Tomorrow I start my 2 week pre-op diet. I’m excited and nervous for my Surgery. Will the cravings for sweets and carbs stop?

The truth is they really won’t stop. That’s the thing about the surgery, it removes part of your tummy but doesn’t remove the part of your brain that makes you crave specific foods. That’s the head work we have to do.

Over time you’ll learn to recognise the cravings & understand where they’re coming from & develop strategies to manage them better. And they’ll lose a lot of the power they had over your food & eating choices. It won’t be easy but embrace the time before & after surgery to start breaking their power & your reliance on them. A lot of us find food becomes excessively sweet after surgery which is very helpful for reducing your desire for sweet too.

PS - watch artificial sweeteners as they only continue to feed your desire for sweet.

Thank you, I will keep this in mind

10 hours ago, Giovanna628 said:

Tomorrow I start my 2 week pre-op diet. I’m excited and nervous for my Surgery. Will the cravings for sweets and carbs stop?

i am pre op but have made major dietary changes this year.

tbh 80% of my cravings for sugary and carbs have already disappeared with the changes i have made. once i made the choice to reduce my consumption to “sparingly” on fast food, sugary items and now carbs, (begrudgingly due to upcoming pre op diet) and went through an adjustment period, the cravings majorly reduced. now the specific cravings are few and far between. also, i worked on WHY I used those items as an emotional crutch to get me through some challenging times. that made a huge difference.

another big change is when I feel a craving, i can tell if it’s emotional or physical. emotional can be soothed by working on the emotional issue causing the craving; physical can often be satisfied with a very small portion of the food desired.

it has been a freeing experience that was worth the extremely hard work and tears to get to this point.

(lost 40 lbs since the end of April.. 56 this year)

Journaling has been my best tool. There are other tools like meditation, therapy, channeling energy into a hobby etc that can help too.

Remember this process is truly changing your life!! The more you look at all of your life’s patterns and seek out the healthy path, the better off you will be.

I wish I could tell you that they go away but they really don’t. Once you get past the initial withdrawal it gets easier to stay away from them but soon as you get to maintenance and start having them again they start to look really good again. You just have to continue to make the healthier choices and worm out what is head hunger and real hunger. The good news is that your tool will give you a chance to learn new habits if you choose to and it’s becomes a little easier than it was pre surgery.

It gets easier the longer you go without them, but once you re-introduce them you have to learn moderation even when you crave them. That has been a learning experience. I'm a stress baker and so when I bake I will call my sister up and give her more than half of what I bake so that I don't eat them all because I don't trust myself not to. I've even had my mom take some of my baked goods to work to share with her co-worker to get them out of the house. I have worked on the stress baking lately and I've cut it down to once a week when before I was baking 3-4x a week and sometimes sending all but one serving to my sisters house or my moms work lol. I made peanut butter cookies last week (because my niece and nephew were coming over and they love my cookies) and am planning banana muffins this week (because my mom loves when I make banana bread or banana muffins and since they eat the majority I tend to make what they like).

I like to bake also…you’ve given me some great advice..thank you so much.

On 8/29/2022 at 6:49 PM, ShoppGirl said:

I wish I could tell you that they go away but they really don’t. Once you get past the initial withdrawal it gets easier to stay away from them but soon as you get to maintenance and start having them again they start to look really good again. You just have to continue to make the healthier choices and worm out what is head hunger and real hunger. The good news is that your tool will give you a chance to learn new habits if you choose to and it’s becomes a little easier than it was pre surgery.

Thank you so much for the feedback.

I can tell you by experience that you are still going to have cravings for what you use to eat. I had my gastric sleeve on June, I heard that you don’t feel hungry and…. Lots of things that I can tell are not true to me. I do feel hungry but I get full with little food and about cravings I still have them but I control them, also I realized that after being out of sugar and carbs some sweets just make me feel sick, give me nauseas, so If I have a craving for sweet I just take one tiny bite taste it and many times split it out

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I’m beginning my 3rd week post op. So far I haven’t experienced “hunger” in the true sense of the word.

I have had head hunger/cravings twice since my pre-op diet… both were when I had access to those foods (my kids birthday party and treats brought home from a fantasy football party) and they have taken me a little to work through, because it’s usually for things that would derail me if I had them right now. I’m happy to report I did not give in to the cravings.

I have some mornings where I wake up feeling unsettled. If I wait to long to eat I don’t feel well (but if I eat to early I don’t feel well) - so those mornings I’ll start the day with 1/2 a shake (one full shake is to much right now) .

That allows me the time to get ready for my day, take my meds & let them kick in and give me time to work on my water before having something to eat around 10:30.

Since I don’t feel hungry - I try to work around a schedule for eating and drinking to help meet my goals.

I tend to eat more than I should (by a bite or two) and then feel uncomfortable or my stomach hurts - if I don’t plan or eat mindfully… but it’s getting easier with experience and time (and I imagine that will continue).