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New & Hungry

ThunderWoman

ThunderWoman

Member
Hi,
This is my first ever forum post.... been creeping on lots of sites for months and feel like it is time to jump into the pool seeing as my surgery is in exactly 2 weeks (8/28/2019) and my pre-op diet began today and while I have been confident in my choice the entire way through, today I am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT lol

I know I am doing the right thing (probably) and have done more research than I care to admit so I am as prepared as I can be, but this hunger is no joke and I am riding the struggle bus right now. :confused: I am committed to following the diet my surgeon has set, the shake for Breakfast / shake for lunch / 5oz protein and 2-3 cups veggies for dinner, I know it is essential to prepare my body and mind for success but I gotta tell ya work today has been rough. I snapped at an employee today for something minor and apologized for my 'hanger', haha. Thank god my staff are wonderful supportive people! But of course I need to manage myself better. :oops:

Suggestions to keep the hunger at bay?

Also, I went down a rabbit hole of surgery horror stories and against all my rational thought I am seriously reconsidering the entire thing, ordering a large pizza and making a loaf of french toast drowned in syrup and abandoning all the hard work I have been doing for the last several months with my personal trainer! It makes no sense but I think I am in fight or flight mode and really, really trying not to flee.

Did anyone else have the pre-op panic? How did you talk yourself off the ledge?
 
I think everyone has it! This is a life changing quest you are undertaking and it is not for the faint of heart! You can do this!
Can you add things to your protein shakes like spinach, frozen banana, flax, etc? That will help you feel fuller and might make the shake last longer in you.
I don't see any snacks in there? You might want to supplement with sugar free jello or pudding just to fill the void. Ask the dietician first though. It will get easier once your body becomes accustomed to the diet. Remember you are doing this to shrink your liver so that the surgeon has an easier time in the surgery and we want her/him to have the easiest time possible!
In my experience the 2 week pre-op diet was hard day 1 and 2, then easy, then hard again on days 12-14.
Oh and drink lots and lots of water. Sf flavored waters count also.
 
I am on day one as well and I hope you continue moving forward but I also hope that if you are having doubts that you talk with your nurse or dietician someone who can help you figure out if your should continue on it not because I would hate for you to stop and loose out on seeing the wonderful new you that is just around the corner
 
Thunder, welcome to our home. We live in a state called Uncertainty.

But check yourself. Do you know the difference between anxiety & real, logical doubt?

If you are having real doubts, DON'T HAVE THE SURGERY. It's permanent & things will change dramatically. You may have some problems that never go away. Do not do this to yourself if you can live with yourself the way you are.

Me, it was like being reborn. Aside from a few whiney complaints like ice cream nauseates me, I'm a new woman. My surgeon called me the poster child for bariatric surgery. The cosmetic surgeons I consulted in hopes of having a panniculectomy said if they'd met me on the street, they never would have suspected I'd had the RYGB. A lot of people have the same good luck as me. But a lot of people have chronic troubles with constipation, diarrhea, nausea, GERD, pain, fatigue and some baldness (me too on the baldness).

Once you've read everything you can get your hands on, make an INFORMED decision. Make sure you have a super surgeon, demand the best dietician, plan for your future by stocking your cupboards, have several books of affirmations & positive thinking, join a gym maybe, and whatever else makes your future so bright, you gotta wear sunglasses.

But do not do it if you are truly afraid this will be bad for you.

Everyone's gonna love you, no matter what.
 
Thanks for your reply! I am sure it's just pre surgery anxiety. I know I can't continue this way, my doctors have forecasted a poor picture for my future without a life altering change and I believe this is the tool I need to help me do a 180. I have done a good deal of self reflection and research to get to this point and while I hope I fare as well as you did, I realize I may be one of the unlucky ones with worse outcomes. However those detractors are still better than where I'm at now. I have PCOS and T2 diabetes and knee and back and hip issues and I am missing out on things I used to love, like travel and rollercoasters and dancing and generally being out in the world. I've been working with a personal trainer for the last year and plan to increase frequency after recovery to get stronger and help me achieve those active goals.

Just needed to vent some in a space where others understand, I think I just had a moment of panic but have gotten through day one OK and hoping for a successful day two! Much calmer now than earlier today :)
 
ThunderWoman said:
Just needed to vent some in a space where others understand, I think I just had a moment of panic but have gotten through day one OK and hoping for a successful day two! Much calmer now than earlier today :)
Click to expand...

Vent away Thunder, we're all ears! You've got this. Just keep reminding yourself that this short "diet" is temporary, leading you to the tool that will help you for the rest of your life. Sounds like you know this is the best for you and anxiety is 100% normal. It's life-changing. It may help to breathe, I mean really breathe.
 
