Damander

It appears that the requirements for different Tricare regions are different. I am Tricare Prime (south) and there is no supervised diet. I just finished my last test today and when the results come in they will be submitting to Tricare for approval. Obviously seeing as we are all different regions here, I would call Tricare yourself. They will be able to tell you exactly what is going on because none of what you are going through applies to us, so we have no idea how to help you
Good luck!

A.frikin.men! Exactly my thoughts thanks for that!

If I could just stop eating, I wouldn't need the band.

She gave me .3 cc yesterday so now I have 6.1cc and I'm not sure if it is swelling but I have restriction!!! I have NEVER felt this constant heaviness in my chest and I can feel the Water drip slower through the band..my dr says this is what restriction feels like so I am hoping that when the swelling goes down and I can actually eat solids that I still feel this way. It will definitely prevent me from over eating.
We can't give up. We didn't go this extreme route only to fail ourselves. I get discouraged but then something happens and picks me back up! I lost 2 lbs on the dr scale according to 3 weeks ago on their scale..of course it should be more than 2 lbs in 3 weeks but it is still a loss and for that I am grateful and definitely back on track. Last night for dinner (on liquids) I prepared 1/4 can Tomato Soup and 1 wedge light laughing cow cheese...I did not eat all of my Soup and only ate half of the wedge because I was STUFFED and (wait for it)...I actually stayed full the rest of the night! I had a skinny vanilla latte this morning (130 cals) at 7:30 and I am still full. I am working on my Water for the day, but I am not hungry. My head is trying to tell me I am but its satisfied with the water. We can do this!!!!! Good luck!!

My surgeon recommended Lose it,so that's what I'm using on my android - and I love it. I also have a Fitbit - which automatically downloads info to Lose it. It's a great combo - and if that's not enough, you can download data from the Fitbit to a csv file, and manipulate it any way you want!

I prefer Lose It! It's an incredible app, lets you track not only calories but specific nutrients, weight loss, etc. I love it.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fitnow.loseit&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5maXRub3cubG9zZWl0Il0.

Hi, I'm Sandy and I'm really excited - I've been on a diet LITERALLY all of my life. I know how to eat right and I don't mind exercise - I just love to eat. Really glad that I found this forum and would like to know what I should expect, how I'm going to physically feel, what I'll be able to eat (I know that I have to eat lots of Protein, but everything is different regarding what you can tolerate and portions).
Best of all, there's a place I can go where everyone is going through or has gone through what I am.

Good friends help make painful issues a little easier to deal with.

So I went through with it! I was banded 11-17 and have lost 7 lbs since Saturday! I am officially in onederland and I love my band! Good luck to everyone!!

I just got banded yesterday and I completely agree with my fellow posters..This is day 2 and I am definitely thinking "what the hell did I just do" but I still feel good about my decision! I just don't like being sore like this and not being able to pick up my 10 month old, it's hard not to just scoop up your child when he is crying for you, you know? But overall I feel ok and I KNOW why I did this. You will be fine!! Good luck to you!!

I thought I'd motivate myself to do some housecleaning by cranking up the tunes. My ITunes playlist entitled "Feel It Burn" was lifted from the kids next door & everything on it has an upbeat tempo. My favorite is Katy Perry's "Firework" -- it's a great exercise tune. Very uplifting.

After emptying the dishwasher, I elected to make 6 cups of sugar-free Jello (I am on my pre-op liquid diet). The plastic container I traditionally use sprouted a leak and began spraying boiling hot liquid jello everywhere.

Since Katy Perry's "Firework" was blaring I had been transported to a state of invincibility and it took me a few seconds to realize the bowl had the audacity to hemorrhage on a Super-hero like me. After salvaging about a cup of the liquid (will that stop up the kitchen drain?) I took an inventory of the damage.

Spurts of red dye #40 had catapulted a good six feet from the kitchen sink. The floor looked like a crime scene. The counter-top wouldn't come clean -- it seemed to be permanently stained.

By the time I tried to wipe the cabinetry, the jello had begun to gel. I don't know how b/c I had yet to add the cold Water. I guess the force of the wind cooled the spraying jello in mid-air? I also wiped fully formed jello from the inside of my glasses and sandals. Had I known making jello was a full contact sport I would have been more appropriately attired.


Only minutes before, I had totally bought into Katy Perry's proclamation. I WAS a "firework"... destined for greatness. Mid-song, I was transformed from a firework to a f___-up & I made the appropriate substitutions in the lyrics as a I sang the song and cleaned up the mess.

