Good evening everyone,

I need to lose 12 lbs before my surgery can be done. Well, I've not been successful at losing weight in the past. I guess if I had been I wouldn't be getting the surgery!! LOL That said, I'm looking for any tips you may have for losing this 12 lbs so I will be able to proceed with the surgery.

The other thing I was wondering is, I hear of people going on a liquid diet, before surgery, is that to lose the weight so the surgery can proceed, or is that because you need to clean out so to speak your insides?

I guess in a nut shell what I'm curious about is, will I have to lose 12 lbs and then have a 2 week liquid diet as well?

You need to speak with your doctors' office to know for sure what they want. The 12 pounds loss may be expected before any liquid diet. My experience was that I was told to loose 30 pounds before the surgery. In general my doctor did not require me to do a presurgery diet. My surgery ended up being postponed for other healther reasons but in the end I lost about 54 pounds presurgery.

I can tell you what I did. First, if you are not on an exercise program start one. A mistake that over weight people often do is thinking that they have to start an intense program suddenly. If you can do 10 minutes the first couple days that's fine. Personally I swim; it burns lots of calories and your joints are'nt getting a lot of stress all of a sudden. You can even buy waterproof MP3 players which makes swimming way more fun.

The first 7 months presurgery I ate a conservative diet and exercized daily. The month prior to surgery I went to 2 Protein drinks a day (made with milk, about 200 calories each); and one lean protein based meal.

Remember the surgery is not the end game. Start now rethinking your eating and shopping habits. I think if I were to run into my doctor at the grocery store and was embarressed to have something in my cart then I should'nt buy it.

Waterproof MP3s? wow... who makes those?