vikingbeast

I have a whole coterie of doctors at this point, as I'm sure many of us do, to fix the various systems. One of them makes me take my shoes and socks off at every appointment so he can poke my feet to see if I can feel the poke. It drives me insane. He insists I must be at least pre-diabetic because I'm so fat, and assumes that I've just gone off and "put a bandaid on my poor diet" for a while to pass his blood glucose screenings. He also insists I tell my primary care physician that I need to be on statins (presumably also because I'm fat). When I point out my cholesterol is just fine, he comes up with some "new fact" or other; the latest was there is something wrong with the SHAPE of my fat cells or some such b0ll0cks. Well... as part of my pre-op testing, the surgeon pulled my lipids and blood glucose. Lipids were in the bottom half of the normal range (142 total, HDL 53, LDL 67, triglycerides 94, so right exactly where they needed to be), and my A1c is 5.2. I printed a copy of the results from MyChart and mailed them to the offending MD with a polite but passive-aggressive note. Childish? Perhaps. But cathartic. I cannot wait until they can't use my weight as an excuse for being trash people.

I keep telling my fiancé I'm gonna be his arm candy. This gives me hope that it'll be true.

Stop and think about this for a second. Before you had surgery, before you started losing weight pre-op... how much were you eating? 2500 calories a day? 3000? 3500? Now you're eating 500-600 and wondering if you can do 800-1000. If you were at 2500 calories before and you're doing 800 now, that's still a cut of 1700 calories, or an AVERAGE (notice the capital letters!) of half a pound a day. Now, it doesn't work that way, because our bodies are not machines with standard inputs and outputs. A lot of things can change that calculus, like sodium content and bloating (hello hormones!) and your brain and even the weather. Vigorous exercise at 6-7 weeks out seems a bit much... but are you getting out and moving? Walking? Running if your body permits it at this point? Climbing hills? One other sense of perspective. Back when you were your pre-op self, if someone had said, "Ready21, I have a diet that will make you drop 30 pounds in 8 weeks," would you not have absolutely jumped on it? As long as you're losing, you're good... and even if you stall, as long as you're not gaining overmuch!

I'm about a week away from surgery and I know these feelings are real! But I'm here to say I got past that. I got past that by looking at this site and at the people who've changed their whole lives. I got past that by looking at the things I want to be able to do (I have a whole list, written in purple dry-erase on the whiteboard next to my desk in my home office). And by talking to a friend who went through it. It's normal to have the freak-outs. "Will I ever be able to eat like a normal human?" (yes, but not in the quantities you used to) "Will it work for me?" (yes, if you put in the work to use this tool) "Will I wake up a hideous half-dragon creature with a blue tongue and scales?" (almost certainly not)

Could be any number of things. - The penne might be too big (are you chewing all the way to paste consistency before swallowing?) - The tomato sauce could be causing too much stomach acid / acid reflux. - You might be sensitive to the pasta now.

That's terrible! I'm sorry. One suggestion: at Sprouts they sell NOW brand whey protein isolate. Orange tub with 25g protein per scoop. If you put it in water or diet juice (you know, the 5 calorie stuff in the juice aisle at Publix) and STIR it, it mostly dissolves, it's not very thick at all. If you shake it it will foam up like crazy, then you have to either stir it back together or wait for the foam to pop. Maybe it's time to go to your PCP and ask for a referral to someone else? You shouldn't have to be 'stuck' like this.

It seems extremely expensive for what you get—my meal prep service just started doing what could be considered bariatric portions, but it's 10 meals for $55, delivered, which is about half the price of the Bari Box. https://www.valleymealprep.com/shop/10for55/

I just looked. Their price is shocking. They cost more than my meal service and I would get twice or three times as many meals out of my existing service since I would have to cut the portions.

What is PRP?

Surgery twin! My date is 9/14. I went in for my pre-surgical tests today (barium swallow—WHICH IS DISGUSTING BY THE WAY, ugh—EKG, chest X-ray, and bloodwork) and asked all the folks I interacted with. They said while the hospital is busy, it's not nearly like any of the previous surges, so they're optimistic that elective surgeries will continue. I just need COVID case counts to stay at or below where they're at now please!

My meal prep service that I've used for a long time allows me to customize my meals—3, 4, 5, or 6 ounces of protein, zero or 1/2 cup or 1 cup of veg, zero or 1/2 cup or 1 cup of carbs, etc. Then they make it and deliver it to my door Sunday night for the week ahead. They do all the macro counting. Is it the tastiest stuff on earth? No. But it's filling and well made. It wouldn't work for right after surgery, but it might a bit down the road, even if you end up splitting each meal in half.

