AZhiker

diluting is a good idea. You could also use water and count it toward your required fluid intake, I LOVED Premier Protein shakes before surgery. I bought 4 cases on sale at Costco. But..... after surgery, they were just too sweet. Tasted like chocolate syrup! So poor hubby took the unopened cases back. They are considered a meal replacement - not just a protein supplement, How long does your doctor want you to keep on 3 shakes a day?

My question to you is why have you been anemic? There are many causes, and getting to the root of it may be your answer. Poor absorption, not enough dietary intake to start with, B-12 deficiency? sluggish bone marrow? The easiest to fix would be insufficient intake. You may have to increase your animal protein. I'm just starting to handle small amounts of egg, chicken, and fish. But soft liver goes down well and I am going to eat that every week, to help cover iron issues. If you can fix the underlying issue, it will be something you can deal with after surgery. Good luck. Let us know what the doctor says.

I know the feeling - some food just looks and smells so darn good! I had to fix a full on Mexican meal for a party at our house - just a couple of weeks post op!I Boy did that smell good, but I prepared myself with a couple of life slogans I have adopted, and didn't cheat. Cheating can start a cascade. One little bite can lead to another or another compromise, which could get you in trouble down the road. I adopted a slogan before surgery: "I AM NEVER GOING BACK!" And I mean it. My pre-op life was horrible and was slipping away before my eyes with all the ailments of aging obesity. I AM NEVER GOING BACK to that! Sooooooo, the next slogan is "IT IS JUST NOT WORTH IT!" Say that with every temptation. It's just not worth a minute of taste pleasure for the potential for setting you up for failure. Every journey begins with a step. Out weight loss journey is one step at a time. And our weight re-gain journey begins one cheat at a time, It's just not worth it … because I AM NEVER GOING BACK! You see how it works. It has to be a mental mindset. The other slogan to remember is "I'LL HAVE THAT SOON!" You'll get that chicken again and I'll get Mexican food again, but on OUR terms - not just because temptation presents itself. Just not now. One slip is just a slip. A slip up two days in a row is called relapse, We have to be honest with our addiction to food. Cheating is not our friend! It is a sneaky, alluring, seductive enemy to our success! I am rooting for you! This is hard! Set yourself up for success today and 10 years from now! Hang in there everyday! Use the slogans! Wishing the very best in your battle (and sometimes it feels like a war for the mind!) for a wonderful healthy life!!!!!

I've wondered this, too. Looked at a lot of articles, all of which say I should be eating more than I am. (Almost 6 weeks post op but can barely get to 500 cal/day.) But I get my protein, fluids, vitamins, and exercise in every day. My weight loss has been steady and I feel great with plenty of energy and mental alertness. The bottom line is to listen to your body. Get the requirements in and your body will tell you when you can handle more. I know I could get more calories if I added snacks, but I refuse to do that, because snacking is what got me in trouble in the first place and I am not going down that road again. My doctor says "3 meals and no snacks" so I am abiding by that, Truthfully, I sometimes have to divide my protein meal, because I can only handle 1 once of animal protein (fish, liver, chicken) at a time, so I will get the other half several hours later, But I don't consider that a snack. Relax and let your body tell you how much to take in. It is very helpful to keep a daily food log and to plan for the next day, because you do want to know that you are getting all your protein in. You are in a forced Keto diet right now, where your body is breaking down fat and creating ketones for energy. It is actually a healthy place to be, metabolically. I think there is a certain amount of euphoria that goes along with ketosis, as well, which can elevate mood and motivate activity. I am enjoying it!

