Bariatric Surgery Orientation with Surgeon and Dietitian

I learned a lot at the bariatric surgery class yesterday.  The presenter for the class is one of the actual surgeons, and he has 11 years experience doing bariatric surgery.  He really knew his stuff.  The last 1/2 hour of the class was presented by a dietitian explaining what vitamins will need to be taken for the rest of our lives, and also the portion sizes post-surgery. The success rate for the surgery in terms of weight lost and low rate of regaining weight makes it very appealing.  I made an appointment with the surgeon for Monday, which is when I'll learn, among other things, the weight I need to get down to before surgery. They weighed all the class participants yesterday, but the amount of weight we need to lose is based off our highest weight on record at Kaiser over the past year. I asked the surgeon if it's possible (or recommended) to use a meal replacement program (like Opti-Fast) to lose the weight prior to surgery. He said he doesn't recommend it because he wants patients to learn strict portion control, healthy eating and practice chewing each bite very well. I will discuss Opti-Fast again with him on Monday, and in the meantime, I'm still keeping my appointment for with the Opti-Fast physician for Tuesday morning, and I should have an idea about what I decide to do by Tuesday afternoon, right now I'm leaning more toward surgery simply because of the much lower rate of regain.

It's really interesting. One woman in the class mentioned how people were trying to talk her out of surgery, that it was too drastic and the weight could be regained anyway.  The surgeon asked her if the people she spoke to had the surgery.  And it's true...the hesitant comments come from people who have not had the surgery.  People who have had the surgery say that it's the best decision they ever made.

Had some trouble staying on plan today.  Ate too much licorice at work.  I'm taking the remainder of the candy to tonight's poker game.  Other's can fight over the leftovers.  Tomorrow, I'll look through my binder more to get a good sense of the 1,200 calorie eating plan.  I know my portions (especially for cereal) are over the top.  I'm going to probably have to lose around 25 lbs prior to surgery, and I'd like to lose it faster than 1 lb per week.  That's not going to be easy.  So far the food I REALLY like the most that's high in protein and low in calories is Dannon's Greek Yogurt.  Like I said...more research is necessary.