If you read back through posts here, you'll see hundreds, if not thousands, of posts talking about how people were just simply... not interested in food after the surgery. Like, just didn't care about it and had to sip protein drinks to get their protein in at first. As I think I said earlier, I put myself on a pre-op diet so I didn't go from "full steam ahead" to "have a couple protein shakes a day" overnight. I cut out all sugar (the protein shakes are sweetened with non-nutritive sweeteners, I forget which—stevia maybe). Last night, I held up my end of a bargain with my kid and took her to our favorite ice cream shop. I ordered myself a scoop of my favorite ice cream... ate a small bite... and went "ugh, why is this so sweet" and put the rest in the freezer for my kid to eat later. It was a shocking moment, because I could easily plough through two or three big scoops of that stuff beforehand. Your body will do the change. But if you think you need to test the waters, commit to two weeks' time on a pre-surgery diet. Maybe not the full liquid one, but one that's calorie restricted and very low carb. You can do two weeks. Anyone can do two weeks. But that's two weeks straight, not "I've been good for three days and deserve a little treat." If you can't do that, then at least you'll know before you do this major, life-altering thing, and you could go seek help. But you've got this. I'm sure of it.

That's insane. Each gram of carbs and protein is 4 calories, each gram of fat is 9 calories. So even if all you ate was pure protein, you'd get 75 g protein a day AND NOTHING ELSE. Maybe in the first bit after surgery when you're on liquids and basically surviving on protein shakes, but five months out?? You need to find a different NUT. That's borderline grounds to report them to the state or provincial medical board.

If you're going to eat phở, I suggest sticking to things that have been simmered for a while in the broth rather than tái (the rare beef that seems to be the default topping in most places not in a huge Vietnamese community). Some suggestions would be chín (well-done steak), nạm (flank), or gầu (brisket), which are cut in a way that isn't fibrous. Avoid gân (tendon), sách (tripe), and bô viên (meatballs, which are held together with a paste that makes it not soft at all). And definitely don't order dặc biệt (daily special, which is all of the cuts).

The Premier Protein shakes have 30 g protein each and are 11 fl oz (325 ml). My surgeon says I should be able to drink about 1 fl oz every 15 min essentially right out the gate, so 60 g of protein would be 5 1/2 hours of sip-sip-sip in a day. It'll be room temperature by the time I'm done but I'm hoping that'll be possible.

So I am still pre-op but have put myself on a pre-op diet (not required, but in mind a good idea). The protein drinks are ridiculously sweet... but the result of them is that when I took my daughter out for ice cream tonight (fulfilling a promise), I had a bite and was done. Like... WHO AM I EVEN.

I have stopped telling people what I'm doing. I had a nurse friend—a nurse, for crying out loud!—who thought it was cheating because she literally thought I was going in for some kind of large-scale liposuction and was going to come out the hospital with abs. Other people have told me horror stories. So I'm not going to tell anyone else. I've started telling people I'll be out for hernia repair surgery, which may or may not be true. I'll find a different way to explain the tiny portions of food. In the meantime—remember this: your surgeon is giving you a tool to help you with THE most restrictive diet you or anyone you know has ever followed. The gift of not feeling that awful gnawing hunger, the gift of literally not being able to fall off the wagon while you figure your stuff out. And anyone who decides to poop on that deserves any tongue lashing you want to dish out.

I am still pre-op (two weeks and a bit away), so I am just here to say I understand exactly where you are coming from. But here's a story. Tonight I had to buy dinner. I've been on the pre-op diet I put myself on for a week now. I went in and ordered my usual, a chicken shawarma plate with rice and salad. Normally I'd put that away with two giant pita breads and a couple pieces of maamoul or baklawa to boot. I couldn't even eat the bread. It stuck in my belly. I ate a spoonful of rice and went, "Meh." I had about four ounces of the chicken and some of the salad. I didn't even buy the baklawa. It truly gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, I can make this stick when I'm no longer hungry, and do it for the 90 days it takes to make it a lifestyle change. (Obviously the restriction lasts past 90 days, just quoting one of those self-help books people insist on giving me.) I swear. You can do this. You are a budding bad-@$$, you just don't know it yet.

The only thing you can do is encourage the new hair to grow (the loss is because you're temporarily not growing new hairs and the old hairs are at the end of their life and shedding off). Protein and biotin...

It totally does, PLUS you're likely in ketosis. I'm having the same problem... death farts and dead-animal breath.

Y'all are seriously getting me through the stress here. Thank you so much.

Exactly the same as me. I’m doing the same. I’ve lost 6 lbs in a week. Obviously some of that is water but it’s not nothing!

I'm sorry, but the above is terrible counsel. A 50 ml shot of vodka is 110 calories (for Americans, a standard 1.5 oz. shot of vodka is 96 calories.) 8 shots of vodka is nearly 900 calories just in alcohol, completely empty of nutrition. Most post-surgery diets ask you to stay under 1000 calories a day.

You do have to take vitamins, supplements, and a B complex for the rest of your life on the sleeve, too, and you start with liquids (surgeons vary, some require clear liquids before you get thicker liquids), then on to purées and soft foods, and my surgeon recommends avoiding things like cruciferous vegetables (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts...) until you are fully healed and know your own reactions. I don't think there's any such thing as a bariatric procedure with a simple post-op.

My surgeon specifically said that if I'm going to try "composite foods" (as he called them), to try the individual components first... so for pizza you'd try cheese, and bread, and tomato sauce. Given the amounts they're talking about it's hard to imagine eating more than a bite or two of pizza.