I cut out caffeine, also, but did it gradually and eventually switched to decaf. I also cut out sugar, soda, and processed foods. Hard? Yup, but soooooo worth it! 1) You won't be dealing with withdrawal after surgery. Recovery is hard enough without dealing with withdrawal on top of it. 2) Without caffeine (and sugar) , my moods and energy have been so much more stable, I am just level throughout the day now - no need for a morning "wake-me-up" or a 3 pm "pick-me-up." 3) After surgery, I lost my taste for coffee completely! I am drinking herbal teas in the morning and evening now, and really enjoying the different flavors. This is actually good, as the acid in coffee is not all that great for reflux or for healing. My doctor prescribes acid reducers for 6 months to prevent ulcers. I already had a Barrett's lesion removed prior to surgery, so drinking coffee (even decaf) post op just didn't make sense and I am so glad to be off it. Perhaps the desire will come back later, but for now, it's gone. I am a complete advocate for getting rid of addictions (caffeine, sugar, soda, processed foods) BEFORE surgery so you can jump right into your healthy new lifestyle without compromise. Hang in there! You are making a great decision that will help you down the road!

Ha! I was hanging out my hummingbird feeders today and have to lean way over the deck railing to get them on the hooks. Has always been so hard to reach the hook. But today - no problem - just leaned over and hung them up! No big belly in the way! I also found myself squeezing my belly to get past a tight spot in the grocery store yesterday. It wasn't necessary - just a habit, because I was able to slip right through. The down side...… I lost my "shelf" for drinks while sitting in the recliner.

Use this time to think about how you want to eat for the rest of your life. In my opinion, every bite and sip after surgery and for the rest of your life should be as nutritious and healthy as possible. Artificial sweeteners, colors, and flavorings don't meet the healthy criteria. Water and herbal teas are great. There is a lot of research that shows artificial sweeteners to be very detrimental to weight loss. They confuse the body/brain - lots of sweet but no calories? Let's just lay down some fat reserves just in case. The stuff is toxic - a chemical cocktail. If your goal is long term healthy living, just give it up now and be done with it. Just my opinion, and I wish you the very best surgery!!!

I agree that every program seems to have a different set of guidelines. My biggest frustration is that I have a big vegetable garden, jam packed full of all kinds of veggies that I can't eat! It makes me depressed. I finally started taking the greens from the garden (turnip, radish, mustard, collards, beet, bok choy, spinach, broccoli, kale, chard) and blending them with water to make a slurry. I strain out the fiber and even filter the fluid through a coffee filter. I then have a clear, non caloric liquid that I add to smoothies, and just drink. Tastes like salad, is rich in phyto-nutrients, and makes me happy. At my follow up appt, the NP saw it and at first said I was cheating. I told her it met the clear liquid criteria and was a heck of a lot healthier than Crystal Lite, Diet Jello, or sugar free popsickles. She couldn't argue with that and said it was OK. Sheesh! I have 6 weeks to go before I can actually eat a real vegetable! Meanwhile, I have to freeze, can, and dehydrate them. Other programs say you can start on soft mushy veggies in week 3. I'd give anything for some mashed turnip or broccoli!

Gundy, any updates on how your friend is doing???????

