Yesterday I started phase two of the pre-op diet -- liquids.

I am currently having six shakes a day. I'm having meal replacements for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and meal suppliments around 10am, 3pm, and 9pm. The meal replacements have 27g of protein, and the meal suppliments have 23g. That puts me well over my daily goal of 115g of protein. It also puts me at just under 1,000 calories a day.

How do I feel? To be honest -- bored. To me, meals were such an integral part of the day. For example, my wife and I work for the same company and generally have lunch together. Busy with kids before and after work, sometimes lunchtime is the only hour of the day we get together without being surrounded by general chaos. In the past we'd go somewhere, have lunch together for an hour, and talk like adults. This past week, lunch has gone like this. GULP. Ok, shake's gone, see ya.

Everytime I walk by the kitchen or smell food I instinctly start looking around. I'm like a big fat rat, searching for a morsel of food to nibble on. I have to remind myself of the prize at the end of the mouse maze ... er, tunnel.

Just as I feared, my friends and co-workers that I normally saw during mealtimes have been scarce since I started the pre-op diet. Who wants to sit around and watch a fat ass drink a small shake and then stare at someone else's plate of food, drooling? I'm sure I wouldn't. Hopefully a few weeks after surgery I'll be able to start tagging along during mealtime, even if I only have a smidgen of what they're eating.

I only want to lose weight, not my friends.

Thanks for the advice about the protein shakes. i will try the New Directions - if you try any others that are good let me know... I will do the same if I come across any good ones...

What you said about losing your friends struck a chord. I teach school and each week one of us has hall duty where we stand at the crossroads and make sure that the kids are all behaving. It has always been a social 10 or 15 minutes. The teachers who aren't on duty come up and we visit about stuff.

Last week was my hall duty. After keeping to my room during lunch break I came out for this and was looking forward to the social. No one came. All five days I stood there without anyone coming to even say hi. It was, to say the least, painful. These people that I thought were my friends just walked past.

It all made me seriously doubt that I had made a good decision. However, they were not the reason I decided to have WLS. I am. So to heck with them and if they want to be that shallow. so be it. It's all about me now!

Just thought I would share that you're feelings are shared.

Twi

Twilight, that's awful. It's true what they say, the ones closest to us are the ones that can hurt us the most. "To heck with them" is milder language than I would have used, I assure you. Keep your chin up and know that for every person that decides for some crazy reason not to be your friend for this reason, you have found a place where people WANT to be your friend!