Caribear

Yesterday Dr. Oz did another show about WLS. This one was about gastric bypass, and whether it should be available to more people (mainly diabetics.) I just happened to come across it, and my mom just happened to be over visiting me. Like I mentioned before, my mom has been very anti-WLS (for me anyway) because of what she saw on the Dr. Oz show about lap band. I was going to change the channel, but she said that she had wanted to watch it and asked me to leave it on. We watched together in silence until Dr. Oz started talking about who would currently qualify for bypass. He said that a woman of 5'4" and 200 pounds would qualify. After the segment ended, she looked at me and said "he just described me. I'm 5'4" and (a number close to 200) pounds." She was absolutely shocked that she would qualify for gastric bypass. After talking about it for a while, she finally said that it would be a good idea for me to go ahead with the lap band. I felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off my shoulders! What a relief to finally have her start to be okay with this. Lately I've been throwing myself into this physician supervised diet as much as I can. I've been eating much more sensibly, tracking my calories, working through my emotional issues, and exercising. That last one is no minor thing for me, either. Because of the fibromyalgia and the bulging discs in my back, I haven't been able to exercise like I used to. I have been doing tai chi and yoga, but was really longing for pilates. I love pilates - it was the main contributing factor in my last large weight loss success. I love the way it makes me feel, how it improves my posture, and how quickly it trims me down. But I thought that with my issues I would never be able to do it again. Thankfully, I found a program called Classical Stretch on PBS. It is a combination of pilates, stretching, tai-chi, and ballet-like moves. I watched it for quite some time before I decided to go ahead and try it. I have been doing it every day for several days now and I have to say it does not aggravate my fibromyalgia nearly as bad as I thought it would. My back, though, is not happy, and that is my fault. Instead of going slowly, I decided to go ahead and dive right in to the moves where you are required to bend at the waist and hang your head to the floor. I should have known better. My back popped, and I have been hurting since yesterday. But I do have to say that it doesn't hurt nearly as badly as it has in the past. At least this time I can walk, and it is manageable with the prescriptions that I have. So I am soldiering on. I figure if I'm going to hurt, I might as well hurt and do something instead of just sit around and be depressed about how much I hurt. I've also been practicing amazing restraint when it comes to sweets lately. Today is my boyfriend's birthday, and I bought him a frozen cake a few days ago. I made it until today without eating any, and today I have only had one piece. Now it is sitting in the refrigerator calling to me. I have the feeling that I might have to white-knuckle it until bedtime, but I WILL NOT EAT MORE THAN ONE SLICE. I have already done a fair share of prayer and gotten out my hunger tool box. Did I mention that the cake is chocolate? Oh well, off to do some sudoku...

Yup, what Shelly said. LOL!

Flaquita, this is absolutely normal. You're going to have a major life-changing operation; I would be more concerned if you weren't nervous. I haven't been banded yet, but have had other surgeries, and as I've said before I think the worst part is the waiting. You will do fine with the surgery. I'm sure your surgeon has done this many times before, and the anesthesiologist is there solely to make sure you don't have any problems. I have had my major freak-out moments too, but like Holly Dolly said, I could either risk the slim chance of complications with surgery or face a future where I would definitely die slowly and miserably. I watched my dad do that, and I don't want to put my family through it. And I know that God will be watching you and taking care of you as well. You'll be fine.

