Fenton

Christine! Speak to us! Tell us how you're doing! I'm imagining you sitting under a tree, gazing off wistfully over the ocean towards the horizon, twisting your damp lace handkerchief distractedly...

Also, Christine: yeah, it would be a good idea to get rid of that leftover Easter chocolate. Opportunity is the first part of temptation.

Cathy! How disastrous! I hope you feel better soon.

OK, let's all line-up and give Christine an ass-kicking! Not really. But sort of. When I met the doctor prior to banding, we discussed ways people cheat the band. I told him how much I love chocolate and ice cream, and he told me that the major way people cheat the band is with chocolate and ice cream, both of which can slip past the restriction. I have two responses to Christine's situation: 1. Please don't allow a slip-up to become an excuse for just giving in. Your slip-up lasted a few minutes - it doesn't mean the day is shot, and that you might as well just go nuts. It doesn't mean the week is shot, heck it doesn't even mean that the HOUR is shot. You slipped up, notice it and move on. It was a choice, and even if you ultimately felt overpowered by your choice, it was still a choice, and next time you can choose to go in a different direction - and you know that. 2. I love ice cream and chocolate intensely - I have an ice cream maker, I make great ice cream, I love every form of ice cream treat and dessert, I've taken many classes in chocolate, and traveled the world looking for the best. Being banded doesn't mean that my love for chocolate and ice cream is finished. Nothing is FORBIDDEN, it's just a question of managing that desire. I don't believe that two pieces of chocolate taste better than one, or that finishing a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia brings more satisfaction than eating three tablespoonsful. But you know that. The question is, how are you going to stop yourself from doing that again? If you post in here, people like me will give "helpful" feedback, and express concern, and this will, at some level, be stressful, and make you want to hide away and munch in secret even more. And that's your choice. But you don't have to make that choice, and you're capable of making the other, better one. If you haven't seen it already, I think it would be worth looking at the CAMP site that (Harley, was it?) posted: CAMP Basics The site offers several simple techniques to retrain your eating habits, and is really great, I think. At the end of the day, though, this comes down to you sitting there in front of the chocolate or the ice cream, up on the ledge, getting ready to jump. And if you keep jumping, you're going to have to ask yourself, "Why do I want to be fat?"

HEY AMANDA!!!! HOW'S THAT 'QUALITY OF LIFE' TODAY???? SORRY, AM I TALKING TOO LOUD FOR YOU??? Lise - your blog is FANTASTIC! I'm going to refer anyone who asks about the band to it. Upbeat, very active, lots to look at and think about. And CONGRATS on the weight loss! Angelic1, hang in there! Everything'll get sorted out; just be patient for a little longer!

I think brushing your teeth a lot and keeping hydrated are really important. I only had that problem in the early days after banding, when my food and Water intake were really low... You could chew gum, and I also had the occasional Lemon and Pomegranate Icebreaker, which helped.

The other day, I actually made a list of what my minigoals would be - basically: getting under 400 lbs, losing over 100 pounds, minigoals of 25 pound intervals, getting under 300 lbs, losing over 200 lbs, and so on down to my goal. Since I have a longer trek than you guys, I get more rewards! I made two columns of reward: one of the columns are physical things - I've been meaning to get more tattoos, so when I hit certain weights, I'll get those. When I hit goal, I'll have a suit made, hand-tailored, and half a dozen shirts. And every year I stay at goal, I'll have another one made. The other column is kind of tragic - it's a social column. It's about seeing people I haven't seen for a long time because I didn't want to see how they'd react to all the weight I'd put on. It's obviously much more about my own insecurities and whatnot than it is about their reactions - they'd love me either way, but I just didn't want to have them see me as I've become. I imagine some of you may recognize the emotion. SO, different weights before making plans to see old friends, old girlfriends, etc.

roster - this isn't a blog, but a message board. Conversations are divided up into forums, which cover major topics, and then subdivided into threads, which are the individual conversations. When you join a board, find the forum that's relevant for you, and take a look through the list of different threads to see which might contain what you're looking for. In this thread, we're talking about how we're going to reward ourselves when we reach minigoals. You might want to have a look at the March Master Thread, where many of us have been sharing our early experiences with being banded. There's plenty of discussions about how to get the Protein we need. FWIW, I think the breath thing might relate to ketosis, the state the body goes into when it's burning fat. It's one of the classic experiences when you're doing Atkins. It also might relate to not drinking enough. Have a look at the different threads available in the March Bandsters forum, see if there's one which more directly addresses your questions. Everyone'll be glad to help you...

First of all, Harley - save me some of that ricotta with pureed meatball! I'm on my way!!! Second of all, Michelle: YES! I burped in a meeting the other day, and it didn't occur to me to excuse myself! I was, like, yeah, bitches, that's who I AM!!! Also, MDs have all sorts of different opinions about what the pacing for the changeover should be. My guy has us do two weeks full liquids, two weeks pureed foods and then first fill and on to solid foods. The guys who've been banded at Columbia in NYC (a superb hospital) say that they try mushies the day after surgery; if they don't bring it back up, they go out on mushies, otherwise, I think they have three or four days of liquids before trying mushies again. So YMDMV...

