find eating healthy foods a lot more pleasant than with the band, and the hormonal benefits of the op to help with hunger and metabolism? My mum wanted me to consider gastric banding 15+ years ago but when I heard/read about the frequency of vomiting and difficulty with some healthy foods like salads (and hadn't started having kids with my husband yet) I was not at all convinced it would be a good option for me. Now at 38 with 2 kids (and no more happening ) I'm having a gastric sleeve 2nd May and can't wait.

Another May 2nd That's three of us so far... must be a lucky date