DaddyD

Man, I am worried about this too. I tend to drink a LOT of ice Water or ice tea with my food, especially when eating out. Right now it's not a problem, because I'm still having so many liquid meals, but after I'm on to normal food I'm going to have to be really careful about the whole 1/2-hour before or after thing. Also, this thread is both funnier and sorta sad if you assume we're talking about alcohol. "I JUST CAN'T STOP DRINKING. "

Most mornings I've been making a Protein shake that is very frappachino-like. It's just 1 scoop EAS chocolate Whey protein powder, 1 cup organic Silk soy milk (unflavored), and a teaspoon or two of instant coffee. Usually I'll add in a little Splenda to bring up the sweetness a little, or some sugar-free Hershey chocolate syrup. Occasionally I'll put in a tablespoon of Smart Balance Peanut Butter, which is pretty amazing -- definitely ups the calories, but it makes for a filling breakfast replacement. I'd never heard Starbucks has protein powder on hand. I've been kind of afraid to go to SB since most of what I like there is just liquid calories. Used to be always java chip frapps, but now I stick with Splenda-sweetened shaken Tazo iced tea.

I'm a week out, and I can pretty much sleep on my stomach now. Maybe not all night, but for a while.

It's completely normal. Right now your only focus should be on healing from the surgery, not on weight loss. I expect that after your first fill you will see a significant increase in food restriction. Also, if your ticker is accurate, you do not seem to have so much excess weight that you can expect it to shed as quickly initially as someone who is 100+ lbs overweight. I know that for me a BMI of ~30 is way closer to my GOAL than my starting point.

I'm 4 days post op, and decided today to switch to "full liquids". The clear liquids only was really getting old fast, and when I accidentally ate a blueberry yesterday morning packing my son's lunch it went down well. So I had a protein shake for breakfast and added sugar free creamer to my coffee. So far so good. My first post-op appointment with the surgeon isn't until next Thursday, and I expect I'll be doing soft foods by then too.

I had my surgery on Tuesday, came home Wednesday, rested Thursday, and today being Friday I feel mostly great. I really only get discomfort if I'm swallowing something to quickly, so I'm really using minimal painkillers. I move slowly and I know I still need to be careful (especially about picking up heavy things) but I'm really pleased with how quickly I'm recovering. Makes me much less afraid about Monday, when I'll be home alone with my two little boys again.

I'm only two days out from surgery, and I'm doing as well as I could have ever expected. Uncomfortable at times, but that's it. Dr. Harrison and his team did a great job, and the nursing staff at LVH Cedar Crest was awesome. They took great care of me.

My wife had both of our children with the band. It's totally doable. Just be careful about throwing up (as always) because that can cause the band to slip.

Tucker will be 3 in September, and Coltrane turned 5 months on Sunday. They're the best. And a longer, healthier life with them is one of the biggest reasons I'm doing this.

About to be discharged. Looking forward to my own bed. Not looking forward to not being able to let my boys sit in my lap for a while.

About to be discharged. Looking forward to my own bed. Not looking forward to not being able to let my boys sit in my lap for a while.

Had my surgery this morning, and have been chillin' in my hospital room all day. Just finally figured out how to log in here on my phone. Everything seems to have gone great. They're happy with my recovery progress so far. Right now I'm mainly uncomfortable and HUNGRY! Can't have anything more than sucks of water off of some sort of sponge lollypop until tomorrow. I've gotten pretty good at peeing in a bottle...

I have Aetna through my wife's job, and while Aetna DOES cover it, I had a heck of a time getting approved, because at the last minute (3 weeks before surgery, after completing a 3-month program with all the bells and whistles), contrary to everything we'd been told, I get a call that Aetna has denied me because my wife's employer put an exclusion for weight-loss surgery in their plan. I was devastated and angry. But it turned out that there just was a wording difference between the plan the company actually had, and the plan that Aetna thought they had. Yes, there was, according to the company, a general exclusion, but it would be waved if you could prove "medical necessity". But Aetna didn't have that part in their records. So, we were told they'd fix the error, but it would take a couple of weeks (!!!???). Okay. So a couple of weeks later we re-submit, and now they say "Okay, so we DO cover this, but we need to see weight records from the past two years from your doctor." I'm like, WHAT. I hadn't seen a doctor that weighed me since 2006. I managed to get THAT record, and praise the Lord they took it as fulfilling the requirement. I got official approval literally on the Friday before my scheduled Tuesday surgery. Which was, I was THEN told, too close, because the hospital needed me to come in for pre-admission testing first. Did that, and now my surgery is set for this coming Tuesday. So, long story short, yes, Aetna covers it, but make sure you know all the details.

Not quite, Jachut. Sashimi has no rice at all. You just get slices of whatever fish or seafood, arranged nicely and ready to eat. But technically, sashimi isn't really sushi at all, since "sushi" literally means "seasoned rice" and that component must be present to be sushi. It comes in three types: maki sushi (also known as "rolls"), nigiri sushi (where the seafood is laid over a small rectangle of rice, sometimes held by a strip of nori [seaweed]), and temaki (where the rice and other contents are held in a cone made of nori). To my knowledge all sushi restaurants sell sashimi, however. Whether it is raw or cooked depends on the item. BBQ eel is always cooked (hence the BBQ part of the name!), as is most crab and shrimp and octopus, unless specified as raw. Things like tuna, salmon or squid are either raw or just seared on the outside before slicing. Dang, now I'm craving sushi!

The rice is definitely the carb problem. Get it sashimi-style instead though and you cut out most of them. Unagi (bbq eel) also tends to come with a sweet sauce on them that probably adds more, but it's negligible compared to the rice. I LOVE sushi, but I've had the habit of wolfing it down in large quantities, so I'm hoping that post-banding (one week from today!) I'll be able to appreciate a small plate of sashimi even more.