Isn't it funny how our brain can cause us to think we feel things when we really don't? One of the hardest things I have been dealing with is trying to sort out when I am actually hungry and when I am not. Someone without food issues would probably think that this sounds really easy, but for someone like me who is trying to untangle food and emotions, it is far from simple. For years I thought that whenever my stomach felt uncomfortable, it was hunger and I should eat. It has only been within the past few months that it has really sunken in that 1) not every feeling is hunger, and 2) even if it is hunger, it's okay to feel it. Funny how it has become such an alien concept that I don't have to run to the kitchen and fix something to eat every time I am hungry. My therapist has been trying to tell me this for several years now, poor thing, and as hard as she tried to tell me I just couldn't internalize it. I'm not sure what it was that really made it sink in, but now I finally get it. Sometimes my stomach feels "hungry" because I am bored or stressed. I have always been a comfort eater, so now the first thing my brain does when I feel unpleasant emotions is cause that feeling that I should eat. It's been a real struggle trying to remember that it's not actual physical hunger. I guess this is what they call "head hunger." My nutritionist offered me an awesome coping strategy for when I am struggling with that feeling and it won't go away. The best thing to do is make yourself busy with something else to take your mind off of that feeling. But what do you do, and how do you make sure to do it in times of stress? Her idea was to make a "tool box" of things that will distract you from the false hunger. She said that it could be an imaginary box, but personally I need a physical object that I can look at. The box should contain things that you enjoy doing that will keep your attention long enough to forget about being hungry. Some of the things she suggested were knitting or crocheting, puzzle books, craft projects, etc. In my box I have a sudoku book, a crossword puzzle book, and three guided relaxation CDs. I will continue to look for other things as well until I have a good variety of stuff. The box has already proven very useful, not only in helping me overcome those fake hunger feelings, but also just seeing the box gives me a sense of empowerment in knowing that I am prepared to deal with those feelings. I hope this post is making sense. It's getting colder, and that means I've been run over by the fibromyalgia bus. One of the worst symptoms of fibro (in my opinion) is the fogginess, which sometimes makes it hard to finish a sentence. Today my brain feels like it has turned to mush. Even though it is warmer today than it was this weekend, I feel worse because of the wind and the rain. My body hates any kind of weather that is not clear, calm and mild, but winter is probably the worst. My low back is on fire and my legs hurt so badly I can hardly think. But on the plus side, I found a DVD on Netflix called Healing Yoga: Aches And Pains that seems to be helping somewhat. It's a yoga workout designed for people with arthritis and other pain conditions. It's available as a DVD and streaming video as well, which is really convenient. It loosened up my hips and back enough today that I could get my household stuff done without wiping myself out. I am really praying that losing weight will help me become a little more functional on days like today.

I have to say that I'm an information junkie. If I'm interested in something, especially if it involves making a major life decision, I have to research the heck out of it. I look for facts, opinions, and viewpoints from both ends of the spectrum. That's one of the major reasons why I love this forum so much - it has a little bit of everything in one place. But I have also been doing a lot of YouTube research. Reading someone's story is great, but there's something about actually seeing a person talk about their experiences that you just can't get from a written post. One of the channels I subscribe to is by a lady who goes by losingitwithrebecca. Recently she posted a video called "The Rules That Made Me FAT" which I think was a homework assignment from her nutritionist or therapist. In the video she lists some ideas and theories that she used to use to rationalize her eating habits before she had her band. A lot of those rules sounded awfully familiar to me. The video stuck with me so much that I finally decided to make my own list. I came up with twenty, but I'm sure there are more. It was an interesting experience. I had to be brutally honest with myself about some of the things I had told myself in the past in order to keep eating like I did. It helped me immensely, and in the interest of possibly paying it forward, here's my set of rules. Personally, I prefer to call them "The Lies That Made Me Fat." 1. If I have a feeling in my stomach, it must be hunger and I have to eat. 2. If I steal a bite off of someone else's plate, it doesn't count as actual calories. 3. If I'm eating or tasting while I cook, it doesn't count either. 4. Everything is better with bacon. Everything. 5. Everything is better with lots of cheese. 6. Liquid calories don't count. 7. I can eat more because I'm big and I burn more calories naturally anyway. 8. If it doesn't have nutritional information on the package, the calories don't count. 9. All salads are good for you, no matter what you put on them. 10. If it's a topping or sauce, the calories don't count. 11. If I don't finish all of something, it's wasteful. I should eat it so it doesn't go in the trash. 12. If my son doesn't finish his food, and it's not enough to put in the refrigerator, I should finish it so it doesn't go in the trash. 13. I can trust my body to tell me when to stop eating. 14. One can or bottle equals one serving. 15. If the "hunger" in my stomach doesn't go away, I must actually be hungry and it's ok to eat. 16. Eating at night is ok as long as I'm really hungry. 17. Being fat is better than dieting and being miserable. 18. I can eat just one piece of candy, one cookie, one slice of cake etc. 19. If it was given to me as a gift, I have to eat it because throwing it away would be rude. 20. If I'm craving something, it's ok to eat it because my body must need something in it. It's amazing how absurd a lot of these sound when I actually read them back. I have decided to post my list up on my refrigerator. Hopefully it will help keep me from accepting and rationalizing these things again, and so help me lose more weight.

