kacee

The first fill was such a NON-issue.

I used to think I was pretty goofy looking, especially compared to my little sister who was gorgeous. But recently I was looking at some videos taken back in the early 80's over the holidays and I remember thinking "Who is that PRETTY girl???" about a nano-second before I realized it was ME! We are all our own WORST critic. I complain that I have a "ball" on the end of my nose and people laugh and say it looks really cute. Now granted, my hair DID look like crap for 50 years, and I fought that frizzy mess my whole life....until the advent of the flat iron (YIPPPEEE!!!). I've always hated my thighs...even when I was 113 pounds. I look at it this way. If there is something about you that you despise and you have the resources to do something about it to make yourself feel better...go for it! I fully intend to get my neck tightened in the next two years, get some lipo on the saddlebags... It will all be done to please ME and ME alone.

All I can say is DO NOT SELECT A DOCTOR WITHOUT A SOLID TRACK RECORD IN THE BAND!!!!!!! Don't know how that can be stressed enough. Don't be someone's guinea pig. Even if you have to travel somewhere else to find one. Do NOT go to someone who hasn't done a LOT of lapbands already. You're leaving yourself wide open for disaster.

There are options for the colonoscopy pre-procedure day. Everyone I talked to did the gallon of crappola thing and said it was AWFUL. So when they were going to give me the stuff, I said "What are my options?" and they said, "Oh we have pills too." I said ABSOLUTELY because I take pills easily. Wound up taking something like 2 horsepills every 15 minutes for a couple of hours. Absolutely NO BIGGIE at all, and I sidestepped ALL that nasty drink stuff. The problem is, most people just ASSUME that the gallon of nasty stuff is the only thing available...they don't ask or argue or anything! My procedure was a complete NON-ISSUE. And so fr I am the only person I know who has asked and demanded something other than the gallon of nasty stuff.

Yep. Totally normal. You're going to feel a full feeling and a little discomfort when things go down for probably for about a week. Then it will go away.

I think I am at my optimum spot. Since my fill (fourth) 2 weeks ago, I can eat very little. I actually start to get a full and uncomfortable feeling about the second bite, but it subsides a little and I can eat a bit more. I have to be VERY careful gulping liquid or not chewing enough. Have had quite a few PB episodes since this fill....all were totally my fault and could have been avoided if I had slowed down. I am not getting as hungry as often now. When I do, it gets satsified pretty quickly.

I just did a little thread wondering where you were, and then looked down and here you are... You sound like you are doing fine. Mashed potatoes, oatmeal, cottage cheese...you are going to feel a lot better when you get into that stage. Liquids stage sucks. But don't be surprised when your hunger comes back like gangbusters. Don't worry about it, or fret if the weight isn't coming off immediately. Your band isn't even working yet. This is strictly the healing phase. Good luck and glad to hear you are doing well!

Haven't heard from you since about a day post-op. We want to know how your progress is. How are you doing kiddo? Keep us informed! We care!

Any doctor worth his SALT should be pleased as punch with an inquisitive patient. It shows they are taking an active interest in their own body. It makes me CRAZY when I talk to people who take medications and have procedures...I say, "So what are you taking and how much, or what did you have done?" and they go, "Oh I don't know. It's a just a blue pill, or, I don't know. I was in the hospital for two days and they "fixed it." I want to know what I am taking, how much, how it works. I want to know the ins and outs of procedures....everything. I don['t want to be blindsided by anything and I want to be as knowledgeable as possible.

Because I am a 42B (kindof a contradiction in terms....) I can't find bras in a regular store. They go up to 40 and then everything over that is like a C, D or DD. What...fat people can't have smaller boobs? Once I get down to a 40 (the fat under my arms is not melting away particularly fast right now) I'll be able to get into a regular intimates department, but right now it is fruitless.

They will probably give you a pre-op packet that has 90% of your questions answered. Most answers outside of the specifics of your particular doctor's procedure and pre- and post-op protocol you can get right here on LBT.

I have a WW scale too and I love it. It is digital and records tenths of a pound. Yes, it varies, but as I stand on it, it settles and is usually within a pound of that last time. I weigh at the same time each day, naked, and I log my weight on FitDay, each day. It may not SEEM like they are moving much, but I look back at me a month ago and I was ten pounds heavier. Now that is SOMETHING! I review my graph chart through the week....set it next to my caloric intake log and I can really see what's going on....none of this "Gee, I just don't seem to be losing weight and I just don't know WHY!" Fooey. I can tell immediately where I have screwed up. It's there in back and white.

I must be the opposite of everyone. I walk into a room and eventually if someone doesn't mention it, I DO. I just can't help myself. Dammit....I am proud of what I have accomplished and I want some back pats for it! I've got to try to temper my "horn tooting", but right now I am just SOOOO excited...it is SOOOOOO new....it is SOOOOO wonderful....I want to shout it from the rooftops. When I start talking about my weight now, and I am boasting that I weigh....175....or whatever...I always qualify it with "I haven't seen those numbers in 25 years!!!" Then even the folks who are a lot smaller than me can have some sense of grasping what I am talking about. 175 isn't all that lithe a body, but relative to where I have been....it is incredible! This is my day in the sun and I am going to wallow in it!!!:whoo:

I actually went to Marble Slab yesterday and got a "Big Dipper" cup with Sweet Cream/Stawberries/pecans. About the first 4 bites it was great, but then I got home and it had to go into the freezer. The appeal just was NOT there. I nibbled a little more later...PB'd some (okay, so now we know that you can PB if you eat ice cream too fast even though it is practically a liquid), and tossed the rest down the sink. I have no desire for it at all. Of course sweets has never been my "thing" to keep up up at night....

