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Since you have decided to invest in your future with weight loss surgery, you need to invest in the necessary tools for success during the liquid diet phase. These were the surefire tools I used! You will be on a liquid diet before surgery and a bit after surgery. You need items that keep you on track. These were a huge help during my liquid stage but honestly, I still use most of them as well!

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Best Liquid Diet Products

• Soups, Soups and more soups
  • You will definitely want variety because soups can get old fast. When I first started the Liquid Diet, I only did broths. I was bored immediately, especially since I just came from a diet so poor it kept me above 300lbs! One trick I found was to get all and any soup you love and strain it. It tastes WAY better than just broth because all the other ingredient tastes are marinated in it! I also found this brand of soups that is soooo super good. If you want to try the only soup that made me feel like I was eating good on the liquid diet, you can learn more here.

• Sugar-Free Crystal Light
  • Crystal Light is a super yummy alternative to water. It’s just flavoring your water. I personally love water more than any other drink but I know many people who don’t. You really need to keep hydrated during this Liquid Diet and need plenty of water. This is one sure way to get it in. I used it as my variety (instead of tea or soda). I drank water all day and had 1 or 2 Crystal Light drinks per day.

• Gatorade Zero, Powerade Zero, ZipFizz, or Mio Sport
  • Because you are on such a low carbohydrate diet at this point, you need to substitute your electrolytes. Keeping your electrolytes up will keep your energy up as well as keep the icky “keto flu” feeling away. Gatorade and Powers Zero are great y’all but listen….ZipFizz is where it’s at!! It has all these minerals and the perfect amount of B vitamins and sodium to really make you feel human again (when you are feeling like a zombie with hardly any food in your system. There is only one place I can find it. I find my Zipfizz here.
  • I also recommend sports salts to keep your sodium levels up and the icky feelings away. You should only drink 1 ZipFizz per day but you will need to keep your sodium levels up. This is where sports salts come in. When you go low carb (as the liquid diet will inevitably be), your kidneys flush a lot of water weight. This is why you need sodium. We’re not talking about enough to hurt your health folks. We are talking just enough. These are items professional athletes use, so you can trust this.

• Sugar free Jello
  • This is one of two items that I was so grateful to have. I really missed the act of chewing on this diet. Granted it is not much to chew but it’s more then soup! Load up on this! I had 1 to 2 a day.

• Sugar-Free Popsicles
  • This is the other item I was so grateful for. Eating the popsicle felt like I was able to indulge in a dessert.

• Protein shakes
  • This is a MUST! You have to continue to get your protein in. Protein shakes are the ideal way to do this on the liquid diet. You also need to be sure that the nutrition facts match your surgeon’s requirements. Be careful to notice different brands have different nutrition facts. They must be low calorie, low fat, low carb, and high protein. My favorites were Premier Protein and Slimfast.
• BONUS if your Doctor allows it: non fat yogurt with NO CHUNKS. I LOVED this option. I needed to feel something on my tongue. Something i actually had to move around in a mock chew. Yogurt was the perfect trick for this. And better yet…you can get the kind that has protein and help your protein goal.

You’re gonna want variety!

• Listen this is not going to be easy! Go ahead and be ready. What I can suggest is to make sure you have variety!
• I had a SUPER hard time mentally adjusting to the liquid diet. I didn’t really diet or make many changes up until approval for surgery. I was still craving all the terrible highly addictive fatty foods I was used to every meal of every day. The struggle for me was not that all my food was liquid, it was the addiction to food that I didn’t realize I had. At least not to that extent. I cheated, and I don’t recommend it but I did. The important thing though is that I got right back on track after. The cheats were fewer and farther in between until finally around 3 days before surgery I was completely adjusted to the liquid diet (which was good since you have it for another 2 weeks after surgery)! Variety saved me once I committed myself though. To see any of my journey through my liquid diet on my YouTube Channel (Heatherish) Click this link (there are multiple videos).

The problem is emotional!

• You may or may not be a food addict. Either way, the additives in the food and constant poor choices in food that got us to the high weight to qualify for weight loss surgery will make you go through withdrawals. If you are like me, I didn’t realize how much I was using food to cope with EVERYTHING! My eyes were opened big time during the Liquid Diet. I took my own inventory. I went through all the emotions. The trick is not getting caught up in the feelings where you can’t separate or move forward from them.

Best Tips to make it to the finish line with the liquid diet

• Tip 1: Ingest enough protein
  • Protein fills you up. Hunger was never a problem for me because I kept up with my protein intake through shakes. That’s one less thing you have to conquer (since you’ll probably have cravings).
• Tip 2: Feel the feels but don’t get trapped in them
  • Journal if you realize you are using food to cope. Either way you will need to address the issues you are battling. Above all, remember this Liquid diet is temporary.
• Tip 3: Keep Busy
  • I work part time at my shop with my Hubby and part time marketing at home. I noticed when home I couldn’t ward off my cravings as well. When I kept busy the time passed faster and much easier.
• Tip 4: Keep Variety
  • The last thing you want to do is be bored with your already boring options! Use different flavors of soup and protein shakes to keep things interesting.

Do you have a different tip to add to this list? Submit it here to be featured in a future post.

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