I hear you! I am 4 weeks post op now and I have 2 mantras: "I'M NEVER GOING BACK!" and "IT's JUST NOT WORTH IT!" (when tempted to taste or take a bit of something not allowed.) This is way too much work, money, and risk to throw it away. Use this pre-op time to really clean up your eating. After surgery, you want every bite to be as nutritionally dense as possible, and as healthy as possible. The "New you" deserves nothing less. Get rid of the artificial sweeteners, colors and flavorings. Get rid of the soda and caffeine. (Caffeine may come back later, but you may find you feel better and more stable without it and really not want it anymore. I LOVED coffee, but can't even stomach the thought of it now!) Absolutely get rid of the sugar! ALL sugar! Get rid of processed food. Cook it yourself. Get rid of simple carbs/starches. Minimize wheat or get rid of it altogether. Learn to enjoy other whole grains like quinoa, brown rice, millet, teff, amaranth. Learn to enjoy veggies - LOTS of veggies! They will be the life saver of you success. Of course, get rid of alcohol and tobacco. If you can start making these lifestyle changes NOW, you will have a much easier time after surgery. Recovery is hard enough without having to cold turkey off addictions like sugar and caffeine. Use this time to really EMBRACE the changes. Each change you make means you "WILL NEVER GO BACK!" As far as temptations go, yes they are there, but..... "IT'S JUST NOT WORTH IT!" I had to fix a full Mexican meal for a family party, make muffins for work, and cake for a birthday party. I did take a couple of tiny tastes to check for seasoning, but then I spit them out. I remind myself that my time will come to have some of these things, but not right now. Each choice you make is a choice to "go back" or "never go back." Remember that a slip up one day is a mistake. A slip up 2 days in a row is called RELAPSE. Just get back on board immediately. I found that keeping my food journal is critical. I plan all my meals (as tiny as they are) the day before, so there is no guess work the next day. We got ourselves where we are by a lot of bad choices over a long time. (Even if we thought they were good choices at the time with the dieting, starvation, and other crazy stuff we did to wreck our metabolisms and disrupt the normal hormone pathways.) It will take a lot of GOOD choices to rewire our brains and reframe our thinking about food - what is wonderful (veggies) and what is poison (sweets and simple carbs.) We can do it! Let your OCD and rules work for you!!!!!

That's exactly what I was afraid of and worried that I would feel too vulnerable and not confident enough to fend them off. So I only told a few close relatives (like my husband and kids) . about my surgery. No one at my work knows. Many of my "not so close" relatives have struggled with their own weight loss and regain, and I don't want to be under their scrutiny and judgement of my decision for surgery. I don't know if I will ever tell them. They will notice the weight loss for sure, but I don't have a problem telling them that I am eating a lot less, exercising a lot more, and using all the tools I know to achieve success. My heart goes out to you, because it must be really hard being under the microscope of the "diet police." I hope you come up with some really good one-liners! "Have you ever seen a fat monkey?" (In regard to the banana.) Please share what you come up with.

63 here. 3 weeks post op bypass. Had a little hiccup with a DVT in one leg, but didn't slow me down. I am sooooo excited to get my life back - ride my mule, hike long distances, get down on the floor with my grandkids! (And get up again!) Funny that some of the professionals I saw pre-op had the same question: "Why do you want to get this now?" Like I'm ready to die or something, I have a good 30 years left and I want them to be the best they can be - not crippled from arthritis and sitting in a wheelchair! Why NOT now???

My surgeon told me to walk an hour a day, or 10,000 steps. Also told us to get a step tracker. We also got a little book to log our food, protein, calories, exercise, fluids - really helpful. I plan what to eat the night before. This gives me an absolute plan that could change a little but I know exactly what I am eating, how many calories, and how much protein I am getting. I also walk my 10,000 steps a day, and climb 10 flights of stairs a day. Your friend needs to use this time to establish new lifestyle changes. If she doesn't, she won't lose the weight or will gain it all back when the appetite returns in the 2nd year, She needs to adopt an attitude of "I'M NEVER GOING BACK!" That kind of determination is what separates those who keep the weight off and those who don't. (Not that this is a totally blanket statement, but research shows that once cheating and compromise begins, weight comes back.) Your friend needs to get moving and embrace the new lifestyle opportunity she has been given. Surgery is not a magic pill - it is only a tool, but we still have to do our part.

I was a daily coffee drinker for a long time. I switched to decaf about a month before surgery, and afterwards, lost my desire for it altogether! Now I enjoy all flavors of herbal tea. Even green tastes sweet to me now - not bitter like before surgery. I drink broth - bone broth has 10 gm protein per cup. The best is a mixture of beef/chicken/turkey. Or I make my own, which tastes a lot better. Sometimes I drink naturally flavored, unsweetened seltzer water. I open it up and let it sit overnight to de-fizz. But my all time favorite is my green water! I have a large vegetable garden, and I am not allowed to eat any of it yet! Bah humbug! My post op instructions said to drink clear liquids that do not have calories or caffeine. So I put lots of my garden greens (kale, spinach, turnip greens, broccoli leaves, bok choy, arugula, etc) in my blender with water. I strain the sloppy mixture and then filter it with a coffee filter. I then have a vitamin rich, tasty (tastes like fresh salad) drink that I sip, add to soup, and add to my smoothies. My doctor about came unglued at my 2 week appt when she saw it - she thought I was cheating. But I pointed out that it was clear with virtually no calories, and a heck of a lot healthier than Crystal Lite, Diet Jello, or anything with artificial sweetener or colors. Besides, it made me much happier psychologically to be using something from my garden. She agreed it was OK. I make up a bottle of it every few days and keep it in the fridge until ready to use.

