To ask how to lose half a stone in one month for op?

[ScullyD]

I’ve already lost 2 stone with mounjaro and have been informed I need to lose a further half stone in a month to get my laparoscopy op done. I went off mounjaro 2 months ago and haven’t regained.

currently I weight train twice a week for 30 mins and speed walk 3-4 times a week on treadmill. I eat fine but could be better.

i really want to do this but it seems challenging, can someone help with how i can achieve this in terms of diet and exercise?

You would need to be in a 790 calorie deficit daily. So calculate your TDEE and take 790 off the number and eat that amount per day.

I think it's very doable (if not very fun) just by heavily restricting calories for a month. Have two or three small, light meals a day, no snacks, no alcohol, lots of veg, fruit, and lean protein and fibre like tofu, lentils, and beans.

Good luck for the operation!

Google liver reduction diet - 5 x slimfasts a day will do it x

edit, best of luck with the op

@mumofoneAloneandwell thanks do you just buy slim fast stuff online?

im nervous about not being able to work properly because im starving but i really want to do this.

been on a waiting list for nearly 2 years and they said I might be taken off if I don’t do it.

Also use an app to log exercise and calculate calories - My Fitness Pal is popular and has a free version.

If you need advice for cutting calories then some things that may work include:

Cutting out a meal per day - some choose breakfast or lunch.

Intermittent fasting

Removing all snacks from the diet

Swapping full fat dairy products for low fat (AND low sugar) alternatives with fewer calories.

Measure how much cooking oil you use precisely (this can add 100+ per tablespoon)

Eat high volume, low calorie, high fibre - lots and lots of vegetables on the plate instead of carbs or fats.

Only drink water

Eradicate alcohol from the diet

I’m also wondering if it’s worth going back on mounjaro for a few weeks- they did warn me I’d never to come off pre-op

I should say I’ve already ditched breakfast since coming off mounjaro

It’s challenging as you need to lose 2 pounds a week to be certain of getting half a stone off. That means being in a calorie deficit by 1000 cals a day, which could be very tricky if your daily calorie need is low. Do you know what your TDEE is at the moment? If creating a deficit is too difficult with diet alone, you could increase your exercise daily, do lots more walking if you can.

officially you’re supposed to buy the bottles but you can buy the powdered mix and use semi skimmed, works the same

Tesco’s etc sell them xx

I also realise it may not be possible but I can only try.

the woman on the phone said their weighing machine is often more accurate than the ones at home so that made me nervous too

Tinned soups are often around 160 calories a tin (not cream ones but things like oxtail, onion soup, vegetable, chicken noodle) so if you have one for lunch that is very low calorie. Just check the tins.

What is your TDEE?

No specific advice on losing the weight, but a few days before your appointment reduce your salt intake as much as you can to minimise water retention. Good luck!

@AuntMaryMaria thanks!

not sure about TDEE, I’ll need to work that out.

wonder if I could ask my usual nurse to weigh me so I know how accurate my at home scales are. No point in doing the work for a month then finding out my starting weight was wrong the whole time!

Ask GPT to work out your TDEE, it’s really useful. Your exercise levels are good so I wouldn’t change much there. You basically need to be in about a 800-1000 caloric deficit a day to shed 2 lbs a week so if your TDEE is 2500, eat 1500 a day. Track everything on MFP, don’t drink alcohol.

The liver reduction diet took 18lbs off me in 2 weeks, but I was extremely overweight and the heavier you are, the quicker it goes. At the time, I was given a choice of milk, Slimfast or soup and yoghurt. These seem to be the main 3 lr diets. I was allowed 2 tins of Heinz Big Soup and 3 Muller light yoghurts (there were others, but I don’t recall which) per day. As this closely resembled my usual work food anyway, I thought I’d give it a go. I missed ‘crunch’ so I cheated by eating occasional lettuce leaves.

I think the idea was 800 calories a day, so you need to check what your total would be. I think Big soup is no longer on the allowed list, must have gone up in calories, maybe?

Can you look into keto temporarily until your lap?
I shifted 9 pounds in 10 days when starting and I did a rough calorie count- plenty salads, cheese, eggs and meat.

I don’t think any extra exercise will make a difference in a month only diet change
good luck

Intermittent fasting. Simply skip breakfast and lunch, drink black coffee if you need something, absolutely no sugar in it as that will undo everything. Have a big dinner. Don’t be scared of a rumbling stomach. You’ll get used to it in a few days. Stay hydrated.

This diet is designed to lose weight before an operation.

https://magazine.circledna.com/james-duncan-diet-7-day-meal-plan-can-your-dna-predict-success/

I don’t know how heavy you are but I’ve always managed to lose 7lb in the first month when Ive needed to diet (and my start point was always within a healthy BMI so it wasn’t that I had a lot to lose). Calorie counting was always my strongest success, I didn’t enjoy it but it worked.

And yes focus on diet not exercise (not to say don’t do exercise; but exercise is really about the health benefits and body shape, not weight, you could find you get hungrier if you exercise more than you are now).

It is quite doable:

Strict one meal per day during the week (weekends too if you can), minimum carbs and fat.
Keep doing the weights and the walking and add in swimming.

Calorie deficit isn't enough you need your body to spend a decent number of hours without any glucose or glycogen available so that it has no option but accept the need to metabolise fat.
It is tough at the start but it worked for me

Just to say OP I didn’t restrict myself to one meal a day (I usually only have 2 as I don’t tend to eat breakfast), TDEE still enables 2 meals if you’re loading up on whole foods and veg. I didn’t cut carbs or anything like that (I sometimes even had a Big Mac for a meal as they were only like 500cals so still enough for another meal 😂 although not recommending that as not very nutrient dense!!!)

Maybe age has an impact as I’m the young side of menopause right now, but I always found it really overwhelming when people said oh you shouldn’t have carbs, and do this, do that. For me it really was just a numbers game, I kept calories under my TDEE and the weight reliably came off.

@OriginalUsername2 I intermittent fast most days already but I think the sugary coffee later lets me down! I used to only drink black coffee so will go back to that.

It's not ideal but I find shakes & soups surprisingly ok to stick to short term. DH has Slimfast, I prefer New You. They are much more filling than they look. I would try a couple of weeks of those. Lots of water too especially when you are on meal replacements.

If you miss the weight cut off you will have to do it all over again for longer. Tap into that as motivation to get over the line.