He did a show on lapband not too long ago. I was impressed with today's show because he did have a lady who had done the bypass and lost 100+ and now has gained it all back. They made a big deal about how surgery does not fix your emotional issues. Another big thing they discussed was whether they should lower the BMI requirements to make it available to more people with type 2 diabetes, since the surgery can decrease or resolve the need for insulin and other diabetes medications. @Bert - it's funny you say that because he made a point to say at the end of the segment that he was not promoting bypass, just trying to open it up to discussion. As for the ticker, if you've already made one, you just need to copy and paste the HTML or URL code to your signature (in your profile dashboard.)

After thinking about it for a long time, I have decided to put all of my fears and concerns down here in writing, no matter how irrational or insignificant they may be. I like to imagine that a few years down the road I will come back here and read this and think "Oh, how silly I was for being afraid of that!" So, here goes... I am afraid of being one of those unfortunate ones who doesn't lose a significant amount of weight with the band. I am afraid of dying on the table and leaving my family to pick up the pieces. I am afraid of having too much excess skin after I lose the weight and having to battle the insurance company to have it removed. I am afraid of the pain of post-op and recovering from surgery again. I worry that even with the band, I will not be teaching my son to have a healthy relationship with food. I am freaked out by the idea that I may become attractive to other men, and that I will not be able to deal with any attention that I might receive from them (that one takes a lot of bold-faced honesty to actually write down) I worry that my band will slip or erode, and that I will have to have it removed or revised. I am afraid that I will sabotage myself subconsciously and consistently "eat around the band." I am afraid that my boyfriend will not know how to handle my weight loss and either leave or cheat. I am afraid that I will have to struggle so hard to lose weight even with the band that I will give up and decide to be fat and happy vs. thin and miserable. I am afraid that my fibromyalgia will get worse after I lose weight. (I have had several acquaintances with fibro and WLS tell me that this has happened to them) I am afraid that my fibro will keep me from exercising and therefore cause me to gain all my weight back. I am afraid that I will become so paranoid about gaining weight that I will become obsessive about tracking calories, and lose my joy. I am afraid of having the surgery, losing all this weight, and still dying of a heart attack at 50. I am afraid of being labeled as a "cheater" for having surgery instead of doing it the old fashioned way. I am afraid of being under the magnifying glass when it comes to people who I choose to tell, and that they will constantly be watching me and waiting for me to mess up. I am afraid of dealing with my bipolar grandmother once she finds out that I have had this done. She is super judgmental and can be very mean and thoughtless sometimes. I am afraid that some other family members might start getting passive-aggressive when I start really losing weight, as if I were competition to them instead of just being happy for me. I am afraid of losing my boobs. I know this is probably tmi, but they're already on the small side for my weight and I don't want to end up flat-chested. I am afraid of losing my promise ring. It is already starting to get loose and I have only lost 10 pounds. I am afraid of losing a bunch of weight, having my rings resized, then gaining back so much weight that they don't fit anymore. I worry about becoming seriously depressed again after my surgery. I did with the last ones, and nobody told me beforehand that it was normal to get that way post-op. I am afraid that I have already done too much damage to my body and that even after losing weight it won't heal. I am afraid of being denied by my insurance company and not being able to have the surgery in the first place. That's all I can think of at the moment. The rational part of me says that most of these are silly, and that the rest of them won't be as big a deal as I think they will. But in any case, I have them written down now so that I can look back at them in the future.

