The Road to Transformation - My Journey to Weightloss Surgery and Beyond

Episode 4 - The Liver Reducing Diet, Surgery Day, and Coming Home

• Amy Mandelj • Episode 4

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In this powerful episode of The Road to Transformation, Amy takes you through the emotional and practical journey of preparing for her weight loss surgery. From choosing the liver reducing diet and navigating NHS surgery scheduling around her family and business, to the challenges of anaesthetic recovery and waking up in intensive care—Amy shares it all with honesty and heart. Learn what the liver reducing diet really involves, how she prepped her home for recovery, and what happened on the big day. If you’re approaching surgery yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode is packed with real-life tips, insights, and support.

🔹 Inside the liver reducing diet
 🔹 The emotional prep for surgery
 🔹 Surgery day logistics and recovery
 🔹 Top tips to ease gas pain and sickness
 🔹 What Amy wishes she’d known beforehand

🎧 Tune in, subscribe, and don’t forget to join the supportive community in our Facebook group: Our Road to Transformation! Our journey to weightloss and beyond!

Amy Mandelj:

Hello and welcome to the Road to Transformation my journey to weight loss surgery and beyond. I am your host, Amy Mandelj, and this podcast series will walk you through my journey to weight loss surgery, from deciding to ask the GP for help right the way through to my surgery day and all the steps in between and, of course, the progress beyond surgery.

Amy Mandelj:

Hello and welcome back to the Road to Transformation my journey to weight loss surgery and beyond. In the last episode we covered what you're likely to find in the level four weight management program on the NHS. In this episode we're going to move on to the liver reducing diet and fully preparing surgery. So I had my phone call at some point in November. My group session was the 31st of October, so I knew surgery was going to be around the end of November, beginning of December. I had my phone call and was advised they had a date available for the 4th of December. Due to us having a crystal business Christmas is our busiest time so I made the request. If they had a different date, you are allowed to change your surgery twice, I believe, before you get kicked off the list. So I phoned back and asked the question, obviously if there hadn't have been any other dates available, I'd have gone with the 4th of December. That wasn't an issue. But because the crystals business is my 13 year old sons, I needed to prioritize the business over myself. Um. So when I phoned them back, they said they had a date of the 9th of december, which was perfect. Um, but they couldn't guarantee that it'd definitely go ahead, basically because of holidays, because of cancer patients. So the surgeons that do the bariatric or weight loss surgeries, are the surgeons that look after the cancer patients and remove cancer. So of course they're going to be prioritised and that is absolutely fine. So I knew that the liver reducing diet was going to start on the 25th of November. I'd prepared myself for Christmas being out the window and we'd made plans as a family to do Christmas beforehand so I could actually take part and have Christmas dinner.

Amy Mandelj:

So in the group session they go through the liver reducing diet options. I chose the shakes option simply because I'm rubbish when it comes to weighing and measuring. And on the liver reducing diet, you're only allowed 800 calories per day and within that you have to have, I want to say, 60 grams of protein. It might be 80 grams of protein, pretty sure it's 60 anyway. You have to have a large amount of protein within your daily intake and I didn't quite trust myself with the food. I didn't want to start eating something on a small plate and my mind going no, you're still hungry and struggle because you're actually eating something. So I opted for the shakes. I bought shakes in.

Amy Mandelj:

They tell you at your group session what shakes you can buy, be it powder that you make up into a shake or the pre-made bottles. I did a mixture of the Aldi protein shakes and I also ordered quite a bit of powder from my Protein Works and just mixed it with water. I didn't need to mix it with milk. Any milk you have has to be counted within your calories and sugar is a no-no. So you are allowed to sweeten, though with the Leeds one. So if you are on the list and like sugar in your coffee, maybe, find a sweetener that you prefer and make that switch. Now, no fizzy, no anything.

Amy Mandelj:

And essentially what this diet is doing, it's not necessarily to lose weight, it's to make your liver smaller and I want to say movable. It's so they can work around your liver when performing the surgery, because a lot of the surgeries are done via keyhole. So making your liver as small as possible is the best thing to do. So I started the liver reducing diet on the 25th of November with my shakes. I'd kind of tried to prepare the week before and give it a go, and I must say the first two days are the toughest. My recommendation would be if you're on the shakes, well, whichever diet you're on, keep a bottle of water nearby. Even chomping on ice cubes so it tricks your mind into thinking you're eating were a godsend. I would make the shakes and throw in a load of ice so it lasted longer, and then in between the shakes, drink plenty of water to make you feel full. In between the shakes, drink plenty of water to make you feel full. After the first two to three days it kind of settles down.

Amy Mandelj:

I had a phone call on the Wednesday, so the 27th, advising me that my surgery was getting moved and it'd be on the 16th of December. Again, not a problem. I asked if I could go on a cancellation list just in case, because cancellations can happen if people have put on weight before their pre-op and haven't lost it by the time it's pre-op time. Like that is possible. Also, there's many different variants. Like you might not need the surgery anymore because I'd already got on to day three. I was halfway through day three. I'd mentally prepared myself and everything for the liver reducing diet. I I opted to stay on it for longer. So I had an extra week purely hoping that a cancellation cropped up and I didn't then have to worry that I wasn't prepared. I was in the right headspace to crack on and do it. So the date had moved to the 16th of December.

