Pre-Op Diet Anyone?

Veritas · January 23, 2006

I have had my surgical consult and my doctor requires that I lose 5-10% of my current body weight before surgery. Yikes! For me that's between 19-36 pounds. I am focusing on 20 lbs. My surgery will be either Feb 27th or March 13th (depending on how quickly insurance approves it). Today is my first day on my pre-surgery diet which is supposed to be 3 Protein Shakes a day and unlimited fruits and veggies. I am supposed to follow this 75% of the time and the remaining 25% have lean Protein. Little to no carbs except for what's in the fruits and veggies. My question is this - how many of you all had to do something like this and was the diet similar? My problem is I always feel hungry when I diet (thus the need for the band) and I am nervous about having to do this before I can have surgery.

Would love to hear from others who have been through or are going through something similar.

:help:

Jachut · January 23, 2006

Most people have to do a pre op diet of varying degrees, but only some doctors require a particular amount of weight loss. That gets up my nose a bit actually, I think it's pretty judgemental to put a condition on surgery like that. How worthless would you end up feeling if you lost 17lb and were denied?

Nevertheless my opinion on the matter doesnt really change anything, but nearly everyone has done the pre-op (not perfectly either) and survived it.

I was hopeless. I didnt have to officially do it but thought I'd give it a try and honestly, I couldnt do it without the motivation of it being a condition of my surgery. Yet it hasnt affected my success afterwards any.

Archermom · January 24, 2006

Hi, I'm not banded yet, but when i saw my MD and his nutritionist I asked about the reason for his pre- op diet. He says that if you can go on a liquid diet for a few days before surgery it will decrease the amount of fat that is around the liver- they have to move it- and with less fat the likelihood of complications is greatly reduced. Sounded reasonable to me- I am more than happy if something will make it a more safe procedure.

Hope this helps.

:clap2:

Morsaille · January 26, 2006

Hi, I am new too. I know that US doctors often request a certain amt. of weight loss pre-op. Some people I have spoken to believe that this is a test to see if you are able to succeed on your own. My Doc, Dr. Kuri in Mexico (love 'im) required a Liquid Protein diet two weeks pre-op to shrink my liver. Quoting: "in obese people the liver is a huge, fatty organ" apparently a liquid protien diet firms up and shrinks your liver so that bleeding is less likely and the band is easier to place. It was hard. I am not a sweets person and the sweet shakes and bars got real old, real quick. Pria makes a good 2 carb caramel Peanut Butter bar...

gadgetlady · January 26, 2006

I'm on a 2-week pre-op diet now; I don't have any requirements about how much weight I should lose. I am supposed to have 800-cal/day and a min of 60 grams of Protein. My dr. "allows" Protein shakes (for me that's 4 shakes of the kind I've selected) and some non-starchy veges (lettuce, green Beans, bell peppers, celery, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.). Same reasoning about shrinking the liver.

Quite frankly, I am so thrilled to be on a diet and already losing weight. I've only been doing it 3 days so far. I needed to do something quickly -- I'm running out of clothes!

JanetC · January 26, 2006

My doctor requires a 10 pound weight loss, also for the liver weight. My husband HAS to lose 15, or the beds won't hold him, lol.

He put us on 2 shakes a day & a low-cal, low-carb dinner. SOOOO not working for us. So we've basically gone on our own & are doing Atkins + shakes. We've used Atkins in the past, but quit it due to boredom & cost. This is only 3 weeks, so hopefully we can survive & lose quickly. We are doing more chicken then we did the last time we were on Atkins, hopefully that'll appease the surgeon.

We've also started our exercise program already. We started with 5 min a day, but every little bit helps, right?!

If worse comes to worse & we're not on track in 2 weeks, we'll go all shakes the last week (don't want to even consider it). We've both done all-liquid diets before **sigh** hope we can live through one more!

I don't encourage not following doctor's orders... but I figure ANY diet is better then none, which was where we were after day 1 on his pre-op diet.

Good luck with yours!! Hang in there!