I'm not a vet but just wanted to pass along something that I've noticed about myself. I'm the same as you trying to make some changes before surgery and one thing I was doing was making sure I was having protein with every meal. I would make myself a protein powder smoothie for breakfast and have a protein bar and a piece of fruit for lunch (most of the time I'd work through lunch and never notice until quitting time and suddenly I'd be starving) and then a regular dinner where we usually have some kind of meat, chicken or fish. I was doing that regularly for about a month and noticed that I lost almost 10 lbs without trying. The past 2 weeks I've been off track and gained most of it back. I'm sure it's having protein at every meal and eating regularly that helped lose the weight without even doing anything else different.

I agree with the advice that everybody had given here! For me, planning my meals was very important pre-op. I made a point to decide the evening before what I was having for breakfast and lunch at work the next day so that I didn't just grab anything on the way to work or go out at lunchtime and end up grabbing fast food. I decided to eat mindfully. When I was deciding on what to eat I would ask myself a few questions: "Does this contain anything that is beneficial to my body? Does it have protein? Vitamins and minerals? Fibre? Will it fill me up and keep me full? Will it give me lasting energy or will it put me to sleep (white carbs always did, and still does, this to me)? Or is it empty calories?"

Good luck!
Karen

Thanks everyone!  There is a lot of really helpful information here so now I just need to make a plan to attack it all one step at a time!

take your time and enjoy the food you are eating...

chew slowly..our clinic recommended that you chew EACH bite 25 times...and I stil try to do this almost 3 years post-op