MookNana

I'm sorry. It really does suck. Sometimes you just need to have the tantrum. Bless you for having a husband who just let you get it all out. I swear these altered diets make you just a little bit crazy. For like half a second today, I was a little irritated at my CATS because I could smell their food at lunchtime. When cat food smells even vaguely appealing, even for a millisecond, you know you're in the Twilight Zone!!!

Good luck today!!!

Yeah, it sucks. No way around that! Thankfully it's only a short period of time, in the grand scheme of things. You can do it! The best advice I can offer (at one looong week in myself) is to be kind to yourself in every other way you can. Buy your very favorite sugar-free drinks. Get some of your favorite body wash, watch all of your guilty pleasure TV shows, even if they involve beauty pageants or Kardashians, and maybe treat yourself to manicure or facial if possible. Look for any non-food ways to make yourself happy and use them all! Good luck!

My husband and I are the 19th too! Good luck! Have you started the pre-op diet yet?

Officially one week in to the pre-op diet and less than two weeks out from surgery! I was happy today that a pair of jeans that were uncomfortably snug a week ago slid right on today, no problem. It boggles my mind to think that in 7 days I've lost 20 pounds, even though 10 of it was just bizarre, post-vacation Water retention weight. Even 10 "real" pounds coming off in a week makes me scratch my head! I know it's going to slow down over the next two weeks and I'm sure I'm going to be a bit bummed about that, just because seeing the scale freefall has been a nice reward to this pre-op diet being so challenging. Still, I know I need to get used to slow and steady. It's for the best, for many reasons. I've always kind of believed in calorie cycling and I'm going to try having a "big" day today (all of 1100 calories), especially since I've been under a lot in the past couple of day. Good luck to everyone having their surgery today, and to everyone doing their pre-op preparations!

I'm so sorry. How frustrating! Hopefully it will get worked out and set soon!

Our grocery bill has stayed the same, but the embarrassing amount we used to spend on eating out is WAY down. It's definitely a net gain for us!

Thanks for the tips. Those sound nice! I happend to find a nice trail in downtown Oswego yesterday. It goes all along the river, I understand, and you can walk or bike. There's a nice section going from the library down by the park. It would make a nice workout or a great fun, active family outing too.

There's a few ways to make protein pancakes. You can buy a mix like Mancakes, but that's a little pricey. You can make them yourself as well. Here's the recipe I like: http://www.food.com/...-pancakes-43072 I usually just use two eggs instead of the whites since I'm a big fan of eggs as whole, nutritious foods. I find half a serving is plenty to fill me up. These freeze well too--it's great to have a stash to pull out of the freezer on mornings I don't feel like cooking. Just microwave for about 30 seconds, check them, and add a bit more time if necessary. As for toppings, you can go a couple of routes. There's always sugar free syrup. I use the Smuckers breakfast syrup. It's about 8 calories for 2 T, which I find is more than enough, especially if I put it on the side and dip. The other thing I like to do is mash a few strawberries, and maybe a bit of sweetener. The mashed strawberries make a nice sauce for the pancakes and also offer up some good Fiber and Vitamin C.

If you like, you can have non-breakfast foods for breakfast too. You may find a bit of last night's leftovers or half a sandwich works just as well as eggs and yogurt.

Since my BMI was right near the 50 mark they wanted me to do 3 weeks of 5 Protein shakes a day, plus Clear liquids. That lasted all of about 3 days. It was hell!!! Fortunately I was able to modify it to 3 shakes plus one low carb meal. I've been eating my meal late in the day, so I have something to look forward to and so I can go to bed relatively full. As for what I've been eating, it's been most of the usual suspects for low carb diets--meats, green veggies, eggs, low fat cheese. I'm so happy to be eating ANYTHING that it all tastes awesome to me. Since I've switched over to the one meal, I actually feel pretty fantastic most of the time. We've liked the Premier Protein Shakes from costco. We've had Muscle Milk light when we got caught in a pinch and needed to grab something from a convenience store. Our doctor recommended Bariatric Advantage, but I found them absolutely disgusting. Some people love them, though. It's totally subjective. I know the goal of the diet is to help shrink the enlarged, fatty liver that many obese people have. My doctor seems really conservative about it, other people have said their doctors were much more loose, saying that they'd never had any trouble doing anyone's surgery and putting their patients on short pre-op diets or none at all. The way I'm looking at it is that I'd be really, really, really ticked if I got to my surgery and they couldn't do it because of my liver. My doctor wants me on the diet, it hasn't been too hard to live with, and so I'll just muddle through it because I'd feel terrible if I didn't follow the plan and the surgery couldn't happen. At least if I do the diet and something goes wrong I'll know it wasn't my "fault", you know? Good luck getting ready for your surgery!

Good for you!!!! That was exactly what she needed to be told. I hope you can hear me clapping from here! As for the car park...I didn't see nuffin'!

