Leepers

I haven't used any support groups so far, but they say it helps with success. I've been lucky to have my hubby on this journey with me. He doesn't have a band, but he's changed his diet along with me and we've joined a gym. Exercise is key. Even if it's just a stroll through the neighborhood. The only people I knew before getting my band were also unsuccessful. One lost about 60lbs but then got a bad infection around her band. They took all the saline out and she never got it filled again. She's kept off the weight but is still very heavy. The other lady just had no clue and from what I can gather, pretty much ate around the band. We can't worry about other people's lack of success. Believe me, if the band didn't work most of the time, insurance companies would not be paying for it. We have to realize that we still have to have a life style change. The band is just a tool. I have to change. You can do it. You sound ppro-active and informed. That's more than a lot of other's. Just stay focused and you'll succeed! And, oh yeah, keep visiting this forum regularly. You learn a lot about what to do and especially what not to do. Best wishes!

I know what you mean about being self conscious when trying to run. I'm going through the same thing right now. My hubby joined us to a gym that doesn't have very many overweight people. Especially women. There's some treadmills in a little upstairs area that I might try. But I keep telling myself to get over it. I'm 40 years old and what do I care about those people? I can't wait for the snow to melt so I can try some outdoor running. Keep it up, you're doing great!

I had problems with that too. Especially on my phone. We wanna hear the long story!

Catfish, I'm a nurse and I work in Electrophysiology. Specifically we deal with the heartbeat. I also do tilt table tests for vasovagal syncope. I'm not really up on my anatomy but usually the vagal nerve can be stimulated in the rectal area. It could be up near the band too. I've just never heard that. People come for a tilt table test to see if they're having inappropriate vasal vagal response. A condition where your vagal nerve causes your heart rate to drop drastically and therefore pass out. Another reason for passing out or dizziness symptoms could be orthostatic hypotension. When you stand up your blood rushes down and causes low blood pressure which could cause syncope or presyncope symptoms. Lastly, sometimes people's heart just stops beating the way it should. It happens more with age but I've been a nurse in pacemaker cases for 18 year olds to even a 102 year old! You could be having a low heart rate or pauses. This will definitely make a person pass out. This is all from a cardiology view. There are probably hundreds of other reasons people pass out. But you sound just like many of my patients. You could possibly ask to be referred to a cardiologist who specializes in electrophysiology. Don't go to a regular one. Hope this may help and if you have any other questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

Six days is a long time. I would definitely help it along. I'm almost 6 weeks out from surgery and I don't go poo near as much as I did before surgery. Maybe every 2 or 3 days now. I was concerned because I used to go 2 to 3 times a day! Really though, we're eating so much less. There is a lot less to get rid of and your body is making the most of what out does get. Congrats on your surgery!

Awesome post. Very inspiring!

I sweat enough as it is! This gym thankfully doesn't have mirrors. It does have a dark room with a giant screen that plays a movie if you'd rather do that, but I like my music.

Here is a breakdown of how I spent my 60 minutes today at the new gym we joined: 1 minute- deciding if I wanted to use the treadmill in the giant room with all of the exercise bunnies 2 minutes-picking out the treadmill and wondering where to put my sweatshirt I had taken off 1 minute- thinking I looked really new to this 1 minute- sneaking glances at the other people, noticing all the old people that were there and realizing that I was the fattest person there 45 minutes- walking on the treadmill While on the treadmill: 20 minutes- wondering how many people behind me were staring at my fat butt and hoping my pants weren't riding up the crack of my a$$. 5 minutes- doing fat girl adjustments to my clothes to make sure my belly wasn't hanging out 1 minute- trying to sneak glances to see how fast other people were walking 19 minutes- feeling good about my performance and listening to Pandora 80's Cardio Channel to get my groove on 5 minutes- trying out an elliptical machine for the first time. thinking wtf? this does not feel natural. 5 minutes- waiting for my hubby to finish his stuff and checking out the group classes and deciding we need to go to the beginning yoga class tonight. Really, it was great. I've been walking on my treadmill at home so I'm not totally out of shape. I must say that the presence of other people does motivate me to do better. I walked for 45 minutes at 3.0 to 3.4 mph. I felt good about my work out. Mostly I was happy that my husband and I went to the gym together. I have dreamed of this moment for years. That someday, he would become interested in something other than the television and we could do it together. I'm happy.

This forum attracts people of all ages and education levels. I had never used a forum before so I never really knew the "rules" or etiquette. Some people are just not computer savvy at all. I agree people should be more patient. I'm new to the lapband and I enjoy coming here every day. I can see how the same old questions get tiring but I do my best to answer questions from people newer than me.

