onikenbai

You can try coconut water (not milk). It doesn't have that many calories and it has a ton of potassium in it.

I have people calling me left, right and centre apparently all aware of my banding. Strange... I never told any of these people. It appears my mother has a very large mouth and is telling the whole world. The damage is done, they can't unknow the thing. All you can do is let it go. And maybe strangle my mother.:cryin:

Ah man, now I have the pickle song in my head! Out Arlo, out! I don't want a pickle, I just want to ride on my motorcycle...

Big downside to having surgery a long way off is that I can't keep my mind on other things! I find myself staring off into space whilst sitting at my cube at work lazily daydreaming about what's to come, and I can't seem to keep my mind focused on what's in front of me. Bad me. Am I overly fixated? Or am I just excited? I don't have that much experience with excited... Maybe I just need a vacation?

I say put the boyfriend on the pre-op diet with you and see if his opinion changes about taking the easy way out.

Banding was today! Right now I'm one big bruise, probably just like everyone else was on their first day. I do seem to have one rather strange thing though... I don't know if it was the heprin or what, but the area around my eyes is red, really red. Not inflammation red, but broken blood vessels red. If you think of a raccoon with its dark eyes, and then add photoshop, that's what I look like. The post-op nurse says I was rubbing my eyes before I was fully awake, but man, I must be the world's most consistent eye rubber to get identical rings around my eyes like that. In a sick way I kind of look right out of the pages of a fashion magazine a la heroin chic age. Overall the day wasn't that bad although my mother is still crying over the fact I took the bus to the clinic all by myself at stupid-o'clock this morning and declined having somebody drive me. What's the point of having somebody drive all the way across the city, pick me up, and drop me ten minutes from my house when the bus goes right by home and right by the clinic? It's not as if my mother was going to help with the surgery or anything. :wink2: But it's over and my mother can now hold me hostage and obsess over me with her 10 LITRES of liquids she's bought me to consume over the next two days. How the hell am I going to do that? I'm still working on the same 500mL drink I started almost 10 hours ago. Well, if some great disaster happens, at least we have snacks.

Banding was today! Right now I'm one big bruise, probably just like everyone else was on their first day. I do seem to have one rather strange thing though... I don't know if it was the heprin or what, but the area around my eyes is red, really red. Not inflammation red, but broken blood vessels red. If you think of a raccoon with its dark eyes, and then add photoshop, that's what I look like. The post-op nurse says I was rubbing my eyes before I was fully awake, but man, I must be the world's most consistent eye rubber to get identical rings around my eyes like that. In a sick way I kind of look right out of the pages of a fashion magazine a la heroin chic age. Overall the day wasn't that bad although my mother is still crying over the fact I took the bus to the clinic all by myself at stupid-o'clock this morning and declined having somebody drive me. What's the point of having somebody drive all the way across the city, pick me up, and drop me ten minutes from my house when the bus goes right by home and right by the clinic? It's not as if my mother was going to help with the surgery or anything. But it's over and my mother can now hold me hostage and obsess over me with her 10 LITRES of liquids she's bought me to consume over the next two days. How the hell am I going to do that? I'm still working on the same 500mL drink I started almost 10 hours ago. Well, if some great disaster happens, at least we have snacks.

I'm an environmental consultant specialising in contaminant hydrogeology, or at least I'm trying to be, depends on how the day at work goes. I know well those data sets are memory hogs. I'm surprised your IT department doesn't have allotted space to run those pesky runs. If it makes you feel any better, my product is toxic dirt. One away from syphillis on the list of things that people want.

Gastric bypass people have to be super aware of their sugars because it generally leads to dumping, which is exactly what it sounds like. This happens because of the re-routing of the natural food path past some steps in digestion in the stomach. Bands don't re-route your food path and so the low sugar and carb levels in food aren't as critical. You are right. Not all wls are built the same and this is a good example.

Mine is: Days 1-4 -Clear fluids. If you can see through it and it doesn't have caffeine in it, you're good to go. Plus Jello. Days 5-19 -Full fluids. Things that are up to the consistency of cream. Strained/blended soups, fruit & vegetable juices with no added sugar, Protein Shakes, plain or flavoured yogurts with no chunks in them, milk, plus lots and lots of Water. Days 20-27 -pureed foods the consistency of mashed potatoes. Suggestions include hummus, soft scrambled eggs, oatmeal, potatoes, pureed chicken/fish, cottage cheese and lots and lots of water.