Brenda2010 said:
Vent away Thunder, we're all ears! You've got this. Just keep reminding yourself that this short "diet" is temporary, leading you to the tool that will help you for the rest of your life. Sounds like you know this is the best for you and anxiety is 100% normal. It's life-changing. It may help to breathe, I mean really breathe.
Click to expand...

Oops, post got sent before I finished. This could help: How to Use the Breath to Strengthen Your Mind - Mindful

Welcome to our group, we look forward to hearing more from you! :)
 
Day two is going much better than day one...
I called my program coordinator and she said if I was just too hungry and having trouble functioning at work, i could add a cucumber or some celery, in small quantities, in between meals to help. Wow I have literally never been so happy to eat cucumber! :)
My husband also reminded me of how strong I am and have never let anything so trivial as a little hunger get in my way so I am feeling better today.
 
Thunder, what a lovely husband you have.

I want to share a little recipe with you while we are on the subject of cucumbers. I actually saw this recipe online for pickled red onions. I slice the onions paper thin almost, then put my choice of vinegar over them to cover them. I have about five different kinds of vinegar in my cupboard and I don't remember what I use but it was probably apple cider vinegar. Then I did something my mom used to do. I took a cucumber and sliced it very thinly and put it with the onions. I covered those with vinegar as well. I put a tight lid on and shake it all up, then sprinkled it with fresh cracked black pepper because that is my mother's traditional manner. Honey, I am telling you, I ate every one of those pickled onions in dishes that I made and every one of the cucumbers while sitting on the couch watching TV at night. They are absolutely delicious. You can also make the red onions separate and they turn the vinegar pink. And the second time I made the cucumbers, I use balsamic vinegar. I also for some reason added Johnny's seasoning salt, just a few sprinkles. Some vinegars are sharper than others and they just don't taste right unless you add a little bit more salt or in some cases a drizzle of honey or something like that. It's fun to experiment with raw vegetables and vinegars. Very soon I'm going to give you all the recipe for my award-winning vinaigrette. There was never a leaf of lettuce left in the bowl after I had tossed it in vinaigrette and served it to my son and ex-husband and Friends.

I actually learned to make the vinaigrette from my old friend Bethany. She used to make a vegetable salad that I just about died for. It only contains tomatoes and onions. But the trick is you get them out of your garden or a neighbor's Garden and you do not buy them in the store where vegetables are poorly labeled and pretty much green.

Use Walla Walla sweets, the real thing. If you have a real Walla Walla sweet onion, you can literally eat it like an apple. It has only the faintest and most Pleasant taste and does not leave you with bad breath. Use your best early girls or beefsteak tomatoes. Cut both vegetables up into 8 pieces. You know how to do that. Then toss them with the vinaigrette I haven't given you the recipe for yet. She used to buy Four Monks vinegar. That was her only brand. In those days it was very mild. But when I bought it it just wasn't the same as the Four Monks she bought.

I am not so much of a gourmet as I am a woman who returned to the land. I was raised on a farm and we grew all of our own vegetables and we slaughtered a steer every year for meat and then my parents would go shoot deer and that would be our additional meet. We raise chickens from once we got eggs and my dad would butcher them in the backyard and we pluck them and Fry Em Up. My mom canned beans and beets and made pickles and my dad went up steelhead salmon fishing on the Skykomish river everyday after work. We also went clamming and had the simplest, most wonderful clam chowder my dad could make. He made smokers out of old refrigerators that he cut open and built a fire in the bottom, then laid the fish on the refrigerator racks and close the door. Of course he use cedar. But he tended to let the fish smoke too long and they were little bit dry. We pick strawberries and raspberries in the local fields and mom made all the jams and jellies. I never tasted cheese in my whole life because my mother hated it. I also never had broccoli, same reason. I learned to cook the cruciferous vegetables of broccoli cauliflower and cabbage when I moved out of the house and man, was that a revelation. We had a family friend who drove the Wonder Bread truck. Whenever he had stale bread he would bring it to us for free and that's for how we would have sandwiches and bread pudding. I actually traded with a boy at school so that I could eat his homemade bread sandwich and he could have my Wonder Bread. Sadly the bread man turned out to be a horrible pedophile who committed suicide when his kids were teenagers because he just could not take the shame anymore. And this man was in our house every single week.

I could have given you the recipe for vinaigrette by now but instead, I just rambled on about nothing. How You Like Me Now?
 
dianeseattle said:
Thunder, what a lovely husband you have.

