sinda

Hooray! I knew you could do it! Also, if you have a smartphone, there are lots of apps you can download to track your distance. I really like CardioTrainer on my Android. Otherwise, you can try a pedometer or some other small device to carry with you, if that would be easier than going back to drive the route in your car. Just an idea.

Talk with your doctor. I had different band doctors with my two pregnancies (move across the country between kids), and both generally did complete unfills upon discovering you were pregnant. However, with my second one I didn't feel like I needed an unfill right away, so my doctor agreed to wait and see. I never did end up getting an unfill with that pregnancy. It wasn't necessary.

losethemess, if it makes you feel any better, chances are your baby is getting plenty to eat. There are exceptions (which is why you should be monitored by an OB), but in general the baby will take whatever it needs from you. A bigger concern would be that you would be losing out on something you need. For most pregnant women, the baby's needs are met first and the mother's needs are met with what is left. That's usually not a problem because everyone is getting everything they need, but chances are if anyone is losing out, it's not the baby. With my first pregnancy, I was still down 17 pounds immediately before my baby was born. And he was a perfectly healthy 7 lbs 7 oz. My doctor watched me carefully, and my child was fine. Losing weight can be scary when you're pregnant, but it's not necessarily indicative of a huge problem. Just discuss your concerns with your doctors, and make sure you are doing what you need to do to keep both of you healthy. If that means getting an unfill, by all means, do it (especially if you're having a problem keeping liquids down). But at this point, I wouldn't worry too much about the weight loss--most weight isn't gained until the third trimester, anyway. And gaining weight won't necessarily affect the tightness of your band, either. (Mine didn't with either pregnancy.) When you can eat again, take care to eat the right things. The things you should be eating in pregnancy are largely the things you should be eating anyway, minus a few pregnancy-specific items. Try to eat well, and you should be fine. Don't use restriction or lack thereof as an excuse to abandon what you know are good eating habits. What you described actually sounds a lot like what I experienced with my first pregnancy. Perhaps brought on by morning sickness (or "all-the-time sickness," as I referred to it), I had a slip which made it exceedingly difficult to keep things down. And I guess my take away message with that was: 1) my baby was fine, and 2) I had to get a revision four days after giving birth. It was rough, but we all made it. Talk with your OB and band doctor about this possibility. They won't be able to check for a slippage while you're pregnant, but having this possible explanation in the back of your minds may help decide how to proceed as you progress in your pregnancy.

MLR, there's a reason why you work up to it. 20 minutes may sound impossible now, but by the time you get to it, it won't seem like nearly so big a deal. And that might be the most amazing thing--the fact that you'll remember you couldn't even conceive it before, but by then you'll be ready!

Don't sweat it, MaleJaxFL. The only race I've looked at that even had a time limit said you had to finish in 60 minutes. The rest had no limit at all. If you're way short at 30 minutes, then finish in 40 or 50 or however long it takes you. There will always be someone faster and slower than you--for now, the point is to finish! Speed will come after you've built up your endurance. Don't worry about it.

MLR, it started out as enjoying it after the session was over. I loved the way I felt later in the day. Lately, though, it's been nice while I'm actually out there--but still mostly when it's over. I run outside. I did one day on a treadmill when the weather was bad, but I disliked having to constantly change the speed on the treadmill rather than just moving my feet faster. I'm not running quickly, just trying to stay jogging for the entire amount of time I'm supposed to, rather than stopping to walk. At this point I'm going for endurance, not speed. Speed will come later. I'm also trying hard not to compare myself with other people--there will always be somebody faster and somebody slower than me. The only person I'm really competing with is myself. I don't do well with heat or humidity, so I'm usually out running before 6am. When it starts getting cold and freezing over, I imagine I'll have to stay indoors if I don't take the winter off. But for now, before-dawn sessions are working well for me.

I'm in week 6 of SparkPeople.com's 5K Your Way Rookie Runner program. I'm planning on doing a 5K in late September or early October. I've never done anything like this before (always hated running with a passion), and have been amazed at how much I've been loving it. Who knew?

Years ago, I used fitday.com to track all my food. I now use sparkpeople.com, partially because it also tracks exercise and partially because it has an app for my smartphone where I can enter foods when I'm out and about. I've been extremely happy with sparkpeople. I do better with an online log, and I really like looking at trends over time. But I'm an engineer and geeky like that.

