Hi all!

So I'm in the middle of doing my prep work for surgery - initially my insurance wanted 6 months with a nutritionist but recently swapped it to 3. I'm doing it at the Cleveland Clinic and they also have you meet with a psychologist to walk through best start guide of all the things I can work on ahead of time.

Some of those have been:

• Vitamins - I'm currently on the Procare Now barbaric multivitamin, calcium chew and biotin everyday (I think the last is me hoping it helps the tiniest bit)
• Water - 64 oz a day (bought a water bottle to help with this)
• Daily food diary (where I track what I eat, how I feel when eating, what my thoughts are, and where I'm eating)
• Walking for at least 30 mins a day (now shooting for 45 mins +) - I'd go to the gym but COVID ?
• Drinking a shake for breakfast and lunch with a small snack in the middle, and then a protein focused meal
• Buying healthier snack food just so I don't make bad choices if I'm making the choice to eat something extra during the day
• Losing weight - 18lb goal, I'm down 5 so far
• Focusing on trying to eat more mindfully and eat when I'm actually hungry (which is probably the biggest struggle - I feel like this is such a mind game)
• EKG, Ultrasound, and chest x-ray are this Friday

Is there anything else that I should be doing that I'm missing? I guess when they said I could now submit to the insurance (even though my weight loss isn't quite there yet) it freaked me out a bit... I think I felt like I'd have more time to prepare. But now that I've found the forums and I see how excited you all are and thankful that you've done this it's easing my worries a bit. I just want this to be successful and I don't end up going right into my bad habits - so I want to be as proactive as possible.

I went from never even considering surgery to surgery in 3 weeks pretty much on a whim. Self pay so no psych evaluation or anything like that. Once you get to post op there’s not much you can do but ride the wave for the first year. I’d think you’d have to put in some serious effort to fail that fast. You’re leaning good habits and whatnot now, and those will carry over post op, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to develop them into lifetime changes after. That’s the major benefit of surgery. Anyone can eat exactly what I’m eating everyday and have the same results without surgery, it just is a tool to pretty much force it. It’s up to us to keep it going in the long term. Keep up with your requirements, they are there to help and I’m sure they’re doing just that. You got this, but I do think it’s got to be something YOU really want, forever.

Thanks for this. It’s such a big decision it was just kind of hard to wrap my head around. I also have parents who’ve had a bypass and a sleeve and have gained a lot of their weight back (they both lost a ton initially) so it’s probably more of I don’t want to be my parents. ?

Oh gosh! My head is spinning just reading this. This is exactly why I went to Blossom Bariatrics in Las Vegas. We didn’t have to do that crap and
they still file with your insurance.

I can say that for me, I do not snack at all anymore. They will be removing the hunger hormone during the surgery, so you will not feel very hungry at all, especially in the beginning. I am almost 2 months out and I still struggle to force myself to eat.

Good luck on your journey!

3 minutes ago, riverwaters said:

Thanks for this. It’s such a big decision it was just kind of hard to wrap my head around. I also have parents who’ve had a bypass and a sleeve and have gained a lot of their weight back (they both lost a ton initially) so it’s probably more of I don’t want to be my parents. ?

some people do gain most/all of their weight back, but I think that's because they expect the surgery to do most/all of the work. And it does - for the most part - at first. But you really have to put a lot of effort into it - and once you hit your goal, you have to put even MORE effort in to stay there. The difference is, your efforts will actually work (for a change!!) - but only if you follow the rules.

Thanks all. Yeah I think that’s what I need to work on the most. Just not eating for comfort. My physiologist gave me some book recommendations that I’ve been meaning to check out and read. I think overall I’ve been doing better but night time is tough when I’m not busy.

I also have a pretty fit husband who says he’s on board with this but also has terrible eating habits which make it hard for me sometimes and when I do comment about them he gets offended so it’s like I can’t win there. ??‍♀️

My hope is that during my liquid diet phase he gets on board more and is more conscience of what I need to do to be successful.