Please, please don't beat me up, but I have a question and a personal experience to share.

I notice that everyone post op is eating sugar free things like Jello and popsickles. Why is this? Is it just to avoid the calories in the regular products?

Okay, my experience. I had a bout with a nasty kidney stone years ago that my body did not want to pass. Hubby took me ER because I kept vomiting the pain pills and I was "dying" of PAIN!! I was then being admitted by my pcp for pain and nausea medication and tests. A week later I had an appointment w/ a specialist. I was so weak I couldn't sit up in the car or even walk into her office w/o help. She had blood drawn and then came into my room (I had never met her) and said "what have you been eating?!" I told her that for a week I had absolutely no appetite, but was forcing down a little pb & j sandwich daily and was drinking diet 7Up.

She said well according to your tests your body is eating itself up. I guess when you don't comsume enough calories your body starts to steal muscle tissue. I remember her saying..."well, at least drink regular pop not the diet stuff!"

This is why if I get to have the surgery, unless there is something terrible in sugar that would hurt my new tiny tummy, then I'll be consuming regular Jello and popsicles. I'll worry about the calories later, when I can consume more than just liquids.

I just noticed how weak alot of people feel the two weeks or so after surgery. Some get memory loss and hallucinations.

Sorry this was so long...just had to get it off my chest.

You have to do what is best for you. Check with your surgeon, and just make sure they know what's going on with you. The sugar is going to give you spikes of energy so don't be surprised if you crash after eating that stuff. It happens to me now at a year out. Since my body runs better with Protein and a few carbs here and there, when I splurge on something with sugar, within an hour I'm ready to nap.

The Protein drinks will give you more energy that the sugary stuff.

Actually you bring up a good point and I had the same question early on. I thought if all we can eat is Jello and popsicles all day, why do the calories matter? And all the counting of carbs? I didn't have the surgery just to have to follow the Atkins diet...I could have done that without the surgery!

I try to eat a balanced diet and not count anything, because this is not a diet for me, it's a life-long way to eat, so that's how I make it work for me. I've done the Atkins diet in the past, and I lost tons of weight with it, but it comes back, so I don't want to do that again. I don't want to "fear" carbs. The sleeve reduces the amount we can eat, and that's what I wanted it to do. I may only lose a pound a week, but that's not a problem in my eyes. Find what works for you, and don't feel pressured that you're doing anything wrong. You will still lose weight. Good luck to you!

For me if I were to eat a sugar laden popsicle it would bring on carb cravings. That is something I can do without.

I have been making homemade popsicles and I use stevia as I don't want to consume to much aspartame.

I see you're down 68 lbs in about 4 months...I think you're doing something right!! Congratulations!!

I'm hoping not to depend too much on the protein drinks. When it comes time for full liquids I would rather do creamed soups with ground up meat...even baby food meats if necessary. I've heard the whey protein drinks can be hard on you. I already take a hand full of vitamins every day too.

My goal for the full liquids phase would be to keep my energy level up, keep my nutrient level as high as possible with a variety of liquified veggies and meats and to keep my hair!

Years ago I had an ovarian cyst rupture I didn't go to the ER till the next day. I had emergency surgery that night and was full of infection. :thumbup: I had nothing by mouth only my IV for 5 days...saline only, no water no nothing. I had a week of constant IV antibiotics. I don't think my kidneys were working well, as they left the catheter in and I was retaining tons of water. In one day, after my kidneys started working again, I lost 9 lbs of water weight! After that they tried to feed me 24/7 because my blood work looked terrible. The surgeon would say, "protein, protein, protein!" I thought, you wouldn't feed me for 5 days and now I'm suppose to eat every 2 hours??:svengo:

I lost alot of weight and a lot of hair! It was a long tough recuperation!

I guess my body does not do well without food for long length of time.

To me, eating sugar-free food defeats the purpose to trying to eat three meals a day. Since our stomachs are so much smaller, we need less food. Eating the sugar-free food continues the bad habit of eating between meals and always needing something in our mouths. I'm trying stick to the three-meal-a-day goal and doing something else with the rest of my time. It's hard, I know. Trying to be less compulsive about food is something else I'm working on.

To really understand why staying low-carb is so important for us, I highly, highly recommend reading at least the first few chapters of Dr. Atkins' book. It explains so well how it changes your metabolism and forces your body to burn fat (instead of the existing carbs), reduces hunger, affects your insulin (and how insulin spikes affect you and your cravings)... it really is the best way to go to get the weight off. If you watch calories only and keep the carbs high you almost certainly won't lose as well, but there's also no way you won't lose either, it just might not be at a rate that you're happy with. It does make it so much easier to stick with low-carb if you understand how any why it works. :bored0:

I dont understand why Jello and popsicles are on the post op diets for both the band and the sleeve - they are rubbish foods with no nutritional value whatsoever.

I think its really important to retrain your palate to not need such sweetness - whether you eat sugar or artificial sweeteneers. Foods like popsicles, jello, biscuits, cakes and pastries are not everyday foods and its better to realise that than to try to subsitute artificially sweetened stuff - personally I'm deathly afraid of artificial sweeteners and wont touch them with a barge pole.

Eat greek yogurt and get to appreciate the tartness of it. Ditch the sugar in tea and coffee. Drink plain Water, etc etc. Just learn to not need "sweet" and you'll probably find your energy levels much more stable and your need to binge decreases markedly.

I agree with Jachut on the sugar issue .. stay away from the white sugar (and while flour and white Pasta, too). It serves no value to anyone. My experience is that I lost the taste for sweet post-op and frankly I am enjoying the fact that the vicious sugar cycle no longer controls me. I think for the first days/week, the popsicles and Jello are part of the Fluid intake and I don't know about others but I rarely ate either. I stuck to soups, Protein drinks and Water. It was all I wanted. I didn't feel the need for sweet .. it struck me as dessert.

I have so little room in my stomach now that I know it's critical that I get the 'good' stuff in first .. protein, veggies and good carbs (if there is room left). In between meals I drink drink drink .. but I haven't craved sugar once and I plan to stay away from it completely.

I am just sick of drinking and eating things with aspartame. the taste is GROSS.... i am trying to not eat / drink so much stuff with the stuff in it. why is it that they want us to eat/drink it? I was finding that it left a horrible taste in my mouth, i ate a regular sugar popscicle and am just trying to drink PLAIN water..... any ideas for post 16 days surgery?

One of the reasons for no sugar is to prevent the "Dumping Syndrome" if you ever have it, trust me you won't want to go through it again. Another reason, there is no nutritional value. once you get 6 weeks past surgery, you can eat different things, but you are going to have to get all of your protein from your foods. Why would you have the surgery if you want to continue eating sweets.

I refuse to eat Aspartane either. That stuff makes me really sick.

So does splenda . I use stevia in my Greek Yogurt.I eat regular fudgsicles with SUGAR. They are 80 calories instead of 60. I'd rather eat something natural than artificial sweetner.

I got the surgery to lose weight and I have done fine with that. Now that I am at goal, I see no reason to put

anymore artificial things in my body that I have to.

Hi KK,

I don't use artificial sweetners at all. I ate small amounts of regular Jello and regular popsicles when I was on Clear liquids, just because I had to crush/take a blood pressure pill and it was supposed to be taken with "food" and that was the closest I could get. When I was on full liquids, I had some sugar-sweetened yogurt and pudding--but truthfully, my body didn't really want anything sweet.

One reason to avoid sugar and other refined carbs (other than the calories) is that they tend to increase insulin production which tends to slow your weight loss.