Hi all,

I finally got my 401k check and a surgery date to have LBS with Dr. Ortiz in Mexico. I am so excited, but stressed too. The date is May 21st, and arriving on May 20th.

The nutritionist said I need to lose ideally 36 lbs, but she said at least 20 would be ok. But she called me today and said I need to start the diet now. I told her I couldn't afford the Optifast from their website. For a 4 week supply is almost $300. :faint: She said to then have a Glucerna shake for Breakfast and dinner, and a lean cuisine meal w/meat for lunch. I can have up to 4 lbs of veggies a day. I don't know if I could even afford that.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to do this? I was thinking costco, but not sure if they carry that stuff. :help:

Most of the veggies I wanted to get are really spendy too because they are not in season or are organic...lol

Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

Peace,

Judy

I am being banded at the tlbc and this is their pre-op diet recommendation, remember...the reason that you do this is not necessarily to lose weight, it is to shrink your liver, you want to make it as easy as possible for the surgeon to have access to your stomach. The TLBC says this diet works best and it's cheap.

For me its 10 days

*quantities are not specified, you can have as much as you need of the following items. You may also have foods that have negligible caloric or nutritional value such as the following: coffee, tea, diet drinks(crystal light), sugar free jell-o and salt & spices.

This is the diet

Cottage cheese

-choose low fat or non fat varieties

Yogurt

-Opt for low fat or non fat yogurt. Flavored yogurts are acceptable, as long as they are artificially sweetened

Milk

-Drink 1% or Skim, flavored or sweetened milk is NOT a recommended option

Water

-make sure you drink a minimum of 1.5 liters a day.

Hope this helps you. Financially, its cheaper. And it works, its time tested on TLBC patients.

I wrote everything that was on the paper for my pre-op diet, cottage cheese sucks so this will be a bad week for me, this diet is in no way a lesser version of the opti-fast, I even talked to the consulter about it. I thought i would do the opti-fast but she recommended this over the opti fast, from what they have seen this works better. now that i read it it is funny that you are allowed salt and spices, but honestly, what would you use them for??? salt in yogurt hahahaha. So ill probably eat a lot of yogurt, maybe try some cottage cheese, drink lots of water and pray for the 10 days to be over.

Dr. Miranda also allows you to do the Atkins diet if you are 3 weeks away from surgery date. You have to do the induction phase the whole time, but that may work better with what you already have in your cabinets/refrigerator. My mom is going to be banded by Dr. Ortiz on 05/11 and scheduled her surgery date late March...she opted to go with the South Beach diet which Dr. Miranda has said is just fine. She's lost 22.8 pounds in 3 weeks and has to lose 40 total. Maybe that one will even work for you, but you have to do just the first phase of that one as well. I had my band placed on March 16th and did the 2 shakes (Ensure or Slimfast) + 1 lean cuisine for 2 weeks. That cost me about $6-9 per six pack and $2 per lean cuisine...so all in all it was MUCH cheaper than what I had been spending eating out prior to surgery. Hope this helps!

E

Hi all,

I finally got my 401k check and a surgery date to have LBS with Dr. Ortiz in Mexico. I am so excited, but stressed too. The date is May 21st, and arriving on May 20th.

The nutritionist said I need to lose ideally 36 lbs, but she said at least 20 would be ok. But she called me today and said I need to start the diet now. I told her I couldn't afford the Optifast from their website. For a 4 week supply is almost $300. :faint: She said to then have a Glucerna shake for breakfast and dinner, and a lean cuisine meal w/meat for lunch. I can have up to 4 lbs of veggies a day. I don't know if I could even afford that.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to do this? I was thinking costco, but not sure if they carry that stuff. :help:

Most of the veggies I wanted to get are really spendy too because they are not in season or are organic...lol

Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

Peace,

Judy

Congrats on your surgery date Judy, I remember how excited I was. I think I was breathless the whole first week after they called me.

Gail