Good luck! Right now it's all about finding the people who will give you love and support. Everyone else can just go take a walk for the time being while you focus of taking care of yourself and getting well.

Day 6 of the pre-op diet, officially two weeks out from the surgery. The best news is that I was able to switch my pre-op diet over from 5 shakes to 3 shakes and a low carb meal and it's working beautifully! I just couldn't do nothing but shakes for 3 weeks. I feel SO much better now and I'm still dropping weight nicely. I'll be switching back to shakes only the Monday before my surgery, but that change is going to make the next 10 days so much more bearable. After the surgery, I'm so looking forward to not thinking about food almost all the time. Doing this pre-op diet, even in the modified form, is taking lots of mental effort. I'll be so glad when I can just listen to my body and give it what it needs! I hope everyone else is doing well today!

Pre-op diet. Fortunately we were able to switch from all shakes to shakes during the day and a light dinner. I was going to go nuts! Dinner tonight will be: 2 scrambled eggs 2 T. Newmans Black Bean & Corn Salsa 1/2 reduced fat cheese stick, shredded 3 oz broccoli 1/2 serving Newmans Own Protein Prezels 1 Wild Garden Hummus pack That should fill me up, but if I get hungry later I'll go wild and have some broth of a sf Jello cup!

That's great! There's got to be an upside to everything. I think the best thing I'm getting out of this is a new appreciation for food. Being on such a limited/restricted diet is really making me look forward to being banded and being able to eat again. Even if it's much less and there are things I probably won't be able to tolerate anymore, after 3 weeks of protein shakes and broth there will be no whining about how I'm feeling "deprived" because I can't eat half a large pizza by myself!

Oh, I hear you. DH and I went for a walk in a state park yesterday and as we had to walk by all the families grilling out I was afraid lives would be lost! Luckily he hustled me out of there in time. Good job staying strong!

Day 3 of the pre-op diet. It's...going. Some things are better than others. I miss the pleasure of food, healthy and unhealthy. I miss the variety of "what will I have today?". So far the biggest choices I get to make are chicken broth vs. beef broth and vanilla shake vs. chocolate. My energy level has been swinging pretty wildly--sometimes I feel fine or even a bit "up", other times I'm like a zombie. I've been adding garlic, broccoli, and frozen pepper & onion blend to my broth at night. That makes a big difference. It feels like real food and it helps me feel satisfied, which is wonderful. The Bariatric Advantage shakes turned out to be revolting, at least in the strawberry flavor. I'm honestly still queasy just thinking about the two I choked down. Fortunately the Premier Protein shakes from Costco are fine, so I'm just going to return the Bariatric Advantage and stick to the other ones exclusively. Weight-wise, things are a bit odd. Last week I accompanied DH on a business trip. I did a fair amount of "last-hurrah"-ing while I was out there, and it was toward my TOM, but I was flabbergasted to see the scale up 10 full pounds in the one week since I left. I knew I hadn't eaten THAT much! Fortunately, after two days on the pre-op diet that 10 pounds is already gone. It must have been mostly retained water, especially from all the salty junk I had eaten. I'll be curious to see how things progress since I've got another 2 weeks+ on the liquid diet. Sending good wishes to everyone, wherever you are on your journey!

First full day of the liquid diet today. Oh...my...word! Sep 19th can't come soon enough. I'm not even kidding that my fiber gummies have been the highlight of my day.

Bummer! I'm so sorry to hear of that delay--hopefully it's just a little blip and you'll be on your way soon!

I'm so sorry. That's terrible news, and seems so counterproductive!

I couldn't stand the shirataki noodles either. It was like chewing a mouthful of rubber bands. We usually go for Barilla Plus or Dreamfields. I prefer the Barilla--it's got strong body and a nice flavor with extra protein and fiber. DH prefers the Dreamfields, but I find I can never get a proper al-dente "bite" on it. No matter how long or short the cooking time they always come out a bit soft and slimy.

Those Dannon Light & Fit Greek yogurts are seriously good! The Toasted vanilla Coconut one tastes so decadent. I love it!

So what's everyone thinking for exercise? I love walking and biking. Can anyone share good trails and walking spots? I was also thinking about doing some classes to mix things up. I was hoping to find a Zumba and/or maybe a yoga class I could check out. Does anyone know of any? We have a membership at Planet Fitness at Douglas & 30. I love that it's only $10/month! It's quite nice for that price too, and, because it's so cheap, I can't talk myself into quitting when I slack off from exercising. Before I could always complain about the money we were wasting on gym memberships we didn't use, but at $10 a month it's hard to make that argument!

"Located near the cafeteria" Haha! Someone has a sense of humor at CDH... Thanks so much for sharing the info. I'll be 4 days post-op *knock on wood!* that day, so I may have to catch my first one in October, but I will definitely be checking it out.