There is more to tell but it's almost surgery time so lets get to it!
I'll come back to the rest... but surgery is THIS WEEK! Lets get to it
Some months ago I purchased a gastric band hypnosis programme. I listened to it every night, followed all the instructions and nada. Not a blooming shred of difference to how I felt or how I ate. Seemed to be a quick way to drop forty pounds, only it wasn't the type of pounds I was looking to be losing. My wallet was slimmer, my waistline - no. But... the subconscious is a strange and wonderful beast and I think it may well have worked but it was just sat there biding it's time deep in my subconscious until the Universal timing of all things wonderful had ticked to the exact spot where I would be needing it.
8 days into my liver reducing diet.
If you're not aware, the liver reducing diet (LRD) or liver shrinkage diet (LSD) is a pretty strict plan that the majority of patients undergoing bariatric surgery need to follow for a period of time specified by their surgeon. It seems to be loosely based on that surgeons preferences and the bmi of the patient. I'm aware of three different versions - milk and yoghurt, liquids and food. There also seem to be many variants based on the principle of calories alongside keeping protein high, carbs and fat low. I believe that there are some countries offering surgery that have a device to move the liver out of the way, and for those patients, no LRD is required. However, from my point of view, I was asked by my surgeon to follow the liquid plan for a period of 2 weeks before my surgery date. Me being me... I decided I'd do 3 weeks. In the lead up to my surgery I wanted to be doing every single thing that I could to ensure that my surgery could go ahead, and in my daft mind having an extra week of liver shrinkage would knock that out of the ballpark. Which is basically a bit ridiculous, the liver only holds so much glycogen in total and it's done and dusted in about a week anyhow. But there you go.
I was aware from a previous ultrasound scan for some left sided pain I was getting a few years back that I had the beginnings of a fatty liver, not unusual for a fat person but not somewhere I wanted to be. I joined a study into NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) a short while after, not because I was massively keen to take part, but part of the screening was a detailed liver scan and I was keen to know just how fatty mine was. And they paid my mileage. Turns out it was very mildly fatty, way too little fat for their study. Which was basically the result I was hoping for. Anyhow, somewhere in the middle of all this, it made complete sense to do my LRD for 3 solid weeks.
I eased myself into it by cutting carbs but not calories or fat for 3 days first. It did make it pretty straightforward and having partaken in shake style diets in the past, it was quite similar to these. All was going well, I was a little high with my protein at 100g a day, but at this point I had not much of an idea how much protein stuff contained - it became a revelation to me to begin to understand that I didn't need to have a single shake with 50g of protein in it cause that's a bit on the high side... I was doing pretty well, around about 800 calories each day, keeping my carbs under 70g (they advised to stay under 100g but I know from previous experience that I work better staying under 70g) and all was going fine. Then suddenly - half a shake and I felt like I'd downed a 3 course Christmas lunch and was being force fed after eight mints by an elderly aunt. I was so so very full. It was an entirely new and very strange feeling. After a couple of days I did start to wonder if that hypnosis had worked after all, or was my stomach in dress rehearsals for being much smaller than the current massive capacity it has. I was having to have "extras" just to get over the 600 calorie mark, this was so weird.
Then I got to about day 13 I think and the opposite happened. Well not physically, but mentally. I began to experience really strong desires to eat food, to chew something, to stuff my hand into a full tub of texas bbq pringles and not stop til that tube was empty. I didn't have anything but bargained with myself that I could have a low carb breakfast on my birthday. Something that was a little bit off plan but not too far away that the hard work would have been undone. Birthday came and I ordered scrambled egg, 2 rashers of bacon and a sausage, and didn't enjoy it one bit. I had some of the egg and one of the bacon rashers with a small bite of the sausage and I was done. We went out for the evening and my husband wanted a McDonalds on the way home. I have no issue with that and we went to order, and I ordered myself a big tasty. I have not a single idea why I did that and by heck, I came to regret it very soon afterwards. I didn't have the bun of course, just the burger, the sauce, the lettuce and the cheese but all the same. Oh, and I did 2 mozzarella sticks as well. Utter madness. Is what it came to tell me again at 3am. I was very poorly, very poorly indeed. I'll spare the graphic details but I spent most of the wee hours of Sunday in the bathroom. The cramping was the worst and it stayed the whole day and into the next too. There was so much pain that I think it's very likely I'll never eat at McDonalds again for the foreseeable. It threw me off course too as I intended getting everything ready to go, to check my check lists and double check and check again that I hadn't missed anything from my preparation.
So now I'm into 3 full on full time days at work before I need to get vans to garages, cats to catteries, and everything ready to be not at home for a short while. I'm very glad my husband will be with me, but the organisation required would have been considerably less if he'd stayed home! It's so weird that it's here already. I do regret doing the 3 weeks of LRD, by day 14 I was very ready for it to be over and not have to still do another week - so my top tip - just do what your surgeon says, nothing more, nothing less.
I currently feel a mixture of excitement and extreme fear. It's difficult for me to share that with others having surgeries at a similar time as I am not primarily having my surgery for weight loss (I get that sounds insane, but it's the taking pressure off my knee that is the most important thing to me, of course that's going to be achieved through losing weight but it's not my primary focus)... I feel like a bit of an outsider to that group, as friendly and helpful as they truly are, I sometimes feel like a bit of a fraud being with them when my surgery is really all about my knee.
Eek! It's the end of this week!
I shall report back from the other side once I've slept off the effects of the GA and can manage to almost string a sentence together again.