Last week I was losing weight like crazy. This week the weight loss slowed to a crawl and hit a speed bump. I did keep up with my exercise. And I faithfully, brutally honestly, kept up with entries in My Fitness Pal. I am eating soooo much better than I used to. No fast food, no sodas. Lots of healthy food. This week though, I ate out 3 times and went to gatherings at a friend's house twice this weekend. Wednesday I went to lunch at Chuy's (a mexican restaurant). I felt I made a really good choice with my meal. Lot's of protein, not much carbs. Didn't even finish it. Only ate about 5 chips from the basket of never ending chips. Later that night the hubby and I went to dinner with his parents at Texas Roadhouse. The thought of it mortified me.That place seems so unhealthy. I looked at the menu online before I went so I would already know what I wanted. I had Grilled Shrimp with rice and broccoli. I only ate about 1/4 cup of the rice and all 10 shrimp. I had 10 peanuts so that I would stay away from the bread but I did pinch off a small piece of the bread and dip it in that delicious cinnamon butter. Thursday I worked my butt off at work and picked up Chinese for dinner. I've really been trying to stay away from the carbs but I'll allow myself some rice every now and then. I ate leftovers for lunch the next day on Friday. Friday I had a long exhausting day at work. Some friends had invited us over to see their new house. We had appetizers and I drank an entire bottle of wine! Oh boy! 615 calories worth of wine down the hatch! Plus appetizers. I didn't go crazy over them, but it was hard not too. I had about 8 meatballs and a couple of spring rolls. And it was the first time I have gone over my daily calorie limit on My Fitness Pal. The next day I was up a pound. Of course. I am a daily weigher. I know some people think you shouldn't but I'm a rational person. I know weight goes up and down. I like though, that that one pound makes me say, hey! don't eat so much today. That night, Saturday night, we unexpectedly went over to a friend's house for her birthday. And again. Appetizers and wine. This time I didn't drink a whole bottle, but I had a few glasses. My Fitness Pal almost reached out and slapped me in the face. And...I was up another 1/2 pound. I really haven't eaten out since I had my surgery, then all of a sudden it was like everyday. It made me feel a little out of control. Though I can guesstimate calories on My Fitness Pal, you don't really know how that food is being prepared behind the scenes. Bobby the cook could be a little heavy handed with the butter. Oh and the wine. Whine whine. I love my wine. I don't drink all the time. Maybe an average of two to three times a month, but when I do, I like to catch a good buzz. But the calories!!! I guess I will really have to watch my meals a lot better on those days. I'm looking forward to my first fill this Tuesday to help with the between meals hunger. And this week all meals will be made at home. No wine for a while. No whine for a while.

Please be careful about removing the capsules from your meds. If it says XR or ER or anything about extended release after the name, you could be dosing yourself too much. If they said you were allowed to take them, then I'm sure you will be just fine with the capsules on. You may already know all this, just the nurse in me had to say something. Best wishes for your surgery!

Yeah, one time the week after, I thought I was just gonna toot and well....you know. They were liquidy for a while. Then like the second week I couldn't go at all. I recommend adding benefiber to your food or drinks (you can't even tell its there). Or take a chewable laxative. Best wishes!

I don't know if I could be so patient with the tiny fills. At least you didn't gain! My hubby joined us up to a gym down the road. I went for a tour for the first time earlier this week. I don't think I'll be going back. It's the kind of place that just makes me feel bad about myself. I was by far the fattest person there and everyone was really....bouncy. I think I'm gonna stick to the treadmill and the park. Lol.

Is there any way to have your husband be responsible for the meals? It would be hard to cook when you can't have it. I found after three days, I stopped being quite as hungry. You can do it! Best wishes!

