I'm looking for anyone who went cold turkey for either the pre-op diet and/or post-op diet. I'm supposed to be sipping my liquids, having a good amount of Protein, chew chew chew, two bites of protein, one veggie, starch last, no drinks during meals, wait 45 mins after meals, etc....it's so freaking hard!!!! My mind cannot wrap around this knowing my stomach isn't sleeved. Once I have to for the sake of my life/health, I can do it to the T. Has anyone dealt with this too?

Yep, went through the same thing. I really tried to break some habits (like drinking during meals, waiting 30 minutes, etc) and struggled during the pre-op phase. Make my Protein drink last 30 minutes? Okay...and then 5 minutes later I was done...lol. My pre-op was liquids only so I wasn't allowed anything that required you to chew.

Looking back I wish I would have practiced harder on the drinking during/after meals because that did take some getting used to. After surgery it won't be that difficult to follow the guidelines. You really have to pace yourself and likely you won't want to be drinking/eating anything quickly anyway. It was hard to comprehend how it would take 20-30 minutes to eat a single egg, but reality sets in pretty quick.

Drinking during meals is my big one too. I've done my best to stop. While it hasn't been 30 mins before/after, it's been usually at least 15.

Chew chew chew though.. never really practiced that. What's there to 'chew chew chew' in scrambled eggs? (I do that for kale though).
I've been able to follow the 'no drinking while eating' instructions, mostly because I eat my proteins with vegetable stew.. [emoji3]

I struggled with the no drinking 30 min before and after eating during pre-op, mostly because I'm such a creature of habit. Now, even if I pour myself a drink (water), I'll let it sit in the kitchen and will only go back for it once my 30 minutes has passed. I do chew until there is nothing left to chew, but I'm still eating and drinking faster than I probably should be. That said, I feel full for a good long while afterwards. I'm on vacation now, but I know once I start back to work I really will have limited time to eat, so 20-30 minutes to finish whatever is not going to cut it, especially for snacks. But I'll worry about that when the time comes.