Saturday, September 8, 2007

Appointment 1: The nutrition filter

I went to my first appt. It was with the nutritionist. It went pretty well actually. My guess is that the purpose of this appointment is to see if they think I'm capable of making the changes necessary to be successful with this band thing. She showed me what my stomach would look like after surgery using a Nerf football a band and an egg with silly putty in it. I have to say it was a brilliant visual. She even opened up the silly putty to show me a model of what my food will look like when in the egg sized stomach. We went through the protein requirements, the pre-op diet (yay hooray no liquids), the post op diet (each phase will probably last about two weeks as long as my stomach can take the next level of food). We had a lengthy discussion about vitamins. I had no idea that you couldn't just toss all of your daily pills back and once and be done. I guess this is not a good idea when taking vitamins because there is only so much you can obsorb at once. She said that i shouldnt take iron with calcium (at least 2 hours apart) and that my calcium should be taken spread out over the day. Im not really a good pill taker but Ill have to give it a try I guess. The best part of the whole thing was that I think I passed. I made brownie points for having read up so thoroughly about the surgery and living with the band and she said so. So for now all is good. My next hurdle is the nurse practicioner next week.