The Protein Bars will likely blow you out of the Water carb-wise. I also am doing a food-based pre-op diet instead of a shake one. The things I've been eating are: can of tuna on a salad salmon avocados all the raw veggies I can tolerate low fat yogurt, preferably greek salmon with dill/lemon & pepper chicken So far my tastiest thing has been chicken Soup. Use low-sodium chicken broth and cook eggplant and zucchini in it. Then throw in a handful of basil, pepper and chicken. You could probably throw in some green Beans too. No noodles, sorry. No cooked carrots, potatoes or root veggies as they violate the no sugar rule. Raw carrots are ok. No fruit (yeah, this one sucked huge) as it has too much sugar. If you stick to the diet you will lose a tonne of weight real fast and you won't be hungry after the second day. I've also been able to eat quite a bit of raw veggies and dip. The dip is made of plain yogurt, dried onion & dill. If you make the dip quite strong you won't notice that it isn't as good as sour cream.

Day 21 of my pre-op diet and, despite the rocky start, I haven't fallen down dead yet so all seems good: this would be the official opinion of my GP. As this is Canada and the land of free health care, I'm doubling up on doctors right now and taking the opportunity to be shamelessly used by my GP as test subject. I'm her first patient to get banded so I did a command performance in her office this week again so she could see how I was making out with the pre-op diet. I was there for the pre-pre-op diet, the during, and I have a feeling I'll be getting a call in a few weeks... Inquiring minds want to know I guess. A spot check showed that I was waaaaayyyy down in the land of the ketones, so mission accomplished. If I don't have the flattest liver the surgeon's ever seen, then she can't really blame me because I have held up my end of the bargain. Most days I've been getting only about 700 calories in me and I never ever want to see another piece of salmon as long as I live. At this point, even the protein shakes I'm so very allergic to seem like a tempting welcome change. I've lost a ridiculous 22lbs in three weeks, which borders on stupid, and my body is seriously not pleased about it. I know a lot of that isn't real weight and is just water and excess stored energy reserves, but I nearly lost my pants this week at work and that is a good thing I guess? My mother is driving me batty with the "How much have you lost?" question every. single. time. she sees me and I'm thinking of making up random numbers just to get her to go away. I may have to retaliate with "when did you last pee?" to see if she gets the hint since blatantly telling her it was driving me nuts didn't seem to sink in. So 30-something more hours to go. The clinic actually called me on Friday to remind me of the surgery. Seriously, does anybody ever forget and miss it? After starving yourself for three weeks, pull an oops... slipped my mind?

Day 21 of my pre-op diet and, despite the rocky start, I haven't fallen down dead yet so all seems good: this would be the official opinion of my GP. As this is Canada and the land of free health care, I'm doubling up on doctors right now and taking the opportunity to be shamelessly used by my GP as test subject. I'm her first patient to get banded so I did a command performance in her office this week again so she could see how I was making out with the pre-op diet. I was there for the pre-pre-op diet, the during, and I have a feeling I'll be getting a call in a few weeks... Inquiring minds want to know I guess. A spot check showed that I was waaaaayyyy down in the land of the ketones, so mission accomplished. If I don't have the flattest liver the surgeon's ever seen, then she can't really blame me because I have held up my end of the bargain. Most days I've been getting only about 700 calories in me and I never ever want to see another piece of salmon as long as I live. At this point, even the protein shakes I'm so very allergic to seem like a tempting welcome change. I've lost a ridiculous 22lbs in three weeks, which borders on stupid, and my body is seriously not pleased about it. I know a lot of that isn't real weight and is just water and excess stored energy reserves, but I nearly lost my pants this week at work and that is a good thing I guess? My mother is driving me batty with the "How much have you lost?" question every. single. time. she sees me and I'm thinking of making up random numbers just to get her to go away. I may have to retaliate with "when did you last pee?" to see if she gets the hint since blatantly telling her it was driving me nuts didn't seem to sink in. So 30-something more hours to go. The clinic actually called me on Friday to remind me of the surgery. Seriously, does anybody ever forget and miss it? After starving yourself for three weeks, pull an oops... slipped my mind?