I'd say the best thing to do is act like a newbie again. Yes, you've had the band for a long time, but it's helpful to get a refresher now and then . . . and rededicate yourself to your weight loss. Consider talking with a nutritionist as a reminder--yes, you know the rules, but it's good to hear it again. Read up on band literature. Remember what worked for you the first time, and work on that again. I think the biggest thing for me when I was in your position was to let the past go. I purposely ignored the fact that I had fallen off of the bandwagon, and refused to feel guilty for it. Instead, I started over as if the band was new, and worked on doing all the things I knew I should be doing. And when the scale started moving down again, I celebrated each new victory as truly new (not "I've done this before"). I think that has been very helpful in keeping my spirits up and keeping me excited to carry on. You know the rules. You know you can do this because you HAVE done this. Just forget the stuff you've been doing when you've been ignoring the rules, and start back from the beginning. It's worth it.

It is a no-no to vomit. It can cause band slippage and other problems, especially when you're newly banded and still healing. That said, it's not terribly uncommon to feel like you need to (what lots of people refer to as a "productive burp"). If you are eating too quickly, or not chewing well enough, or are too tight (which might be influenced by things like time of day or hormonal changes), you can get things stuck in the band. When that happens, you can wait for things to pass or have them come back up. Neither is particularly pleasant. It's fairly unusual for me now to feel like I need to vomit, but that's partly because I am very careful with what and how I eat. I take my time (am usually the last person at the table to finish a meal) and chew carefully, which makes a huge difference. For me, the biggest problem is distracted eating. I have to pay attention to my meal to make sure I'm taking my time. I eat Snacks at my desk during the day, and it's usually yogurt so getting things caught isn't an issue. I also drink Water constantly (except directly before/during/after food), so I always have water at my desk. I've also learned that keeping an empty cup there is easy insurance--it's downright rare that I would use it for anything, but I like knowing it's there if I find myself in a pickle. I also never eat in the car. Combine the distracted thing with the inability to easily throw up should the need arise, it's just not worth it to me. I hope this makes sense. It's not a common occurrence, but chances are, it'll happen. It's good to be prepared. And if you never have to deal with it, consider yourself lucky. (And the pregnancy-throwing-up thing, in retrospect, was probably caused by a band slippage as much as morning sickness. We just didn't realize it until later.)

I had a slip with my first pregnancy, but in retrospect I think that slip might have occurred before I got pregnant and it just wasn't bad enough to have me really notice. I threw up pretty much constantly for the first six months of that pregnancy. My baby was small, so my doctor watched me very closely. He was perfectly healthy when he was born, but 4 days post-partum I had to have a revision because the slip got bad enough that I couldn't keep anything down at all--liquids included. That sounds pretty terrifying, but honestly, it wasn't that bad. I just got used to throwing up all the time. I ended up losing weight with that pregnancy (that's what happens when you essentially don't eat for six months), so there was no baby weight to lose. With my second pregnancy, I had no problems at all. I never got unfilled because I asked my doctor to wait to see if it would be an issue. It never was. I ate a fairly normal healthy diet throughout the pregnancy, and didn't gain much--about 15 lbs total (which I lost within a week of my son's birth--most of that 15 pounds was baby and placenta). I wasn't feeling a ton of restriction before, so I got a fill when I finished breastfeeding and feel like I hit the sweet spot pretty easily. Basically, the first time was tough and the second time was cake. Goes to show you that not only is every mom different, every pregnancy is different, too.

I wore bigger clothes for a while during my pregnancies, mostly because I don't enjoy shopping. As I grew, they were an easy fit. I also used other tips I'd read, like threading a rubber band through the button hole of jeans, to wear pants a little longer. But HeatherO is right--big clothes are big everywhere, including in a lot of places you don't need the extra room. I found maternity clothes necessary by my late second or third trimester pregnancies. I also discovered that I loved wearing maternity clothes--they gave me space exactly where I needed it and not where I didn't, and it was nice to show off a belly that was supposed to be big (rather than just big because all of me was big). Old clothes were a good way to put off buying new things, but they didn't work well when I went from looking a little extra pudgy to looking obviously pregnant.

What makes you think you should have waited?

I've been on the pill (except when intentionally trying to get pregnant) since I was 18 for non-pregnancy-related reasons. If it caused weight gain, I didn't notice it then. (I'd switch to Mirena now, but my insurance won't cover it. Maybe in a year or two.) pills have always worked well for me. One caution, though, that I think someone else mentioned: it's entirely possible that as you lose weight, you will become extremely fertile. Make sure your GYN is keeping close tabs on you, because you might need to change the dosage of whatever you are using.

I have a desk job, and make sure to always have Water and an empty cup handy to throw up into if I can't make it to the bathroom in time. It's only happened a couple of times, but I'm fairly certain I can be quiet enough that no one around me is aware of what's happening. In any case, I eat REALLY slowly and stop as soon as I'm full, and that makes a huge difference. When I was pregnant, I practically lived in the bathroom. When I announced my pregnancy at three months, our receptionist (who sat next to the bathrooms) said, "I wondered what was going on . . ."

