i'm going to be banded in early march and will probably be starting my pre op liquid diet in a week or so. i'm worried about something though. of course, we are all supposed to go with sugar free everything as much as possible and the protein shakes we choose are supposed to be sugar free. i have problems with artificial sweetners. they make me sick. literally. i've tried them all (sweet n low, equal, splenda, and some other wierd ones, too) and get the same results everytime. upset stomach almost vomiting and headaches. even if i just have a couple of sips of something like diet coke it happens. i been trying to drink shakes and eat things with artificials in them to try and acclimate myself to it but it's not working that well. so my question is this... do any of you have this issue? and what did you do? did you drink shakes that had sugar in them and did you still lose? i have been watching a youtube video of a chick that had this problem and she drank shakes with sugar in them and still lost just not as fast as she prolly would have if she had been doing sugar free. but that's only one person. i wanted to see if there were more people out there facing this problem.

I discovered that I am intolerant of Xylitol, one of the "alcohol" types of artificial sweeteners. It causes gas, cramping, etc. I take some Gas-X when I inadvertently consume some and it takes care of the problem. It seems strange that you would be intolerant of all of those artificial sweeteners since many are not even chemically related. Does your surgeon require you to consult with a nutritionist as part of your pre-op plan? He/she would be the best person to help you with this issue. This should only be a problem for you during the liquid diet phases. Good luck........Dan

I would definitely talk to your dietician or surgeon about this. I would think you should be able to do a low carb/high Protein diet w/real foods instead of shakes in this case. Or, use a Protein powder that does not contain artificial sweeteners.

As it turns out, those artificial sweeteners are not very good for you anyway. The dieticians at my surgeon's office do not recommend any artificial sweeteners nor do they recommend shakes. I ate real food up until the day before surgery and resumed to real food 4 days after. So, this whole process certainly can be done without artificial sweeteners.

Personally, I always LOVED artificial sweeteners and never saw any need to reduce or stop using them until these dieticians told me that studies show that they actually drive your craving for sweets. And, they said that their experience has been that patients who do not give up artificial sweeteners do not lose as much weight (particularly crystal light). After I got off of the artificial sweeteners, I realized just how dramatic an impact they have on me. I was always craving sweets before. Now that I got rid of the artificial sweeteners, I don't crave sweets at all. I still enjoy them occasionally and in moderation, but I don't feel driven to eat them every single day like I used to be.

i do believe my surgeon will have me meet with a dietician first and asking him/her about it is a great idea. i'm supposed to do shakes and that is the part i'm worried about. i think it's wierd, too, that i have issues with the sweetners. i first discovered it as a teenager when we had sugar free popsicles and i got sick off just one. then i kinda noticed it happened everytime i had something like that with aspartme and saccharin and all that in it. i've tried and tried to drink diet sodas instead of regular and eat sugar free foods time and again and i always get icky. hopefully the dietician will have some helpful insight. thanks ya'll for your responses.