Hello! I'm about 2 months out from my gastric sleeve surgery, and I would love to get some input/advice from those of you who have been down this road before me. What did you find to be the most helpful mental, physical, emotional, and/or dietary changes that you made before your surgery? Would you do anything differently in hindsight? Do you have any regrets about the surgery? Did you lose what you thought that you would? I'm starting to get anxious and would love to hear about your experiences. Thank you in advance

I started dieting about 3 weeks before surgery and I decided to keep it simple. I did 3 things every day:

1. Cut out the booze.

2. Eat off a side plate.

3. Replace 1 meal a day with a protein drink.

It got me used to life post-op and I lost about 20lbs.

8 hours ago, jezka62 said:

Hello! I'm about 2 months out from my gastric sleeve surgery, and I would love to get some input/advice from those of you who have been down this road before me. What did you find to be the most helpful mental, physical, emotional, and/or dietary changes that you made before your surgery? Would you do anything differently in hindsight? Do you have any regrets about the surgery? Did you lose what you thought that you would? I'm starting to get anxious and would love to hear about your experiences. Thank you in advance

Work to cut out all added and extra sugars.
Work to reduce your caffeine needs.
Work to increase your water intake shooting for 128 oz +.

Best mental trick for me. Remember all the reasons you want the surgery. Understand that things will get tough, but you will make it through.

Physical, this one is tough because we mostly all started out pretty heavy, unhealthy and inactive. Starting to get into the habit of using the stairs, or going to the gym beforehand can help.

Best emotional cooping, I faced all my "issues" head on, knowing that down the line, I'm going to be around things I used to be able to eat but can't anymore, that my comfort foods might not be viable, facing down the issues for me helped me get over them, I'd be faced with something like, the candy isle at the store, I'd walk down and look at all the goodies and I'd think, "that's tasty, but it almost killed me. That's my favorite, but it helped make me fat and I don't like being fat." Stuff like that. It's not easy, but it worked well for me.

Look for swaps. Things that will replace certain food items to help you with cravings. For me, Ice Cream is a must, but eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's doesn't fit into my diet nor should it, but Halo Top does. I can't eat the whole pint any longer, but even if I did, the Halo Top is max 320 calories, where as those Ben and Jerry's are upwards of 1300. Finding little changes from unhealthy to healthy really do help. I snack on protein based snacks now, for sweet cravings, Fruits do the trick, etc etc.

3 hours ago, Matt Z said:

Work to cut out all added and extra sugars.
Work to reduce your caffeine needs.
Work to increase your Water intake shooting for 128 oz +.

Best mental trick for me. Remember all the reasons you want the surgery. Understand that things will get tough, but you will make it through.

Physical, this one is tough because we mostly all started out pretty heavy, unhealthy and inactive. Starting to get into the habit of using the stairs, or going to the gym beforehand can help.

Best emotional cooping, I faced all my "issues" head on, knowing that down the line, I'm going to be around things I used to be able to eat but can't anymore, that my comfort foods might not be viable, facing down the issues for me helped me get over them, I'd be faced with something like, the candy isle at the store, I'd walk down and look at all the goodies and I'd think, "that's tasty, but it almost killed me. That's my favorite, but it helped make me fat and I don't like being fat." Stuff like that. It's not easy, but it worked well for me.

Look for swaps. Things that will replace certain food items to help you with cravings. For me, Ice Cream is a must, but eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's doesn't fit into my diet nor should it, but Halo Top does. I can't eat the whole pint any longer, but even if I did, the Halo Top is max 320 calories, where as those Ben and Jerry's are upwards of 1300. Finding little changes from unhealthy to healthy really do help. I snack on Protein based Snacks now, for sweet cravings, Fruits do the trick, etc etc.

128 oz+ Of Water could be toxic for some people. I would consult a doctor before attempting to ingest that much water on a daily basis. 64oz is normally the recommendation given for any Bariatric patient. Hydration is important but water toxicity is also a real risk as well.