fisher1000

I went to the doctor's office last night for a nutrition/fitness seminar, which is the last visit before my surgery on 9/24. Someone on another thread asked me to post what I would have to do before surgery, so here it is:

It is very basic, but I have to eat a regular breakfast and then eat light for the day before the surgery, having a dose of Milk of Magnesia around 5:00 pm and then nothing after midnight. That's it.

I'm a month out and I've decided that a little self-imposed restrictions might be in order. For two weeks, I've been doing liquids only during the day (Ensure, Glucerna, Protein Powder and milk, broths, Crystal Light [the Target brand of Peach tea is my favorite], etc.) then having dinner. I've also had a couple of days where I've had snacks in the late afternoon, when I've been ravenous, but otherwise, I've been okay with this plan. (And I've lost 7 pounds already!) I've also noticed that rich foods are not going down as well either...we had a pasta dish last night with a seafood and cream sauce and I was in the bathroom a 1/2 hour later!

The 3 or 4 days before the surgery, I think I'm going to liquids only. I don't want to have a whole bunch of poop problems in the hospital.

After the surgery, they gave me the diet that I've seen everywhere else: Clear liquids, then full liquids, then Purees, then soft foods, then regular diet after a few weeks.

They asked me to buy and start taking the OptiSource vitamin (which they let us sample last night and I thought were great---hopefully there will not be a problem taking them 4 times a day). They also gave us samples of Glucerna and Unjury powder and told everyone to sample some different types of high protein drinks. I've been drinking the Ensure and Glucerna, but they have an awful lot of carbs in them, so I'm not sure that I'll be drinking those immediately after surgery, but maybe a couple of weeks later.

We also had to sit through an exercise class where we sat on an exercise ball and tried to sit up straight and maintain balance. I walk everyday with our baby and thought I wouldn't have any trouble with that, but when I sat up straight I could feel it in my thighs and stomach...it was more difficult than I thought!

That's what's going on so far. I'm waiting for the hospital to call with an appointment for pre-surgical screening, and then one more appointment with my Primary care physician and I go to surgery.

Toony

Thanks for posting your path! It's interesting to see how different surgeons come up with their plans... I think you're wise to make changes now - should make the weeks following surgery a little easier on you!

Interesting about sitting on the exercise balls... Are you gonna get one for home?

Toony

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Deirdrea

Sounds like you're all set! Congratulations! Thats awesome that you're already starting to do some weight loss and shakes etc. It'll just make it easier on the other end.

I would be VERY careful about what shakes you choose for post op. The program I went through used HMR products which are designed for gastric bypass patients. I know that our dietitian says to avoid Ensure because they will probably make you dump.

The general rules of thumb that we were given was foods with 3 grams of fat per 100 calories or foods with more then 30 grams of carbs per serving.

Hope that everything goes really smooth and you have as painfree a recovery as possible

fisher1000

Toony,

I think I am going to buy one. They aren't that expensive and I can sit on it while I watch TV. My wife also bought a GAIAM chair, which is basically an exercise ball on wheels to use as my office chair. You can see what one looks like here: GAIAM CHAIR (at Amazon.com)

The chair's ball is smaller, but it supports me at close to 400 pounds, I'm going to buy a larger one to exercise with.

-Mike