IncredibleShrinkingMan

A whole lot of (invariably thin) people say those things out of a sense of self-promotion. "Look at me, I can do it with diet and exercise, so can you." Some are not totally malevolent, but a lot of them derive a lot of self-worth by being thin in an environment where so many of us are obese. The advice is the same across the board...don't listen, don't respond, don't start a fight. I even retired my old go-to line of "if you were in my shoes you wouldn't be able to do it either." A number of thin friends felt punctured at that statement and it was in no way my intention to inflict emotional hurt. They have no reason to understand the realities of weight loss and regain and why surgery makes things different, and they have no reason to spend the time learning about it, and they are not bad people for being misinformed. Only when somebody gets aggressive and starts to tell you about his/her diet, workout, spiritual cleanse, etc... should you put your foot down and say that person has overstepped and their advice is incorrect.

Hope your surgery went great! Congratulations and welcome to the other side.

For the last several years I have kept my room 5-10 degrees cooler than the rest of my family's house, and my grandfather (who had a low thyroid) always kept his room insanely hot even in summer (New Jersey). I would stop going up there to see him it was so unbearable. I was sleeved 9 days ago, and I have stopped using the fan in my room, added an extra comforter, and have been doing most of my work from home in my (late) grandfather's room. My temperature set has completely flipped its field on me, and now I find myself constantly seeking out very warm spaces. It is a combination of a declining fat layer and the lack of carbs being burned up and released as heat. It is gratifying in a certain way. I think it will be far less embarrassing to ask for some heat around the Thanksgiving table rather than standing outside trying to catch drifts of cool late autumn air with everyone looking on. I think, however, that when we all move on to solids in a few months, our sleeves will be doing heavier lifting than they are able to do right now, and that process generates a lot of heat. I don't expect my current obsession with warmth to last all that long, even with (hopefully) drastically reduced insulation from adipose tissue.

Every surgeon is different with regard to pre-op requirements. They run the gamut from: - no pre-op diet requirement at all - no pre-op diet except clear liquids the day before - three days of clear liquids - two weeks of clear liquids (sometimes full liquids) - two weeks of very low calorie diet - one month of any of the above - two months of any of the above ...and any combination of the above and anything in between. Your insurance may have different requirements than the surgeon, so you will be following a plan that is consistent with both sets of instructions. Nobody here can tell you what those would be, so be persistent and get through to the surgeon and your insurance to get an exact answer. It seems like the two most prevalent instructions would be two weeks of pre-op, with about half of those asked to do clear liquid, and another half asked to simply stay below 1,000 calories (this number doesn't see quite as much variation...it is always within the 800-1200 calorie range).

I am one week post-op today and I can tell you that adhering faithfully to the pre-op liquid diet will do wonders for you overall satiety and mood during both your clear and full liquid stages. I was not given a pre-op liquid diet, but rather just a ceiling of 1,000 calories for two weeks, so I ate the toughest-textured foods I could find that would keep me under 1,000 to keep satisfied. Then, when I made the personal choice to go to liquids for my final three days before surgery, it was extremely hard, albeit easier because I was staring surgery day right in the face. I had hunger by day 3 post-op, but liquids (even clear liquids) were and still are very satisfying, and I credit that to having done a few days of liquid before surgery. It got my body desensitized to the lack of chewing sensation. I know pre-op is totally brutal, and there is no way around that, but my only regret so far is that I did not do liquids for the entire two weeks. I think things would've been even easier for me right now had that happened. In addition, the surgeon said my liver was still quite a bit fatty, despite having adhered to 1,000 calories during pre-op, and liquid certainly keeps that risk down even better than solid food of the same calorie content, for a bit of extra encouragement. I would stay the course, and part of what helped me during pre-op was watching the scale drop precipitously...I lost 20 lbs (some glycogen/water obviously) during the two weeks and it got me very enthusiastic about following everything to the letter. Good luck! Try Isopure whey isolate Protein drinks. 40 g protein per 20 oz bottle, totally satisfying meal both before and after surgery.