Haha! Dr. Ren is indeed very slender and willowy! I still don't know whether to go ahead with a fill. Obviously, I'm not going to have to decide until the 14th, when I see the doc, but still. I'm losing, controlling my intake, etc etc. This afternoon I had a disaster! But wrapped inside was a triumph... A co-worker bakes the most incredible Cookies, and she takes great pains to give them to me. So I ended up with a medium-sized cranberry-pecan-white chocolate cookie, and a medium-sized chocolate chip cookie. I ate the cranberry cookie, then looked at the chocolate chip cookie; I was on a roll, and I went for it. But after a couple of bites, I thought, "WTF am I *doing* here?", and threw the cookie into the trash. And while I'm ashamed I went for the second cookie, I'm proud I came to my senses and threw it out. Particularly because I told the baker, with all honesty, that I think her chocolate chip cookies are the best I've ever had. And, Good Lord! How did I reach this tragic state wherein throwing away a baked good constitutes a major victory?!?!!!

So, last night, I had some NSVs: my sweater vest (still sounds like a weird term to English ears) has become way too big, and I put on an old one that is one size smaller. And THAT is a bit too big, too! Plus I'm now down three notches on my belt. And, FINALLY, an SV: I climbed on the scales this morning to find that I'm down three pounds since two days ago. BEHOLD MY AWESOME NEW TICKER STATUS!!!!

It actually was quite tasty, although it was the sort of dish where you felt like the chef was thinking, "Hey! THIS ought to get their attention!" Amazingly, while most of the dishes that were passed around by servers disappeared quickly, throughout the night there were plenty pork liver and heart terrine on chocolate wafers available...

I don't drink, but a number of the chefs presented cocktails. And even if I had drunk, there was such a scrum around the bar I'd not have dared approach.

I'd say it's more "lucky" than "normal", mylah! Welcome aboard! I'm liking this idea of the cocktail fork. A friend of mine is a jeweller, and makes beautiful things; I think I shall ask him to make me a special Dieting Fork.

I'm sorry, it's true - who CAN resist ground pigs' hearts and livers? Particularly with chocolate...

Oh, there was one funny dish: "Terrine of Pork Liver and Heart on Chocolate Wafers"!

I had a night of spectacular sinning tonight at a food world event. Luckily, most of the stations were serving really small dishes, so I tried everything but didn't have a huge caloric intake. INdeed, I think my date was disappointed that we didn't do a bit more marauding. I have to say that my tastebuds, so accustomed to a diet of scrambled eggs and adulterated Slimfast shakes, were kind of stunned to rediscover things like "Crayfish a l'Americaine with Watercress Gnocchi, Cockscomb and chicken Wing en Brochette" and "Poached Surf Clam Marinated in Sweet Miso and Mustard Vinegar, with Fresh Ginger Shoots, Sesame and Yuzu Zest". On the plus side, while I scooped up four little gift boxes of almonds coated in chocolate and then coated in gold, but gave three of them to my date for her kids. I did enjoy my five or six almonds, though!

I"m using a pedometer! (aka the Poor Man's Body Bug). I've been pushing it, and am averaging between 8,000 and 9,000 steps a day. It's getting easier, and the "aerobic" minutes seem to be going up, too. Which is great, if they really are "aerobic".

Haha! Frances, you're so cute!

Lisa, one trick is to keep a glass of water by you when you're watching TV, and to drink at every commercial break.

bratz'n'sharon - I'm in a similar boat to you guys. It's a month since I got banded, and I'm only down 14 lbs. And it worries me because I'm a guy, and we tend to lose faster than women. And then I remind myself that the scale number isn't just about fat - it's muscle, and Water and all sorts of stuff. I know it's IMPOSSIBLE for me not to be losing fat - my calorie intake has been in the 1200's to 1500's, and I've been far, far more active than in the bad old days of, uh, January. There's less being taken in, and more being used up, so I know I'm burning fat. And today I found that I'd gone down a shirt size. You have to free yourself from looking at progress just in terms of numbers, and start thinking more about other stuff, the so-called NonScale Victories (NSV) - changes in waistline, or arm circumference, clothing becoming loose, people asking if you've lost weight. And, maybe most important of all, you've got to notice how you're feeling: and I, for one, am feeling a whole lot better now that I'm eating less and losing weight. Or burning fat. Just hang in there - we all have bad days, we all have stalls ("plateaus"), and we just have to ride them out. What else are you going to do, go back to the eating habits that brought us here? I think NOT! That's just not an option! Just tough it out - you'll get there in the end...

A BodyBug is a $400 or so machine that attaches to your body and monitors your calorie usage. You connect it to your computer to upload your information, and it performs all sorts of tracking functions, and shows you how many calories you were using while you were watching TV, playing competitive volleyball, doing the watusi, etc. They look interesting, and I'm up for buying any gadget to show my commitment, but I'm a Mac person, and their software doesn't yet exist for Macs. Today's my One Month Bandiversary!!! And, yes, I use expressions like "Bandiversary" now!!!

Thanks - that's pretty encouraging. But my scale session today wasn't so encouraging - scale's not budged. I don't understand why I'm not losing now: I lost 11 pounds in the first 8 days after surgery, but only 4 pounds in the last three weeks. I've been the most active I've been for some time, and I'm pretty sure my intake has been in the 1500s or lower almost every day. I've signed up for Daily Plate, and will try to be stricter in my monitoring...

Reggie, you have two options: 1. Hang in there, wait as long as it takes, try to keep your eating under control and your body active, knowing that a healthier weight means a smoother surgery 2. Fly down to Mexico and get banded there. I know which I would pick! It certainly can be frustrating waiting for everyone to get their acts together, but it'll be worth it in the long run. Do you have a phone number? I know you don't want to be obnoxious, but believe me, the squeaky wheel gets the grease... Just keep after the surgeons' coordinator until they assign you an appointment. Good luck!

Yay, uh, H8! I think you might be right! The Last o' the Shrinking Shamrocks!!!