Alex Brecher

It's at http://www.bariatricpal.com/page/articles.html/_/lap-band-surgery/13-things-to-know-about-living-with-the-lap-band-r600 . You can click here as well.

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We’ve all been there, I think. You lose focus for a second, and all of a sudden you realize you’re doing something you’re not supposed to be doing. Maybe you started “tasting” while cooking dinner, or you started serving yourself from your children’s pile of Snacks in the pantry, or you went to the drive-through out of an old habit or craving. How do you handle the situation? Have you been able to stop yourself mid-moment? Or do you cave in, finish up the pan of brownies or whatever else it is you’re eating, and promise to get back on track tomorrow? If you have been able to come up with a way to cut it off or you’re good at getting back on track, share your strategies!

@@Tommy Joe, These are some deep thoughts, which is good because the decision to have WLS is a big one. @@FrankiesGirl has a lot of good points about establishing habits in the first year or so so that you can prevent weight regain Maintaining weight once you hit goal is a lifelong challenge. It’s harder for some than for others. It’s easier if you develop good habits while you’re in the honeymoon post-op phase and if you replace the role of food in your life with other things, such as different hobbies, more (or deeper) relationships with people, and more activities. I understand where you’re coming from with that fear of not being able to do it if you are still enjoying cheeseburgers. That’s where many of us came from. If you’re not sure if you can do it, maybe you can do a mock “pre-op diet” and see if you can stick to it. Maybe that will give you confidence. It’s important to weigh the pros and cons. As @@Cervidae asked, is it possible for you to be happy the way you are now? If not, that makes your decision a little easier! Good luck.

@@lupita19, Good questions. You basically want to get high Protein, low carb, low sugar shakes. They’ll help shrink your liver so surgery is safer. The exact brand isn’t that important as long as it’s high protein and low carb. Just get one that you like, and feel free to choose a cheap brand! There aren’t many “food liquids” that you can have on a liquid diet, but you can probably have Gelatin and pudding. You may be able to have juice, but ask your doctor because it’s high in sugar. Be sure you stay hydrated during this time, too! Don’t just focus on protein – also focus on getting enough fluids. Good luck with your surgery!

@@gpmed, I haven’t handled this situation personally, but I do know that it’s up to you. You asked when you should tell him. You should tell him when you want to tell him, if that ever happens. You’re under no obligation to tell him if you don’t want to. The only reason I can really think of to tell him ASAP even if you don’t want to would be if you suspect that it will be a deal breaker. If you tell him now and it turns out to be a deal breaker, you can avoid wasting your time with him. But it’s completely up to you! And keep in mind, there’s a good chance it won’t be a big deal. WLS and weight are probably not things he’s spent years focusing on like you have.

@@Elode, Great topic! Good luck as you work on prepping your meals. I am pretty lazy and a creature of habit when it comes to meals. A lot of my meals are pretty much readymade. For Breakfast, I might open some yogurt and throw in some blueberries, or cook some oatmeal. lunch could be a salad or sandwich. dinner usually involves a slab of Protein, such as chicken or fish, some veggies, and often a starch. I’m not much of a cook and try to keep it so that I don’t need to prepare much ahead of time. What I do try really hard to do is make sure I plan ahead so that the foods I need are in the house and they’re ready for me to use.

