My journey began back in August, 2014. Even though my surgery was Mar 2015, I used the time to really get myself “ready” for this surgery. While many members of my support network did not have this requirments, I am very thankful that I had the 6 months diet period. During this preparation time, I had two goals.
- Lose 30 pounds based on the recommendation from the surgeon.
- Get myself mentally prepared for this surgery. I will talk more about this in a later blog post.
How did I lose the 30 punds? I wish I could say this was easy. Hell NO. Let’s be honest, wieght loss had only once been easy – and this was after I first lost 100 pounds with weight watchers. Other than this one time, weight loss has been a struggle. So how did I do it? I ate the same thing for breakfast every day. Yogurt and fruit. I ate the same thing for lunch – salad with chicken and balsamic vinegar dressing. If I was feeling extra hungry – I would add lots of vegtables to the salad. For dinner, polar bear and I would work on high protein, low fat and no carb recipes. I am proud to say – it worked. In 6 months, I lost 35 pounds. Yeah – goal #1 done.
My final recommendation – do you best to remove temptation. After surgery – processed foods like chips and cookies go through your stomach very easily. We call them “sliders”. This is where many WLS patients fail with their surgery. Do you best to avoid this temtation now – so that after surgery the templation is not in your house. My recommendation is to remove juice, cookies, chips and processed foods and replace with broth, high protein snacks like jerky, protein bars, protein shakes or nuts.
I have generated a checklist here to help you get started on this jouney. The specific items from this article are the following:
- Download and learn to use a food tracking application – Baritastic, MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, etc.
- Review your surgeons program and figure out what you can add to your daily life now to help minimize the changes that will come after surgery.
- Buy a food scale and start to weigh your food. Learn about portion sizes.
- Target 64 ounces of fluid each day. This includes water, coffee, tea, soup, protein shakes. Everything counts – 64 ounces.