Today I went to my family doctor and started my first supervised diet visit. It went pretty well. The nurse asked me some questions, updated their files, filled out some of my paperwork, and checked my vitals. When the doctor came in, he said that he has done quite a few of these supervised diets. His way of doing them is to have me journal all of my food, exercise five times a week for 30-45 minutes, and meet with a nutritionist to discuss the actual diet aspect. I told him that I have already put myself on a diet and lost 10 pounds, so it shouldn't be a problem. I don't know if I came across as being contentious or what, but he seemed to get a little defensive and said that the nutritionist will make sure that I'm on the right diet. He seemed pretty surprised that I have to do nine months - he kept asking me "are you sure?" until I showed it to him in the packet that I got from the surgeon's office. I guess six months is the usual amount of time, but not for my insurance company. I called the nutritionist when I got home and scheduled an appointment for Wednesday, so everything is moving along pretty smoothly. The only problem I have with his instructions is the exercise part. Normally I would have no problem with this. In fact, I used to love to do pilates and kickboxing. But since I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, exercise is a little bit of a balancing act. I get fatigued very easily, and if I push too hard I will send myself into a "flare." I already go to the YMCA three times a week and do their aqua program for arthritis, and that seems to be just about what my body will handle. Flares are not fun, and a bad one can put me in so much pain that I can barely walk for about a week. But I will try to push a little harder and see what happens. One down, eight to go...

I'm so sorry you're having such a rough time. I hate to say it, but I think this is something that only you can answer. Maybe you should sit down and write a list of pros and cons regarding both being re-banded and just having it removed. I would think that a larger band would relieve some of your discomfort, but there is still the possibility that it may not. If you have it removed, will you revise to a different WLS? If you have it replaced, do you have a backup plan if your issues don't go away? If you don't revise or re-band, are you going to do it on your own? Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck.

@marydj: If you aren't sure you're making the right decision about having surgery, here's some advice that I have heard. Take a sheet of paper and draw two lines across it, dividing it into four boxes. In the top two boxes, write "Pros for having the surgery" and "Cons for having the surgery," and the bottom two "Pros for not having the surgery" and "Cons for not having the surgery." Then write down any pros and cons you can think of, for and against surgery. When you are done, you can look at this sheet and it might help you decide one way or the other. (I hope this makes sense!) If you have already decided on surgery, but aren't sure the lapband is the one for you, talk to your doctor about it. He or she can probably give you an idea of the surgery they would most recommend for you and why, plus answer any questions or fears you may have. Whatever your decision, I wish you good luck.

Congratulations, I'm so happy for you!

Agreed. Did they say why they denied you? If not, try to find out. Then hopefully you can fix it and appeal their denial. It's not uncommon for them to deny on the first try. After all, they want to avoid paying for any procedures that they can. Don't give up. It's not the end of the road, just a detour.

I'm so sorry. I'll definitely keep you in my prayers. <3

Very interesting. My personal opinion is that there are people who would prove both the nutritionist and the doctor right. Some people use food to self-medicate because they "stumbled upon" its effects on the brain, and some people have the tendency to be addicts and just happen to settle on food as their drug of choice. But I think that for the most part, it's way too complex and individualized for the scientific community to really say they know for sure if a person is a true addict or not. I love your sign. I need one of those myself.

I think they want to make sure you don't have sleep apnea, because it could possibly cause an issue if they don't know about it. I think most doctors require this, and some insurance companies do too. If it comes back positive (that you have apnea) it will add a comorbidity and may give your insurance more reason to approve you since apnea is curable through weight loss. If not, you're healthy and getting good sleep. Do you have a list of things your insurance company needs to approve you? If not, I'd call and try to get one, either from the insurance company or the insurance/billing specialist at your surgeon's office. In any case, I wish you good luck!

It's great to hear you're doing so well. I'm so happy for you

I have a sleep number bed and love it. I've had it for several years now and love that it's adjustable. But regarding the ads, I pretty much just ignore them honestly.