I hope the experience doesn't ruin the song for me. I LOVE that song.

Thanks, Amanda, but I'm thinking another blog would just be white noise. Hows about if I write anything else of any length on the forums, I'll post a pointer in my status update. That way, you'll have a head's up.
Speaking of autocorrect, my little brother sent me an email warning me about post-op gas pain due to "Ina Rickey". Since I was scheduled for surgery the next day, I immediately googled "Ina Rickey" <-- sounded like an ugly condition, perhaps related to rickets (sp?). Turns out, he meant to say "inactivity" but he was bedevilled by spellcheck on his iPhone. I felt like a real idiot. :0)
Thanks for looking in on me, friend.
/P2P

Go search for Stacey Diederich-Speager (copy and paste if you want) and request her as a friend and send her a private message that you are wanting to join the group.
Then I have a post to add your surgery date so I can add it to our little calendar thing. It's a great group of people and you will love us!!
If for some reason you can't find her, go add me facebook.com/damander and I will let her know to add you!!
Simple Simple!

I was approved!!!!!!!!!!
This is the best news ever!! Now just waiting on S&W to call me with the surgery date, but I am so excited! I have been so stressed about this but Tricare Prime South has not failed me and I got approved the first time around!
Yay!!!!!!!!! So ready to be on this journey with the rest of you guys! I am looking so forward to it!

I was approved!!!!!!!!!!
This is the best news ever!! Now just waiting on S&W to call me with the surgery date, but I am so excited! I have been so stressed about this but Tricare Prime South has not failed me and I got approved the first time around!
Yay!!!!!!!!! So ready to be on this journey with the rest of you guys! I am looking so forward to it!

Well, I finally told the 4 ladies in my office that I was planning on doing the surgery since only one of us can take off at a time and I work so closely with them, I knew they would notice..
3 of the ladies were very supportive and the other one said her mother in law had it and she was very disheartened because she feels she took the easy way out. I knew I would have some negative responses, but the easy way out? Really??
Obviously she is very uneducated about it and what really shocked me is that she said "I think my mother in law could have done it the right way and worked out and ate less and blah blah"..What is so shocking is that this girl is my age and is overweight as well. Obviously she isn't doing it the "right way" either since she isn't losing any weight. Ugh. The lack of education around here is overwhelming sometimes.
Oh well, we'll see who gets skinnier faster!!

If by getting the lap band, we were also provided with a personal trainer...just a thought.. we are paying all that money (or insurance is, whatever) for the surgery, it would be amazing if we had someone to work directly with us, one on one to shed those pounds...
Ah well..I can dream can't I?

Well, I finally told the 4 ladies in my office that I was planning on doing the surgery since only one of us can take off at a time and I work so closely with them, I knew they would notice..
3 of the ladies were very supportive and the other one said her mother in law had it and she was very disheartened because she feels she took the easy way out. I knew I would have some negative responses, but the easy way out? Really??
Obviously she is very uneducated about it and what really shocked me is that she said "I think my mother in law could have done it the right way and worked out and ate less and blah blah"..What is so shocking is that this girl is my age and is overweight as well. Obviously she isn't doing it the "right way" either since she isn't losing any weight. Ugh. The lack of education around here is overwhelming sometimes.
Oh well, we'll see who gets skinnier faster!!

200 lbs gone in 2 years. No, the band doesn't work. I work the band.

I have 10s, 12s and 14s that fit. Every company has a different idea about sizes. Just have to try stuff on!

My thoughts on this are this..we spend so much time avoiding pictures, looking in the mirror, etc. because of our distain of what we see, that we never really get a good image of where we are size wise. So as we begin to lose weight we start to pay attention to our body in the mirror and because we did not really have a good idea of what we looked like before losing our initial weight we mentally cannot compare. We see ourselves after we have lost 50 pounds as looking the same because it was after the 50 pounds we really started to look at ourselves so that is really our starting point. I hope this makes sense.

I'm sometimes shocked when I turn around in a dressing room and see my body in the mirror. I expect to turn around and see someone a lot bigger. When I'm not looking at myself I think of myself as bigger than I am. I still grab XL and size 16 when I actually fit into a M and size 10 pants. It's an adjustment for sure.
I found it helped me a lot to take a photo on the 15th of every month. Now that I am down 85 pounds seeing the difference helps my brain adjust and sometimes elevates my mood when the scale hasn't changed.