Vanishing Velez

One of the things that I am afraid of post-surgery is not having the habits now that I will need to implement afterwards. I know that it is nearly impossible to cut my diet down to what I will be eating-that’s the point of surgery-but what about everything else? Here are the 5 things that I am going to start practicing now so that I am ready for when I have the surgery.

1. Not eating and drinking at the same time

Eating and drinking at the same time is something that all of us do. In fact, in a lot of diets, it is heavily encouraged since it fills your stomach up with fluid so there is less room for food. But how many times do we do that, and then find ourselves hungry an hour or so later? One of the things about a smaller stomach is that all of the calories we consume matter. This means we really want for our food to stay in our stomachs until it is fully digested. If we drink while we eat, it pushes food through our stomachs into our intestines faster than it should. This means we are not getting the full nutritional value of our food, and results in us being hungry sooner-thus negating the point of the surgery.

2. Waiting 30-minutes before and after eating to drink

This kind of goes with #1. Waiting 30 minutes after eating to start drinking liquids again is so that we don’t push food down too fast. However, waiting 30-minutes before is also because liquids fill up our stomach. If our stomachs are full of water, there is no room for food. If we try to force food in, it has two results. 1) we overfill our stomach and stretch it out, and 2) we don’t get enough calories.

3. Chewing each bite 30+ times

This one is just weird for me, but I think that it is because we just aren’t used to it. Early on after surgery, our stomachs are not able to handle solid foods. Many of us have been on a liquid diet for a number of weeks and then a puree or soft food diet. Suddenly introducing a giant piece of chicken is NOT going to go well. On top of this, that piece of chicken takes up a LOT of space. Chewing 30+times almost liquifies our food. This not only makes it easier on our stomachs, but makes the food small enough that we can consume enough calories. An added effect is that it slows our eating down so that our brain has enough time to recognize that it is full.

4. Tracking my food

Now this might be a controversial one, but we are already told to track our protein, so it makes more sense for me to just track everything I eat. This also forces me to measure my food to track accurately. One of the things that I have struggled with previously when losing weight is that I was being very restrictive on calories. I was not eating because I was eating more calories than I wanted to. This time, tracking calories is specifically for informational purposes, and I’m focusing predominantly on my protein numbers.

5. Cutting out the things that I won’t be able to consume.

I think that this is the hardest one on the list. After surgery I won’t be able to have sugar, carbohydrates, soda/anything carbonated, or caffeine. I know that it’s pretty far out to be completely cutting things out, but it’s about time that I start. Certain things that I can start doing right now is cutting out things like carbonated beverages and caffeine. Realistically, that will probably be beneficial to me that way I don’t go through caffeine withdrawal after surgery. The carbonated will be OK I think because I can have iced tea and water. Cutting out the carbs is going to be much harder.

What I think I am going to have to do instead is be extremely cognizant of what my portion sizes are, and focus on making predominantly protein based foods. If I do this, the hope is that I will naturally cut out the carbohydrates.

Well, there you have it…the five things I need to start doing now so I’m ready for surgery. What do you think? Is this something you could do? Has anybody who has had bariatric surgery done something like this before they start their pre-operative diet?

Let me know, and I’ll talk to y’all soon!