kacee

WHEW! Glad to know they haven't changed the procedures on us!:faint:

Had my first fill about 30 days after surgery. This is also when I started weighing myself daily AND logging everything I ate DAILY on my FitDay program. Many people will say they don't want to do that because weighing everyday is discouraging, but I find that you sensitize to it. It gives me evidence of the results of what I put in my mouth and I can chart it very effectively. Also, when you weigh every day you get used to miniscule moves of the numbers. I concentrate on the 10th of a pound. The actual pound numbers are secondary and when they change it's like a bonus. Also, any time I have felt unsure about my progress, all I had to do was go back and review my stats for the previous 3-4 weeks to confirm that yes, I AM still losing, and losing a pound or more a week. You'll fluctuate daily, but all in all you should be able to see a reduction. Every time I see those numbers drop even a tenth of a pound I have INCENTIVE to continue.

Follow your doctor's orders on when to start mushies. Good mushies are any soups (including creamed soups, but nothing with CHUNKS in it), puddings, cottage cheese, yogurt, applesauce, watered down mashed potatoes...anything with a baby food type consistency. (Avoid eggs for the time being. They really ripped me up, and I didn't try them until my first week of solids and they backed up on me something fierce and I have heard others say the same thing). Get yourself some protein powder to make shakes. Try the clear protein drinks such as Isopure clear protein drink which is a great filler during the day and gets you the protein you need without a huge number of calories. My doctor also considered fish filet to be a mushie. I lived on Groton's fish filets (about the size of a pack of cigarettes and comes in Cajun, Garlic and herb, lemon, etc) and it was very filling for me and gave me the impression of eating though the fish is very soft.

I believe it actually gets stuck at the opening of the pouch. The idea is for the food to work its way into the small pouch, but many of us tend to gulp our food or take too big a bite out of habit and not chew thoroughly and so everything bottles up like in a funnel at the top, which causes sliming, PBing and discomfort.

You need to really rethink as you eat. Sounds like you may be taking too big a bite, or not chewing enough. I have great restriction, but if I don't really watch myself I PB a lot because I tend to forget and take a big bite, or gulp. When I really really slow down and chew chew chew and think when I eat I don't normally have that problem. So it's not just the tightness of the band, it is also how you are navigating the eating process.

Yep, foods tend to slide through faster if they are lubricated with a liquid. The idea is to fill quickly and feel satiated for a long period of time. However, that being said, let me WARN you all.... if and when you get some food that seems to go down and stick, do not, I repeat DO NOT EVER TRY TO WASH IT DOWN WITH A LIQUID. That is a recipe for a PB if there ever was one. It's like pouring water in a plugged up toilet. Isn't going to do anything but come back up.

By the way, don't bother with the "last supper syndrome" because you will be able to eat probably 80-90% of what you ate before after the band is on....juswt in smaller quantities. You're not kissing foods goodbye...you are kissing the PORTIONS goodbye.

I had no pe-op anything either. Dr. Spivak simply said "Do not gain any weight before surgery." I looked at what other people were doing and kept my consumption down to a dull roar the week before.

What on earth do you have a bruise on your THIGH for? Were the lights out in the operating room...or did they drop you?

Your band is not working for you until you have good restriction, and that does NOT come just with placement of the band. I managed to lose while waiting to get good restriction (I didn't get really good restriction until my third fill....3 months into the process), but it was a fair amount of work. It got much easier after the fills.

That was why I opted not to do the 6 month weight loss program my insurance required. I figured they would just use it as an excuse to say I didn't need the band, if I lost any weight at all. The problem is you can lose the weight if you really put your mind to it....you just cannot KEEP it off long term. You said yourself you've done this for 30 years (so did I). I would go back and insist that you want it, if you truly do.

heating pad and gas-X...two of the greatest inventions in the world. My gas went on for a month. I ate gas-X regularly. It is agonizing, but it does eventually subside. Mine was under my left shoulderblade and running up the left side of my neck.

I think that the construction of things will cease BIG belching. I belch little belches....a LOT...and not big gulpy belches but little bubbley ones (sorry if that's TMI). I don't think there is much room for a LOT of air, and it does tend to get uncomfortable, so it comes out little and often.

