"So why are you doing this?"

So today marks day 11 of the pre-op liver shrinking diet for my surgery next week March 20th.  The diet consist of 2 protein shakes a day, 4oz of lean protein and either low fat yogurt or cottage cheese as a snack.  Amazingly, I've lost 15lbs!  I know most of this is water but I already am fitting into smaller clothes and people are saying I look thinner.  The next thing people are asking me who know what I'm doing is "So, why are you getting this surgery?  If you can loose this much weight, why don't you just stay on this diet?"  Funny huh?

If over the last 60 years I could have stayed on an 800 calorie, low fat, low carb liquid diet, I wouldn't be in this situation, now would I?  Simple right?

People just don't understand.

They really don't.  Good for you on the pre-op diet.  I really struggled with it and didn't' even lose all that much weight (I think it was 4 lbs). But I knew the reasons I was doing the surgery so I had to just let everything else go in one ear and out the other.

I've lost 30 pre-op and got the question 5 times in the past two days. Sigh

I got that same comment from a nurse at the hospital right AFTER I got the surgery.  I think most people can do any crazy diet for a week or two, which is why there are so many of them floating around.  (Cabbage soup diet, anyone?)  In our case, it's a great tool for shrinking the liver and preparing yourself for post-op living, but of course it would be ridiculous to try to stay on that diet for the long term.

Maybe next time someone says that, ask them if THEY could manage to have only protein shakes, 4 oz of lean protein and yogurt every day for the rest of their lives.

My dad asked me the same thing. I can't put in print what I thought.
You're doing a lot better than I did. Congrats!

I didn't want to hear it, and knew I would, so i didn't tell people.....I did get a comment from a tech in the hospital, but, she didn't know me, so i didn't care.  I'm an "oldie but goodie" like you, and have spent decades fighting the battle.  I'm done.  It's no longer a fight, it's a plan, and I've got a great tool to use, probably one of the best there could be in weight loss.  those without weight issues will never ever understand (unless they have some other addiction). 

best of luck to you, you're doing great!!

Sophie

I've lost the same 30-50 lbs at least 6 times in the last 20 years. This is the first time I've kept that weight off for more than 6 months. I just finally had to get off the fad diet rollercoaster.

The Sleeve gave me control I never had before. If I feed it protein first, that's about all I can eat.

You still have to deal with the head **** They don't do surgery on our brains. If they did, I'd be first in line.

The nurse said this to me right before I was going into surgery - and this was at a Bariatric Center of Excellence!?

Someone asked me this question today..."Why are you doing THIS"?? I told her that just once before I died, when someone got mad at me, that they called me a skinny ***** instead of a fat ***** LMAOOO

I told people that I wasn't having surgery to lose weight as I could do that just fine but to give myself a fighting chance to keep it off as that was something I had never been able to do.

It shut them right up especially the ones who had yo-yo dieted for years.