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If you can have protein bars (which have more carbs than protein anyway) you can have ham. The point of the pre-op diet is to be high protein and low carb to put yourself into Ketosis and shrink the size of your liver. The only reason most doctors want it to be a liquid diet is that protein shakes only is easier to explain.

I believe you are supposed to be walking from the moment you wake up in recovery. As for cardio I got clearance to go back to the gym to do cardio (have to wait 4-5 weeks to go back to weights) about 12 days out from surgery, but I think this is more of a go at your own pace type of thing. As for driving I don't think there is any limitation so long as you aren't taking a pain medication that causes drowsiness.

It's not that big a deal for most folks. Just get a variety of protein shakes and rotate through, they will fill you up. Just think of this as kicking off your weight loss a couple weeks early.

Sounds great, keep up the good work.

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. I can't imagine dealing with morning sickness much less that HG so severe you needed food through a cath. I'm not sure how long ago this was, but do you think your low BMR is a lingering function of that experience? Anyway the reason I ask is that obviously VSG is a great procedure to help people eat less, but it doesn't sound like you eat all that much now. While of course 3 smaller meals is better than one big one (especially for protein absorption) it's not like it's going to completely kill your metabolism. I guess my point was in addition to the surgery, you may want to see a specialist to see if there is something that can be done to boost your metabolism. Fight this from a couple different angles.

To some extent you are starving yourself to get into Ketosis and shrink your liver. On the bright side once you make it through to the surgery the ability to fill up quickly will make the initial low calorie diet much easier (some people don't even feel hungry at all after surgery). You just have to buckle down for 10 more days to make it though. I would focus on just trying to drink extra liquid to get you through to your surgery date.

You are absolutely crushing it. So much so that I would warn you not to feel disheartened if you hit a stall or a plateau in the coming months, because that level of weight loss is hard to maintain even if you are doing everything right.

Well that is concerning. Are you talking about 5oz of water while getting considerable amounts of fluid from other sources? If not you need to call your doctor, because you are going to need to get help with this really fast before you get completely dehydrated. Generally speaking they don't let you out of the hospital until you can drink 4oz an hour, does this mean this enhanced difficulty developed after you were released? Also on a separate note you mentioned pain. Are you taking something for the pain (Tylenol II?) and if so is it not effective? Pain mixed with dehydration are going to absolutely kill your recovery and rob you of the energy you need to heal effectively.

Someone here posts the phrase "WLS makes good relationships better and bad relationships worse" (I may be paraphrasing). That said I'm sure that there are lots of different reasons for these outcomes and a bunch of them are ideal outcomes. For example weight loss giving someone confidence to leave a bad relationship.

I don't think anyone would be unhappy about losing nearly fifty pounds in under two months.

Just wait until you get to the puree/soft foods stage and a couple tablespoons of tuna (or whatever) knock you on your a$$

My preop liquid diet two shakes and a high protein meal came in around 1000 calories. That said this is all totally confusing to me. How can you possibly be gaining weight at 1600-1800 calories a day (much less more than half a pound a day). At the weight you have listed you should be burning at least 2000 calories just being alive. Can I ask have you ever had a full metabolic workup? Checking for things like hypothyroidism or insulin resistance? Everyone varies with respect to the Basal Metabolic Rate, but 9 lbs on an 1800 calorie diet in two weeks seems to defy the math.

5oz an hour? If so that's pretty normal for day 3. You were on IV fluids in the hospital, my guess is that you were dehydrated going into surgery.

This sounds normal to me liquids pass pretty much straight through your pouch, so you don’t have quite the same limitations as with food.

Just to be clear the starting weight was when I started the process (7 months ago) and I tried to lose as much as I could during that process. When I had my surgery three weeks ago I was 232, so "only" down about 20 pounds in three weeks. I don't think I did anything monumental for the first two weeks, I was just very fortunate to have had very little pain after the first 2 days. By around day 5 I was feeling pretty much at 100%. I got permission to go back to the gym (cardio only) last week I've been really trying to crush it to help the weight loss from that end.

That sounds like a red flag for child abuse to me. Perhaps they are up to the section on "natural selection" in their studies and this is just practical exercise.

My father had a GB about 10 years ago, after a couple of years he gained back some of his weight (mostly due to bad habits). The good news long term has been despite his bad habits he may have gained back some weight but he is still way below where he started and has been able to maintain for about 7 years.

Some folks have suggested getting a fresh start by trying to do an accelerated version of the post-op diet. I'm not 100% sure what that means for everyone, but I would thing 1 week of liquid diet (supplemented by protein shakes), followed by a week of puree (keeping servings to 4oz or less), followed by sane portions of healthy foods. I don't know anything about the band, but I would think that "even the slightest fill prevents me from swallowing and give extreme tightness and pain in my chest" is not how it's supposed to work and might be worth having a call with your surgeon (or some expert) even if you can't see them in person at this point.

Sorry, that part was in reaction to the OP's comment about water. I wasn't trying to correct what you said.

I tried that once, but it reminded me too much of eggplant rolletini (I hate eggplant). I'm holding out for Barilla to make a Protein Plus version of Lasagna. Until then its all about the spaghetti squash.

You can't have an NSAID, but you should still be able to have Tylenol.

As AshAsh said 64 oz is really just the formula for not getting dehydrated surgery or no and the 64 oz don't technically have to be water, you get to count anything that is primarily liquid (protein shakes, soup, jello, ice pops, etc). That said I I think that as you heal you will find it easier to get the liquid in, its a requirement at the begining because everyone post op has initial difficulty getting it in without working at it.

I had the same issue. I went from a BMI of 40 at the start of the process to a BMI of like 35.5 on my last pre-op visit. I wouldn't worry too much about it, if you need to put some rolls of pennies in you pockets or chug a big bottle of water right before your last pre-op weigh in.

I lost about 10 pounds, but about 4 of those pounds weren't real weight loss, just emptying the digestive track.

I am aware, but the change in AST is what doctors look for to guage the potential shrinkage pre-surgery (both the before and the after may both be in "normal ranges" [which I believe is usually <40 for AST]). That said my point was that cutting someone open to gauge the size of their liver only to sow them up again is not the common practice. If they still have an oversized liver they use EndoLift or similar scaffolding device (in fact the use of these devices is usually discussed in the presurgical disclosure/consent that you sign).