New To the Board

Good Morning, I am new to the board and just starting the presurgery weight loss. I am having a hard time giving up diet/reg pepsi. I dont like seltzer water at all (flavored or not) and was hoping for some ideas.  I am having the sleeve done hopefully in the next month or so I need to lose 20lbs to schedule.

Thank you for all your help.

Water is your best friend.  After water, there is Crystal Light, Powerade Zero & Ocean Spray has a Diet Cranberry Juice with only 5 calories & 2 carbs. 

Hi and welcome aboard! 

Carbonated anything is not allowed. Your new tummy will not be able to tolerate it and it could compromise the staple line. If you're serious about the surgery, the carbonated things need to go immediately. Also..no caffeine.  If you are into caffeinated beverages, I would strongly suggest you start cutting back NOW.  I didn't and I had a monstrous headache, in addition to the pain/discomfort associated with the surgery, for 3 days. 

I want you to really take this next part seriously. It's a real thing and dangerous to weight maintenance:  There have been recent posts from people who have reached goal or were within a few pounds of goal who began to drink diet cola again. They all HUGELY regretted starting to drink diet cola again because it resulted in fairly significant  weight gain..it became the one tell tale item in their slide backwards.  It's apparently a gateway "drug" towards sliding back into poor eating habits.  No one could really say for sure WHY diet cola triggered "relapses", but it became a trigger and it's essential that we identify triggers ASAP and avoid those things that trigger us into overeating our sleeve. 

I liked what Elina had to say about people who have reached goal and are in maintenance:

"we are obese people in remission"

I had a hard time giving up diet soda, too.  I found the more I learned about how bad it was for me, surgery or not, it made it easier to stop drinking it.  I'll still have a soda when I go to a movie, but that's about it now.

Jane

Try cyrstal light or similar products.  The dollar stores carry a Hawaiin Punch sugar free that you can add to water bottles that are good.  You can do all types of flavors.  Carbonation is a big no no post surgery, so break that habit now. 

Thank you very much for the suggestions and I also just found Sobelifewater with no sugar that I like. SO I am going to try to bit the bullet tomorrow and give soda. Soda is definitely my trigger food more than anything else. I look forward to coming to this site for great input.

I'm in pre-surgery weight loss and fairly new to the board as well. I gave up diet soda cold turkey about a month ago. I came across 4C Totally Light powder drinks (similar to Crystal Light) I think they taste great, not overly diety tasting. I never really liked any other diet drink other than Diet Coke, Diet Sunkist or Diet Root beer everything else I was not a fan of particularly juices or teas, hate Crystal Light. I love 4C they have a lot of different flavors in teas and juices and they have the to-go little packets you pour into a water bottle. I would have struggled a lot more ditching soda if I hadn't discovered these.