The liquid/mushies stage is NOT for losing...though you most likely WILL loose mainly because it is a way of eating SO UNLIKE what you have known as a habit in the past. Yes, liquids will go through. Mushies a little less, but going through easily is the IDEA of this in the first place. Your band will not be effectively working for you until you get good restriction, so sit back and work through the process and don't agonize. You might not get to optimum for several months. You will never be what you were pre-band, but you need to take this slow and not expect overnight success. It will come.

I see people talking about how other people will treat them when they are "thin"....how their partners and family will react to it, etc. I don't really see people commenting on what I believe to be the core of the problem with most everyone... "When I am ______ (insert your word here.....thin, skinny, 130 pounds, etc.) will I finally be HAPPY with and LOVE myself?" I think that's what this really boils down to. We have all punished ourselves for whatever indiscretions we perceive we have done to ourselves, or have been done to us by others. I don't believe that ONE of us has had a truly healthy relationship with OURSELVES in this self-destructive lifestyle. And NO we won't magically love ourselves at a certain weight. This is a multi-step process. Mind and body, together. You cannot divorce the two. As the metamorphisis takes place in our bodies, we have to turn inwards and REALLY look long and hard at why we got where we got...take those bricks of thinking apart and study them carefully and try to put them back together in a more healthy way... THAT's the challenge we face....the weight is secondary, like getting rid of the symptom of a disease, if you don't address the underlying cause, the symptoms will return.

Are you logging what you eat and weighing often? I weigh every day...not expecting the pounds to fall off, but to compare the weight flux to what I am ingesting. It helps a lot and logging your food makes you hypersensitive to what you are eating. If you log accurately (and I mean, every cookie, etc.) you will see exactly what you have to do. I log whether I am good or bad and believe me, the little changes can make a difference. Also, are you eating things high in sodium? Holidays tend to bring that. I have been out of town at my brother's for Christmas and even though I could not eat a LOT, I definitely ate a lot of the WRONG things (though really small portions), and had a lot of things like ham (HIGH sodium), so when I get back in the sddle and start getting things in order again tomorrow (got home today), I know that ol scale will have jumped up several pounds, but that is OKAY considering what I have been doing.

I went to California in September to visit my nephew and my Mom and I went to his school and talked to his principal about his studies, etc. We talked for over two hours to this man (he was around my age) and at one point he asked what I did and I made some comment on my job and I said something like "Well, in my line of work you have to be something-or-other..." and he looked at me and smiled and said, "....and beautiful too!" and I tell you I nearly fell out of my chair!!!! (Damn, Mom didn't have her ears in and missed the comment!) Talk about an ego boost! I wish everyone realized what a boost little comments can make in a person's life! I think that's one that is going to stick with me for years!

Everything has shifted with age (actually for the better!) 215-225 = 1x-2x 185-175 = 16/14 pants. XL top. 160=12 pants and L/XL top (wide shoulders)

I've got a few suggestions you can take or leave....but they totally work for me. 1. Get in the habit of weighing yourself every day at the same time, in the buff (like right when you get up) and log it on a computer program online (FitDay, SparkPeople, etc.). This is not so much to see the pounds melt off as it is to correlate the numbers with the foods you are ingesting and see how one affects the other. 2. On FitDay or SparkPeople or whatever, log every single food you put into your mouth, online, every day. I mean it. This makes a HUGE difference...and something WW has always touted and I always poo-poo'd. I am here to tell you they are right, 100%. It makes you hypersensitive to what goes in your mouth. You should probably be ingesting in the neighborhood of 800-1100 calories a day, depending on your height, etc. 3. If you are finding youself feeling poorly, sounds like your blood sugar is swinging. Try Protein drinks (not shakes, but drinks) such as Isopure clea protein drinks (40 mg and 160 cal). These are the kind of things you copuld sip on through the day. Or you may want to start eating like a hypoglycemic (6 small meals a day to maintain your blood surgar levels through the day).

