During the liquid stage, do you have to have everything sugar free? I like carnation instant breakfast but have not tried the sugar free type. It seems everything allowed has to be sugar free. Is that because of the calories so something else? Thanks,

KD

I stayed completely sugar free for the liquid diet the week before surgery. Once I had my surgery, I started eating sugar again (i.e. normal popsicles, carnation instant breakfast, etc). I hate artificial sweeteners, so I okayed it with my nutritionist beforehand.

I'd prefer to eat smaller amounts of real foods than artificially sweetened stuff - I have a morbid fear of artificial sweeteners plus they give me a headache and I think they taste awful. It's all down to calories in vs calories out and I think you can safely say that given how many of the population is obese these days, artificially sweetened and low fat products have not made a big difference to our diet overall. We just eat more instead.

So I dont down a tub of yogurt at a time for instance but will have a spoonful or two of real creamy full fat yogurt on my muesli in the morning. Not much difference in calories but a heap of difference in taste.

I do drink skim milk though and always have.

It depends on what you want to do and if you have a nutritionist and what they recommend. Mine says no more than 4-6 grams of sugar per 4 ounces in order to keep sugar tolerance low, but she is pretty strict.