There is a lot of swelling and tissue trauma after surgery. Once this goes down, you will see that scale go down, too. Once a started losing again, the weight was coming off at 1 pound per day. WOW! I thought I was going to be one of those super-losers! But now I am at the 3 week stall. It is so good to know that this is common. Just gotta keep doing the right things and be patient. It will come off when it's ready.

2 weeks, but careful not to exceed lifting restrictions. I get more steps at home than I do at work, so it has been a challenge since going back. I walk the halls at every break. I

I was given heparin injections before surgery and while in the hospital, but did not get the Lovenox injections for two weeks after, like some of you have related. For any future major operations (and I hope there are not!) it will be something to definitely bring up! I wonder if the fact that I have varicose veins increased by risk. And maybe that I am older - 63? Who knows. Just glad it is resolving. Just got 11,000 steps and 10 flights of stairs in!

Well, it happened to me! A few days after surgery I noticed pain, swelling, hardness in a couple of my pet varicose veins. There was no deep pain, redness or swelling of the calf, and I was able to flex my foot fully without pain (the usual signs of DVT.) I kept exercising and used a heating pad. I started my walking activity ASAP after surgery. I was the first one in my surgical group to be out of bed and walking the hallway. By my 2 week appointment I was doing 10,000 steps a day. So this was not due to inactivity. At my 2 week appt, I told the NP about the sore veins and she ordered a Doppler ultrasound of my leg. To my great surprise, besides the superficial issues, there was a DVT! Fortunately it was not occluding the vein (or else I would have had the other symptoms). So I think it was caught early. I started on Xarelto(a blood thinner) and will be on that for a few more weeks. In the meantime, another varicose vein got hard and tender. So apparently, in spite of the compression stockings, SCDs (leg squeezers), and early ambulation, something triggered a little cascade of clots in my leg veins. I tell this story just to alert anyone else to report vein tenderness right away. Inflammation in the superficial veins could also mean something is going on in the deeper ones, as well. I am doing fine - still walking my all my steps, climbing stairs, and starting on weights now, Thankfully, this was caught early and that the treatment is easy (although not cheap.)

I knew that surgery was going to be very hard, requiring discipline and a new way of eating. Wanting to give myself every chance for success, I tried to give up every addiction I could PRIOR to surgery, so that the battle would be less complex afterward. Prior to surgery I gave up sugar (my joints never felt better!), caffeine, soda, alcohol, artificial sweeteners, artificial colors and flavors, processed foods, and snacking. I also started 16/8 Intermittent Fasting. I had already given up wheat/gluten several years ago, I was never a smoker. The sugar, caffeine and snacking were especially hard, but I am SOOOOO thankful I am not dealing with those now that I am only 2 weeks post op. I would suggest this to anyone in their preop period. Get rid of the junk NOW! You don't need to deal with cravings after surgery - food deprivation is enough! It will give you the confidence to comply with the post-op restrictions, and will set you up for a much healthier life style for life.

I read a recommendation from another surgeon to take Biotin 10,000 mcg to help prevent hair loss. I started this 2 weeks after surgery when I started the other vitamins, I'll let you know if it works. Might just be snake oil, but it can't hurt anything to try.

Congratulations! You look amazing and I can't imagine how good you must feel. You are an inspiration!

