Lead-up to bariatric surgery included 17 days of nothing but shakes.
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As I type this, I officially have hit the 100-pound-lost milestone.
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When I started my journey with the bariatric program, they give you an estimate of the weight you can expect to lose in the program. I remember how staggering the number seemed as it was told to me.
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I was told I could expect to lose between 70 and 115 pounds, based on my situation and the expectations. In that second, I remember thinking to myself that there was no way I could lose even 100 pounds, let alone 115. At the time, the math in my head was telling me that 115 pounds lost would put me around the 230 to 235 mark, a number I hadn’t seen since my 20s.
So here I sit almost a year later, and exactly five months post-op, at 250 pounds, 100 pounds down from a year ago.
A big part of the bariatric journey comes right before your surgery. After having been cleared for surgery physically, nutritionally and psychologically, you have a final appointment to be given your surgery date.
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At the meeting, you revisit the journey, you’re again asked if you’re prepared for the surgery, if you have any reservations, and you sign a consent for surgery form. There, you’re also given the timeframe you’re expected to be taking the Optifast shakes ahead of surgery day.
This doesn’t come as a surprise at all. You’re told very early on what the expectations are and that pre-surgery you’ll go on the shakes to help prepare your body for the actual surgery. The guessing comes in wondering how many days you’ll be instructed to be on the shakes. Sometimes it’s a couple of weeks, sometimes it’s longer.
In my case it was 17 days. My surgery was booked for Sept. 5, and I was to start them the day after my final appointment and stay on them for 17 straight days.
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I’m certain that you can appreciate the tall order that was being asked: Going from eating whatever you want, when you want, in as much volume as you want, to being asked to have nothing but four small shakes per day and nothing else but water.
Not only that, you’re asked to cut out caffeine as well.
Soooo, that night, a Friday in August, I committed to saying goodbye to solid foods for the foreseeable future by ordering an extra large pizza from Mamma Mia, a Canadian with red onions, and Diet Pepsi.
It was glorious. And fitting as pizza used to be my favourite food.
The next day, I started on the Optifast shakes.
These shakes are medically prescribed and not available to be purchased online or through retail stores. They’re calorie-restrictive shakes that provide you with 900 calories per day, plus the necessary proteins and vitamins to keep you healthy during usage. They’re available only in chocolate and vanilla flavours, but users are allowed to buy sugar-free syrups to add to them to change up the flavour routine. Trust me, taste fatigue is a real thing, and you’ll battle it extensively during the bariatric program.
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It’s worth nothing that because your caloric intake is severely restricted during this time, these shakes are meant to be taken when you’re fairly inactive, meaning you shouldn’t work out on them.
Naturally, I was working full time at the Food Basics grocery store on Highway 15 at the time, getting in 25,000 steps a day, lifting, lugging and working like a mad person. So I wasn’t exactly following the protocol in that regard.
That Saturday, I kicked caffeine and food. I even attended a wedding with my fiancee that evening, meaning I got to enjoy shakes while everyone else ate, drank and had a merry old time.
Day 1 wasn’t the worst. Just challenging.
It did get worse, though.
Day 2, the headache set in. That one you get when your body is going through withdrawal. Not only was mine going through food withdrawal but caffeine withdrawal as well. My whole head hurt. But the funny thing about these kinds of challenges is that when you find the strength to get through that one day, you almost motivate yourself to do it again. And you do.
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By Day 3, I was hangry, caff-angry Jan. My head was still pounding. I was pretty grumpy and the shakes were starting to get pretty repetitive. Looking back, days 3 to 5 were the most challenging.
By Day 6, however, the headache had subsided, the withdrawals were numb and I’d hit a good routine with the shakes that kept me feeling like I wasn’t hungry most of the time.
This was when I started to lose weight as well, as my body began to burn through my fat reserves in search of energy.
In six days, I’d dropped eight pounds. Boom. Just like that.
The shakes do many things in the leadup to surgery, most importantly shrinking your organs and putting your body into ketosis, giving the surgeon lots of room to work inside of you and a lot less of you to work with by the time you finish up the shakes.
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By the week mark, I was all in. I was free of my caffeine cravings, I was about to go under the 10-day mark and I was dropping weight like crazy.
Once I had the days of shakes down to single digits, I sailed from there. Each day, I’d be down another pound or two. In all, I dropped 30 pounds in the 17 days of shakes, bringing my pre-surgery total to around 50 pounds heading into the procedure.
That taste fatigue got pretty rough along the way. I may never drink a chocolate or vanilla shake again for the rest of my life, but darn it all, I did it!
Seventeen days without solid foods, caffeine or anything other than water and some clear broths to speak of. By the way, I’ve stayed off caffeine ever since and I’ve had zero panic attacks, my anxiety is non-existent and I have never felt more in control.
Next up, surgery day.
Jan Murphy is a staff writer with the Whig-Standard. He can be reached via email at janmurphy@postmedia.com.
For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.
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Lead-up to bariatric surgery included 17 days of nothing but shakes - The Kingston Whig-Standard
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