Im a Cheater!!! Ive done did a bad thing!

guitarman · May 30, 2005

Don't worry about it. I have a theory on this whole liquid diet thing. I have it on good authority that it isn't all that necessary. The reason I say this is that I was scheduled to have surgery on April 19th. I received the call from the doctor that my insurance approved the procedure around April 11. The Nurse said that would give me 8 days to be on the liquid diet to get the liver down. Well around April 14th she called me and said the insurance didn't approve the hospital where the doctor was doing the procedure and that she found another one that would do the procedure April 29. So she said for me to start my liquid diet Apeil 18th to give me a 2 full weeks. So let me tell you I pigged out the weekend of April 16/17. Then Monday the doctors office called and said they were going to go ahead and do the surgery the following day, the 19th, as originally scheduled. I freaked out................ I told the nurse that I have not been on a liquid diet for the required amount of time. She said, Oh don't worry. Not a big deal...................What?!?!?!?!? She then told me that it is totally up to the doctor and That Dr. Smith could work around it. She said the liquid diet is also a primer for getting used to the after-surgery diet. I am not saying you don't need to do it. It really does shrink the liver and prevents it from bleeding when it is touched. But talk to you Doctor and be honest with him. The worst that could happen is that he pushes your surgery date back and you get to try again. But the reality is that he will probably do it anyway. But please do talk to him.

guitarman · May 30, 2005

Congratulations Jack on adjusting to the new you lifestyle. Your words are always encouraging. I'm sure a lot of us wish we had your point of view and strong will power to push those evil yearnings aside. It is really a head game. I spent the entire weekend in Arkansas visiting with my wifes family. Every house you went to they wanted to feed you. The whole southern hospitality thing. Talk about being difficult to keep above Water especially without a fill and no restriction. However I think all of us are going to have to find our own personal way of killing these demons and Like I said, your point and view is refreshing and shores up a lot of us who can resist everything but temptation.

...the wonderful thing for me is to find I rarely have those roaring gotta-eat-it binges....most of the time I now am not swayed by walking thru the middle of the donut display, the free pizza-slice lady, the ice cream section, etc...and I simply can't imagine any longer ever having been obsessed by cheezeburgers....although I have plenty of evidence I was quite familiar with all of them...
most of the time, none of that stuff even looks like I'd want it....my most recent binge was a small 2 cup bag of pop corn...

as I get further along with my little Angel of the Silicon Fist, I have less and less time to waste yearning for the junk food, and sometimes even forgetting to eat at the scheduled time...as we get busier with activities other than eating, it becomes easier to step away from such dalliances....

cheers to all and just keep moving along....

GeezerSue · May 30, 2005

Okay...I wasn't going to mention this, but guitarman is right.

Three years ago, I read that the New Zealand LapBand doctors had their patients undergoing a liquid diet to "shrink the liver." BTW, it was not as strict as what's being done now. Little by little, doctors started adopting this procedure. I wrote to the NZ doctors to ask about the diet. They were doing a study at the time, to "prove" their theory. But part of their answer was that if patients were not ready for the diet, they didn't have the necessary self-control for the surgery. (Asses.)

Well, I still can't find the results in the literature...and I know surgeons who never have had such a protocol and have records as good or better than those Kiwi docs, so...IMHO..

The shrink-your-liver diet is a bariatric surgeons' urban legend. Not only is the proof that this accomplishes much more than giving patients the runs not easily located...but funny how none of the other surgeons I've mentioned this to have even heard of it.

Relax.

Oh yeah, post-op, I asked my surgeon about it. He said, "Your liver goes 'this-a-way' instead of 'that-a-way,' so it wouldn't have mattered."

Oh, well.

MSFlyGirl · May 30, 2005

I am currently on my liquid diet as well. I started May 23 and my surgery date is June 8. I cheated last night as well. I went seven days and had 9 more to go I couldn't take it anymore. I feel better reading this knowing that I am not the only one. Thank you everyone for being so honest.