At the advice of my doctor, I went to see a nutritionist this past Wednesday. Well I guess technically she's a "wellness nurse" but my doc called her a nutritionist, and that's basically what she does. I was nervous because I didn't know what to expect. I guess all these years of being treated as sub-human by health professionals because of my weight has really taken a toll on me. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was very nice, supportive, and upbeat. Almost a little too upbeat. I think of myself as a generally positive person, but the people who wake up spouting sunshine just drive me a little bit crazy. In any case, she seemed very optimistic about my chances for success. It surprised her that I have already been making so many positive changes, and she was pretty happy with the diet I put myself on. I agreed to start seeing her twice a month to do weigh-ins and some tweaking to my diet. She mentioned in passing that she thought everything I had done so far would be a sign to the insurance company that I am really serious and committed. But she also said that phrase I keep hearing, "Maybe you'll do so well you won't need the surgery!" I would love to not need the surgery, and I'll definitely stay open to the idea that I might not need it, but since all of my past efforts have only gotten me to 370 pounds and frustrated, I have my doubts. There were many times that I have been serious and committed to losing weight, and some times that I did lose a fair amount, but obviously that didn't stay off. But we will see. On a more positive note, I am beginning to gain some ground in my battle against overeating. For a long time now, I have been one of those people who will clean my dinner plate, then eat whatever my son didn't finish because "I don't want to be wasteful." I've been fighting hard to break that habit, and I can say with some measure of pride that I have gone almost a week without doing that. I realized that by eating that leftover food, I am not doing a good thing. It's not all that wasteful to throw out a few spoonfuls of food. Not to mention the extra calories I was "wasting" by eating it! So that has finally begun to sink in. Can I have an NSV before I've been banded? And I've also been sticking to the rule that I set with my nutritionist - no eating after 9 pm. Period. Which was rough that first day. My stomach felt like it was turning inside out, and my brain was screaming at me to go find something to eat ASAP or I would die. I did the emotional equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling "I can't heeeeeeear youuuuu... lalalalala" and I survived! So yay for small victories, because sometimes they're the most impactful ones.

You're doing awesome! Something you might want to check out is MyFitnessPal. I started by writing the food down in my notebook, then moving it to MFP at the end of the day. It tracks calories, nutritional values, and exercise. I started out thinking it wouldn't be that much more helpful than paper records, but now I wouldn't go without it. You can print out reports to bring in to your docs, too.

Great job, you're doing awesome! food probation officer...LOL! XD

I haven't been banded yet, still going through the insurance stuff, but when I talked to one of the surgeons he had said that they generally discourage lap-band for people with BMI over 50 (I was at 59) I know too that the band is the only surgery I am comfortable with. I agree with Cazzy, you might want to widen your search a little. I think it would be worth the extra drive to have a surgeon who isn't so strict. Whatever you decide, I wish you good luck.

Thank you so much for this inspiring post, and congratulations on your success! You're doing great!

I have been worried about this too, but I think that it's really only something to be concerned about if you're at borderline BMI. Otherwise the insurance company just sees your supervised diet weight loss as a sign that you're really serious. I have been reassured of this by several different health professionals. So don't let that stop you from doing the best you can.

Ok, I've read a lot of threads about the supervised diet, but I'm still a little worried. I go to my family doctor Monday for my first of my nine months, and I am concerned that if I do too well I'll be denied by my insurance company. Has anybody had this happen or know of anyone who has? I'm not worried about getting under the BMI limit since it is so high right now, but I'm concerned that if I do happen to lose, say, 25-30 pounds, my insurance company will say "See, you don't need surgery, you've done so well with this supervised diet!" I would have liked to have done the diet with the bariatric office, but my insurance won't let me because that particular division of the office is not on my provider list. Thanks in advance!

Hi Aaron, I'm so sorry you have had to go through this. I haven't been banded yet so I can't say how I would feel after having complications, but I'm sure it's very normal to be upset. You worked so hard and followed all the rules, but didn't get the outcome you wanted or expected. I think after some time passes you will begin to feel better. Two months really isn't all that long. You need time to grieve the loss. It is great, though, that you are still losing! Congratulations on that! Even if it feels like a hollow victory right now, it is still a victory. Good luck, and I will keep you in my prayers.