Today I would like to talk about exercise. First, I would like to say that if your doctor or bariatric team has set an activity plan for you, you should do your best to follow their plan. This blog entry is more about those who are out there who have not started exercising and have no plan. Maybe you have never had an exercise regimen in your life, maybe you have tried exercise before but hated it and couldn't stick with it. This is just one girl's opinion and it probably goes against anything a personal trainer would want you to do. The thing is, I'm talking about starting from ZERO. So many times, the people who are telling us where, how, and how long to exercise are probably not people who have started from zero. They may have never been overweight. They may not know what it's like to be obese and have very little activiity and very little muscle. Now, you may look at my profile and say, where does this girl get off, just four weeks after surgery, weighing 270 pounds, acting like she knows something about exercise? Well, O.K., I'm not a personal trainer. I did, however, lose about 70 pounds 12 years ago. I got up to the point where I could jog 3 miles! I had never even jogged a mile in my entire life. This blog entry is to let you know how I did it back then. How I found what worked for me. And how I am pretty much approaching exercise the same way this time too. About 12 years ago, I found myself at what was then my heaviest weight ever (250). I decided that I had to do something. Being a young single woman, I just wasn't ready to go on a food diet because I had done those before. I decided I would try exercise. (Watching what I ate came later after I was seeing the success of exercise.) Don't try that with WLS. Please, watch what you eat! I thought about what had kept me from being a successful exerciser over the years. A few things came to mind: being the fattest, slowest, person at the gym; starting out gung ho and having sore muscles that made me not want to exercise the next few days and therefore falling of the wagon; doing things I didn't enjoy. I decided that I was just going to get out and walk. I didn't have a length of time. I didn't have a set distance. I wasn't going to be concerned with how fast I was walking. I wasn't going to be concerned if I got my heart rate up. I didn't need to have exercise outfits. I was just going to walk around the neighborhood. I was going to take a stroll. Look at the houses. Check out the neighbors. Get away by myself and give myself time to think. Time to work out my issues. It was wonderful. I didn't go home exhausted. I went home happy. I was happy that I did SOMETHING. I kept doing this for a few weeks. Eventually, when I was ready, I decided to walk a little faster. If I got tired, I slowed down. I didn't push myself. I was new to exercise. I wasn't gonna be Florence Griffith Joyner. I reeaaallllly eased myself into exercise. And every now and then, I upped the pace. After a few months, I measured out a mile around the neighborhood and I walked the full mile. And so on. Until miraculously, about 9 months later, I could jog 3 miles! Why do we feel impelled to push ourselves so hard, only to fail? I'm sorry, but C25K (Couch to Five Kilometers) is not for people who were really laying around on the couch. Unless those people were not overweight and had underlying muscle tone. Find something you enjoy. Don't feel like you have to spend money on a gym membership that you might not use. Walking is free. Hiking is free. Riding a bike is free (if you have one). Spend just a little bit to join the Y. They have a pool. Do a little swimming. Dancing to music in your house is free. Some cable companies have cardio and yoga sessions on demand. Hell, youtube has everything you could ever possibly want. Start in the privacy of your own home if you're worried about being embarassed about coordination. And if you can only do that video for 10 minutes....that's fine! Only do that video for 10 minutes for the next two weeks. Then up it a bit. Another thing I did, early on, was focus on my breathing. A lot of people who don't exercise are very shallow breathers. While you are walking or even lying in bed at night, practice filling your lungs to capacity when you breathe in. Feel not just your chest inflate, but your abdomen too. Increasing your lung capacity will help you get that vital oxygen to your muscles when you decide to up the activity. I also focused on breathing with a rythm. Sounds funny, but it really helped me keep from getting out of breath. I would inhale with so many steps and exhale with so many steps. It really made a difference to me. You'll have good days and bad days. But it will start to get easier and maybe, hopefully start to be enjoyable. That satisfaction from having done SOMETHING. You feel good about yourself. It shifts your mindset. You don't have to push yourself so hard. You're already worried enough about WLS and changing your eating habits. Just find SOMETHING that works for you. Do it at least three days a week. Plan it and do it. Your self esteem will love you for it.

Best wishes to you on your journey!

What revision?

Thanks, Arlene! Yes, the Louisville Slugger is from here. Our biggest claim to fame is the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. The city goes crazy for two weeks straight. We missed out first night eating out because I worked and I have a cold. Oh well! We're going to Texas Roadhouse on Wednesday night with some family. I think I'll check out the menu ahead of time and see what kind of good choices I can make.