Due to insurance and scheduling issues, I had to wait 8 months before my surgery. This gave me a LOT of time to weigh the pros and cons, examine my motives, and get psychologically ready for the change. It is different from other surgeries - this is ELECTIVE. You are choosing to put yourself at risk. Like many others, I lost hundreds and hundreds of pounds on my own..... only to have it all come back, plus. After a life time of this, my metabolism was totally screwed up and the brain-stomach-hormone mechanism was also screwed up. I had no "stop button." I never felt full. I ate very healthy food, but could never stop once started. Meanwhile, I had given up, wheat, sugar, all artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors, alcohol, caffeine. I ate nothing fried, only healthy grains, my homegrown veggies/poultry/ and eggs. I maintained an active lifestyle with my garden and animals. One day, feeling afraid of the surgery, I suggested to my PCP that perhaps I should just try again to do it on my own. She very kindly told me, "If you could have done it on your own, you would have." She was right. I was just fooling myself, maybe thinking I was weak for not being able to do it on my own. But I came to the realization that my body would NEVER lose weight because of all the damage I had previously done. Weight Loss Surgery was the final tool I needed to bring my metabolism and hormone mechanisms back to a more normal baseline. I was still scared, even laying on the Pre-op bed, I was crying and told my surgeon I was just scared about making such a big decision for an elective procedure. He reassured me that none of his patients had ever come back to him and said they wished they had never done it. He was right. I am only 3 weeks post op. I did have a complication that has now been handled, and I can say that my life looks so different. I feel better already, having lost 31 pounds since beginning the pre-op diet. I am very, very glad, even at this early point, for having done the surgery. I think this is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. Preop, it is like you are looking up at a cloud layer that is obscuring the sun. All you see are shadows (doubts.) Afterwards, it is like you are flying above the clouds in the sunshine, looking down at the clouds that are now bright and white. It's all about the perspective of where you are, and you can never get above the cloud layer unless you bravely make the decision to go forward. That being said, you must be determined that you will do everything you can after surgery to be successful. No cheating, no compromise. Surgery is a tool - you still have to do your part. My best suggestion is to give up all addictions BEFORE surgery so you don't have to deal with them on top of the recovery. (Caffeine, sugar, simple carbs, processed foods, artificial anything, alcohol, and of course smoking.) Determine that these are lifestyle changes that you will never go back to. That is my slogan: "I'M NEVER GOING BACK!"

I was really scared, too. I mean, this is a big surgery and it's ELECTIVE - not like an appendectomy that you don't have a choice about. You are opening a whole new chapter of your life - one that will change you forever in a very good way. Hang in there! Walk through that door to a new life waiting for you! The volunteers at my hospital make little firm pillows for helping with coughing and moving - like getting out of bed. See if they have something like that - firmer than a regular bed pillow. My little pillow was my best friend for about 10 days! Also - wear your compression stockings at home if you have varicose veins. I ended up with superficial thrombophlebitis in my varicose veins which is very painful. It would have helped for me to wear my stockings more.

By the way, corn is one of the foods that can really spike insulin levels. So I, too, gave up the popcorn, as well as my beloved tortilla chips. IT JUST ISN'T WORTH IT! (My new favorite saying.) Corn isn't worth dying for when there are better options. Good health IS worth living for! Sorry corn, but you gotta go! (You know what they feed cows and hogs to fatten them, right?)

I had to do a 2 week pre-op diet and by the 2nd week I was famished! Basically a starvation liquid diet without the appetite suppressing benefits of surgery, But it's important and will jump start your weight loss, shrink your liver, and get you used to what you will be doing for a couple of weeks post op. I am now 2 weeks post op and still on the same thing and I am hungry now! It's been 4 weeks of fluids and protein supplements. I see my doctor tomorrow and I will have my first soft protein food tomorrow for dinner !!!! Yippee! Can hardly wait. The pre-op diet is the first stage of your new lifestyle. Embrace it! You are on your way to becoming the new you!