I am on the CUSP of losing my membership in "the fat lady store". People now look at me funny when I come in. I am relegated to digging in the dregs of the 14's (not a lot there) for clothes. I just can't bring myself to believe that anything in a REGULAR department store is going to fit me.... I think I am still in denial.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I'm guilty as charged! I've been BAKING my pants and shirts in the dryer trying to squeeze one more size out of them before I have to give up and consign them to the Goodwill pile. I tried on a tank top yesterday and I was swimming in it. So I think today I have to go in and do a second house cleaning of the closet.

Almost everyone I have met up with in the last month has commented that I look SOOOOOOOO much younger! First of all, I always wore my hair "old lady short" because it was frizzy and thick and I couldn't control it. In the last few years with the advent of the flat iron, my vistas have all opened up! For the first time since I was in college, starting this spring I have grown my hair into a long stacked bob and I get nothing but compliments. It is exactly the way I WOULD have wanted to wear my hair back in the 60's!!! At 55, when someone says I look like I am in my early 40's. that's one helluva MORALE BOOST!!!!

Well, Terri and I have the same doctor and he is WONDERFUL...Dr. Hadar Spivak (spee-vak). Apparently he is the first doctor to do lapbanding in Texas. He is a jewel...a sweet and extremely talented surgeon with a great bedside manner. One of his nurses told me that she loves to watch him work because he is just like an artist. His procedure is $12,900 total. If you chose to come down here you wouldn't regret it. There are LOTS of Dr. S's patients on LBT. We're all over the place!

The surgery for me was a breeze. MY only complication was that you have to pee before they let you leave the hospital. I couldn't pee. Finally about about three hours of nothing they put a foley catheter in. Now, foleys are normally put in under anesthetic and when someone said "Where's a foley?" I started to FREAK. But you know what....it wasn't THAT bad. While they were putting it in I was thinking, "But I HAVE MY BAND NOW!!! YEEEHHHAAAAA!"

WhooooHoooo! Honey you ain't BEGUN to eat less! Right now I tried to eat a Smart Ones dinner. I got less than half of it down and feel like I am about to POP! (I used to eat two in a sitting, not bat an eye, and go looking for something else). I've dropped about 5 pounds in the last two weeks. food at this point is just kindof an afterthought (do you BELIEVE I am saying THAT????). Within the first two bites, I literally feel I could put my fork down and be fine. My body is starting to react to this feeling and I am not getting hungry as often. I'm really going at this aggressively because while I have the incredible motivation and am seeing the action on the scales, I want to knock off as MUCH weight as I possibly can before things start to stabilize and slow down. Remember, your first fill may be nothing. Do NOT be surprised if it is. Many folks don't recognize a change after the first fill. Some get a lot closer in the 2nd...mine was in the 3rd when I really started to recognize a change, and the 4th...WOW...MAGIC!!!! I can have always been able to get meat down, just vvveeerrrryyyy slowly.

Wow, you are the FIRST person I have herd other than me here with the Tribest! I got the LARGE cup attachment and it is perfect for my protein shakes (protein, milk and ice). I put a mark on the 1 cup level so I don't even need to think when I fill it with the milk.

I imagine I will start to weigh less frequently as I near my goal and things naturally slow down. Right now, however, I am seeing so much action on the scales, it is incredibly motivating for me.

I was AMAZED at how FOCUSED I got after the band. Before, my dietary habits just SUCKED. Since then, I actually THINK and weigh in my mind what I put in my mouth. Is it worth it? Is there something more I'd rather have later or is this something I REALLY want? Yep, I ate a La Madelaine Quiche Flourentine (5" round) the other day. It was wonderful! I ate 1/4 for lunch, 1/4 in mid-afternoon, and the rest for dinner. So what if it was 600 calories! It was spread throughout the day and it filled me up! In my "former life" I would have stuffed the entire thing in my face and gotten something else to wash it down with....eaten mid-afternoon and gone home to gorge myself on something else in the evening. I was not deprived, but by the same token, I didn't have that horrible GUILTY feeling I always used to have after "stuffing my face with a no-no".

I think it is all relative. Because my scale has tenths of a pound, THOSE are actually the ones I watch. They mean as much to me as the pounds do...actually the pounds are like gravy. The tenths go down and then all of a sudden the whole NUMBER changes and it's WHOOOPPPEEEEE!!! I can get VERY excited over a quarter pound gone!

Some may argue with me, but this works for me. I have a digital scale. I weigh first thing in the morning (naked after a good pee and picking all the belly button lint out). I mark down the pounds and tenths. Every day. I can read my body like a BOOK now. For instance. I had a few glasses of wine last night. It won't show up today, but probably tomorrow I will see a pound come back on. It will hang for about 48 hours and then drop. I can calculate my plateaus and see exactly how they work, when they come on, how long they last. I can put my weight up next to my caloric intake (I log ALL my foods) and see exactly what causes what. No questions, no mystery. When I go to the doctor's his scale ALWAYS weigh about 3 pounds more than mine, so I don't get freaked out and I just accept it and expect it.