Helllooo! Twice, I spent at least 20 minutes swiping out a blog entry on my phone and then I couldn't get it to publish. So here I am to try again on my computer. The other entry was about a couple of embarrassing situations that helped lead me WLS. I think though, that I'd like to give a little introduction about me and how I got to this point. My name is Leigh (rhymes with eeeee) (One time I had a guy ask me if my name was pronounced Lay because if you put an "S" on the front of my name it'd spell sleigh.) I am 40 years old. I live in Louisville, KY. (Yes, I wear shoes. No, I don't own a horse.) Louisville is a mid-size city. They like to boast that it's the 16th largest city in the nation. Whatever. I have been married for 8 years. I have been an RN for about 5 years. Before marriage and my nursing career, I was a diligent party girl. But, I've settled down in to a cozy little, mostly drama free, life with my husband and our two fur babies. I had various times growing up where I was chubby, but I don't remember ever being made fun of. In high school, I ran around with the popular party crowd and I generally had a good experience. The only thing was I always felt like I was different on the inside than those people I ran around with. By the time I graduated high school, I was in a size 14 and I thought I was fat. Man, lookin back on pictures of me, I was perfect! But I was 5'9" and all my friends were 5'4" and a size 4. Plus, for reasons I can't fathom now, my mother was always trying to bribe me to lose weight. I'm sure some of it was out of concern, maybe some was to try to help me when I complained I was fat. I don't know. I always felt like she was so concerned about appearances (still is) and that somehow she was ashamed of me. I started gaining weight as soon as I got out of high school and over the years I went from a 14 to a 22 by the time I was 30. I probably weighed about 250. I had pretty much always embraced my curves and didn't worry, but when I reached 250, I decided to lose weight. (I had done various other diets over the years.) That time, I lost about 70-80 pounds. I got back into a 14 and I felt great! That time, I just started walking one day. I didn't walk fast, I just took a stroll. Eventually, I worked myself up to where I could run 3 miles. It took me about a year. After a few months, I watched what I ate. It was a great time. I felt empowered. I felt beautiful. But then, life happened. I got a job with a different schedule that wasn't conducive to exercise and I also got into a long term relationship (hubby) and got lazy. And then, over the next ten years, I blew up to a whopping 295 pounds. (Side note, I have known the hubby for many years, so he knew me before I lost weight. He has always loved me, no matter what size I am). Over the last few years, my size really started to affect my life. I didn't want to go out, because I hated my clothes and I hated the way I looked in them. When I was in nursing school, I was also going through a big depression and went on antidepressants which helped me gain the weight. This last year, though, I spent a lot of time mortified by my size. It really affected my self esteem. I knew I had to do something about it. I'm an RN at a big hospital in the city. I have always worked in cardiac areas and I see, every day, the effects of weight on humans. It is bad. Every time a 300 or 400 pound person came in and we put them on the table for a procedure, I would see myself on that table. I have a very strong history of heart attacks and diabetes in my family. Every day, in front, of me was a reminder of what I was doing to myself. I had thought about Lap Band surgery for a couple of years, but could never get myself to ride across town to our sister hospital and go to the seminar. This last May, I had a couple of very embarassing experiences when I went on a convention trip with a few of my coworkers. One involving the seatbelt on the plane and the other being talked into hiking up the side of a mountain. It truely mortified me. Something. Had. To. Happen. One day, this past September, I got on the website for the Bariatric program and lo and behold! You could watch a video of the seminar instead of having to go in. So I did. And I filled out the info below. Two days later, they called me. I was lucky to have it so easy from there. They sent me a packet, which I filled out and returned. They called me a week later, said my insurance was approved. I had a 10 minute appt with the surgeon on October 15th. About 2 weeks later, I had a 5 minute appt with a psychiatrist. They made an appt for me to come in for labs, a barium swallow, and education on Dec 6th. I had one more 10 minute appt with the surgeon on Dec 11th. Then, on December 18th, I was banded! I had quite a bit of discomfort after the surgery and it took me a good couple of weeks to feel normal again. But now, about 4 weeks later, I feel great. I do feel that I have some restriction right off the bat from the surgery. But, is it really restriction? Or can I just not eat as much because I kept to the prescribed diets, watch my protions and calories, and have been practicing getting to know the difference between hungry, not hungry, and full? Maybe a little of all. My husband has been at my side this whole time and we have completely turned around our eating habits. We threw out all of the junk and most of the carbs and have been eating a mainly high protein diet. He has been exercising a lot and I have started walking on the treadmill 4 days a week for 30 minutes. Most of all, we are staying away from sweets and NOT EATING FAST FOOD. We were really bad fast food junkies. I've lost 20 pounds since I started the preop diet. I'm feeling really good. Today was a small setback because I have a really bad head cold and I don't know if I have the energy to walk. But I'm not going to let it bother me. If I feel good tomorrow, I will walk tomorrow. People get to down on themselves when they "slip up" and have something sweet or high calorie. I say, don't let this get you down. You have to "treat" yourself every now and then. Just don't let it become a habit. Make your new habit to be eating healthy and feeling good about yourself. Plan the times you get to eat what you want. For instance, I love to go out to restaurants. We are going to go out every other Friday. When I'm there, am I going to eat fried foods and carbs and desserts? No. I will make a sensible choices. But it will still be fun and nice not to cook. It will be a reward for staying on track for two weeks. I can't believe that I didn't do this sooner. Why did I spend all those years miserable and overweight? Well, I guess we all have to reach that point where we are ready to take control. If you're not ready and not truely comitted, success will be much harder. I have also accepted that my band, Brunhilde (that's her name), is only a tool. I have to make choices that are good for me. I have to committ to change. And things like this website and forum. Visiting and reading other people's stories and advice. I know it will lead to my success and help me keep on track. Do your research. Know what you're getting into. And when you're ready, make the step toward taking control of your life. It's the best thing I have ever done, and it will be for you, too. And to all of the veterans, thank you! Your success and advice make this a place worth visiting.

You should be proud. When you fall off the wagon, you jump back on. That road is behind you. I laughed because when I was reading about you shoveling the food in, I felt like I was right there with you, enjoying that feeling of stuffing your face full of yummy "bad" food. It's ok. We're human we all get derailed every now and then.