deepdarkgreen

Ok, not to sound too harsh here, but your surgeon is being stupid. In this one (and only this one) thing, ignore him. There's nothing wrong with shakes. And you should be eating 4-5 times per day, 3 hours apart. I do 3 meals and 2 snacks. For my snacks, I do things like colby jack cheese cubes and pepperoni slices. Or pepper jack cheese sticks and salami (or roast beef) slices (sandwich meat). I tend to make my own protein shakes in the morning, mostly because I've never been big on breakfast foods, so making a protein shake works well for me.
I get my protein shakes from Arbonne (so so many vitamins in it, 20g of protein, mixes well, not grainy, and really yummy flavors). I'll put in 16oz of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 2 scoops of whatever protein shake I'm doing that day, 2 tbsp of avocado (no flavor, makes the shake creamy, added healthy fat), 1 tbsp mct oil, 1 tsp black seed oil, 2 tbsp "triple seeds" (flax, chia, and hemp seeds), 1 scoop Arbonne protein boost (10mg protein), 2 scoops Arbonne probiotic fiber booster, 2-3 tbsp Jordan's skinny syrup (whatever flavor I want to add, it has no calories, no carbs, no sugar), sometimes I add frozen fruit (depending on the flavor shake I'm doing), a few icecubes, blend, and YUMMY!!!!!
When eating meals, you want to make sure they are protein first, then veggies, then carbs. Too much protein isn't good for you. That's why, in general, you need between 60-80g protein. I tend to be in the 80-90 range on heavy work out days, and 60-70 on rest days. If I know I can't get my veggies in, I drink my greens. I get the Arbonne super greens powder (blend of 36 fruits and veggies), and I make sure to add the Arbonne GutHealth (digestive enzymes with pre and pro biotics). Drinking greens is a good way to supplement getting in your fruits and veggies without adding all the extra calories, carbs, and sugar. But it's not meant to completely replace eating veggies. It just helps if you're struggling to get them in, or if you really don't like to eat them all that much.
You stomach is much smaller than it used to be, so you need to eat more often. I tend to get protein in 2 of my meals and both snacks. The 3rd meal usually has more veggies (I love salad, so I've been known to have a salad for a meal and have very little protein in it) but with my shake, my snacks, and 1 other meal, I get the protein I need. I like to add veggies to my salad (green peppers, olives, cucumbers, shredded carrots, etc) so I try to balance my needs with protein and veggies that way (and drinking a greens drink at least 3-4x per week). I drink A LOT of water (84oz typically per day) and that actually helps with hunger. So does drinking tea (I love green tea, black tea, white tea, oolong tea, and yerba mate tea). It's true that protein helps you feel full longer, but you can't fill up on just protein. Your body needs a variety of foods, vitamins, nutrients, and minerals to be balanced and healthy.

Hi! My surgery was rescheduled for August 10th, this Thursday, because I got sick the week of my original date.
I'm in the lower Hudson Valley, NY, just north of NYC. I'm having the SADI-S (aka SIPS / aka Modified Duodenal Switch).
My surgeon doesn't put his patients on a liver reduction diet, but he does ask us to eliminate refined carbohydrates and I've been working with the dietician to increase proteins and decrease carbs overall since last October. On Wednesday I need to do a clear liquid diet.
My nerves started last night, after I read through all the consent forms to sign, and when it really hit me about giving up my food habit. It's not like I hadn't thought about any of these things, but they seemed really far away so I didn't worry. I'm so happy that there seems to be a nice little cohort of us for August, so we can support each other! I'll go look for the FB group too. Good luck to everyone!
I saw a few were having their surgeries early this month, how has it gone?

For the first time in 24 years, I'm below 260. I don't even have words......

This might make you roll your eyes, but I like to say that you don't choose your goal weight -- your goal weight chooses you. You can't just pick a number and will your body to get to it. I feel strongly that the non-scale victories are far more important than the number on the scale. I wanted to lose enough weight to get rid of diabetes and hypertension, to wear non-plus size clothing, to fit into a restaurant booth, to walk up a few flights of stairs without ending up winded and drenched in sweat, etc. If you get to that point and the scale says 10 pounds higher than the arbitrary number you picked, so what?
That said, when I had my psych evaluation, the psychiatrist wanted me to say my goal weight (probably just to make sure I had realistic expectations), so I went with the average weight loss for gastric bypass. There are a lot of online calculators for this, and I think I used 70% of my excess weight to arrive at a specific number (I ended up losing 100% of my excess weight). Here's another calculator that uses a lot of data from actual WLS patients to give more precise predictions based on more specific parameters:
https://mbsc.arbormetrix.com/Registry/public/calculator/uiCalculator/7?menuId=1013

Something that helps the body absorb D3 is vitamin K2. I have to take 10,000 iu of D3 and 125mcg of K2 every day because of my MS, and I learned that my body doesn't absorb the D3 without the K2 with it. My body also doesn't absorb iron without vitamin C with it. I have to have 45mg of iron and 1000mg of vit c daily, and if I skip the vit c, my body doesn't process the iron at all.

My surgery is scheduled for July 13th!

My surgery is scheduled for July 13th!

My surgery is scheduled for July 13th!

Thank you so much for sharing! This is really useful for me.

Many people think the surgery is cosmetic. I’m sure that’s what it was. I had a doctor (not a medical doctor but still a doctor) ask me why I just didn’t ask them to just take more out or whatever when I told him beforehand that I worried I wasn’t going to lose all my weight as if he thought they just scoop all the fat out of you or something. I just scratched my head and laughed.