Amy Mandelj:

So, like I say, when it got to the third week, I think, if anything, I wasn't eating enough, I wasn't getting as many calories as I should have done. I lost a stone and a half in the first two weeks of the liver reducing diet and in the third week I didn't lose anything. Now that could be that my liver was small enough. I'd got rid of the excess water, which tends to be what you lose in that first week. So, yeah, the only thing I can think is that, like I say, I wasn't having enough calories by the third week. Two shakes were making me full for the full day and my neurodiverse brain. I wasn't remembering to have the four shakes because I didn't feel hungry. But that's by the by. I might have had four shakes a day and still not lost any. So who knows? In that time I was obviously preparing for surgery. After surgery, you can on the leads plan anyway. You can only have liquid for the first two weeks, so I was kind of preparing what liquid that I could have.

Amy Mandelj:

Stocking up on various soups I didn't know how much soup I would be able to consume. Some people literally have a ramekin or three spoons and a full. So there were a lot of variants to consider. I stocked up on various soups and tried to get as much protein as possible. I also bought protein, clear protein in different flavours so I could have protein drinks to maximise my protein intake. I'm trying to think what else I did. Oh, I got some collagen protein which is unflavoured, that you can put in your coffee. You can put it in tea as well, but I didn't like the taste of that. Coffee's stronger and kind of ticks as much as it's unflavoured. It yeah, it's a strange one. So I bought that as well and just made sure that I was fully stocked with everything that I needed.

Amy Mandelj:

And then it were a case of packing my bag for the hospital, arranging lifts there and back. Now they tell you that you could stay in the hospital for two days, two nights, but they tell you in your group session they'd like to get you home the day after surgery. So I'd got all that prepared. My son's birthday is the 17th, so I really wanted to ensure I was home. And then surgery came around. And then surgery came around. I got dropped off at the hospital at 10 to 7 on the 16th and went and waited to be let into the day ward. You then have various tests blood pressure blood test. The blood test that they take when you're there in the morning is to literally make sure they've got blood stores on site in your blood type should anything bad happen. It's literally a precaution and not something to be concerned about. Your surgical team have done this millions of times and completely know what they're doing.

Amy Mandelj:

I went down to surgery I think it was half one, two o'clock, I think. We set off down for half one and the surgeon was on lunch, so we had to wait for him to get back Got laid on the bed, had the anaesthetic. I always panic and I really struggle with anaesthetic. I don't like the feeling of being pinned. So the staff let me hold the mask. They were all really lovely. And then the next thing I knew I was waking up. I think it was in intensive care. So because I've had have not sure mild sleep apnea, that causes risks, so they like to make sure you're coming round before you get moved anywhere. So I got put in intensive care.

Amy Mandelj:

I remember my mum phoning and me being like no, can't talk. No, and literally that is because when I come round from anaesthetic I feel really really sick. Obviously I was trying to be sick, because I know that that gets rid of that feeling and they weren't letting me. I dared not drink because I knew what surgery I'd had on my stomach and I just felt really unnecessary. It felt like it lasted forever and it wouldn't go away. I had pain in my stomach from the gas pain, the gas that they pump you with. So I was trying to kind of maneuver to release that it it literally it felt like it was about midnight. It can't have been. I think I was out of surgery at I want to say half six maybe, before that. Um, from what my mum's told me, she phoned at I want to say half seven. I was just like no, no, can't do it Got moved on to the ward and a lovely nurse gave me a heated blanket and just said to hold that where the gas pan was and I fell asleep and that was like the best thing ever.

Amy Mandelj:

Highly recommend asking for a heated blanket or taking in a hot water bottle or something like that, because that will help ease the gas pan. Also buying peppermint tea and things like that, because that will help ease the gas pain. Also buying peppermint tea and things like that will help relieve that as well. My main issue was the sickness coming around from the anaesthetic. When I got moved onto the ward they pumped me up with all the anti-sickness medications, so that was good. I felt like I was being heard and literally the morning after I remember the the nurses found my son with me and we all sung happy birthday to him.

Amy Mandelj:

But by the time it hit six o'clock the next morning I felt fine. I felt incredibly well considering the surgery I'd gone through. My only issue was being tired, which I kind of anticipated. That anyway. But yeah, I felt absolutely fine, started doing some walking up and down the ward trying to get mobile. My oxygen levels were low, which I think is linked with the anaesthetic and sleep apnea. So I had to stay on oxygen and they wouldn't let me off that until they'd risen. It was hit and miss if they were going to let me go home. The surgical team were absolutely fine and were ready to discharge me, but the high dependency ward something had come up. There was something elevated that the high dependency ward were concerned about. The surgical team was like no, you've just had surgery, that's completely normal, don't worry, we're authorising you to go home. So my friend came and picked me up and I was home I want to say by half four. I'm sure it was just after the school run that I got home, which were amazing, and then that's when the real fun begins. So yeah, that covers the liver, reducing diet and the actual day of surgery and getting home.

Amy Mandelj:

I hope you found this episode useful and I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye, thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Road to Trans, to transformation, my journey to weight loss, surgery and beyond. Please remember to subscribe and review if you have enjoyed what you have heard. Remember all journeys are different, but I wanted to give you an insight into my journey through the nhs. Feel free to share with any of your friends and family members who are thinking about weight loss surgery you you can also join us in our Facebook group, the Road to Transformation Our Weight Loss Journey, where you can share your experiences too. The link is in the show notes. I hope to see you next time, thank you.