@@Hey Man, These are great questions. Unfortunately, nobody that you’ve asked is necessarily wrong. It is true that nobody knows exactly how things will turn out after the surgery. It’s a different experience for everyone. Portion control is a major, if not the biggest, problem for many pre-op sleeve (and other WLS) patients. Some patients find that the sleeve solves this problem. They really can’t eat big portions anymore because they get uncomfortably full. A few patients have an extreme response: they have trouble getting in enough calories from healthy foods, and need to turn to shakes for supplementation. The most likely is that you will feel the restriction, especially in the first year, but it will not do all the work for you. That is, you will still need to measure your portions and end your meal when you have eaten the pre-measured portion, and not necessarily when you are satisfied. There is probably going to be a certain amount of “head hunger” that remains. That’s the desire to eat even if you don’t need it physiologically. That’s something that you may need to fight forever. Chances are good that you could theoretically eat around your sleeve if you choose slider foods. I completely agree that an occasional wing or piece of pizza should be part of your life (at least several months after surgery, anyway) if you want it. There’s a good chance it will take a while for you to be able to tolerate certain foods, but chances are you eventually will be able to have the occasional junky choice and the spicy foods you love. There’s no guarantee, though. There’s also a chance spicy foods could cause heartburn. Some patients find that they are able to have a small amount of a treat, feel satisfied, and move on. Others find that they need to stay away completely to avoid going overboard. If you’re that second type, eating a few wings could turn into a big problem. If you’re the first type, you should be able to indulge the occasional craving. I think you are very wise to be thinking about “forever” and not just a year or a few years. About hair loss, you can’t really control it. You can do your best to lower your chances of hair loss by getting enough Protein, taking Biotin and your other supplements, and doing other things to stay healthy like reducing stress. Good luck with your decision! I am so glad you are weighing everything carefully and reaching out with your questions.

@@KindaFamiliar, Congratulations on your NSV! Yes, that definitely qualifies! Thanks for sharing, and keep letting us know about your NSV’s…when you notice them, of course, and you’re not too busy living life and loving it to notice them!

One of the biggest draws to WLS is better health, whether you have joint pain, asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, or any number of other weight-related problems. So…has weight loss surgery delivered on the promise of better health? Have you gotten off some of your meds and had improvements in any of your conditions? How long did it take after surgery? Share your good news here!

I love these! Congratulations to all of you who have gotten off meds, improved your numbers, reduced pain, improved your sleep, and gained mobility. That’s all worth an incalculable amount beyond “just” the amount of weight you lose after WLS.

These are some great ideas! I love how there are such a wide range of choices to replace food as the focus of every occasion and eating as a habit whether bored, happy, or sad. Exercise is definitely a great one for day to day stress management, and counseling can be a good idea, too, to help manage emotions and come up with alternatives to eating. I love the idea of spending more time on your hair, makeup, and clothes as you spend less time focusing on food. It’s not really my thing, but it just seems to appropriate to love your appearance as you lose weight and to want to work on it even more. @@Dub, that’s a great way of putting it – you spend more time living! And as you say, for better or for worse, part of living is eating when you get together with family, so it’s important to enjoy the times and the tastes, but not have too much of the tastes! @@VSGAnn2014, Thanks for all the great ideas. It’s no wonder you’ve been so successful at this! @chappex3, It will be great when you follow through on all those healthy intentions and give your best to your twin girls.

We have some great forms of Protein (Soups, Fruit drinks, smoothies etc.) available in the BariatricPal Store.

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Not sure why that topic was locked. Think it was an error, thanks!

I'm here only under the aegis of my laptop (windows 7 with firefox), never anything else. No app-y stuff for me. This link is to the message I get when I click on any of the Ignore options. I tried to copy/paste yesterday, but it wasn't happening: www.bariatricpal.com/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=core&area=removeIgnoredUser&authKey Any ideas for a solution? _______________________________________________ Shoot, even the link doesn't work. Here's the message: "Your secure key, used to verify your identify, did not match the one submitted. Please go back, reload the form, and try again." This bracketed number appears alongside the message: [#1021523.3] It's Greek to me. I switched over to IE, which I hadn't used in years, with the same, fruitless result. Your URL isn't formatted right. Go to the top right of our site where it says "Hello WLSResources/ClothingExch" Click on the gears icon: Click on Manage Ignore Prefs

When you decide to get weight loss surgery, you’re probably very careful. You consider your choice of surgery type carefully, you find out what you can about your surgeon and the pre-op prep, and you follow the pre-op and post-op diets as well as you can. No matter how careful you are, though, you can make a mistake. It can be something big, such as going with a surgeon your gut told you not to go with, and finding out that the post-op support was as bad as you expected. More likely, your mistakes will be relatively little, such as rushing your post-op diet and finding out the hard way that the rules were there for a reason! So, what is the biggest mistake you have made in your weight loss journey so far? Was it easy to overcome? Or did it have long-term consequences?