What does feeling restrction mean. It means when you first ingest your food you get an almost immediate feeling of "Hmm, I think I'm full." or "Hmm, I can feel I will be full in a few more bites." Some people say they feel more restriction in the morning than in the afternoon. Yes, that is true for a lot of people (me included.) I have less restriction at night. And some people say the band helps control hunger, but most of us do not eat because of physical hunger, mostly just because food is there. So does it take away appetite? It's kindof a biological behavioral training, like Pavlov's Dog...eventually they rang the bell and the dog immediately salivated because always before he had been give food or treats when the bell rang. Eventually you didn't need the treats and food to get him to salivate on cue...with the bell. With negative feedback you can be trained to do amazing things. The NEGATIVE is that if you do NOT follow the directions, there will be consequences...being very uncomfortable. After a while, you look at food and go....hmmmm. Is it worth it to dive in? When you go to a restaurant you start ordering smaller things because early on you realize you won't be eating all of it and it's a shame to go to waste... I found that after a while I didn't respond with a knee-jerk reaction to food anymore. And then the nutritionist said after the band I will be eating between 500-800 calories a day. So then how can you possibly not loose weight? And then she said I will only be able to eat 1-2 ounces at a time. I'd say that's pretty conservative. I can eat about a salad plate of food (NOT PILED!). It goes to over 1-2 ounces, but you would be surprised that things like "3 oz" of something are considered accurate and TRUE food portions....just not in THIS country! You learn to eat SLOW as well. So, will I ever be "normal" again. As in can you go out with people socially. You'll be normal always....but you will actually be MORE normal. Face it. We're not normal now. This is abnormal and that's why we are so messed up and in the shape we are in. You are going to be retrained to eat. You can absolutely go out with friends and eat. You just order slightly different things than you used to and have more opportunity to talk. And do you throw up a lot or have bad pain? Only when you don't do what you are supposed to! There is a learning curve to this. I am 8 months out and just now getting comfortable with my portion choices, and my eating speed...and then again, I still screw up sometimes and "pile my plate" or take way too big a bite....force of habit. But I am getting a LOT better. And then how do you stop loosing weight so you don't end up looking like Star Jones? I asked the nutritionist these questions and she said well people eat all day long and stretch out their pouch. But how can you do that if you can only eat 1 ounce at a time or you are in pain and throw up? Yeah, that doesn't make sense...I think she is saying that people start to force feed themselves...larger and larger portions and keep introducing foods all day long. Anyone who would do that is an idiot who shouldn't have bothered with it in the first place. There ARE ways to eat AROUND the band, and there are people out there who get it down to a science, unfortunately. You can keep from losing by adjusting the caloric intake of your foods.

<p>Ask your surgeon if the can recommend a psych. Then call and see if they're on CIGNA, or just get the CIGNA provider list and hunt down some folks in your area. It's not like this is going to be your life-long doctor or anything...you just have to have an evaluation. Call them and see if they do psych evaluations for bariatric surgery candidates and ask what it entails.</p>

** Ask some questions about the band you are getting. It amazes me the number of people who seem to have no clue how much their band holds or anything about its workings ** Ask what his fill philosophy is. How soon can you get the first fill, and if it doesn't "take" what are his requirements for a return visit (period of time). If you are self-pay, how much are the fills going to cost and do any free ones come with it (my first year is free). Does he use a flouroscope? Is he the one who does the fills alone, or does his office staff do it too?

Plus it is a lot like the post-vacation blues, post-baby blues, post-party blues, post-holida blues. These are things you get really worked up in anticipation over. It consumes your days and night leading up to it. It might be all you think about. It's all planning and anticipating and preparing.l...Then it's done and it's like....now what? Especially if you in the slightest obsessed about it before hand. It's easy to feel a kindof let down after the fact. I think I was kindof at a loss for about a week after surgery and then what I did was kick in to my "Now let's get down to business and make this sonofagun WORK!!!!!" and then I redirected my energies to that!

Well, color me wrong.... Not everyone has bowel movements once a day. Don't believe ads that say you must have a daily bowel movement to be "regular." A normal range is generally 3 times a day to 3 times a week. You may be getting constipated if you begin to have bowel movements much less often than you usually do. Everyone is different, but I would say if it is something that causes you distress like straining, etc., you need to rethink your fiber intake.

Once or twice a WEEK??????? Good grief...I'd say you are just about getting to be "normal" pooping twice a day!!!! You are definitely not eating the quality of fiber you should be if you only poop once a week or so....WOW!