Difference in "work" between WLS diet and traditional diet for weight loss

Hi there - I am just curious to hear from those who have gone through WLS what makes the diet you follow after surgery different from all the diets you've tried in the past? I do understand that having the surgery makes a difference in what you can tolderate eating and how much, but I know that's not only part of it. The post-op diet is very restrictive - how have you managed to follow this more than other diets in the past? Does the rapid success help you stay motivated?  I am planning on having surgery and am committed to a lifestyle change, I just want to make sure I'm mentally prepared for this to be different than anything I've tried in the past.  Any input would be helpful!

Congratulations on moving forward with your weight loss surgery.  Post this question on the surgery type forum you are having. You will find more defined information about the post op food plan. Also be sure and follow what your surgeon tells you to eat.  Each surgeon is different.

LapBand
Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy
Vertical Banded Gastroplasty
Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass
Duodenal Switch
Biliopancreatic Diversion

I had the vertical sleeve WLS. My diet post-op revolves around lean meats (turkey, chicken, pork loin), beans, lentils, and low glycemic vegetables (squash, green beans, eggplant). There is nothing that I can't eat, it's just that I'm eating so few calories that I need to pack in as much nutrition per calorie as I can get.

The one HUGE difference I found post-op is that I don't have cravings for anything anymore. Before surgery, I knew that I'd be hungry every 2 hours or so. So not only would I be eating huge meals, but they would not stick with me for more than 2 hours. Post-op, I don't feel any need to eat. I eat when my stomach growls at me or if it's time to eat. My hunger doesn't control me anymore.

I can get really sick if I don't follow the RNY diet. And even if I don't get sick I get such a bad gas (and pain and abdominal cramps) for 2-3 days after eating food that I am not suppose to - that after a while - when i look at some food - all I can see (and smell) are the side effects..  is 5-10 min worth of pleasure of eating some food worth 2-3 days of really feeling badly? not for me.. 

To me RNY is like negative and positive reinforcement in one - I look good now, and if I eat bad things I can feel like crap for 2-3 days... 

The post-op diet varies according to the form of WLS you choose to have. I chose the DS, and my post-op 'diet' most certainly is NOT 'very restrictive'. I can eat all the protein and fat I can hold, and a moderate amount of carbs, both complex and simple.

I actually NEED to eat at least 125 grams of protein every day, and I don't count fat at all. When I was actively trying to lose weight, I kept my carbs as low as I comfortably could---generally below 100 grams a day. (And believe me, when you're eating 125+ grams of protein and unlimited fat, you have neither the desire nor the room to eat more carbs than that.)

I was sick and tired of dieting. I was 45 years old, and I'd been on one diet or another for about 35 years. I DID NOT WANT TO DIET EVER AGAIN. So I chose the form of WLS that best suited the way I wanted to eat for the rest of my life. It's very easy for me to 'stick to the diet', because the 'diet' is way I prefer to eat.

For breakfast I'll have a half-pound of bacon, or a couple of eggs and some sausage, or a two-egg omlette with sausage, cheese, and veggies. Or leftover steak from last night's dinner, or chicken, or...you get the idea. Lunch will be something like a pork chop and part of a baked potato, or a hamburger steak and salad, or sometimes a sandwich---heavy on the meat and cheese, light on the bread. Dinner will be perhaps a steak, a salad, part of a baked potato, a roll, and *maybe* some dessert. Throughout the day I'll snack on cheese, nuts, deli meats, etc., for a total of 2500-3000 calories---but because of my DS, I'll only absorb roughly half the protein, 60% of the complex carbs, and 20% of the fat. (Alas, simple carbs are absorbed at nearly 100%, no matter what surgery you have. Everybody has to watch those.)

Best damned 'diet' I've ever been on. (*grin*) And with my DS, eating this way has allowed me to lose 170+ pounds, and KEEP them off for nearly 8.5 years now. (My ten-year anniversary will be 12/11/13, and it took me about 18 months to lose the weight.)

After my first WLS I thought it was a license to eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight, and it did work that way for a while but after several years I found myself with a large regain and I wound up doing what I always had to do before to lose weight, 3 meals a day, no sugar and no refined carbs, reasonable amounts, kind of a modified Atkins.  That is when it hit me that if I wanted to lose weight after WLS I had to eat the same way I did before I had WLS to lose weight and I asked myself why I went through all that pain and trouble to have surgery if it meant I still had to watch what I ate.  I really did live in a fantasy world where I thought WLS meant never having to diet again and for some that may be true but I doubt they are in the majority.  Of course I was depressed because if I was capable of staying on a diet I never would have had WLS in the first place.

After my revision I experienced restriction for the first time.  I also experienced freedom from that all consuming hunger I always had and I felt, perhaps for the first time in my life, what it was to be comfortably satisfied with a meal, not too stuffed or not enough.  I almost always ate until I was too full.  I seemed to have a subconscious fear of hunger and I would do anything to stave that off.  I often would eat a full meal before going out to eat so I wouldn't get too hungry.

So I guess the answer to your question, for me is that there isn't too much difference in the way I ate before WLS (to lose weight or keep it off) and the way I eat after surgery.  The difference is I am able to stick to that way of eating, over 3 years now for me, because I have a tool that addresses the problems I had before in sticking with a healthy way of eating.  I no longer am a volume eater because I get so sick and uncomfortable when I eat too much that I am physically unable to take another bite.  I can't just keep shoveling food in until it is all gone.  When I am done I am done and there is no one more bite.  Because my hunger is completely different then before I can plan meals and not eat impulsively at the first inkling that I may get hungry.  My hunger is a reminder to eat, not a full blown emergency that needs to be taken care of right away.  Those are the tools that have helped me so far, as long as I continue to use them.

I have an RNY. You have to be committed to a new lifestyle of eating. As others have said. Protein and then veg/fruit. You only eat 1 to 1 1/2 cups of food ever. Initially you do not have feelings of hunger. If you work it right by the time the hunger and cravings come back you will have a good routine. I am at goal and work to stay there. If I am up a few pounds I make sure my diet is corrected to bring it back in line.

I understand from people further out this will be a life long adjustment.

Because with a traditional diet, I would lose and then regain.

Now, I lost FAR more than I ever dreamed possible and kept off all but about 20 lbs. I purposely went as low as I could cause I knew bounce back was real.

I am eating basically the same way NOW that I did pre-op for my diabetes...yet I never lost more than 20 lbs pre-op.

As others have said, it depends on the surgery. For me, I could always lose weight but not keep it off. For me, th difference has been that the restriction in food has been in quantity  not content. When I was in the losing phases, I made healthy choice about 80% of the time. Now it is less than that. But I eat all foods, just less of them. Pre- op diets, I felt deprived. Now I don't. 

The biggest difference to me is that what didn't work pre-op works like a charm post-op