Yes, I would do it again. I was banded just about 7 years ago, after doing a lot of research and about a year of pre-op work. I chose it for a lot of reasons, including the slower loss (hoping I'd be able to avoid skin-removal) and the fact that I was only in my mid-twenties and still had potential pregnancies in front of me. In the last several years, I've lost nearly 150 pounds, gained a relatively small amount back with two (healthy!) pregnancies wherein I totally fell off the wagon (but that's a whole other story), rededicated myself to MYSELF and begun the downward trend again. Not everything has been peachy--I had to have a revision a couple of days after my first son was born, due to band slippage--but I haven't come anywhere close to my starting weight and I know that I am better off now than I was before I got the band. I've learned a lot about proper eating and exercise, and a lot about myself. I'm happy enough with my band that when my husband started looking into it, I supported him completely. This is not something I would force upon anybody--it's an extremely personal decision, requires an enormous amount of work, and frankly isn't always fun--but I think for the right person who is prepared for what they are getting into, the band is a wonderful tool.

I've flown dozens of times since being banded, and never had any problems with the band itself. (The food on the airplane or in the airport, however, is a different matter . . .)

Hi everybody. After loosing a substantial amount of weight, I am finding myself with quite a bit of loose skin on my upper arms. (I affectionately {?} refer to them as the "batwings.") If I should have skin removal surgery it won't be for quite a while--not until I'm closer to my goal weight--so I thought I'd ask if anyone has any suggestions of ways to deal with this skin in the meantime. It makes me disinclined to wear sleeveless (or even short-sleeved) shirts, and it's been hot this summer! Does anybody know of some sort of shirtless sleeves or something I could wear over them that wouldn't make me get overly warm? I'm thinking perhaps simple sleeves I could wear under another shirt, rather than simply throwing a long-sleeved shirt over whatever else I'm wearing. Preferably something that could work with a lot of different outfits. Good idea/bad idea? Any other suggestions?

It's not just about appearances here (though, admittedly, that's part of it). Today I was wearing a sleeveless dress with nothing over it because I thought it looked better without a sweater, and I didn't care that much about the skin. This is also about holding the skin in place while I'm working out or whatever, so it's not chafing. I feel like something similar to a sleeve would hold everything in so I'm not dealing with rubbing. Surely there's got to be something out there for that?

I've had a 4cc band since 2004. I had a slip nearly three years ago, but the band itself was fine so they just repositioned it. I've just had baby #2, and am down about 100 pounds since original banding (babies have slowed the loss). The main thing to keep in mind for fills is to go sloooowly (little amounts at a time), and I always remind my doctor that I still have the old style so he doesn't try to fill me too much! I'm very happy with my band. The therapeutic range is narrow, so I'm careful with fills, but I don't have any major complaints.

I had my second baby six months ago, and I didn't get unfilled during that pregnancy. My doctor normally unfills pregnant women, but I asked him to wait and see if I actually had problems. My baby was growing well at each OB appointment, and I wasn't having problems with the band. I gained about 15 pounds with the pregnancy, and he was born happy and healthy! I got my first post-baby fill a couple of weeks ago (after I finished breastfeeding), and am again on a nice downward trend.

I was banded in 2004. I lost around 130 pounds, I think, before getting pregnant. I actually lost weight during my pregnancy because I was throwing up constantly. I had a slip (not sure if it was before the pregnancy or during it), that got much worse with labor, so I had a revision when my baby was a few days old. I didn't get any fills for a long time because I was breastfeeding. I gained some of the weight back when I could eat again (amazing how much you lose when you can't eat for 6 months), but even at my (post-op) high I was still 75 pounds under my pre-op weight. Fast forward--I've now had a second baby (he's 6 months old), I've finished breastfeeding again, and I'm back on the wagon. I'm down another 35 pounds since my second baby was born, and things are looking good. I'm excited to be losing again! I'm also REALLY glad that the band is adjustable; if it weren't, I don't know how these last several years would have played out. Anyone else still around?

Honestly, if you're looking for something to "force" you to eat well, the band might not be the way to go. Because there's no malabsorption component, there isn't the "dumping" syndrome as with gastric bypass. Something might get stuck if you eat too quickly or don't chew well enough, but that has nothing to do with the quality of food you're eating. Having the band is an enormous commitment to yourself. It won't force anything--you can sneak pretty much anything by it if you try hard enough--but it can be an excellent tool to lose weight if you're ready to do the work. I would highly encourage you to do research on exactly what this involves, and find a surgeon who has a good pre-op program so you are well educated in what you are planning. I think a good support system, and good follow-up care, make a huge difference in the success of lapband patients.