So I am at the very beginning of this journey, my PCP is on board, I have reached out to a surgeon and completed all of their pre, pre, pre appointment requirements in one day. Waited for a month for them to verify my insurance benefits which was completed yesterday. Now I am waiting for them to schedule my initial appointment. Any suggestions on what I should be doing while I am waiting? I did call the office to see if there was any testing that I could ask my PCP for when I went in for my annual check up and was told no. Do I go ahead and start a liquid diet? I have no idea when my appointment will be. I have started getting out and walking every day, weather permitting (I am in Kansas). I just feel I could be doing something to start preparing for this surgery. Any and all suggestions are appreciated

It is never too early to start exercising more or establishing a good vitamin regime. A gradual reduction of carbs will also be beneficial. Focus on eating slower, chewing thoroughly, eliminating sodas/carbonated drinks and increasing water consumption.

Often insurance companies and/or sugeons will have hoops you will have to jump through, such as...nutrition classes, participation in diet plans, counseling sessions, endoscopy, EKG/ECG. Although on rare occasions the process may be swift, in general it will often take 6 months to a year from the first appointment to surgery.

Congrats on taking charge of your life!

I wouldn't start a liquid diet until they tell you to. The thing is a PITA - the worst part of the whole ordeal, I think. And some surgeons don't even require one (some just have you do water only for 24 hours before surgery). So I'd wait and see what they say. Like someone else said, you could work on lowering your carbs and calories and trying to eat more nutritiously - kind of like you'll be eating once you're a couple months out of surgery and all healed up. That's what my dietitian had me doing, so my change to the "new" eating style didn't seem as radical.

With that being said, if every Dr has their own protocol, is their a generic post op diet/vitamin regimen, I can look up? I have read about surgeons wanting you to lose the fat around your liver? I guess it depends on BMI, anyone know any good websites to check out for that?

Slow down and be patient. I know that for a lot of us, when we make the decision to get surgery, it feels urgent — we’ve gotten to the point that we can’t stand living with obesity for another day — and the wait to get the surgery feels like an eternity. But the pre-surgery process is a long one and it usually takes months from your initial consultation (which, if I understand correctly, you haven’t even had yet) to the actual surgery date. For me, it was 5 months, and even though it seemed like such a long wait, it flew by and once I got to the 2-week liquid diet, I felt like it snuck up on me so quickly!

I would definitely not recommend starting a liquid diet before you even go in for your initial consultation. You’re not going to want to do that for any longer than required, and again, it could be months before your surgery. Instead, I recommend downloading a food tracking app (I use MyFitnessPal, but there are other options like Baritastic, Lose It, Cronometer, etc.) and start tracking everything you eat. Actually measure your portions, preferably with a food scale.

I wouldn’t recommend rushing into anything before you’ve actually talked to a surgeon. Your surgeon’s office should give you all the information about post-op progression and vitamin recommendations. There’s no need for you to get a head start on it at this point, and you may find that your surgeon”s instructions will be different than some random information from the internet.

2 hours ago, LoreleiLeigh said:

With that being said, if every Dr has their own protocol, is their a generic post op diet/vitamin regimen, I can look up? I have read about surgeons wanting you to lose the fat around your liver? I guess it depends on BMI, anyone know any good websites to check out for that?

We have to shrink our livers to aid the surgeon as it lies over the stomach. If its really fatty, it could tear when its moved aside to operate on our stomachs. This is one of the main reasons we do a pre op diet. Everybody on here had a different pre op diet, so you can not second guess what you will need to do.

You need to be patient, we know its tough, we all wanted the surgery to be over and to get on with our new skinny lives. In the USA, caffeine and carbonation seem to be pet hates of the surgeons, so cutting back on these may help you a little if you are a lover but TBH as others have said, just wait. Read the back pages on here, they tell you so much.

On 2/18/2023 at 12:33 PM, LoreleiLeigh said:

So I am at the very beginning of this journey, my PCP is on board, I have reached out to a surgeon and completed all of their pre, pre, pre appointment requirements in one day. Waited for a month for them to verify my insurance benefits which was completed yesterday. Now I am waiting for them to schedule my initial appointment. Any suggestions on what I should be doing while I am waiting? I did call the office to see if there was any testing that I could ask my PCP for when I went in for my annual check up and was told no. Do I go ahead and start a liquid diet? I have no idea when my appointment will be. I have started getting out and walking every day, weather permitting (I am in Kansas). I just feel I could be doing something to start preparing for this surgery. Any and all suggestions are appreciated

Hi there! I know that it is difficult but being patient and waiting for something that can be so life changing. I know in my case, that my insurance required me to take 4 courses from a nutritionist (had to be exactly once a month), I had to have 2 visits to a physical therapist, and 1 visit to a therapist to make sure I was in a good enough headspace to go through with the surgery. From my first visit with my surgeon Feb. 2021, there was nothing I could do to speed up the process. While I had my monthly visits to the nutritionist, I would be doing research on recipes that I would like to try, pinterest was very helpful, and this forum had some great recipes posted as well. My surgeons office also gave me a big binder full of need to know information, I read and re-read that binder numerous times asking questions or looking online.

I wouldn't recommend a liquid diet, especially since you haven't met with the surgeon yet. For now, just to get in to better habits, I would start by eating healthier, smaller portions more slowly. Drinking plenty of water and you starting to walk everyday is a great routine to have. I personally think the more you prepare and the more knowledge you have, the better you feel when it comes to surgery day.

Good luck! I hope it all works out for you.

there's quite a bit of variation between surgeons for food plans, so there aren't any standards. Some clinics have their patients on low carb plans, or ultra low carb plans, and some just have you follow a balanced diet. Your clinic will give you their guidelines sometime before surgery.

For vitamins, I'll attach the ASBMS (American Society of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery) list of requirements. You have to scroll down a little to see them - but they do have them listed for each type of surgery. Most clinics pretty much follow these, so these tend to be more standard across clinics than the food plans are. But here it is in case you're curious:

ASMBS-Nutritional-Guidelines-2016-Update.pdf

P.S. I agree with the others that I wouldn't start the liquid diet now. For one thing, you usually just do that for a week or two before your surgery. For another, it's pretty awful - I wouldn't do that until/unless I had to! And third, not all surgeons even require it - some just have you do a 24-hour fast before your surgery, which is kind of standard with other types of surgeries. Oh - and even the liquid diets, when required, can vary a lot. Some people are allowed to eat SOME food, like a sensible, low calorie dinner (but protein shakes the rest of the day). And some of us (me included) had to have just shakes plus no (or very low) calorie fluids the whole two weeks. So yea - I'd wait until the time comes.