I can honestly say up until I started my preops diet, I still had doubt about getting banned. The diet taught me that I am ready. I now realize I can make I off less food than I thought. Why was I so afraid of being hunger, after all hunger is in the head. I am on day 9 of preops and 15 pounds down. I learned that after the surgery, after the healing process when I can eat again. I can do this! I am ready mentally and that's the biggest part of being successful.

To me, I found that hunger is just a sensation. Like when your neck hurts because you slept wrong. Hunger is not am emergency that needs to be immediately fed. I found that once I was able to control my response to hunger out became much easier to manage.

I keep telling myself that the hunger pain is my liver shrinking :-)

I learned a lot from my pre-op diet. First of all, I learned that it's okay to be hungry. Like @@Leepers said, hunger is not an emergency. I don't have to feed myself the minute I first feel that twinge of hunger. If I need to, I can wait awhile. I also learned that hunger is often a signal that I'm thirsty rather than really being hungry and I can drink something and the feeling goes away. I also learned how to deal with cravings. Boy did I ever have some nasty cravings during those first couple of days of my pre-op diet. But ya know what? I learned that I don't have to give into them. I can wait it out and it will get better. Head hunger is something that I will always battle on some level, though it's much improved since being banded. But I CAN win the battle with the hungry monster!

I felt the same way. I already posted about being afraid of being hungry. The pre op diet taught me that I can do this, that I'm capable of sticking to something. And it taught me how I can live and thrive on so much less food. I have always heard that you need x amount of calories to lose weight but the pre op diet flies in the face of this. Is it our bodies are using fat reserves? Have no idea.

Until I got final confirmation of surgery date none of this seemed really real to me. I Started the whole process in January and with working full time its been when I can fit it in. My surgery is officially next week Thursdsay November 13. I just finished day 2!of liquid diet and I've realized that I CAN DO THIS!!!!

The pre-op diet taught me that without this surgery I could never loose weight and keep it off on my own....this diet was just like any other diet I have ever been on....if I could do this, then why go through surgery????

It only reinforced my decision that surgery was the avenue I needed to go if I am ever going to accomplish anything.

Edited November 9, 201411 yr by B-52