It is a common side effect of your body switching from an ATP-based energy burn to a keytone-based one, which is what is supposed to happen when you are on your pre-op diet and your body is starved of sugars. It sucks but it's not forever. After surgery you'll go back to an ATP-based metabolism when you start eating a more normal diet again and it shouldn't be a problem.

Alcohol is just like sugar as far as your liver is concerned. It is not allowed on the pre-op diet. You may not like this answer but it's the same one your nutritionist will give you.

My surgeon refuses to do surgery on people whose BMI is above 50 as there is a significantly increased risk of complications. If you can't lose the weight she wants, she apparently turns into the soup nazi. No surgery for you!

1/2 cup is 125mL.

Ask your dentist to fix you up with a night guard you can wear around the house. You can't eat when it's in, and since it's designed for people who grind and chew in their sleep, you don't have to worry about destroying it from nervous jaw chomping. Whatever you do, don't pick up the habit of chewing ice. It's annoying to those around you and it destroys your teeth, often resulting in multiple root canals. I also recomend picking up a hobby such as kitting, origami, cat's cradle, basket weaving or whatever keeps your hands busy in front of the TV. Busy hands cannot participate in munching so easily.

Age is also a factor. The younger you are, the less likely you are to have loose skin at the end of it. Younger skin is more elastic. According to my GP, once you pass 35, the skin quickly starts to lose elasticity and is less likely to shrink.

I'm 2 1/2 weeks in to my 3 and a bit week diet and I've lost 21 pounds, which borders on stupid. I was at my GP today to satisfy her curiosity as I am now her personal guinnea pig, and she did a quick check and noted that I'm waaaaay into the ketone range in metabolism. This is a good thing as the shift from an ATP-based metabolism to ketone-based is the thing that flattens out your liver. She also said that she was surprised I was still up and walking after two and a bit weeks of it because this dietary shift to ketones is known to cause headaches, nausea, fatigue, general weakness in the limbs, and the occasional blackout. My GP had a go at it and only made it 3 days before bailing. If you are having major problems with the shakes, you may be able to get your doctor to switch you to a veg, chicken and fish pre-op diet. If you follow it to the letter, it should do the same thing as the shakes. I am completely unable to have the Protein drinks (and yeah, I've tried all the non-soy, non-gluten, vegan ones and I still can't have them) so I've been doing the veg, chicken and fish thing for every single meal. Gotta warn you though... there's only so many ways to cook an eggplant and I seriously may never touch another piece of salmon again in my life. Plus I'm only getting in 600-700 calories a day, which may be a bit low.

I'm on my third week of pre-op diet and I'm already having this problem, though I'm on the pill rather than depo. Should make the next few months a true joy :sad: Come to think of it, when I lost a chunk of weight when I was a teenager, the exact same thing happened.

So I have been searching high and low for shakes that do not contain milk products or soy because I am allergic to both of them and I have found some! :laugh: Now I won't spend my 3 weeks of pre-op diet puking my guts out, which was what I was anticipating. I haven't actually tried any of it yet, but I'm going to be adventurous and give it a whirl tonight. I got the vanilla chai flavour, which sounds pretty darn yummy. I'll let you know how it tastes. They also come in the more conventional chocolate, vanilla and mixed berry flavours. They are pricey, but I'm willing to throw in a few extra shillings to not have to be tossing my Cookies for three solid weeks. Vega Homepage | Sequel Naturals

Sadly I am unable to use any of those. I had a new bump in the pre-op road which cut out all of the protein shakes. I can tolerate isopure to a degree, but I've had to go back to basic starvation, the oldest diet in the book.

Potassium is also extremely important in making your neurons fire. Brain: it's a good thing.

I'm more of a morning person when it comes to pain and misery. I do better as the day goes on. If you were out working and then you slow down, you probably will freeze up. I have it happen too and I still haven't found anything that fixes it other than heat. Try a hot bath to loosen up the muscles. Some days when I come home from working outside, I have to either climb in bed with every heating pad and duvet I can find or hot bath/shower it. Massage is also good if you can afford it. I can't but I do my own feet sometimes at night and I can feel the difference right away.