I want to share a little recipe with you while we are on the subject of cucumbers. I actually saw this recipe online for pickled red onions. I slice the onions paper thin almost, then put my choice of vinegar over them to cover them. I have about five different kinds of vinegar in my cupboard and I don't remember what I use but it was probably apple cider vinegar. Then I did something my mom used to do. I took a cucumber and sliced it very thinly and put it with the onions. I covered those with vinegar as well. I put a tight lid on and shake it all up, then sprinkled it with fresh cracked black pepper because that is my mother's traditional manner. Honey, I am telling you, I ate every one of those pickled onions in dishes that I made and every one of the cucumbers while sitting on the couch watching TV at night. They are absolutely delicious. You can also make the red onions separate and they turn the vinegar pink. And the second time I made the cucumbers, I use balsamic vinegar. I also for some reason added Johnny's seasoning salt, just a few sprinkles. Some vinegars are sharper than others and they just don't taste right unless you add a little bit more salt or in some cases a drizzle of honey or something like that. It's fun to experiment with raw vegetables and vinegars. Very soon I'm going to give you all the recipe for my award-winning vinaigrette. There was never a leaf of lettuce left in the bowl after I had tossed it in vinaigrette and served it to my son and ex-husband and Friends.

I actually learned to make the vinaigrette from my old friend Bethany. She used to make a vegetable salad that I just about died for. It only contains tomatoes and onions. But the trick is you get them out of your garden or a neighbor's Garden and you do not buy them in the store where vegetables are poorly labeled and pretty much green.

Use Walla Walla sweets, the real thing. If you have a real Walla Walla sweet onion, you can literally eat it like an apple. It has only the faintest and most Pleasant taste and does not leave you with bad breath. Use your best early girls or beefsteak tomatoes. Cut both vegetables up into 8 pieces. You know how to do that. Then toss them with the vinaigrette I haven't given you the recipe for yet. She used to buy Four Monks vinegar. That was her only brand. In those days it was very mild. But when I bought it it just wasn't the same as the Four Monks she bought.

I am not so much of a gourmet as I am a woman who returned to the land. I was raised on a farm and we grew all of our own vegetables and we slaughtered a steer every year for meat and then my parents would go shoot deer and that would be our additional meet. We raise chickens from once we got eggs and my dad would butcher them in the backyard and we pluck them and Fry Em Up. My mom canned beans and beets and made pickles and my dad went up steelhead salmon fishing on the Skykomish river everyday after work. We also went clamming and had the simplest, most wonderful clam chowder my dad could make. He made smokers out of old refrigerators that he cut open and built a fire in the bottom, then laid the fish on the refrigerator racks and close the door. Of course he use cedar. But he tended to let the fish smoke too long and they were little bit dry. We pick strawberries and raspberries in the local fields and mom made all the jams and jellies. I never tasted cheese in my whole life because my mother hated it. I also never had broccoli, same reason. I learned to cook the cruciferous vegetables of broccoli cauliflower and cabbage when I moved out of the house and man, was that a revelation. We had a family friend who drove the Wonder Bread truck. Whenever he had stale bread he would bring it to us for free and that's for how we would have sandwiches and bread pudding. I actually traded with a boy at school so that I could eat his homemade bread sandwich and he could have my Wonder Bread. Sadly the bread man turned out to be a horrible pedophile who committed suicide when his kids were teenagers because he just could not take the shame anymore. And this man was in our house every single week.

I could have given you the recipe for vinaigrette by now but instead, I just rambled on about nothing. How You Like Me Now?
Click to expand...

Thanks! I will have to try the pickled onions and cucumbers, i do love a good pickle! Intense flavor so you don't feel like you need as many to be satisfied :)
 
ThunderWoman said:
Thanks! I will have to try the pickled onions and cucumbers, i do love a good pickle! Intense flavor so you don't feel like you need as many to be satisfied :)
Click to expand...
And congratulations, Thunderwoman on getting through your 3rd day and planning ahead to conquer the weekend.

I am an I am an habitué of New York City, Manhattan in particular. When I am there I always eat cheap at the Jewish delis. One time I was really low on cash but I would stop in to the Corner Deli and get a bialy and a cup of coffee for breakfast. But another time when I was flush, I went to the Second Avenue Deli which is considered by many to be the best Jewish deli around, even better than Katz's where Harry Met Sally.

But my experience at the Second Avenue Deli was completely unique and very authentic. I knew there was a Jewish Mama back there in the kitchen somewhere. And talk about pickles! On the table before you even started dining, where like an Italian restaurant that gives you a basket of bread, in a Jewish deli they give you an assortment of pickles.

There was one bowl of cucumbers in vinegar, very much like my mother's, but a bit more fermented, like sauerkraut. In another bowl there were whole, unpeeled cucumbers that had been brined but had not achieved complete picklehood. Then of course in another bowl were the classic crunchy Kosher dills. I think I ate more pickles than pastrami that day.

I'm believe pickles are a pretty good low calorie snack, the you need to avoid the gherkins and the bread and butter pickles because they have lots of sugar. But when I used to be in WW, I remember being so relieved that I could snack on pickles when I was hungry.
 
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