@@Martene81, Thanks for sharing. You look fantastic! Congratulations on your weight loss so far, and keep us updated.

@@her1981, I’ve often wondered how people can feel they are capable of making suggestions about other people’s personal matters, and why they feel the need to share their thoughts. At least it’s a compliment, even if it’s annoying. It’s a testament to your hard work and how great you look. If you want, and the people who are telling you to stop losing weight weigh less than you do currently, you could say something like, “Thanks, but how would you feel if you weighed 300 lbs.? Guess what – that’s how I feel, too!”

@@crazygoose, No need to apologize for this rant…you are so right! There are the fatty burgers – and not just regular burgers, but burgers with extra trans and saturated fat and calories from things like bacon, cheese, and onion rings piled on – that skinny supermodels promote. There are the Coke commercials showing sexy skinny people. There are Snickers commercials promising energy for an active lifestyle. And on and on. I love how they (the powers that be, I guess) discovered that people who cook the recipes shown on TV are much more likely to gain weight. A few days ago at the gym where every machine has an individual monitor so people are all watching different shows while they work out, there was a moment that I found rather disgusting. Every single screen had food on it. It wasn’t vegetables, either. It was high-calorie food. At one moment, there were two cooking channels (I think it’s the Cooking Channel and Food Network) demonstrating recipes, and the other channels I saw were showing a commercial for a burger, a commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, a commercial for an all-you-can-eat buffet (and they weren’t showing the lettuce and grilled chicken breast, either), and a commercial for…Nutrisystem. And I thought, “I wonder how I managed to only get 100 lbs. overweight.”

@@Cape Crooner, yes, it is a very difficult decision! Lying never feels good, especially when it is to people whom you care about or even to people whom you don’t have any negative feelings towards. It’s tough because it’s hard to just tell a select few, but like the others said, sometimes there’s the urge or the sense of duty to tell someone who may benefit from knowing. I guess we each need to find our own balance between telling, sort of telling, and not telling.

@@Inner Surfer Girl, You are a model patient! If you don’t get at least an “atta girl,” you come right back here for even more encouragement and praise than you’ve already gotten! Thank you for sharing your journey with us. You have made such incredible progress, and you really are an inspiration. You also contribute so much to this community, so thank you for that! And now, I see that you have come back from your appointment with good news. Congratulations on taking care of yourself well enough to be able to drop most of your supplements! And nice job getting onto the BMI chart! It’ll be fun to see you getting to the other end of that chart as you keep heading towards goal weight. Congrats again!

Yes, PB2 is delicious, whether you get the plain or chocolate flavor. Just make sure to measure it out, because it can go own awfully fast and those calories can add up. I am not speaking from personal experience, of course. @@dadsrebel, who’s your PCP? I want to switch to yours! Just kidding.

@@bevewhite, It’s hard to slow down! It’s naturally hard for some of us, and even harder when we’re used to decades of eating fast. You can do it, though! One thing you can do is count your chews. Chew each bite at least 30 times before swallowing, or you can even set a timer and only take a bite every 30 or 60 seconds. And take small bites, too. Maybe think about taking half of what you normally would in a bite. Put your fork down between bites You can also try to slow down by eating with people, if possible. Talking and listening can give you something to do besides going for the next bite. A lot of it is practice…you can do it if you keep working at it!

@@B_D actually…yes! It gets easier. It never gets easy, but it does get easier. As the others said, you will soon get used to it – or at least less used to the foods and habits you’re giving up. Plus, your body will start to get used to the diet so you can function a little better. And your motivation should be pretty high…you’re getting surgery! Good luck with the pre-op diet and surgery, and let us know how it all goes.