Surgery next Tuesday :0 Stressing out!

[rowekins 1]

I will be banded next Tuesday morning (17th). I started the liver reduction diet on January 5th and lost almost 30 lbs. I've now gained 5 back because I'm panicking about never eating what I want again and binging . I know I shouldn't but I can't stop. I've begun second guessing my decision. Any one else have this problem??

[thebug 0]

I can't say I've been second guessing, because I'm really committed to doing this, but I also spent a significant amount of 'getting ready time' binging. I discussed this with my therapist, and she advised me that that was very normal, and pretty common, and not to stress about it.

You don't know that you will never be able to eat what you want ever again. Everybody is different, but many people end up with a great amount of freedom in what they can eat; they just can't eat so much of it. (And that's a good thing, right?) Take a deep breath and take a minute to remind yourself of why you made this decision in the first place, and what you are hoping to accomplish with it. You can do this!

BTW, my surgery is Wednesday the 11th (yaahh, omigosh omigosh!)

Beebe

I will be banded next Tuesday morning (17th). I started the liver reduction diet on January 5th and lost almost 30 lbs. I've now gained 5 back because I'm panicking about never eating what I want again and binging . I know I shouldn't but I can't stop. I've begun second guessing my decision. Any one else have this problem??

[TaraLynneRN 0]

I think that all of us have had that "oh my gosh, my diet starts on Monday so I am going to eat us out of house and home this weekend!!!" Unfortunately, we have that overfull, hangover when the diet starts on Monday, so we say "will I will do a little better today and really start tomorrow, essesntially, second guessing out decision to diet at all. I am praying that when I get the band I will be able to at last stand firm and allow this "tool" to do its job!! Good luck, I think it is great that you lost 30 #!! my tops on any diet is 20# and I usually start getting it back within a month. If you lost 30, think how you will me "disappearing" after the band!!!

[Amanda Mae 22]

You'll be able to eat whatever you want in time but just in much smaller portions. Don't stress out about that and ruin your pre-op diet. There's a book I read that I would recommend to anyone getting ready for or even thinking about the surgery. It's called "Weight Loss Surgery" by Barbara Thompson. She actually had gastric bypass but there's a nice section on Lap-Band included. The biggest thing I learned from the book was not to worry about what you an eat in the future because you can pretty much each whatever you want just in much smaller portions and you stay full longer.

[rowekins 1]

Thanks, everyone. I guess I just felt like I was failing before I began, regardless of what I already lost. Seven days left! This is why I love this forum!

Good luck tomorrow, the bug!!! Keep us posted!

[Catherine55 43]

I will be banded next Tuesday morning (17th). I started the liver reduction diet on January 5th and lost almost 30 lbs. I've now gained 5 back because I'm panicking about never eating what I want again and binging . I know I shouldn't but I can't stop. I've begun second guessing my decision. Any one else have this http:// problem??

I think that most people freak out like this before their surgery. I know I did. I'm now 2 1/2 years out, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. The thing I wish I would have known when I was pre-op was that -- after you are banded, but before you are at restriction, you can actually eat pretty much EXACTLY the same way you can eat before the surgery. So, if you wind up freaking out and hate it later on, you can get your fill out and eat whatever. The trick, however, is to getting to good restriction and staying there! But, I did find it really comforting to know that I could go back to eating whatever I wanted at any time if I really wanted to. It just turns out that I haven't wanted to do that.

One weird thing about being banded is that I actually enjoy food MORE now than I did before. I really never expected that. It turns out that being able to eat something delicious that wouldn't have been an OK "diet food" is a whole lot more enjoyable when you don't spend hours afterwards feeling like sh*t for eating it! And, because you can only eat a small portion of most things before you feel sated and are ready to stop, I don't generally wind up over-doing it on the treats. The band is really an amazing tool.

My advice to you is to get yourself back on your pre-op diet in a serious way and really seriously commit to staying on it and doing your post-op diet to the letter. It's not that long that you have to stay on it, and it will be SO worth it to finally feel good about your weight and to be comfortable in your skin. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about here.

A few things I did before surgery that I found really helpful were to:

1. Take my measurements and write them down (it was so interesting to be able to track inches lost as I went down on the scales... or during plateaus);

2. Take a bunch of before pictures (OK, this is something I WISH I would have done, but you should learn from my mistake and do it!)

3. Write out a pro/con list for why you are doing this. Include on it the things you're looking forward to about being in a healthy BMI (you can find mine on this page if you want some help getting started... LINK)

4. Write out a post-op plan for what you are going to do to make this work (you can find mine at the same link I included in no. 3).

I hope that helps! Hang in there. There is a reason that you've gotten this far in this process.

Best wishes,

Catherine